Smorgasborg of Updates

Well, it's been a month since I've done a real update, to be honest I have been waiting to upload my pictures which takes so much time, as well, I just haven't had much time in general. But I made a promise to those that read that Sunday I would do it, and though it's past Sunday, I'm making this a real priority......I'm sorry for being so MIA.

House

As you know we were trying to sell the house, we own the house with another person, who lives in the bsmt apt. Because we couldnt' get the price we wanted, and because Anthony is happy in this neighborhood where his friends are, we have decided to buy the other person out and stay here.

Our main concern was space, and soon space we will have! On June 26th 2009 we closed on the house and got our mortgage of almost $300,000 to buy Dan out and own the house ourselves. It took everything we got as they wanted 15% down, but it's ours! All 1800 sq feet of it is ours! Dan just found out he was approved for his apt so he will be moving out on August 1st.

Then the real fun begins. We will rip apart the apt in the bsmt, rebuild it to include a bigger bedroom, and a media room and make the entire house as one dwelling and no longer two! Very exciting. In the meantime we have already started some renovations to the outside of the house. Last weekend hubby amazed me with the concrete saw and cut out a hole in our garage to build an entry doorway. We both worked on this project together, though it was all him with the saw. I was very impressed!

This week we plan to redo the concrete porch, make it bigger as hopefully *crossing fingers* we will be able to put in a porch enclosure next spring which will include the new garage door!

Van/Car

Well our van is running great, it's older (did I mention before it was a 1994), but it runs good and has less rust than our other one. We sold the other one to a scrapyard and I have to say I was kind of sad, a lot of memories and trips in our old van. The car we have is also running great (knock on wood) as we just fixed the exhaust on it and hope to get a couple of years out of each vechile. Time will tell....

Our trip to the Zoo

On the weekend of May 30th, the boys were all gone camping so Taylor and I decided to camp in our backyard! It rained of course, but we stayed dry and had a great time! Then on Saturday we went to the zoo.

We even got to pet sting rays which is the new thing they have at the zoo. A picture says a thousand words so I thought I would let them speak for themselves below. On Sunday Taylor and I headed over for a visit with Sarah, Brad and Brielle. I'll post that on the surrogacy blog, it was a great visit and a really nice treat! Thanks again S and B, I had a great time!!!

June 21st - Fathers Day

I'm going to do a special blog about my husband and who he is, and my feelings on him, but can I just say that Ian is the best father I've ever known? Because he is. There are not many men out there like him, he is very rare, and so for fathers day we decided to do something really special. We packed up the family and headed to the Scarborough Bluffs for a nice picnic in Bluffers Park. It was beautiful. After lunch we decided to try to climb the bluffs, and by God we did it. About 3/4 of the way up I got really scared and actually had to think myself out of panicing...not so much for me but those motherly fears and bad visions of all that can happen started to kick in and making me panic over all that could have happened, aka the kids falling! I find I am starting to do that more and more, I'm more of an adventurer but even taking my kids on a Ferris Wheel I start to think of all the bad that can happen and have to think my way out of the panic and fear....anyway, we did it! We got almost to the top, and I was so proud of my family, my kids, my husband! Pics below!! After the bluffs we went back home where I cooked hubby a nice steak feast, topped with the BEST cheesecake I've ever eaten, and then went to my own dad's house to celebrate a bit with him. Ian's dad passed away before he was even born, and now his mom is gone too, so my parents are the only ones left.

June 22nd

We had plans to go to Canada's Wonderland the upcoming Saturday and Anthony was off to yet another Venture camp, he loves them and it's a good program, gets him out from behind the computer or gaming system and well what kid doesn't love camping! So anyway, we had an extra ticket and decided to let Bailey invite his friend from Cubs. Her name is Kaylee, and she's always really good to him. Sooooo....we pulled out the TTY, blew the dust off it, and got Bailey on to call up his friend (who is hearing) through the relay service and invite her. It was a sight to see, him on the "phone". He was SOOO slow, but I prepared the operator as well as Kaylee, and they were all so good and patient and was a real treat for Bailey to actually call up a friend all by himself!!

June 25th, Taylor Graduates Kindergarden...

Need I say more? I think you all know how bittersweet it is for my baby to grow up, next year she will be in full time school and I'm sure I'll be lonely....hey maybe I'll have more blog time???

June 23rd, Anthony Graduates Grade 8

Yes, my eldest whom I still view as my baby had his graduation from middle school. Next year is highschool. Hard to imagine what I feel like right now, hard to describe, that sense of pride, that feeling of time slipping away, that remembering back to where we once were, that love and joy I have for the man he's becomming, that shock in writing out the word "man" in my last sentence. I'm so proud of him. His teachers came up to me at his Grad and shared with me how much of a pleasure he was to teach, how they forsaw him doing really well in highschool, how mature he was, much more than many of their other students, and I have to say I was just overjoyed to hear all that! Way to go Anthony!!!

June 26th, Canada's Wonderland

Always a fun place for us to go, and we always try to go once a year at least, on Deaf Awareness Day. One year we had a family pass and if we weren't doing renovations all summer long, we'd have got them again this year. Maybe in 2 years time we'll do it again....

We had great weather, tons of fun, and when the park closed, it was time to grab some funnel cake and sit by the fountain. We didn't get out of there till after 11pm! Still with Anthony not there, and more and more doing his own thing, it's hard, feels like someone's missing, that the family isn't complete, and it's not, but we still had a great time and Bailey really enjoyed having his friend with him. ***By the way he had a blast at camp!

Going Private

I have gone over this back and forth in my mind....I dont' want to get into the why's of it, because it's really not important enough to give it the time of day, what I didn't realize was how many followers I actually and the overwhelming amount of emails I got asking me to inivite them and how much they loved my blog. It doesn't show up on my followers list, and not many people comment, so I had no idea. I think it's wonderful and am thankful for all your kind responses. I have since decided not to go private, because of you all, to know how much I touched the readers (though I can't fathom why my life or surrogacy journies are so interesting) I appreciate the time you spend reading my long winded blogs. So thank you, I love you all, and will continue to keep it public.