Job and Lona ran to catch the bus and Isaac was busy working on some homework for the two classes he was taking at the college.  Everyone had something to do and a place to go except for John and I.  Well, we did have some place to go: Vancouver.  John's hours are changing at work so we are going to be losing our Fridays together sans enfants (without kids). We needed to take advantage of every Friday left before the hours change.  I grabbed my camera gear, John printed out a map with coffee shops, breweries, and cafes that sounded delicious in between wandering the city. One place I wanted to see was the classical Chinese garden called Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden.  A portion of it is open to the public but there is another portion, private that you can pay for a tour.  We both thought it was fantastic! On the way to the city, it was just dumping rain but it seemed as soon as we reached the garden, we were able to put away our umbrella and explore. The sun was warming the boards so that steam from the rain shower was rising in the air. The Koi were rising to the surface of the murky water and drops collected on the berries and leaves were just about to lose their grip on the plants. As we walked and wandered our way around the garden, a gentle perfume rose from one of the plants, jasmine I think. There was a stark contrast in sounds once inside the gardens and it felt like I had stepped into another country rather than Canada. As the clouds disappeared the high rises from the city came into view and was such a contrast to the quiet solitude of the garden. Then there was a parade of kids, beating drums and calling out the monsters in anticipation of the Chinese New Year and the Year of the Monkey.  The lanterns swayed in the breeze and gave it a festive air.  A gal came around asking if I wanted tea and of course I did. Each window, doorway and hall framed elements both inside and outside of the public and private garden. The details carved in the wood trellises had stories to tell and wisdom to impart. I could imagine a morning in the garden during the summer, sitting there enjoying the sun, while the world rushes by outside the walls.  And then we too went outside the walls and joined the rest of the world rushing by. We had no agenda except to find a brewery and have a snack.  John had circled one in particular called Postmark Brewery.  We wandered and wandered, past beautiful old buildings, homeless shelters and graffiti.  At one point I looked around thinking we should be there when I spied large silver tanks in the windows of a non-descript white building.  We had arrived. Once inside, again I felt like I was in another world.  At 2:00 in the afternoon, the place was hopping with young 30 somethings have business meetings and late lunches. I would say that it was swanky.  We each had a sampler which looks like a lot but in the end, it's about 1 glass each. We talked ourselves in to eating a mushroom bacon feta something something pizzetta.  It was delicious and the atmosphere was incredible. We looked at the giant beams, the fireplace, the couch that was calling John's name, had there been less people I think he would have taken a nap.  Which at that point meant we needed to move again.  Onto Crab Park, the waitress recommended it.  It was next to one of the ports that sported 11 giant cranes which held our attention as they moved large containers around. And then we (really me) suggested that instead of doubling back, we could according to the map just keep walking west along the road until one certain street that would get us to Hasting street where we parked our car.  Yep, it led us to the garage and basement floor of the ferry terminal, train terminal and helicopter flights.  We had to go into a parking garage to find our way up and out onto one of the main streets.  By this time I needed a coffee and a nap.  I wanted a pastry but the cute pastry shops were quite a ways away and I had already exceeded 14K steps, to tired to track that down. We ended at Waves coffee which was good but just like Starbucks.  Another time we will need to explore the coffee houses of Vancouver.

He left around 1 pm on Friday and came home around midnight and then was out the door around 7 am the next morning only to return around midnight again. "Email my soccer team that we have a game and I won't be there but don't tell where I am" was his request.  I guess attending State Chess Individual Tournament isn't cool enough for soccer players.  He played 5 games in total and one of them was 2 1/2 hours long.  Thankfully he won that one.  He wasn't in the Master's Division, but the division below which was the Premier Division.  Those who were ranked between 1200 and 1500 were in that division.  I have to say that I'm pretty proud of him.  4th place.  I guess that he did as expected, he won who he should have, drew against someone equally ranked, and lost to someone higher in rank.  I'm still pretty proud of him.  I think chess is hard and I don't understand all of the strategies, openings and end games.  I can't talk rank or file but I do know that it take intense concentration. Good job, Isaac Parks!

When John and I bought our first house 20 plus years ago we purchased this simple little 1950 square box of a house and I loved it. It had everything: hard wood floors through out the main floor, cove ceilings, and character. So much character that there wasn't a square wall to boot.  Then we sold that house and moved to our current house and have been here ever since. This is a new house since John didn't want all the projects that came with an older house. I wanted all the character and charm of an older house but just needed John to do all the work because I am clueless which put us in a new house and it has been a good house, mostly. We've had to replace rot on the outside and fix some minor things, but really having this house has allowed us to spend time doing other things. Layout wise I like it for the most part.  I wish the fireplace was in the dinning room instead of the family room. It is supposed to be the focal point of the room but it is too big and really in the way and we just don't use it. It's like the over sized bath tub in our bathroom. I use the shower but not the tub, maybe if it was jetted but I am so not going there. I also wish I had french doors instead of a sliding glass door.  I hate cleaning the tracks of a sliding glass door and I'm just not a fan of vertical blinds.  John has firmly said no to the french doors and since it's been 15 years and he's still not budging there are no french doors.  However I have convinced him to allow me to replace the molding in the house.  It actually started off with a new TV. John wanted a bigger TV for a couple of years.  His reasoning was that he wanted to have people over to watch football or soccer but they had to crowd around on one couch or he would pull out the TV from the cabinet so that everyone could watch. He had been waiting for a while and finally for his birthday or something we splurged. However the problem was that it didn't fit in our TV cabinet that I loved. So we needed to brain storm.  I wasn't going to purchase just any TV cabinet and we couldn't afford a TV and new cabinet so I shopped our house. I took a poorly used dresser out of the boys' room and brought it downstairs for the TV.  It barely fit. We took the top two drawers out and put in plywood and I painted the whole thing. Then we placed the TV on the wall so that there wasn't a danger of it being knocked off the dresser. The dresser then held the stereo components and our movies. This though meant that we needed to move the old TV and TV cabinet to a different room and the boys needed something to put their stuff in that was in the dresser we brought downstairs. The old TV cabinet was too big and heavy to take up stairs so I shopped our house again. I ended up moving a bookcase up to their room, rearranging their stuff, getting rid of a bunch of stuff and so had room in the family room for the TV and TV cabinet.  As we were moving things around I casually mentioned that there was room under the stairs that was all walled off and we should make that into a closet or computer area. John drilled a hole to look and then a larger hole and finally large enough for me to crawl through.  Yep, completely empty except for a McDonald's soda lid. We hired a friend to come over to make sure it wasn't load bearing and to cut out one of the studs to make a door.  I drew up a couple of plans for a computer area or a storage closet and John settled on the closet. We hired another friend to install four outlets and a light for this area.  Once all that was taken care of we got to work with flooring, sheet rock and painting. I have to say that Youtube is awesome at tutorials.  We learned so much this way and I was able to learn how to cut sheet rock. Then I purchased trim, thanks to some wonderful and very patient employees at Bellingham Mill Works. A shout out to Jim and Brendan at Bellingham Mill Works.  Once home, I sanded, conditioned, stained and varnished my trim.  We purchased a miter saw and a coping saw and learned how to cope the molding so that it would wrap around the corners and fit like a puzzle.  I have to say that was my favorite part of the whole project. Then came the building shelves (still not done) and an area for the kids to plug in their electronics.  I couldn't handle all the cords all over the kitchen counters.  By having a place to plug in all the electronics I could check to make sure they weren't playing games in their bedroom after bedtime. I also installed a peg board so that we could house all the Nerf guns they've collected. During the summer, we have "epic" neighborhood Nerf battles which are usually played in and around our house.  I was tired of the Nerf guns everywhere so into the closet they went. Once the trim was done around the outside of the closet, I knew I would have to do the rest of the house.  I just love big, wooden trim and our chintzy little trim was taking a beating.  The whole purpose of trim is to protect your walls, provide a finished look between floor and walls, and to look good. Good trim should last a long, long time. In older (turn of the century) homes, trim usually does last, but newer smaller stuff just isn't prepared in such a way that it will last. A year later, we decided to tackle the area around the laundry room and garage door.  So back down to Bellingham Mill Works with my sack of extra trim pieces and my measurement.  My very favorite employ was there so I waited for him and showed him what I wanted.  Within 20 minutes I was carrying out my $100 of wood trim ready to cut, sand, condition, stain and varnish. Some help from my husband and lots of encouragement I have the laundry room door trim done and am ready for more trim.  My plan is every other month to work on about $100 worth of trim although he's encouraging me to make it worth my time and buy more trim.  I really don't have enough room to work with more than that and I don't want the project to drag on and on working on it every week. I want enough to tackle an area and complete it and then have a break before moving on. He says that since we have the power tools, stain and varnish out might as well make it worth it. It does get me excited to keep going when I think something is coming together I just don't want it to become all consuming. I see trim as the cosmetics of the house, the fun accessories that have multiple purpose of protecting, enhancing and creating a finished look. As I've pulled off the trim, I've used some pieces to replace severally damaged trim (splitting wood) in areas that I won't get to this year or maybe even next year. There are areas that I am not happy with and am thinking things through to make it better.  Right now I'm debating on adjusting the door to the garage since the builder slapped it in there and it doesn't hang straight.  The side of the hinges line up fine inside and out, but the side with the handle and latch sticks out about 1/4 inch into the garage so it isn't flush with the wall.  This really is bugging me.

Warning:  A little graphic (makes my stomach queasy)

For the most part we are a healthy family. However there are times when we are not and this is one of those times. It's been a rough patch lately. I have to say that it is hard. Hard when the kids are sick, hard when the husband is sick and hard when I am sick while all the above are sick.  I look back and I think it's started on Christmas when Job injured his toe. He hobbled around and started to get better by the time school started. Which was good, the bad came the second day back when my phone buzzes me with a text asking me to come and get him. I arrive at school, pull him out of class and while I'm signing him out, he's puking in the garbage can. Kids are walking past him and watching the silently puking that was happening. Forever he will be known as the kid who got sick at school. Some things you can live down, but not others.  A couple of days later he's back at school, healthy except for his toe that still is giving him problems. The very next Tuesday he comes home from school and snuggles down under blankets and trying hard to focus on school work but can't.  He asked to go to bed around 8 pm so naturally I check his temperature at it's 104. Yike, no school for him. He lays in bed all the next day and Thursday as well.  On Thursday Isaac calls and comes home early from school and proceeds to lay on the couch all that day. Lona walks in around 3 pm and complains about a headache and goes straight to bed. That's three kids down. Friday morning Job begs to go to school, worried about grades but especially driver's ed. He makes it all day but slept in most of his classes, checking his temperature I realized that it was back up. Isaac and Lona haven't moved from their couches.  This continues through the weekend and by Sunday John isn't feeling good and I'm starting the sniffles. Monday morning Isaac comes downstairs complaining of blood dripping out of his ear. We bundle him up and take him to the Walk-in clinic right away that morning. The doctor looks at his ear and yep, he has an ear infection and a ruptured membrane.  Anti-biotics for the week and it will take some time to heal. He comes home and goes back to bed on the couch. Later that same day, Job takes the bandage off his toe to change it and it starts bleeding profusely again. I call the doctor and they send me to the Walk-in clinic. Once seen it is determined that it will heal better if the toe nail comes off because the toenail bed is raised up and swollen.  The old toenail hasn't fallen off and it's trying to grow a new one. Gross, oh by the way, can you check his ear too because when I looked at it at home, I thought it was infected. Yep, sure thing. The doctor wrote a prescription for him too then proceeded to remove Job's toenail. I held him while he got the shots but when it was time to have the nail removed, he sat up and watched the whole thing, taking pictures with my phone.  The doctor even gave him the toenail in a jar to take home! So boy, so gross.  We pretty much all sat on the couch or laid in bed the rest of the day, trying to recover for a new week.  John who was feeling pretty terrible got up in the morning to get both Job who was feeling better and Lona off to school. By 8 am she called me to come get her. Bringing her home, she quickly emailed her teachers, took her temperature (104) and bundled herself off to bed for the rest of the day. Isaac went to school, came home, worked a little and slept more.  We are off to a great start to the year which means it can only get better.

 “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” 
― W.B. Yeats

 Lona's room used to be pink and yellow with a flower border between the two colors.  I designed that room when I found out that I was pregnant with a girl. I used a stick for a curtain rod and hung a valance of sheer white cloth with a flower garland that matched almost the border paper.  I used to sit in a rocking chair in that room and dream about having a girl. I had two boys at the time and my life was filled with Legos, trucks, balls and all things very much boy. I had all the little girl clothes ready to go. Thirteen years later and she really didn't want the pink and yellow. She was ready to change. It still was one of my favorite rooms but the border paper was starting to curl up, exactly what I should have expected with a girl after two boys. She is all girl and as tough as a boy on my house and maybe even with her brothers. So as her Christmas gift we told her we would redecorate her room. She chose the colors: Benjamin Moore Paul Revere Grey and Benjamin Moore Rockport Grey.  I thought it would be too dark for such a small room but she likes it.  I gave her a gift card for Hobby Lobby so she could chose what she wanted on the walls and not my choice. I'm hoping for it to reflect her tastes.  The one thing she didn't want to get rid of was her giant cardboard Tardis. The one thing she would like but we are saying no to is hardwood floors in her room. I would love to but there isn't a budget for it, so the carpet stays. Her loft bed was cut down to regular size and we moved the furniture around a couple of times to decide where she might want it.  It is like this for now but may change. The dresser was John's grandmother's dresser and there are some dings here and there but I painted it white and changed the knobs to black.  It feels rather empty right now but she is working on it and thinking about it and when we have time, we'll take a trip  to Hobby Lobby so she can use her gift card.

Fresh as new fallen snow. The year before me stretched out. Expectations are there, but what this year actually holds I have no idea. There are hopes, dreams, and wishes. Do I dare write them down? Do I voice them? Or do I keep them hidden in my heart to be only that, dreams and wishes. I don't want to make resolutions, I want to live intentionally but what questions do I ask myself, what direction do I go in? This last year was a milestone year for our kids. Senior year in high school for Isaac. Freshman year for Job and driver's ed. Public school for Lona and 8th grade. My first year of being at home alone. I thought I was going to take this year off to discover myself but I didn't, things just kept piling up and I took them on: youth group, teaching photography, taking photos and working on starting my own business. Do I take the plunge business wise? Do I look for a job?