Category Archives: iphoneography

NYE {2017}

You know those days that, despite the camera roll full of lovely photos you’re left with at the end of the day, were just sort of a disaster?  That was our last day of 2017.  My gosh.  Now in all fairness, our kids are sick.  Like really sick.  And have been since our house cleared out after Christmas.  Grae’s got a terrible cough and a sore throat and in addition to the cough, Sam’s super congested, has been experiencing some laboured breathing, and hasn’t been sleeping well.  In short, they’re both miserable.

Now, our day was off to a rough start after a ridiculously early wake-up from Sam (we’re talking in the 3 a.m. range) and our girl waking up on the wrong side of the bed, and we had already cancelled having Brad’s family over for our annual NYE fondue night, but then a delayed flight meant also cancelling the big family farm walk we’d planned in place of the fondue too.  Oh, add to that the fact Sam only napped for 57 minutes when he *desperately* needed his usual 3 hours and Miss G basically hung off of me while making non-stop requests during those 57 minutes, and that was our day. Ugh.

But, you know… It is what it is.  Our kids are sick and our New Year’s Eve wasn’t the happy, chilled out day filled with grandmas and grandpas and aunties and uncles that we’d hoped it would be, but oh well.  There were lots of good moments sprinkled in between the whining and needing and grumpiness, and these photos are a reminder of that.

I know social media sometimes gets a bad rap for not being ‘real life’, but are we really going to pull out our phones and snap pictures when our kids are having a rough time?  When our toddler is banging his head against the tile floor in frustration?  When our big kids are storming off and slamming doors?  When our spouse is feeling stressed about cancelling plans with his family because he knows how desperately they want to see our kids?  Of course not.  And thank goodness for that.  Because in that moment, our kids probably need some love and someone to talk to and our spouse probably needs some space just to be.

All that to say, I’ll happily take the camera roll full of fun memories.  Of course we take the lessons that come from the hard times along with us too, but when I look back on New Year’s Eve 2017, I’m going to be remembering the epic morning dance party we had in the playroom, the joy balloons and play dough brought about, and the delicious fondue we ended the day off with.

Roll on, 2018.

Celebration Play Doughthis year’s celebration play dough

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Our Easter {2016}

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I’ve always loved making holidays special for Miss G, but my goodness…  Now that we have two??  It’s most definitely double the fun. {At least!} This was our sweet little Sam’s very first Easter, and though it was a super low-key, rainy day with just the four of us, it was perfect.

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Smiley Sam

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This little man…  He’s become so social and smiley recently and I’m just soaking it up.  Every night before bedtime we sit and chat together.  I tell him things and ask him questions and he fills in my pauses in conversation with the sweetest little coos and sounds.  I’m so lucky to get to be his mama.

 

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Thanksgiving Weekend {2015}

After a couple of years away, it was so nice to be able to spend Thanksgiving weekend up in the Okanagan with family this year.  Sadly, our visit also involved saying goodbye to one of Brad’s uncles, but overall, it was filled with loads of visiting, gorgeous fall weather, time outdoors, and {way too much} delicious food.

Here’s a peek at our weekend in iPhone photos…

IMG 5124Books for the trip.

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Back to Ballet

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Ahhh…. Community centre classes.  One of the things we definitely missed while away!  I really can’t say enough good things about them…  Here in Vancouver, there are tons of different classes offered at the community centres around the city – all of which are very affordable and save swimming lessons, quite easy to get into too.  Not to mention that because families tend to attend classes at the centre closest to them, they’re also in walking distance from home {win!}

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Hello, Heidelberg!

After dropping off our bags at our lovely little flat, filling our fridge with groceries, having some lunch, and a taking a family nap, we headed out to explore our home for the next week… Heidelberg.  There’s no doubt that we absolutely love it here.  We were here for Christmas 2013, we came back last Christmas, and this time around we figured we’d break up our long trip home to Canada’s west coast and spend some time seeing the city in the summertime.  Grae spent most of our walk pushing her face into flowers and soaking in their smell, filling her pockets with rocks and leaves, watching bees work, and collecting clover.  She’s just so thrilled to be surrounded by nature.  It’s going to be a good week.

Here are a few iPhone snaps from our day…

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Our Last Few Weeks in Kuwait…

Whew.  What a whirlwind few weeks.  Busy, but so, so good.  Being exam time, I tutored more than ever, plus we made time to do several special meet-ups with our closest friends, and I managed to sneak in several nights out with my girlfriends too.  During the days that Miss G and I were not busy making memories with friends, we sorted, organized, and cleaned our entire apartment top to bottom.  Important stuff made its way into our Canada shipment bins, some items were sold, and tons was given away.  In between, we cleaned a disastrous apartment a couple of floors up, moved the majority of our furnishings up, and set everything up for a new family coming to Kuwait.  We made scrapbooks for our closest friends, snuck in quick trips to some of our favourite spots around Kuwait, and were totally spoiled by our desert family.  On our very last full day in the country, several of our friends met us at the Jumeirah Beach Resort for a day of sunshine and swimming.  It was wonderful.  Afterwards, I snuck home to tuck Miss G in bed, did a few final jobs, snuck in a shower, and wrote a CBC post before heading out the door to a friend’s place for one last night with my mama friends.  We ate sushi, drank wine, gossiped, and said goodbye, and that was that.  Another chapter of adventures comes to a close…  Goodbye, Kuwait.  We’ll miss you.

IMG 1267Pizza making with friends.

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A Very Kuwait Morning

This morning was what I like to call a ‘Kuwait morning’.  What does that mean?  Well, while living in Kuwait comes with many lovely perks {hello, beach days, cheap gas, and lovely sunsets!}, it also comes with many challenges.  In general, I find that most things just aren’t as ‘easy’ as they are elsewhere.  From getting places to grocery shopping to government procedures to finding out information about things – it can all be a little bit difficult, and that was certainly the case today.

As I’ve mentioned before, Grae and I are lucky to be part of a wonderful play school co-op here, and while our usual meet-ups happen at the beginning of the week, we also often meet on Thursdays for some sort of outing around the country.  Well, since we’d heard that there was some sort of ice sculpture exhibit happening for Hala February {ice sculptures in the desert?!}, we decided that that would be our destination for this morning’s outing.  We weren’t surprised to find that there was very little information about the event online, but after a fellow mom asked about it in an expat moms forum, we found out that the event was taking place at the International Fair Grounds and opened at 10 a.m.  Perfect!

Except…  When we arrived, we didn’t know where the actual exhibit was happening {nor did anyone else who was there} and when we did find Snow City, the area where the ice sculptures apparently are, it was closed.  Of course, by this time our munchkins had been in the car a good long while and they had trekked all though the carnival looking for the right area, so since nobody around seemed to mind, we decided we’d just have a little peek inside. ☺

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