Liana's chooses visual arts, Caleb runs into a tree and Evelyn watches ladies drink tea

Liana update

Liana has always wanted to visit France and there is a chance that Liana's grandmother, whose a native from France, will take her there this coming June. I also have family in France near Paris so it's possible she can visit them, as well.  Liana's hopes are high so I hope it works out. In the meantime, she's babysat another three times this week, including two sets of kids she'd never watched before, and is saving half of her money for this potential trip.

She participated in a three-day leadership camp last week related to her arts program at school. In grade 7 kids in the art program explore music, dance, theatre and visual arts. In grade 8 they need to narrow it down to two arts so this year Liana is taking theatre and visual arts. She's surprised me and decided she wants to try out for the visual arts concentration program for grades 9-12. Liana took drawing and manga lessons until age 9, but since then she had been all gung ho about theater and taken courses in basic and musical theatre. Auditions for the arts concentration are in February and since she hasn't been active in visual arts she now has only five months to put together her entire portfolio. The school offers a paid mentorship option to prepare for the try outs so we may sign her up for that.

Liana's been talking about plans for her future lately. Lately, her plan is something like this: get a bachelor degree in nutritional science (4 years), get a teachers college degree (2 years), buy a townhouse in the Glebe with room in the backyard for garden, get a pig, teach elementary school (she's especially excited about all the planning involved in teaching...and summers off) and work as a nutritionist on the side. This plan will likely change many more times but I'm proud of how she thinks ahead.

Caleb update

Caleb came back with an eye injury from school the other day. He told me he hit a tree branch, which synchs up with the note from his teacher in his agenda, but I'm not sure how that happens... He's been practicing piano regularly this year, thanks to the extra time I have to work with him on it, meriting a long-awaited tuning of the piano, which I will schedule soon.

Between Scouting, school fundraisers and his first race coming up Caleb is selling a lot of things all at the same time. I'll probably make one blog post and one Facebook post for those interested in supporting his endeavors as I want to help him out without annoying people.

I received a call from the Beavers group commissioner about becoming a leader. I asked Caleb if he'd like me to be one of his Leaders and his face just lit up! I'm going through the motions this week to see if it will work out.

Caleb had an idea on the bus to make coloured water with dry leaves

Evelyn update

Last week Evelyn and I visited my work for a friend's going away baby shower party. Evelyn not only got to meet my co-workers but also visit daddy upstairs who walked her around to meet all of his co-workers, too. The most common baby question we received was "does she sleep good?" and she was called cute often.

On Friday Evelyn attented her first tea party as we hosted a Steeped Tea event. She was fussy for the first half of it, happy for the other half, and went to sleep for the night near the end.

Drool monster now wears bibs most of the time to prevent her chest getting soaked

Another cute bib

Wrasslin the giant octopus! A new favourite thing to do

Darcy and Angela update

Darcy was out of town for a few days for his annual duck hunt with his dad. It was the fifth night we've spent apart and the first night he was away from the baby. In future years we'll probably follow him there and spend time with his mom and grandma while the men are away.

We were both excited to start our new Sunday Magic League with Theros but I'm struggling to make my deck decent and Darcy's struggling to make his deck amazing.

I did a 5K run/walk on Sunday morning to raise money for Diabetes. It was a good time with friends. I've since been doing some reading on breathing techniques while running and realizing why I get out of breath so quickly when running. Going to try a few tips and tricks on my next run.

A fun silly picture with my friend Angela and her mom Laura

Dex being a bumdog and messing up our bed