Our multiples club arranges a visit to the local fire hall every year. One of our members husband is a firefighter and takes all the kids and parents on a tour. We passed on it last year because the kids were too little to fully enjoy it. Space is limited for this popular field trip so this year when the invitation came out we jumped on it even-though Claire & Rhys were both pretty sick.

Claire & Rhys love trucks so this was a very fun field trip for all of us!

Highlights include:

– having a demo of a fire fighter put on their gear and listening to the oxygen tank sensor (kids loved this!)

– exploring inside the firetrucks

– wandering around inside the fire-hall

– watching all the kids with excitement in their eyes

– watching a safety video (circa 1970’s)

– the grande finale: fire hats for each kid & watching all the fire-fighters spiral down the fire poles

We had a great time and the kids talked about it for days afterwards 🙂

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Claire really wanted to hold the ‘dummies’ hand 🙂

Happy kids!

Our baby-sitter Emma is awesome. She is from Ireland and we met her through friends of ours. Emma nannies their twins. Not having family around is really tough at times. It helps a lot having someone like Emma to call upon.

She just sent us some funny photos that her and the kids took last time she was over.

Claire & Rhys in Emma’s crazy/ cool winter hat:

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This is an older picture that we just had to post!

Our ‘superheroes’ brushing their teeth:

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The days following my return were nice and slow as we all learned to blend together again as a family. We found a new elementary school that had two great playgrounds. It was fun to walk around aimlessly with no agenda. The kids really had a great time as did we 🙂

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Why do I always have my eyes closed in pictures (2nd pic) -!?!

Random memory – I take after my Dad. He always closes his eyes in pictures. I had a photo taken with my parents in high school at prom. It was done by a professional animal photographer 🙂 When the picture arrived to our mailbox we were wondering why my Dad looked so strange in it…..turns out the animal photographer painted in my dad’s eyes like he did for animals who had their eyes closed. Such a funny photo. I must find that one again.

So, Deanna’s trip to Botswana is now under our belt and all is safe and well. Phew. Quite a ride for me as the primary care giver for 240+ hours… but who’s counting 😉

All said and done, I think the kids and I felt the stamina-grind and cabin fever together for most of our journey. Unfortunately the rain had a heavy presence in Dee’s absence so that certainly tested our patience.

Take a scroll below to view a few of the moments I had a moment to capture.

– Jimmy 

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The twins worked as a team in honing their mischief AND their cuteness

North Vancouver downfall be damned; we’re getting out of the condo, now!

This was day 9 together. Our (my) familiar groove of sleep deprivation is well worn-in by now. Thankfully the rain let up a bit in the day, dampness still ever present though.

Rhys feeding ‘Mimi’ – their loving constant companion (meals, diaper change, bedtime – you name it & mimi is there)

Geez, Check out this photo. Right place, right time, camera in hand. Sometimes I hedge on bringing it along with me every play time. Sure glad I brought it this day!

The first time away from Claire & Rhys was my recent 10 day trip to Botswana.

The trip involved a lot of preparation especially because of my soy allergy. I had to sort out what and how to pack all my own food for 10 days, what I would eat on the flights (airlines do not cater to allergies!?!), and how to prepare Jimmy and the kids for my absence. It all worked out okay and I managed to survive just fine. Jimmy and the kids did great – they survived and thrived while I was away 🙂 In fact Jimmy told them I was looking for elephants so of course I had to return with some sort of elephant toy.

The trip there took 23 hours in flights, 7 hours in lay-overs, 3 hours driving (2 hrs on a highway with goats/cattle aimlessly wondering across & 1 hour on a bumpy sand road) to get to the work site South of Maun, Botswana. I was so exhausted by the end of the journey. I stuck out like a sore thumb and people were commenting on how I was definitely not from Africa! Now there are a lot of Caucasians in Botswana so I guess my pale skin tone sold me out – I never knew I was so obviously pale.

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The first few nights I worked out of our remote exploration site. We had intense meetings everyday that lasted from early morning to late night. Luckily, everyone liked to wind down prior to dinner so we went out in the late afternoon for a safari. The weather was really wet my entire trip that is why the vegetation is so green in the photos below and why I didn’t see a lot of animals. When it is hot and dry they congregate at the pans to drinking water. All the pans we visited had zero animals. The second day I was on site though we heard of two elephants that were 2 km away. We all jumped into Land Cruisers and tried to track them down. We ended up catching a glimpse of one elephant that was on the other side of a veterinary fence. The brush was dense and it was well camouflaged. Pretty neat to see such a beautiful large animal in the wild.

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Work Site:

Sleeping quarters:

Insects are huge in Botswana!

While I was at camp I celebrated my 34th birthday. Jimmy sent me the sweetest video of Claire & Rhys saying ‘Happy Birthday Mama’. It made my day. The night of my birthday the camp hosted a braai for me which is Afrikaans for “barbecue” or “grill”. We all had many beer and stayed up way too late around a camp fire. It was very memorable.

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I had an opportunity to stay two nights at a nearby game reserve – Bokamoso Safaris. It is a hunting lodge that has 60,000 hectares of land and is owned by a Spaniard. They buy game to populate the area and charge hunters large amounts of money to come hunt. I wasn’t super keen on that idea and would much preferred staying at an eco-lodge where they ‘hunted’ with cameras. However, it was a nice place with luxurious ‘cabins’ and there was only our group staying there so no hunting happened during my stay. I saw many animals running around the water hole – Kudu, Wildebeast, Warthogs, Impala, and many bird species.We were hosting a few days of meetings- more intense work but the surroundings were so beautiful and the people attending the meetings were very nice.

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Bokamoso:

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After two days at Bokamoso we returned to camp for a few more days of work. No more meetings rather, I had time to sit with all the on site geologists to run through all their procedures and finally get to know all the people I communicate with regularly from my Vancouver office. It was great. I also had an opportunity to run out to a nearby drilling site. Environmental regulations are very tight in this country which is good. Old drilling sites are barely recognizable as time passes because they undergo a thorough cleaning.

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To start our journey back to Canada we left site via helicopter which was a nice reprive from the 3 hour drive. The flights, lay-overs etc on the way back home were equally as long as the journey to Botswana. However, it was much sweeter knowing I would be home soon to my family. Once I got home I stood at our front door excited to have the kids and Jimmy in my arms….I was greeted by this awesome sign and when I opened the door the kids came running yelling ‘ mama – balloon’ over and over. They love balloons and are still talking about them 🙂 Ahh so good to be back!

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Prior to my trip to Botswana, we visited Granville Island and met up with our good friend Doug. Jimmy and Doug have been friends for a very long time and it was nice to spend a little time with him while he was visiting Vancouver.

It was a nice sunny day and we enjoyed walking around Granville Island. It had been a long time since our last visit to Granville Island. We used to spend a lot of time down there when we lived in the South Granville area. Claire & Rhys loved watching the boats and all the birds and I loved all the people watching.

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The last time it snowed was before my trip to Botswana. We have been so busy that we haven’t had time to post some pictures of that pretty day. Claire & Rhys loved the snow and we were happy to have a ‘real’ winter in Vancouver….even if it was only for a few days.

Jimmy is one smart guy and he somehow knew that this would be a mild winter…. He successfully reigned in my urge to buy brand new snowsuits for Claire & Rhys earlier in the season….I was expecting a lot of snow this winter and the borrowed suits we have were only used twice! Happy to have saved the money I would have spent.

As we move from Winter into Spring I have to note that time is moving so quickly! The night before my Botswana departure I realized I would be away for preschool registration. I quickly filled in the forms and contacted the registration person and arranged for Jimmy to drop the forms off while I was away. Claire & Rhys are now registered to start preschool in September! crazy !?! We choose a parent participation preschool because it felt right to us. All the parents have to take on some sort of role to help run the preschool. As well, a parent has to volunteer twice a month to be a teachers aid. In our case we have two kids so we will have to volunteer once a week…. When I say ‘we’ I really mean Jimmy as he is the stay-at-home parent 😉

To get Claire & Rhys geared up for three days a week of preschool we started going to Strong Start which is a free government-funded program for preschool aged kids. They run these programs out of designated elementary schools. It is a 4 hour program that you can attend once a week or more as you like. We went as a family recently and it was great! Claire & Rhys had fun and it will be good for them to mingle and socialize with other kids.

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After a snow day there is nothing better than getting cozy in our pajamas 🙂