Claire is a member of her school’s WE club which is a club that enables people to change lives through their everyday choices. They run fundraisers at school to raise funds for such things as donating to our local food bank.

Recently, Claire attended WE walk for water event (walk, fundraise or donate and turn clean water on!) which was at the British Columbia Parliament Buildings and had our education minister, local kids, and other speakers give speeches about raising awareness on the lack of clean water available for people around the world and the impact that has on families and communities.

The students wore backpacks filled with heavy books and we all walked around the parliament buildings to experience what it was like for children who had to walk miles everyday to get clean water from a well.

• 

• 

• 

• 

We celebrate Easter with family every year. The kids wake up to a fun Easter basket from Jimmy & I and then we drive to Sooke to spend the afternoon with the Miller clan 🙂 Wendy and family made a nice lunch for us and Claire & Rhys made a pretty trifle for dessert.

Claire & Rhys are pretty competitive with the annual egg hunt…

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Claire & Rhys are SO into monkey bars this year. After school pickup is extended for Jimmy because everyday the kids want to stay and play with their friends which of course Jimmy indulges 🙂 They play a battle game while hanging on the bars.

One day after school on a sunny day, Claire fell from the monkey bars and really hurt her arm. Jimmy took Claire to the hospital where I met them. We were there for over 8 hours! It was busy and we were exhausted. It was a strange day because another friend of Claire & Rhys’ was also in the ER from the same monkey bars with a possible ankle fracture. Jimmy also saw a kid from his school who was injured from the playground.

After many hours of waiting after Claire’s x-ray we found out she had a greenstick fracture just below her shoulder. No cast but she did have to wear a sling for quite sometime and not use the monkey bars for a while. Claire was a super trooper and managed the injury really well.

• 

• 

On a bright and sunny Spring day Claire & I set-up her beloved American Girl dolls for a picnic. Claire got them all dressed up and I made tea and snacks. It’s fun to get lost in imaginative play with Claire & Rhys 🙂

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Just a lovely Spring day spent at another park in Victoria 🙂

• 

• 

• 

There is no doubt that we all love the library! The kids and I could spend hours reading and looking at books. We go there as much as we can and usually have stacks of books at home that are being read and ready to return.

Claire & Rhys are both avid readers and sometimes we have to tell them to put down their books so they can get other tasks completed! Claire enjoys American Girl books, YA fiction, His Dark materials series by Phillip Pullman, Wings of Fire series by Tui Sutherland, any book by Raina Telgemeier and graphic novels. Rhys is really into graphic novels, How to train your dragon series by Cressida Crowell, science books, 13 storey treehouse series by Andy Griffiths, fact books, alien books, Tin Tin books, and star wars books.

Their interests are quite diverse and I think it’s exciting.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Jimmy heard about a new-to-us beach that had remnants of an old building that created a salt water pool. We are always up for an adventure so on a nice sunny day we headed out to find the beach.

It was a very pretty with access in a residential neighborhood. There are steep stairs that lead you down to the water and then you can stare out into the beauty of the Pacific Ocean and listen to the waves roll in. I quite like the beach… it is very calming 🙂

We hiked a ways down to find a rocky outcrop where the old foundation was situated. It was neat and the kids loved climbing the rocks. After we spent time on the rocks we climbed up a steep trail which lead to an area that was narrow with wildflowers, and arbutus trees which, are Canada’s only native broad-leafed evergreen tree.

At this point we thought we could easily walk back to the neighborhood where our vehicle was parked but we were further than we realized and we got caught inside a large private property. It took us a while to find our way but that adds to the adventure- right?

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

In early Spring there is an exciting event at the Beacon Hill children’s farm… the baby goat run!

Beacon Hill park is a beautiful park in Victoria. It’s right off the ocean along Dallas Road. We walked around before the farm opened and watched ducks, turtles, many birds, peacocks etc walk around the park and enjoyed seeing all the spring flowers in bloom.

The line-up for the farm was quite vast as this is an exciting event. All the baby goats run through the farm from their barn and into the petting area while all the visitors stand alongside and cheer for them. One of the cutest events I have ever seen. They were adorable!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•