A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That

Just a few little things I wanted to blog about over the summer but never got around to it...

Our 15-year old international student went home at the end of June. C was quite sad to see her go as she enjoyed having a big sister. When we told C she was going to move into our student's room while we painted her room she asked..."Can I have the desk?". This question surprised us at first but we soon realized why she wanted the desk. We found her "working" (aka creating artwork) at the desk and sipping from a water bottle. She was imitating what she had seen our student do in the room. We enjoyed having a break from hosting during the summer but we are now preparing to host another Irish work placement student. She arrives tomorrow and stays for 8 weeks.

C turned 5 at the beginning of July and her birthday was celebrated with parties for both sides of the family, as well as a little friend party. I was not overly prepared for the friend party as we were on vacation the week prior to the party. We had planned to keep it pretty simple with games, hot dogs, cupcakes and presents. The night before the party I was shopping for a few last minute things when I stumbled across party supplies that were drastically reduced. I was able to purchase activity sheets, hats, cups, cutlery, decorations and favour bag items all in the Strawberry Shortcake theme for a fraction of the cost. What a blessing. The kids had a great time and C was thrilled that her cousin K gave her a littlest pony.

We did not succeed this year at preventing our garden from turning into a jungle. Earlier in the season we had our landscaper friend re-edge all the garden borders. We tried to maintain the edges but this effort exceeded what time allowed us to do. It did not take long for parts of the garden to grow into the trench and our lawn. Perhaps we will be more successful next year otherwise we may remove some of the gardens and plant grass. Our neighbour has already been eyeing up our plants...offering to take them.

C enjoyed her experience at Vacation Bible school this summer. The first day she came home with her face painted and a CD of kids songs. By the end of the week, Awesome God had bumped Freedom (Nicole C. Mullen) from it's position as her favourite song. I downloaded the Rich Mullins version of Awesome God onto my ipod and every car trip we had to listen to it while she sang along. The song ends with string instruments playing and she always yells from the back seat...."That's my favourite part!" C tells us she wants to learn to play the cello.