1st Annual Stecyk Beach Day

Today was the inaugural event!!  We headed to Summerside Beach Club in the morning and spent an awesome, hot day on the beach with my family, Jeremy's family and Jeremy and Lindsay's friends.  The beach club is so nice, the water and beach are very, very clean and our water babies absolutely love spending time there :)  After the adults were swimmed and beached out (because, really, do kids ever really get swimmed and beached out?!), we all headed over to Jeremy and Lindsay's for a BBQ.  Thank you so much Lindsay and Jeremy for hosting us, we had a blast!!

Blake and Cal playing football

Uncle Jeremy was a shark ;)

My studdly husband :)

Sand castle building!

Quick snack before Cal and Blake took a beach time out for 3 on 3 ;)

Paddle boat ride with Linds, Em and Reese

Love this selfie and my girls :)

 

Talent Show/Games Day/Last Day of School!!

Bring on summer!!!  And if someone would please talk to my children and MAKE THEM SLEEP IN ... that would be great, thanks ;)

The talent show was amazing ... until Reese lost interest!  Thankfully she lost interest AFTER Blake and Ryan's performance was over.  It was a bit on the long side, I can see why she lost interest!!  Blake and Ryan did great and I was so very proud of both of them.  Being a person who does not like speaking in front of a crowd, I was very proud of Blake and somewhat surprised that he really felt like it was no big deal to get up in front of the entire school and 'perform.'  But at his age, I probably felt the same way!! 

Blake and Ryan - ready for their comedy routine at the Ecole Bisop Savaryn Talent Show!

Games Day was HOT.  Like scorching hot.  But fun!!  I already forget the name of the station I ran but basically the students had to hold a ball between their hips and race to a finish line.  They started with a squishy dodge ball and then moved on to tennis balls, soccer balls, basketballs, etc.  It was fun and they even tried balancing the ball between their foreheads and chins, etc.  The entire school was split up in to teams, with a mixture of grades on each team.  Each team was led by a YL (youth leader - grade 5 or 6 student).  The teams all had animal names (the Cheetahs, Lions, etc.).  They all made team signs and came up with team chants!  It was so much fun and the kids all really enjoyed themselves.  The YL program in our school is so strong and it is so great to see the older grades working together with the younger grades and being really great role models.  The teams rotated through the stations and we all enjoyed a BBQ hot lunch, funded by the School Council. Cal took the day off and picked Em up at noon and I spent the day in the hot sun!

Games Day fun at Ecole Bishop Savaryn!!

The last day of school for Emerson was a Thursday and Blake's last day was a 1/2 day on Friday.  After school on Friday we had our 2nd annual DQ celebration!!  Lunch and ice cream with friends to celebrate another great school year :)

Em's 1st and last day of kindergarten :)

Blake's 1st and last day of grade 2 :)

Last morning walk to Bishop Savaryn - until September!!

Always the best of times with the best of friends :)  So blessed with our school family!!

Blake's report card is only on line now, they don't get a printed copy unless you request it and I forgot to write a note in his agenda.  So it took me a few days to check on line!!  But when I finally checked, his report card was great :)  He's reading above his grade level in both French and English and seems to excel in Math and Religion!  He needs to work on putting his thoughts on to paper.  Mme Melissa says he is a very deep thinker (we know this, he has been a deep thinker since the day he was born, I swear we could see that when he was just a little baby!!).  When given a writing assignment he uses a large majority of his time thinking about what he is going to write about and then has little time left to put it down on paper!!  His teacher said he is definitely thinking, not daydreaming or off task, just putting a lot of thought into his assignment :)  That's our boy!!  We're proud of his report card and we're going to journal this summer to keep the writing/pencil to paper process going.  And of course he'll be reading!  He still loves his Geronimo Stilton books but has also found a new Hardy Boys series and Cal found a kids baseball series that Blake is also reading and loving.  He's joined the Summer Reading Challenge at the local library, which is a lot of fun.

Could not have said it better!

I am so happy to be officially on summer vacation.  It will take awhile to slow the kids down, as it has been go-go-go for so long!!  Emerson, most especially, takes some time to unwind!  She'll be asking me every 10 minutes, "What are we doing today, Mom?"  "What are we doing tomorrow, Mom?"  lol!  She'll be checking what time it is, asking if it is morning, afternoon or evening.  So we'll take some time to get away from 'clock watching' and all the scheduling!  Our summer plans involve camping, play dates, library visits, biking, park time, a pj day or two and attending the green shack program at our local park and bike camp.  In the first few weeks of July I am going to sit down with the kids and compile a 'summer bucket list' :)  

Talk to you soon!!

~Tracy 

Playdates, field trips and parties!

Okay, it's mid-June and this month has already been jam-packed!!!  The kids have all been on play dates this week, I've accompanied Blake on a field trip to John Jantzen Nature Centre, Em's had a Teddy Bear Picnic at school, a Father's Day fun night with her class and their Dads and a school 'beach' day!  Oh, Em also had a birthday party at Galaxyland and Blake and his friend Ryan (together with their moms) put together a comedy routine and auditioned for the school talent show!!  Annnd 3 on 3 began today :)  It's been fun y'all!  But July is just around the corner and we're racing for the finish line!!!  Talk to you soon :)

John Jantzen field trip

Lacrosse Wind-Up

This weekend wrapped up Blake's 1st Lacrosse season!  He had a great time and fell in love with yet another sport ;)  Blake learned so much and picked up the game quite quickly.  He was a force to be reckoned with out there!!  He wants to play next year, so we'll see how he does moving up a level!  The next level is a lot quicker but I'm sure he'll be up to the challenge!  We ended the season with a tournament at the East Soccer Centre and lunch with the team on Sunday afternoon.  We've all enjoyed the lacrosse season, Cal and I really enjoyed watching and learning the game and as happens in team sports, the siblings also make friends and the girls made a few great lacrosse friends who they'll miss!  We'll try to plan some play dates with our lacrosse friends over the summer :)

Year end tournament photo and medal and cake at the lunch party :)

Hula-Hoop-A-Thon!!

On Friday Blake and Emerson's school had a hula-hoop-a-thon with all funds raised going towards the Boys and Girls Club of Edmonton.  When the memo first came home, I thought this sounded silly and I wondered why they didn't just do a good 'ol Jump Rope for Heart fundraiser for the Heart and Stroke Foundation!  I was wrong.  This event was AWESOME!!  The teachers and youth leader's did an amazing job, planning a super fun and well-organized afternoon of hula'ing!!!  Each grade had to hula to a certain number of songs (preschool - grade 1, 1 song; grade 2, 2 songs, etc.).  The crowd got involved doing the wave, starting a congo line and a whistle blew after ever $100 raised, while a YL ran around with a sign depicting the amount raised!  It was so much fun, I'm glad we went to watch and ... participate ... yes, I was called up to hula!! lol! Turns out hula-hooping with an adult hoop is much easier than hula'ing with a dollar store hula hoop!!!  Now best of all, our school raised nearly $8,000 for the Boys and Girls Club of Edmonton!!!  Way to go, Ecole Bishop Savaryn School!!

Blake in the middle (orange t, no hat)!

Goofing around ;)

Congo line!!

Girls turn, lead by one of Blake's classmates :)

Reese's Kindergarten Orientation

Reese had her kindergarten orientation this morning ... yes, I'm serious.  I can.not.believe.it. In September our baby will be attending kindergarten!  She's kinda an old hand at kindergarten, seeing as she's been in the classroom numerous times, sees Mme. Sina 2-3x a day and is at the school 2x a day!!  It really was no big deal to her ;)  And kindergarten is only 1 more morning a week, as compared to preschool.  So, she'll do great!!  She is going to try riding the bus home on the afternoon kindergarten bus.  Hopefully it goes okay!  That way I will only have to go to the school two times a day vs three!!  Reese and I have been doing some school work.  All I can say is she is STUBBORN!!  Like, really.  I think we all say our children are stubborn and I think all children are stubborn to a certain degree ... Reese takes it up a notch ;)  Good thing is, she tends to follow direction and listen better to non-family members!!  I've already joked with Mme. Sina that she will have her hands full next year ;)  At home right now, we're mostly working on letters and numbers.  She's doing great but we have to work in very short spurts!!  I have no doubt, she is a smart cookie, she just has a different learning style from Blake and Em.  And that's okay, it's just not as 'easy' for Cal and I!!  Orientation didn't bring us any new info, seeing as this is our third time around ;)  But Reese enjoyed hanging out in the classroom and it was nice to see some of the faces who will be Reese's classmates next year!  So now Reese is successfully orientated and ready to start Kinder in September :)

Cuteness overload, heading to orientation!!

Listening intently!

Play On!

This past weekend was spent at the Hockey Night in Canada Play On street hockey tournament at WEM!!  Cal entered a team in this tournament last year but we were a little unprepared for the competitiveness ;)  So this year, we were ready!!!  The boys had a great tournament.  We didn't win but each game was very close and a few games we were up and lost in the last few minutes :(  The team we lost out to in the semi-finals, went on to take silver!  So although we lost, we were right in there and happy with our games!  The best part of all was spending the weekend with friends and making new friends!  Saturday night a few of the players and families got together for a BBQ and we had the BEST time.  We were up late that night and played at 8 am the next morning ... so needless to say, everyone was ready for a quite Sunday afternoon ;)  Here's a few pics from the weekend:

#4 ready to go!

The NorthSide Kings!

My boys

Blake, Emerson and Reese with Louie the Lion