Joyous June!!

Ahhhh ... June is such a wonderful month :)  The promise of summer, the celebrations of a wonderful school year and the end of work for two whole months for me!!  Can't say I'm not feeling extremely fortunate (although I will miss the pay cheque).  Below are a few of our June highlights:

Our school joined 102.3 NOW Radio in their fundraising efforts for Jordan's Journey for a cure.  Jordan is a kindergarten student at our school.  She has a rare disease called Giant Axonal Neuropathy.  There is an experimental treatment in the USA that requires Jordan and her family to stay in the States for 2 months.  She is signed up for the treatment this summer but of course, it is extremely expensive.  Fortunately, Jordan's cause was selected for the annual 102.3 NOW Radio Empties for Angels program and together with fundraising in the community and our school approx. $90,000 was raised!!  Blake, Em and Reese participated in the schools Hula-hoop-a-thon on June 1st.  All donations went towards Jordan's journey.  It was a fun afternoon, with Fitzy from NOW radio mc'ing and the trucksickle handing out free popsicle's.  A grade 5 student dj'd the event and all the students and staff dressed in a Hawaiian theme.  It was so much fun and everyone was so proud of all the money they raised for Jordan :)

Enjoying a popsicle from the NOW trucksicle!

On June 2nd our School Council hosted a staff appreciation luncheon. A fellow council member and I were busy that morning, ensuring everything was set up and perfect for our wonderful teachers and staff!  I enjoy this annual event and am always glad to be involved.

All set up for the staff appreciation luncheon (each staff member brought home a bundle of flowers) :)

 June 3-5 brought a busy weekend with Blake's lacrosse team in the Titan's tournament in Sherwood Park and a girls weekend for myself and my two besties!  It wasn't the best weekend for me to be away but it was the only option that worked for Lindsey, Candace and I and we missed out on our girls weekend last weekend so we 'had' to make it work this year ;)  Cal and the kids had a great weekend.  They even managed to make it to a baseball event on Saturday!  The league Blake plays in, Community Park, hosts a fun day every year and it just happened to fall on this weekend (isn't that the way it seems to work?!).  They enjoyed a BBQ, bouncy castle and face painting.  I was glad they snuck it in, in between lacrosse games.  I don't know what the Wizards record was in the tournament but I hear they played hard and had fun, which is all I care about ;)  My weekend was awesome!  We stayed downtown at the Matrix hotel and had so much fun.  We ate, we drank, we shopped, we danced and we talked and talked and talked and ate some more and then drank a lot more ... lol!  It was so much fun and very rejuvenating!  A much needed time to decompress and just have fun and not stress about how messy the house is or the piles of laundry ;)

Not having a good time at all ... lol!  Love these ladies!!

 On the 6th I attended an office party.  My co-workers are so great!  Our offices are in a wing of a school, so essentially my cubicle is in an old classroom.  The room is of course quite large and I share the room with 8 other co-workers.  There are SLP assistant's, one other OT assistant and Mental Health Therapist's in this space.  Jean, an SLP assistant, invited us all over to her house for a Room 22 (our classroom number!) year-end party. We had so much fun, drank some wine and celebrated a successful school year! I love working with these ladies and will miss them over the summer break!!

On the 11th the kids had a sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's so Cal and I could attend a friends birthday party :)  The kids had such a fun time!  Grandma and Grandpa even took them public swimming on Sunday before bringing them home!! They couldn't stop gushing about how much fun they had!!  Thanks Mom & Dad!!  Cal and I also enjoyed our time, sleeping in and enjoying a quite house.  It was a little strange, though!  Were not used to being home by ourselves!!

On the 14th I took the day off to attend a field trip with Em.  We went to Fort Edmonton Park with all the grade 1's and had a blast!  It was great to spend the day with her and her class!

Fort Edmonton park field trip with Em the gem :)  Love her to pieces!!

 The evening of the 15th Reese and Cal had a father's day bbq at the school.  Cal said Reese was miss popular ;)  Apparently she was her usual shy self, lol!  They enjoyed their evening, playing outside at the park and having dinner.

Cal and Reese, ready for their Father's Day BBQ!

 Cal's spring hockey season wrapped up on the 17th with his final ice time and a team bbq!  He had a great time and plays with a great group of guys.  If his schedule allows, he'd like to play on their winter team.  But with the kids activities and coaching hockey, he's not sure it would work out ... we'll see!

On the 18th we attended our good friend Adriana's 40th birthday party.  The kids had a blast, running around with friends and the adults enjoyed themselves as well!  And I can tell you, those Italian's sure know how to throw a party ;)

Adriana with her awesome cake!!  So grateful for her friendship, a wonderful hockey team manager and fellow hockey momma!!

The 19th was Father's Day and Cal started his day early with an early morning run.  It was his long run day, so he chose to wake up early and get it in sooner rather than later ;)  After his run we met my parents and sister and her family at BP's for a Father's Day lunch.  Then it was off to Blake's 3 on 3 game, followed by homemade burgers for supper (Cal's favorite) and baseball practice!! Oh, Em also snuck in a birthday party on the 19th.  Wow ... apparently that was a busy day!! I had a great photo of Cal and the kids but it doesn't seem to be saved on my computer :(  I'll have to dig a little deeper!

The best Grandpa and his grandkids, on Father's Day :)

On the 22nd Cal was off to Calgary for a few days of work.  The kids and I enjoyed Finding Dory with my mom, sister and nephews and ate out a few times, as often happens with either Cal or I are away for a few nights ;)

Blake's lacrosse playoff's started on Friday the 24th and it was an exciting ride!!  They played hard and Blake played some of his best lacrosse.  It was an exciting few days but they fell short of making the final.  And so our lacrosse season came to an end.  Blake learned so much this year and really improved his game.  Novice lacrosse is a lot different from Tykes lacrosse!!  Much faster and tougher!  We were really proud of Blake's play and strength this season and loved watching him and his team play.  I would never pressure him to play a sport but I REALLY hope he plays lacrosse next year ;)  I love the game and watching him play!

Buddies - hockey and lacrosse teammates.  Love these boys!

And that brings us to the last week of school (and my first week of summer break!)!!  I volunteered at games day on the 27th and just like last year, it was a scorcher!  I got a good start to my base tan ;)  Games Day is always a fun day and I enjoy visiting with all the students and teachers!  This year I lead the parachute games station.  I had to dig deep to remember the days of parachute games at the YMCA ;)

Today is the last day of school and I have to rush out to pick up Reese soon, so I will say so long for now!!  Tomorrow we have a fun day planned with school friends at the spray park.  A sort of year-end celebration ;)  Hopefully the weather will cooperate!! 

Other May highlights!

Oh my goodness, looking back every month I realize how full our days are and how truly blessed we are!!  I wanted to document some of the other highlights from our month of May :) One day, I'll be glad I did!!  So here are a few ...  

- Emerson's class collected recyclable materials over the past few months and put them to use this month, building robot's!  They then wrote a description of the robot and presented their robots to other classes and parents. 

I was able to leave work 1/2 hr early to catch her presentation.  I'm so glad I could make it, I was so proud of her :)  She  robot presentation was excellent and she was even recruited by Mme. Khair to assist the other students in presenting and translating their presentations from French to English for the students and parents who didn't speak french.  She's such a strong student and is so proud (as she should be!)!

- Mom, Lindsay and I went out for dinner and movie for Lindsay's birthday.  We had a great time and ate more sushi than we thought we could ;) Our evening together made us excited for our girls trip in July!!

- At the end of the month we celebrated the end of our Sunday school year with our finale and BBQ.  I love our Church community and friends and we always enjoy finale day!!  Students move from the pre-beginner's class to kid's praise when they move into grade 1 and recieve a cross pendant, so Reese Reese was presented with her pendant.  And when students move into grade 4, they recieve a special bible from the Church, so Blake was presented with his bible.  Sunday school will start again in September and all three kids will be in kid's praise!  For the past 5 years I've been volunteering in the pre-beginner's class so I guess I am also graduating to kid's praise ;)  I'm glad Sunday school break's for the summer months, as we would miss a lot with camping and vacation and I hate to miss.

- Blake started 3 on 3 this month and is excited to be playing with his cousin Colby and a few of his Saints teammates!

- The school staff hosted the annual volunteer drive-thru breakfast at school!  This is always a fun event and the parents really appreciate the recognition :)

Some of our awesome school staff, at the volunteer drive-thru breakfast!

The kids all decorate brown lunch bags, which are filled with cream, sugar, a stir stick and a muffin!

And now it is June and we are soooo close to Summer Vacation, we are getting excited!!!  

Mr. & Mrs. Cameron

So what have Cal and I been up to?!  We're important too, right ;)

Cal's been busy with work, coaching and a bit of NP!  And dad-duties, of course ;)  Work-wise I can't provide the most accurate updates as I myself don't completely understand the technicalities of his position but I do know a lot of his time is taken up by fibre optics!  And meetings ... tons of meetings!!  And I also know that for many of these meetings he provides lunch which usually involves leftovers for the family, lol.  Hey, it's the small things ;)  Coaching takes up a large majority of his time.  From practice planning to game strategizing to dealing with the shit that goes with the job (yeah, I said it!), it is a very time consuming volunteer role!  But very rewarding at times!!  Such as yesterday when the Saints beat the top team in our tier!  A team that was moved down to tier 2 from tier 1, in round 3 of the regular season.  The team played so well and Coach Cal was very proud (as were all the fans and parents!)!!  We won't talk about the shitty side of coaching, lol ;)  Cal makes it to NP almost every Wednesday and every Friday.  He misses a lot of Monday's because his dad duties are a little extra on Monday's, as he drives the kids to school in the morning.  He has been dealing with an injury these past few weeks.  We hoped that new runners would help cure the problem but they haven't so he will need to see a Dr. or a P.T. possibly.  His Achilles has been bothering him after a few km's of running or walking :(  Hopefully he can deal with it asap, as he should be training for his 1/2 marathon in April, followed by Sinister 7 in July, followed by his full marathon in August.  Cal's getting ready for spring hockey as he joins his co-worker for Friday night hockey with a group made up of mostly EPSB teachers.  He had a great time last year on the team and is looking forward to playing with the same group again.

I am doing well, keeping busy with the usual!!  I feel like I'm a full-time (plus OT) Mom, part-time O.T.A. and part-time wife (sorry Cal, lol!)!  I LOVE my job and am happy to report I was the successful candidate for the permanent, full-time posting!  The lady who I was covering for decided not to come back after her sick leave.  I'm so excited to be permanent and know that I will be returning to this position in September!  I love my job.  I'm actually happy to go to work.  It's kind of bizarre to me and I hope this feeling lasts ;)  So far so good!!  I remember starting a new job when I returned to work after Blake was born and loving that job, too!  Unfortunately my role changed a few months into that new position and I didn't love it quite as much as when I started.  Hopefully there won't be any major changes to this new role!  I'm happy driving to work and happy driving home, it's a wonderful feeling. Other than work and mom duties, I don't have much to report - other than I can not keep up with housework and laundry and 75% of the time I am able to pull together a good meal at supper time ;)  Since having Reese, I don't think I've kept out with housework and laundry, so nothing new there.  For the most part I don't let it bother me, water off a duck's back and all that good stuff, but there are times when I feel like I'm being choked by laundry and housework!!  Then I take a deep breathe and relax and let it go!!  I've helped our hockey teams manger a lot this year.  I'm the treasurer but we've pretty much just shared manager and treasurer duties.  It's fun and I enjoy being involved!  I usually manage to have coffee once a week with my good friend Jodi, which is always so nice!  I'm still on the school council at the kids school and really enjoy that.  We're currently organizing our 2nd annual pasta dinner and silent auction.  I've said for years now (probably 5) that I need to start getting to bed early and waking up early to work out before the kids are up ... but yeah, that has not happened!  I am a night owl.  I love the quiet evenings!  Even if I am folding laundry, tidying up, making lunches, etc, I really enjoy the peace and quiet :) So although I know I should change my ways, I haven't gotten there yet ...

Cal and I have been getting out for at least one date night every month, for the most part.  We're so glad that our neighbour Stephanie is finally old enough to babysit and even more happy that the kids like her and she is a great babysitter!!  I know she doesn't get them to bed on time most nights but that's alright.  They're usually busy playing games and making crafts (that she plans and brings all the supplies for!)!

So there's a quick update on the Mr. and Mrs. of the house ;)

Talk to you soon!

~Tracy