Noodle Love

The best cure for a cold, rainy and exhausting weekend. 

Day in the Life

This is the first time I've played along with Ali Edwards' Day in the Life. It was more difficult than I thought it would be to remember to take photos throughout the day. What was even harder for me, as I've discovered from looking through my photos from today, is taking pictures of the people I'm with and ones of myself.

It's been a full-on day and these photos show just a part of what went on today. I have so many thoughts floating through my head about this exercise and what I've learned from it, but I think this is definitely something I'd like to do again in the future. I don't know why I didn't try it out earlier!

Five Things

1. My coffee buddies are leaving me, one by one, so I’m reluctant to give this one up (a.k.a. send him to school).

2. I’ve been taking that “get more sleep” goal very seriously. Since the beginning of May, most nights, I’m in bed by 10pm (a far cry from my 12-3am bedtimes) and some nights, by 9pm! It hasn’t translated into earlier wake-up times though but I think my body needs time to catch up.

3. Sometimes during yin yoga, I start falling asleep. Suddenly, I’ll hear my teacher talking so I’ll immediately half open my eyes to see if everyone else is still in same pose I’m in. My worst nightmare would be opening my eyes to see everyone else sitting up while I’m still lying flat on the ground.

4. I currently own 2 candles and half a bag of Ikea tea lights. I’m going to need to restock if I plan on lighting candles regularly (goal #2).

5. As much as I'm looking forward to having a regular income again, I'm really going to miss Andrew's regularly scheduled end-of-term weeks off. Work-at-home moms don't get time off so his days off become my mental health days and God knows I need those.

Thankful for Staying Home

I have to admit, I was pretty bummed that we weren't going to spend our Easter holidays traveling like a lot of our friends were doing, but it reminded me that awesome experiences can happen at home, too.

Spending two solid weeks at home with my boys meant I had ample opportunity to get to know them better. It never really occurred to me that I could do that. I suppose it's always assumed that because I'm their mom, I "know them best", but really, they're just like any other person out there. I have to spend time with them and put effort into the relationship for me to really get to know them!

We also go to spend some time with our friends and get to know our acquaintances a little better. So even though we don't have travel stories this time around, I'm quite thankful for the chance we've had to connect with the people around us.

Holiday Time

Today marked the first day of Easter school holidays and the first thing we did was go to school first thing in the morning to help one of Nathan's teachers clean out the storage room.

On our first Monday off, there was no sleeping in and no slacking off. It's not the most glamorous way to spend our holidays but I like to make the most of our time off, even when we're not traveling to new places and going on new adventures.

I have learned over the past few school holidays that if I don't schedule things to get us out of the house, like this cleaning session and the boys' swimming lessons, I'd be more than happy to spend the entire two weeks cooped up at home because I am at the very core of my being, a very introverted person and I have lots of projects I'd love to work on.

However, I've learned that if I subject my two very social and energetic boys to that kind of confinement, we all start slacking off and we waste our days away with me yelling at them to tidy up their messes and to stop bickering with each other.

So for everyone's sanity, we go out and do things. It may not be exciting but at least we're doing it together.

Around Here

As March carries on, we're supposed to be heading into cooler Autumn weather but during the day, we still manage to hit the high-20's/low-30's and it scorches your skin. Add in the humidity and it feels like summer but that's not stopping us from spending time outside. Between trying out new restaurants, hanging out with friends and just by ourselves, we're getting plenty of fresh air.

On the days that are unbearably hot, we come home and find relief in the air conditioning and that's when the boys leave me proof of what they've been up to when I'm not looking.

Back in Brisbane

We got right back into the swing of things, barely getting a chance to rest after our marathon trip back from Toronto. It took a 15 hour flight to Hong Kong, a 13 hour layover in Hong Kong and another 8 hour flight to Brisbane before we could finally drop all our bags and relax. 

Except that we didn't. We got home, showered and went straight to church because that's how we fight jet-lag. It was uncomfortably hot and sticky but that's how it is. 

Nathan and Andrew have been back to school for the past two days and I've been using up every spare minute keeping Caleb entertained while trying to unpack and catch us up with life in Brisbane. I feel so sluggish, like this humidity is slowing me down, but things are getting done. Even my thoughts are stuck in another time-zone, slowly catching up.

I wish so hard that we could watch the winter Olympics right now and support our amazing Canadian athletes. They're sitting in first place right now and I can't even watch clips of their events. It's killing me. Go Canada!

Flying High

Today, the boys and I were blessed beyond belief.

Our 10:30am flight to Miami got delayed 2.5 hours. It would have been an exhausting wait and we would have been famished the whole time but instead, we waited comfortably and were fed because my in-laws so graciously invited us to be their guests at the airline's lounge.

When it was finally time for us to prepare for boarding, I thought the wait would be long. The board at the gate didn't even have our destination posted yet. Instead, as I was wandering a shop with Caleb, I was summoned back to the gate to have our seats upgraded to business class (what!), again because of my in-laws.

I was grateful for the extra leg room (not that I really need it) and the comfy seats. And I finally learned why some people actually enjoy airplane food.

I just wish Andrew was here experiencing all the perks with us.

We are so, so blessed.

October: Currently

Reconnecting with the online world after a week of pretty much no internet on our computers.

Excited that I've finally caught up with printing photos for Project Life.

Learning to bless others with what I have now instead of waiting for when I have more.

Playing with a lot of paint and bird seeds in preparation for Art Fest at the boys' school.

Getting a little stressed about attending the Brisbane Designer's Fashion Show this weekend.

Trying to figure out how on earth my life got so busy these past couple weeks.

Thinking about whether or not to take the boys trick or treating tomorrow night, or to even remind them about it.

Mulling over the results of my most recent allergy test.

Adding oral allergy syndrome and elimination diets to the list of things I need to read up on.

Holding on to the cute little things that the boys do, like watching Nathan measure himself each and every week at the swimming pool.

Thankful that Caleb is such a cooperative kid and doesn't mind shopping with me as he as done every single day for the past week and a half.

Counting down the days until Andrew finishes his third year of med school!

School Holidays in Review

The boys go back to school today so I thought it'd be nice to do a little recap of our time together during the school holidays before I start to forget.

Usually, I like to plan activities for the boys for school holidays but this time around, I wasn't organized enough. The only thing we had scheduled was a block of swimming lessons during the first week. The rest of the time, we flew by the seat of our pants. 

I didn't think we did very much over the past two and a half weeks, but it turns out, we did plenty! We spent a nice amount of time at home but we also went out more than I thought we would - with friends and by ourselves as a family. After three years of hemming and hawing, we finally bought VIP passes to the theme parks down the Gold Coast and within these past two weeks, we've been to all three. 

I wouldn't have thought it during the time, but I'm going to miss these school holidays and having both of my boys home with me.