Yes, still here, honest!

A couple of people have politely pointed out to me lately that I haven't posted here in a long time. I'm glad to know someone is still checking this site so I figured I'd better post a good long update and some photos before I lose all my 2 readers! :-)

Well, this has been SOME summer. Here's a quick recap:

JUNE: End-of-school mayhem for both kids. Jeff's hours started to get longer as his current project moved into heavy deadlines. Vicki got into the "thick" of her university course work. Vicki prepared for and then left for a conference in Washington, DC.

JULY: Vicki got home from Washington, totally exhausted. Jeff disappeared into the office and was not seen or heard from again much at all. Vicki had a very challenging assignment due every Friday this month. Mid-month, four out-of-town guests arrived, and Vicki, Megan and Calum went to spent two weeks at a B&B suite in White Rock, BC with these guests. The weather was perfect and everyone had a fabulous time, though Vicki's experience might have been improved if it weren't for the aforementioned challenging assignments, three of which she had to work on during this two-week period.

AUGUST: The month begins with insane hours for Jeff and a final exam for Vicki. A week after returning home from White Rock, Vicki and the kids leave for a road trip to Oregon and Washington states, visiting friends, shopping bliss at Target, Powell's City of Books and Uwajimaya and working on interesting LLL projects. As the month draws to a close, Jeff's project is nearly complete, Megan is excitedly planning her tenth birthday party at sensory-overload paradise Crash Crawly's, Calum has been enrolled three days a week in the child care program at Simon Fraser University, and Vicki has been making plans for next semester while getting ready for yet more visitors from Ontario!

Here's what we are all up to as summer draws to a close:

Vicki: Enjoying being a student again. This fall will feature a Philosophy course that teaches logic, critical thinking and argument skills (I am not sure I need any more of those after raising these two kids for ten years, but I'm keeping an open mind...) and Basic Algebra. Very busy doing lots of interesting LLL projects, moving into writing and editing, online and various innovation type of things. Trying to maintain some type of balance in my life by reading lots of murder-mystery novels during my spare time - I am currently working my way through Sue Grafton's alphabet series (I'm on "I is for Innocent" at the moment).

Calum: He is... well... four. He's still a sweet, outgoing, fun-loving kid, now with an extra dose of defiance and limit-testing thrown in. Loves to have Dr. Seuss books read to him, very close to figuring out reading himself, and still obsessed with video games and lego.

Jeff: Has been promoted to Software Engineer 2 - yay Jeff! Mostly doing the same stuff as before when he's not at work, which is thankfully happening more often lately :-) Currently shopping for a well-deserved new desktop computer that can handle the newest video games.

Megan: Totally obsessed with anime, manga and anything related to Japan. Has been teaching herself Japanese from library books and is currently trying to find out if it's true that if you fold 1000 origami cranes, then your wish will come true. (I've tried REALLY hard to convince her that this is not true... but she continues to fold 'em.)

And now... I will post some pictures!