By: Mary Last summer our cousins who live in Vancouver, Canada came to visit us in Virginia! Ellie, Abram, John, and Gabby came without their parents. Their visit was delayed by a few weeks due to a COVID outbreak, and then our trip to Kings Dominion got almost got rained out, and then there was
This summer has been a super busy one in which we have had almost zero free time, but we’ve barely left our neighborhood. Three of our kids have been on swim team, which absorbed nearly all of our time and energy. We have had no time to do any of the normal summer things I
Eight awesome cousins, together for the first time since 2019. 2019!! We haven’t seen these guys in THREE years. For anyone that’s a long time, but for a kid it’s a loooooong time. It is, without exaggeration, 3/4 of Anna’s entire life. A looooooong time. When your cousins live in a different country, you do
Before we left for Vancouver we got a lot of recommendations for things to do and see, and places to eat. One thing we heard over and over was to go to Deep Cove. We went to Deep Cove on our very last day in Vancouver. We hadn’t intended it that way (Thomas’s fever day
Aside from maybe birth announcements and that one time Thomas told his preschool teacher that his favorite thing is when Mommy lets him “ride dirty in the car,” few of my posts on Instagram have had as much of a reaction as this photo of the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bzl-RzjFHMP/ All suspension bridges warrant a
One of my favorite things about our visit to Vancouver was that my sister did all the planning. She emailed me an itinerary before our visit, but I’m not the type to burden myself with pesky things like referencing a schedule. In the morning I would wake up, ask where we were going and what footwear
Steveston Village is a small harbor town close to my sister’s house. It’s so close that we technically visited it on a “home day.” (We actually went the day Thomas was sick with a fever, during Anna’s nap.) I thought about lumping Steveston in with my home day post, but ultimately decided it deserved its
We arrived in Vancouver late in the evening on Canada Day. We saw fireworks from our airplane windows when we were taxiing on the runway, and my brother-in-law drove us to his house through neighborhoods decorated with Canadian flags. It was something like 2 a.m. EST when we arrived, so my sister pointed at our
Mary is, by far, my busiest child. She is always buzzing about preparing, arranging, collecting, and always, always talking. I cannot keep up. I try, but I have to be honest with myself about my physical limitations. I cannot breathe underwater, I cannot see into the future, I cannot wear my pre-pregnancy jeans. I cannot
It’s been nearly three years since my kids have seen my sister’s family. Three years is a long time if you’re (almost) seven. Or five. Or three. Or eight months. Ok, ok, it’s a long time if you’re 35, too. My sister and I both have four kids; two girls and two boys. Hers, ages