Thanksgiving Dinner - Round Two

We had Thanksgiving Dinner – round two yesterday. Randy and Lorraine hosted their usual great dinner followed by a relaxing evening for almost twenty people. It was a very enjoyable evening meeting up with old and new friends. I have a few select pictures below and more here. A big thanks to you both once again.

Prior to dinner, Lynne took poor Isabel to urgent care for round two of her chin saga, removal of the dreaded stitches. By Lynne’s account this sounded even more traumatic than the original stitching. Imagine a poor frightened screaming four year old been held down by a few nurses and your mother, your head squirming while the doctor tried desperately to dig eight tightly knit stitches that were difficult to snip…well that’s what happened yesterday. She is doing much better today.

Have a great week everybody.

Busy Day

We had a very relaxing Thanksgiving yesterday with Kaisa, Kevin and family. They cooked a fabulous dinner, a big roast turkey with many trimmings and two great desserts. Thank you both again for having us over.

It was nice to get a first picture of Connor and Anton. We have literally hundreds of our four girls together, so it was nice to get one finally with the boys. The picture of the girls below on the sofa was taken during a "show" that they put on for the adults. I was warned beforehand against flash photography during this show so they were very upset when I took this picture :)

Today we got our Christmas tree and decorations up; the kids were hyper during that. Would you believe that Lizzie also returned last night right on time. We also had a little trip to the mall to buy some new chairs for our new kitchen table. It was a full day and tomorrow will be even busier.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody in the US who will celebrate with family and friends today. It’s always a great time to reflect on what exactly you’re thankful for.  I’m thankful for many things but most importantly for our family and our health and happiness. Enjoy your turkey dinner everybody (the picture below was last years turkey).

Isabel in the Wars Again

If you're a regular reader here on our blog, you'll know that poor Isabel is a little accident-prone. We had the next installment in that story last night. Herself and Connor were playing chase around the house after dinner on these ride-on toys that we have. In a split second (that I can still see replaying over and over in my mind), she hit the door saddle (floor boundary between kitchen and hallway) and toppled head over heels hitting her chin into the floor.

There was blood everywhere…everywhere. Lynne whisked her off to urgent care where four nurses held her down screaming while the doctor stitched her up, eight stitches in total.

She is fine today, running around the house chasing Connor like nothing ever happened. We're wincing every time she runs close to something, seeing danger at every turn. I’d like to wrap her up in cotton wool but unfortunately as parents we can’t do that.

Dad in Hospital

Many of you will know that my Dad was recently admitted to hospital with pain in his neck, but in case you didn’t, thought I’d let you know. They have completed many tests and are now awaiting an assessment from those tests. He is in good spirits, I spoke with him this morning, he indicated that he was feeling a little better and he sounded much better too.

Lynne with New Glasses

Lynne was showing off some new hardware last night. She has new reading glasses. For years she had 20/20 vision but recently she felt the need to get her eyes checked and sure enough she needed glasses for reading. She looks good in them.

Short Update

Hi Everybody. There is not a lot happening around here at the moment, which is not all together such a bad thing since I normally let you all know when somebody is sick. We’re all healthy right now so fingers crossed for more of that as we approach our Thanksgiving holiday.

One thing that I did wish to mention is that our days of diapers (nappies if you are the other side of the pond) are rapidly approaching a finish. It will be a little time before we are fully liberated but Connor is getting very good at going on his little potty, now often without even any prompting. We’re very proud of him and thankful to Brooke who is pushing him. Boy are we ready to be finished with nappies…..

Local 1Km and 5Km Events

Yesterday we participated in our first family running event. There was a local 1km run for kids and a 5km for the adults in a park a few miles down the road. It was a really small event hosted by the local Wildlife Center. We talked with the girls about doing this event and they were extremely excited about it all week. I couldn’t stop them “practice” running around the house Friday evening.

Everybody enjoyed the event. Both girls predictably went out running way to fast and got tired quite early. Anja did really well, ran the entire 1km with Lynne. Isabel, who was probably the youngest runner of the day, also did very well (mostly since she was carried part of the way by Daddy).

Randy watched the girls while we ran the 5km. This was probably Lynne’s longest run since the girls were born and she looked good out there. Randy got a good picture of her which is shown below.

I was planning on trying to beat my 20:46 best time for a 5km run but I ended up with a little more than planned. My target pace put me in the lead for the first half of the race (I did say it was a local race right) with this 14-16 year old kid. I was really proud to have the kids see me out front of the race, particularly since the course looped back a few times through the start where they were standing. I was with this kid runner all the way to the finish. We had a sprint finish but on the day youth won out. To be fair he looked like he had a lot more left in the engine whilst I was totally maxed out. I was pleased with my time though, just over 20 mins which isn’t bad for 5Km.

We all had a great day. My favorite quote for the day though was something I heard these two kids saying after the race. One said, “Hey did you see the end of the 5Km run, it all came down to this young guy and an old man running for the line”….nice….!!

Lilly and Rosie Owens

Congratulations to my brother Davey and Sam who on Thursday became parents with the birth of two absolutely gorgeous baby girls, Lilly and Rosie. All are doing well and getting settled as a family.

Well done Sam, you did a great job carrying those girls for as long as you did, they look absolutely perfect. You have a big job now Davey, three girls to look after. We all wish you the very best over the coming weeks, enjoy these moments, they’re simply priceless.