He did it.......

Yes everyone........
Luke passed his swimming lessons! He was in the Sea Turtle B class and he had 2 weeks of morning swimming lessons at our local outdoor pool here in LaSalle. His last class was this past Friday morning and was so upset, however I was thrilled that he passed his first swimming lesson class ever!
Luke made new friends and I met new Moms and Luke learned about disappointment as well when someone pooped in the pool in the lesson ahead of him and his class got cancelled due the lifeguards having to shock the pool for a few hours. A little 3 year old just doesn't get it why they can't go in the pool. So he told Bruce and I for days that he was sad because there was poo in the pool. He stills talks about it to this day.
Congrats to my little swimmer for passing his class.
Luke knows how to blow bubbles, do a star fish in the water on his front and back, jump in the water to his teacher and putting his head under the water. Luke is a changed swimmer and loves the water even more then before his swimming class. Maybe one day he will be like his Daddy and be a lifeguard one day.

A night out for ice cream

This past weekend we went to the cottage. The weather was beautiful and we spent most of the time outside at the lake. The highlight for Luke was Saturday night when we went in Grandpa's BIG brown boat to go to the Marina for ice cream. Normally we take the little aluminum boat but Grandpa said he would take us in the brown boat this time and Luke was on cloud nine. He was running to the dock to climb aboard with Grandpa, Daddy, Alli and Mommy.
Here are some pictures from our trip to the Marina for ice cream from the perspective of a 3 year old boy.


Grandpa Gailitis coming to take us to the Marina........he is looking a little serrious here, I wondering what he is thinking about?

Daddy, Luke and Allison going for a boat ride to the Marina.

Daddy and Allison

The Moose Deer Point Marina on 12 Mile Bay, Georgian Bay.

Luke running to the Marina to get his chocolate ice cream cone.

Luke waiting for his ice cream cone. The Marina didn't have chocolate ice cream so he got Golden Ribbon....it sure looked like chocolate ice cream though.

Luke getting his ice cream cone from Daddy.

Luke's first lick of his ice cream. Oh yeah dig in Luke!

Grandpa lifting Allison to see all the different flavours of ice cream she can get. Allison shared her ice cream with me. Mint chocolate chip.

Luke, Allison and I eating our ice cream at the Marina.

Bruce, Luke and Allison by the Moose Deer Point Point Marina sign.

The family at the Marina.

Allison and I on the boat ride home.

Family from far away....

Last Thursday night my Dad's first cousins were in town from White Rock, British Columbia. Carol and Greg were almost always part of our summer holidays when I was a kid. They would drove out with their motor home to Ontario to see us (they are both teachers so they have the good life of summers off), or they would fly in and spend time with us at our family cottage. I have many fond memories with Carol and Greg spending time with them when I was younger.

So as you can expect it was so nice to see them both again as an adult and now they can get to know my children for the first time. It took Luke and Allison a bit to warm up to them but once they got used to them they were ready to play. Here are a few pictures from our visit that night. More great memories!

Carol and Greg Cosens....no really their last name is Cosens and they are my cousins.

Carol, Luke and Allison.

My Great Aunt Lenora and Luke. So this is Luke's Great Great Aunt. We call her Nana. Nana came to see Carol and Greg as well from her senior residence home here in Windsor. So to put all the pieces together for all of you....my Nana is Carol's and my Dad's Aunt.

Nana, Luke and Allison reading a book together. I love this picture of them all! Priceless!

Carol and I all grown up! ha ha!

Nana, Carol and Greg after a great homemade dinner. Mom you did a great job and the brownies ROCKED! (You can see them in the corner....so good!)

My Mom and Luke.....Luke loves his Grandma.

Greg and Allison playing away together.

Luke loves his swimming lessons

Luke started swimming lessons this past week at our local outdoor pool here in LaSalle. It is so nice the pool is only a 2 minute drive from our house.
I have to admit I was a bit concearned that Luke was not going to like swimming lessons. I thought for sure he would cry and throw a fit saying he wanting Mommy and he wants to go home and have lunch! (That is his favorite line to get out of things).
To my amazement Luke loves swimming lessons and he looks forward to them every morning. He is very good and listens to his teachers fairly well. He is doing very well to this point.
There is something very funny though.....if you read earlier on in my BLOG about going to a garage sale with 2 kids and Luke peed on some of the CD's at someone's garage sale. Well, guess who's daughter is in Luke's swimming class? The women who Luke peed on her CD's a few weeks ago. So I have to see her every morning for 2 solid weeks. My oh my .........how lucky are we? ha ha! You have just go to laugh and grin and bare the humiliation. Kids will be kids.

Yesterday we went to the pool for Luke's swimming lessons and they informed me that the pool was closed due to someone vomiting in pool the night before. The lifguards came to work in the morning and there was vomit in the pool. They had to shock the pool so none of the swimming classes could take place that morning. Luke was just devestated to say the least. He did not throw a temper or anything, he just cried and cried and he kept saying he was sad because he couldn't go in the pool. Luke was looking forward all day to his class. He got to colour some pictures with his class yesterday and then I took my sad little boy home.

Here are some pictures of Luke in his swimming lesson this morning. I would have more but my battery died on my camera while we were at the pool.

Luke and Allison waiting on the pool side for Luke's swimming class to start. Luke is in the class/level called Sea Turtle.

The Sea Turtle class meeting together to walk together to the shallow end of the pool to start their lesson. Do you see Luke?

Luke walking away from his class and dying to swim on his own. The teacher caught him and pulled him back with the rest of the class.

Luke having his turn with the teacher to float. There are 2 teachers for this class of six of 3-5 yeaar old.

I am not too sure what prompted Luke to put in arms in the air, but it sure is cute.

New beginings and car wash

Well this past weekend our entire family was not feeling so good. Allison got an ear infection on Friday and she is on antibiotics for 5 days and Luke has a runny nose and is all congested in his chest and Bruce is still struggling with a sore throat and some congestion in his sinuses. I am doing fairly well, I have had a few sore throats here and there but nothing too bad compared to the rest of my family.

Allison had a mile stone this weekend, she moved from the highchair into a booster seat. Allison loved the fact that she gets to eat at the table with the rest of us. We had to place her at the end of the table because we figure her and Luke should not sit beside each other while they eat. It could turn out to be a little dangerous, and messy I am sure. Oh by the way Allison turned 20 months today!

Last night Bruce decided we need to wash our cars in the drvieway. Luke loves to wash the cars with Daddy. He was pumped to get out there and put his hands in the bucket of soapy water and get that sponge on the cars. Allison was just happy most of the time carrying around the water can and the bottle of car wash soap detergent around the driveway. There was the odd time she went into the bucket of water and helped the boys out with the dirty work.

Luke and Allison eating dinner, Allison is loving her new booster seat. I'm a BIG girl now!

Bruce and the kids planning their strategy for cleaning the cars.

The Gailitis car wash cleaning crew.

Luke got splashing a little too hard in the car wash bucket with the sponge and he covered his face with the suds. It was so cute! Luke was not impressed as you can tell.

Luke and Allison having a ball in the bucket of water.

My brother Matt's new car

My brother Matt has just finished college this past May at Pensacola Christian College in Florida with his degree in Criminal Justice. Since he has come home and he and my Dad have been looking at cars and finally Matt decided on one. A 2007 Chevroler Cobolt LT. He just picked it up this past Friday afternoon and he drove over to our house right away to show off his new purchase. It is a very nice car. Matt even let me drive it around the block! Thanks Matt!
I have to tell you though....Matt bought a standard car and he has never (really) driven a stick in his life except one time with Bruce. He was so thrilled with himself that he didn't stall the car when he drove out of the dealership. However.....when it was time to leave our driveway it was not the same experience for Matt, he reversed wonderfully and then once he put the new Colbolt in 1st gear it looked like there was an earthquake and his car rocked, rattled and rolled away, then of course it stalled out. Matt was hoping to get home without stalling his new car but I got to experience and see his first stall out. Oh by the way, he is doing much better with 1st gear now, how do I know? Well he made it to church on Sunday and I saw him so I figured he is ok driving this car now.


Matthew and his new Colbolt LT.

Matt is looking mighty happy here in his new car.

Matt with the rear end of his car.

I love this picture, I was just taking some random shots of MAtt's car and this one is of the windshield and you can see how shiny his car is. You can see the clouds reflection on his car.

Matt reversing out of our driveway....just before he stalled out.

Don't fence me in.....

Last Wednesday our neighbour had booked someone to come and dig the post holes for our fence on the east side of our house. The time had come to complete our fence in our backyard. Our neighbour was wonderful and did a big chunk of the fence for us as he was on vacation and Bruce was working long hours last week at work. This past Saturday Bruce and my brother Matthew put up our fence with our neighbour. It looks super. We only have the gate left and one other small section. It is so nice to have the back yard fence up for the kids so I don't have to worry about them. Here are some pictures of the process of our fence going up over the past 3-4 days.

The post lying down on the ground as the holes we were being dug.

This is the tractor that went around digging all the holes for the posts.
Our nieighbour Byron making sure the posts are going in properly.

Our neighbour did all this work for us with his Dad. Thanks Byron!

Bruce and Matthew working away this past Saturday putting our portion of the fence up. They did a great job!

Poor Bruce.........

......is sick again! Can you beleive it? He came home from work last night and he got his sore throat back. Once we got around to going to bed at approx. 11:30pm Bruce had another fever AGAIN, so he was bundled up with a sheet, quilt and a wool blanket (This wool blanket is the most useful shower gift we received....Thanks Grandma Hayhoe for it!)
Bruce is working really long hours right now and is not getting home until late and getting up early in the mornings so this is not helping him get any better I guess.

Please pray for him when you think of it. The fever is the part that tells me something must still be really wrong with him, I guess he really did need to take 7 days worth of his antibiotics to get over this the last time. Too bad we misplaced them a few weeks ago.

A 3 day long weekend at the cottage

This past weekend we went to Bruce's parent cottage on Georgian Bay in the Muskokas. We had a wonderful time and we escaped the heat wave in Windsor. Our neighbours told us it was very hot here this past weekend. They told me it was around 42 degrees plus humidity for 3 days straight, and of course that was the 3 days we were up north loving cottage life. It was not too hot up north, we saw more clouds then sun and we had a great thunder storm on Sunday night. I can't remember the last time I saw that much rain come down at once. When we woke up Monday morning part of the cottage driveway was all washed out, that is how much/fast the rain came down.

Bruce's Mom was sick with a very bad chest cold the entire weekend and once we got home with the kids BOOM.....they were both very sick with a bad cold and high fevers. I am not too sure if they got it from Mom but just to let you know Mom ....we still love you! So Luke and Allison are still in the midst of their illness.

Here are some picture from our weekend at the cottage.


Allison ready to go the cottage after a long day in the lake with Luke.

Bruce and his parents hanging out on the dock.

Allison and Grandpa Gailitis

Allison just woke up and now she is on her way to wake up Daddy with full avengence.

Bruce's Dad had to get on the ATV to fix thhe washed out driveway after the big thunderstorm Sunday night. Luke was thrilled to death to ride the ATV with Grandpa. When they went up a hill, Luke would say they are going up a mountain. We really need to take Luke out west so he knows what a mountain really is.

This is a picture of Grandpa Gailitis just after he rescued Allison from falling down in the lake. She had just lost her footing while she was walking around in the lake. Grandpa went in the lake with his jeans on to save our little girl. Thanks Dad.

Allison at the lake.

Allison in her favorite little chair at the cottage.

Luke making a splash in 12 mile Bay, Georgian Bay, Parry Sound, Ontario

Luke was thrilled to be allowed to go on the dock without his boat coat.