A Day of Two Milestones

Today marked two milestones in our family.

It was Jacob's first day of Kindergarten!

And it was my last first day of sending a child to Kindergarten.  After 12 1/2 years of having anywhere from 1 - 3 of our 4 children at home with me 24/7, I am stepping into a new phase of life.  It's a bittersweet day because I know that things will never be "the same" again.  And yet, that's exactly what we've been training them up to do.  To begin to become independent, instead of totally dependent on us.  To become their own individuals.  To begin to make their own choices.  To take the things we've trained into them, and choose to either discard or use them as they encounter real life, and make it theirs, instead of ours.

Obviously, this is not an immediate severing of all parental influence.  Far from it.  We know that we continue to be the biggest influences on our children's lives for years and years to come.  But it is a step in this direction, and from this point on the steps will continue in that direction.  And, as we well know, the days may sometimes go by slowly, but the years go quickly indeed.

It is a huge leap of faith.  But faith we have, and faith we will cling to.  Faith that God goes with him (as He does all our children) every step of the way, even when we do not.  Faith that God is sovereign, and that every single thing that will happen in his life, has been sifted through the Father's hands.  Knowing that that doesn't mean that nothing bad will happen, but that he will not walk alone, and he will be given the strength to get through it.  Faith that God will take all that we've poured into him, mistakes and all, and His strength will be made perfect in our weakness.  Faith that God loves him, even more than we do, even though that seems impossible from a human standpoint, because who could possibly love a boy more than his mom (ok, and his dad)? Truly, only his Creator.

And that faith is what makes it possible to let him go.

And, in light of the 12th anniversary of 9/11 tomorrow, and in light of the fact that there are many other people out there who have lost children that should've started Kindergarten this year, I am simply thankful for him, and for the fact that I have a child to send.

So, yes, my life took a pretty major shift today.  But it's a good one for him, and since it's all about perspective and outlook on life, it will be a good one for me too.

Now, I didn't allow myself to even really think too much in this direction ahead of time.  After all, I knew that if I wanted to, I could think myself into one hot mess by the time the first day of kindergarten rolled around.  So, I simply chose not to.  Instead I focused on him, and how happy I was for him that he was so excited about going to school.

As a January baby, and the fourth child, Jacob was more than ready for school this year (us Canadians do school age cutoffs differently than in the States, so January babies are the oldest in the class up here). And he's been counting down to this day for awhile now.  In fact, he was a little confused when he turned 5 and couldn't immediately start going to school!  I had to tell him that he had to wait until after summer vacation, and that when the girls went back to school in fall, so would he.

Except that with the whole graduated entry thing, that didn't end up being totally accurate either.  The girls went back on Thursday, the 5th.  And he didn't get to start until today.  He was in the very last group of kids to start.

Two weeks ago he asked me how many more days it was - and I said 2 weeks.

Two days later he asked me again - and I said 12 days.  He said "12 days?!"  because of course, 12 is higher than 2.  So, I tried explaining that 2 weeks was 14 days so things were still going in the right order.

And as the number of sleeps got lower and lower, he got more excited.  Until finally, it was the night before kindergarten!

In the morning, he woke up just before I was going to go in to wake him, and ran into my room all excited for the first day of school.

He helped me pack his lunch (banana, 4 slices of marble cheese, sweet potato chips, and homemade chocolate chip cookies, with a cheese string for snack time), ate his breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse, picked out his clothes, and finished getting ready to go.

I miraculously managed to be ready on time myself, and after snapping some pictures (yes, we're in the fake smile stage), off we went!

The girls were excited about Jacob's first day too!

When we got to school, we found his spot for his outdoor shoes, then headed into the classroom.

We found his hook for his backpack and sweater, got on his indoor shoes, and I barely managed to get in one last hug and a picture of the two of us, before he was off to sit on the carpet and wait for his teacher.

Unfortunately, things weren't going quite so well for a few other kids this morning.  One little girl was screaming and crying as her mom tried to leave.  I felt so bad, for both of them, and was very glad I wasn't dealing with that, as that would've made this day so much harder.

And then one little boy came in, I'm assuming from off the bus, and when he said his name, they couldn't find it.  It turns out that he was supposed to have gone to the Immersion school next door instead.  He looked so lost and confused, I felt so bad for him.  What a bad start to school life.  I'm not sure why one of his parents couldn't bring him to school on his first day, but it would take something absolutely monumental for me not to do so.  I'm really trying to give his parents the benefit of the doubt on this one, but my heart broke for the little guy.

So, I was pretty thankful for how our morning had gone, especially in comparison!  In fact, I was doing great.....

until I started walking out the door.

And then it just hit me.  Hard.

And the tears started welling up in my eyes.

And right then, his teacher asked me "How are you doing?"  And I almost lost it. I knew I couldn't start talking or I wouldn't be able to stop the tears. So I mumbled something incoherently in reply, grabbed the baggie she gave me, and left as quickly as I could.  I didn't full out cry, but the tears definitely welled up, and two or three may have escaped on the walk back to my house by myself.

This is what she gave me....

We have such awesome teachers at our school!

Earlier in summer, she sent Jacob this postcard....

Thankfully I had to leave immediately for Coffee Connections at church, so I didn't have time for a pity party!

And, just over 6 hours later, he was back.  Running up the driveway, having had a fantastic first day of school!

I'm so proud of the young man he is slowly, but surely, becoming.

Jacob'ism

Had to write this one down somewhere.....

The other day we were discussing different ice cream flavours....
Jacob: Is there bun ice cream?

Jacob's Age 5 Interview

Not to be outdone, Jacob wanted to do a birthday interview too, and I figured Age 5 was a good age to start, so why not?  We're only a few months after his birthday (Jan 23) so these are still accurate without him having to "pretend". :)

How old are you now Jacob? 5
What grade are you in? Not in school yet
Who's your teacher at Sunday School? Miss Kerilyn and Mrs. Barkwell 
Do you like Sunday School? yep
What's your favourite thing about Sunday School? playing with the toys
What's your favourite colour? red, I mean blue
What’s your favourite drink? chocolate milk
What's your favourite breakfast? pancakes
What's your favourite lunch? my usual lunch - banana, cheese and Mom's healthy chips
What's your favourite supper? all your supper things
If you can only pick one?  perogies
What’s your favourite game? hockey
What’s your favourite treat? Kinder Surprise
What's your favourite snack? everything
What's your favourite dessert? rockets 
What's your favourite restaurant? Olive Garden, Chicken Chef, Boston Pizza, the chip restaurant (Paradiso), mom's food
What's your favourite place? Disney World
What's your favourite thing to do at Disney World? everything
What's your favourite ride at Disney World? waterpark at Blizzard Beach
What's your favourite toy? cars
What's your favourite book? Old MacDonald had a Farm
What's your favourite sport? hockey
What's your favourite movie? Cars 2
What's your favourite TV show? Teletoon Retro
Who's your favourite celebrity? Andrew Ladd
What's your favourite thing to do? play hockey
What's your favourite thing to wear? ummmm, uhhhhhh, a Jets jersey
Who are some of your best friends? Little Rylan, Nate, Taylor
Who's your favourite person? Mom and Dad
What is your favourite song? O Canada 
What's one of the best things you've done with your family? Gone to Disney World
What's your favourite store? Walmart to get a car, Toys R Us
What do you want to be when you grow up? Jets player
Anything else you think we should know about you? you can get me cars every day

Showing off a couple of his birthday gifts - Jets bathrobe and Jets poster for his Jets room.  Yep, he's a fan of the Jets all right!

My Little Comedian

During supper tonight....
Emma: MYOB
Sophia: What does that mean?
Emma: Mind your own business.
Jacob:  MYIK - I don't care!

Maybe you had to be there, but our whole table roared!

My Little Gentleman

Today, as we approached the entrance to the girls' school, Jacob ran ahead of me to push the handicapped button to open the door for me.  And then he said, "Ladies first, mom, ladies first".

Enough to melt a mother's heart, I tell ya.

Mater Birthday Cake Tutorial

Jacob has always loved the Cars movies, so this year I made him a Mater cake for his 4th birthday.  I looked at several different pictures online and took some tips from all of them, and then just did my own thing.  It was actually quite simple and is one of the quicker cakes I've made.

I baked the chocolate cake (recipe to follow in a later post) in two loaf pans.  One was used for the main part of the tow truck.  Then I cut the other one in about 3 equal pieces.  Two of them were stacked (I had to cut it down slightly as one was too short, but two was too tall) to make the cab of the truck, the rest was put in the "leftover bowl".  

Then I iced the whole thing in chocolate icing, and used white icing for the front windows/eyes.

In the meantime,. I had Emma gather up all the supplies for decorating him - I just used whatever we happened to have on hand, I had not planned well ahead of time!  But it worked out great.  This is what we used....

Oreo cookies = wheels and the front thingie

Gum (2 different sizes) = teeth

Peanut M&M's = headlights, taillights, tow truck flashing lights

Chocolate wafer = eyes (could also you M&M's but we didn't have any brown ones)

Mini and Regular sized Kit Kats and Mini Aeros = tow truck equipment

Caramilk = ears/side mirrors

And that's it!

Code Black!

Who knew a trip to Walmart while on vacation would result in such an exciting story to tell?!

We went down south to the City for a mini family vacation this week. We like to go during the week because the cross border traffic is significantly lower which means less busy shopping and less waiting at restaurants - especially since we're a table of 6. Works out nicely that hotels are cheaper during the week than they are on the weekends too. And the significantly shorter border wait is another huge plus. Thankfully, Nathan's job (self-employed home builder) allows us to go during the week.

Anyway, it had been one of those fairly hot, muggy days that just feels like a storm's a comin'. We were finishing up our shopping for the day at Walmart and had just finished putting all our purchases in the cart and were heading for the till when we heard an announcement over the speaker system which said something like this....

"Attention all customers and staff. This is a Code Black. All customers and staff please proceed to the electronics department at the back of the store."

We had no idea what a Code Black was, but considering a major gust of wind had just blown down some displays, we had a fairly good guess.

At first the girls weren't too nervous. They were wondering what was going on, but seemed relatively unconcerned.

When we got to the electronics department the staff directed us to stand in the area between two pillars that were grey in colour as it was the most structural sound part of the store area. We had only been there a minute or two when suddently the entire store was plunged into pitch darkness as the power went out. I immediately reached out to the girls near me (Jacob was in the front of the cart and Olivia was sitting in the rear section of the cart) and said "It's ok, it's ok". Thankfully the blackness only lasted momentarily as the emergency power source kicked on the emergency lighting. It was nothing like the lit up store we had been in only moments before, but at least we could see.

But now the girls were getting a bit nervous. A worker stopped by (I'm assuming because we had kids) to explain to us a bit more what was happening. I think it may have been a bit better for the girls if we hadn't received the extra information - ignorance is bliss and all that. She said that a Code Black was a severe weather situation and that a tornado had touched down somewhere close by but that's all they knew. They had no idea how long the Code Black would last but for now we just had to wait it out.

Meanwhile, practically every person there had their cell phones out - calling people, texting, tweeting and Facebooking. Some were crying and hugging each other, but most people seemed to be relatively calm.

A few minutes later they decided to direct us all to leave our filled shopping carts behind and head to the staff break rooms at the rear of the building. A few people refused to go back there - they felt is was more unsafe due to the proximity of the outdoor walls. But we figured that the management staff knew where the safest area was and we just had to trust them, though I would've preferred a basement shelter!

I found it disconcerting because we couldn't see what was going on outside. We had no idea of knowing how serious the situation was. I instant messaged my best friend, gave her a quick update of the situation and asked her to pray, especially since the kids were starting to get a bit upset.

As they were herding us to the back staff rooms, our oldest started to become very distressed, at one point she was leaning over and almost hyperventilating, shaking and crying in fear. We did our best to reassure her that these were just extra safe precautions they were taking to be on the safe side, and that they had to go overboard to make sure everybody was ok (similar things I was saying to myself in order to keep my own fear to a minimum and remain calm for the girls' sake). However, reason does not usually work well once fear has taken hold that much, so I just prayed for her quickly and quietly (but out loud so she could hear me) while we were heading back to the rooms.

We found a corner of the room and a couple of the kids sat on the floor while we waited. I prayed for Emma again and then dug in my purse for my phone to let Olivia play a game to keep her distracted - hey, whatever works right? A few minutes later an employee came in and announced that the weather had calmed enough that people could leave it they wanted to, though we were welcome to stay a bit longer till it calmed down more. At this Emma had a huge grin on her face - she told me that she had just prayed for God to give her a sign if we were going to be ok, and right then the employee came in and said the weather had calmed, so now she knew we were going to be ok. It was so sweet. She wanted to wait longer before leaving so I sat down in a chair vacated by a man who had left immediately and held Olivia who was easily calmed and then we waited some more. Fairly soon, Nathan decided to take Jacob for a walk around the store because he was getting restless. Sophia was now showing signs of some distress so I moved Olivia to the floor to continue playing with my phone and held Sophia on my lap which calmed her down easily. After a few more minutes had passed, the employee returned to let us know the weather was ok and we could leave.

Jacob was completely unaffected by the entire thing. He tried to reassure the girls a few times "There's nothing to be scared, everything's ok". It was cute.

Unfortunately the power in the store was not back on, and even after it came on it would take an hour for them to have the tills up and running again. So, we left our cart of items behind and headed to Target! ;)

While we were there Emma started to feel sick. I'm not sure if she had had an adrenaline rush and this was the afteraffects of it, or if that's just normal after a stress-filled fear incident. So we quickly headed back to the hotel where she felt safe and could lie down. After more praying she was able to calm down and go to sleep - though she didn't want to eat the ice cream blizzards Nathan had picked up.

She was able to have a sound sleep, but the next day she had another episode of shaking, crying and feeling sick and I prayed over her again and also reasoned things out with her. We had come down on these holidays multiple times and this was the first time anything like this had ever happened, and that the very next day was probably the least likely day for it to happn again, blah, blah, blah. I told her that God was in control, that God was good, that God loved us, that God was with us no matter what happened and that we could trust Him. (I didn't tell her that that didn't mean we would for sure be safe. There's a time and a place for deep theological discussions, but this was not one of them!) She didn't eat a whole lot at lunch after that either, but since then she seems to have been ok.

We are very thankful for our physical safety and continue to pray that the kids (and Emma in particular) will not have fear related episodes related to storms in the future.

Who knew a trip to Walmart would turn out to be so eventful?

Top 10 Signs You're a Potty Training Mama

The light at the far end of the tunnel has finally arrived my friends!!

After 4 kids, 9 years, 9 months and 6 days of continuous diaper changes (with one short 2 week break in between Olivia and Jacob), my daily diaper changing days are over forever!!!

Let me pause for a minute and allow you to fully appreciate the magnitude of that statement....

I know - it's enough to give you chills or cry tears of joy, right?

I had resolved to start potty training the day after we got home from our trip to Alberta during the Christmas break, and start I did! The potty train successfully left the station last Wednesday morning and then proceeded to completely derail over the course of the following incredibly frustrating two days, followed by a glimmer of hope right before bedtime. After that the engine seemed to make it up the hill and I believe we are now on the downward trail .... ok, I think that metaphor has seen it's day. Anyway, we have now had 3 incredibly successful days in a row with no accidents of any kind and he has been telling me himself almost all of the time. I know it's too early to say we're completely in the clear, but I'm only expecting occasional lapses and would confidently take him out in public at this point (in fact, Nathan did tonight!). With the start we had last week (worst ever!), I was not expecting to be nearly at this point today - so woohoo!!

With no further ado, here is your Top 10!

Top 10 Signs You're a Potty Training Mama
10. You strategically place containers filled with a solution of diluted dish detergent around the house to clean up any messes that "may" come your way.
9. You make your toddler sit on a towel on your bed to watch tv so he doesn't soil your blanket.
8. You clean up the mess said toddler made on your bedroom carpet when he disregarded said instructions, and officially declare all carpeted areas off limits.
7. You can't remember what ran more - the bath tub, the washing machine or yourself, sprinting while carrying a dripping toddler away from your body as you rush to the bathroom despite the obvious fact that you're just too late despite having just sat in said bathroom for at least 20 mins only 5 mins previously.
6. The chant "push that pee out, push that pee out" is so ingrained in your head you start chanting it to yourself.
5. You make your older children do their home reading in the bathroom while said toddler sits on the throne (hey, it's called multi-tasking!)
4. The phrase "don't pee on Mater" makes sense to you.
3. Your definition of what qualifies as TMI to post on Facebook just got significantly lowered.
2. You turn your older children into a cheerleading squad in hopes of inspiring future victories.
1. When success is finally achieved you celebrate by hooting and hollering as if you just won the lottery and giving him treats and a car (relax, it was only a pint size one) and then proceed to let said toddler phone anyone who might be interested in hearing him say "My pee in toilet!" as a way of introducing himself. You then proceed to throw out any remaining diapers and diaper bags, do a victory dance and decide to go buy yourself a nice purse!

Halloween 2010

Emma was a pirate (apparently $14 Walmart costumes don't come with eyepatches or anything), Sophia was Miss Morticia, Olivia was a good witch and Jacob was a pirate as well (he looks very enthusiastic, doesn't he?!). And no, we do not suddenly have 5 children. The little cow is my niece Taylor. The guys took the kids trick or treating while us ladies were driving home from our girls weekend away - shopping pics to come tomorrow!

And, of course, our trick-or-treaters were the polite ones who yelled "Trick or treat!" at every house and said thank you for the candy. We followed all of my sister's excellent Trick or Treat etiquette advice before she even posted it. Cuz we're cool like that.

Family Photo Shoot

We were blessed to have a friend do a family photo shoot for us last weekend and I think the pictures turned out fantastic - thank you Kim!! (Facebook friends, feel free to check out all the pictures on my profile page).

Our blessings from God...

Emma - 9 yrs old

Sophia - 7 yrs old

Olivia - 5 yrs old

Jacob - 2 1/2 yrs old

Our girls have attitude? Never! ;)

I love him, I love him a lot!

Disney - Days 10 thru 14 - Universal, Disney Studios & going home

Click here for Days 1 - 3....travelling and Epcot
Click here for Days 4 & 5......Prime Outlets and Magic Kingdom
Click here for Days 6 & 7.....SeaWorld and Magic Kingdom
Click here for Days 8 & 9.....Aquatica and Animal Kingdom

And finally, today is the last Disney post for Days 10 through 14.

Saturday (Day 10) - Universal Studios Islands of Adventure
Today was sooooo fun! Nathan & I and Shaun & Linsay left our kids at the house with grandma and grandpa (5 kids in total) and went to Universal Studios Islands of Adventure for some adult roller coaster fun! I'm not sure who was looking forward to the day more - us or the kids :)

We made sure to get there early so we'd be there for park opening. We started off with the Incredible Hulk Coaster which was probably the best of all the coasters, except I found it to be a bit jerky and my head kept hitting the restraints. Then we headed to The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman which is a cool 3d ride that we really liked. I had to close my eyes at one part so I wouldn't get dizzy - I'm not good with that kinda stuff. Then it was off to Doctor Doom's Fearfall - I gotta say, the anticipation of this ride was better than the ride itself, and it was really short and not as scary as we thought it would be. Then we trekked across the park to Dueling Dragons which is actually two coasters - Fire Dragon and Ice Dragon - that run simultaneously! At two points during the ride you actually come to within 18" of hitting the riders in the other coaster. It was pretty cool.

The good part of getting there so early was that we hardly had to wait in line at all. The bad part, was that we managed to knock off all 5 of those rides within one hour - and we paid for it. We totally had to sit down and get a drink and rest for a bit to regain our completely destroyed equilibrium!

After a rest, Linsay and I were tempted to go on the Jurassic Park River Adventure ride. We didn't really want to get soaking wet though, so we watched several of the boats come down the ride and noticed that as long as you sat in the very middle of the ride, it looked safe. So we went and it was really fun, and we did not get wet at all! Well, our hair did slightly, but not our clothes. Linsay actually got "spit" on by a dinosaur right in the face, it was funny. Anyway, we got off and managed to convince the guys to go with us (cause they wouldn't get wet), but when we got there the ride had stopped working. We waited for awhile and they ended up giving us a fastpass type ticket good for any one ride in the park.

Our one mistake was our lunch restaurant choice. We had seen a Hard Rock coming in, but we thought it would take too long to go out there, eat and then come back to the park for a couple more rides. So we stopped at the first restaurant we saw which was in the kids area - Circus Magurkus - what were we thinking?! Yeah, it wasn't great food, but thankfully it wasn't too busy either.

After lunch we saw The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad stunt show which was quite good. We walked by the Jurassic Park ride again on our way out but it still wasn't working, so we went back to the Incredible Hulk coaster and rode it one more time using our fastpasses. What a great time!

Here are our superheroes!

Not that we need any :)

Spent a bit of time in the shops and then headed home to swim and then go to Uno's for supper.

Sunday (Day 11) - Disney Studios
Today our "little" family headed off bright and early to our last Disney theme park - Disney Studios.
And Emma & Sophia went on their very first upside down rollercoaster!!! I was so proud of them! We headed straight for the Rock n Rollercoaster and I got a child swap pass while Nathan took Emma on the ride. The rest of the kids and I headed straight to Toy Story Mania to pick up fastpasses to use later, and by the time I got there there was a 15 minute wait just to stand in line to get fastpasses! (55 min wait for the ride itself) Crazy how popular that ride is.

Anyway, I texted Nathan to find out how Emma had liked the ride. I was a bit nervous because it's in the dark (neither girl is a fan of dark rides), and you can see the scary takeoff while waiting in line to get on. But she loved it! That was great because I could reassure Sophia while we were heading over there that Emma had liked it and she would too (I hoped!). Right at takeoff I heard a scared voice yell "MOM!" and so I put my hand on her leg and yelled "You're OK!" over and over for most of the ride. When the ride ended Sophia looked at me and asked "Is that it?" She didn't want it to be over! I asked her if she was scared, or if she had yelled for me, and she said no. Must've been some other kid :) oh well! ha ha.

Then we went to see a bunch of shows - the timing of which was perfect! We headed for the Little Mermaid show (waited maybe 10 mins), when we got out of there the High School Musical outdoor musical had been underway for maybe 2 mins so we watched that.

Then I took the girls straight to the indoor American Idol Experience while Nathan took Jacob to see the Cars characters (which he absolutely loved! He threw a fit when they had to leave, so he didn't get a souvenir there).
The girls LOVED American Idol - Emma was just sorry she was too young to try out to be a contestant on the show. I texted Nathan to go get us seats for the Beauty and the Beast show (like Rainbow Stage theatre production, just shorter) and we headed right over as soon as AI was over. I think we missed the first 30 seconds of that one.

Everyone was tiring out by this point, but we went back to Toy Story Mania to use our fastpasses to get on that ride and we were glad we did - the kids loved it! (Jacob too). It's like a 3D midway ride where you shoot at different targets as you move to different stations in your car. It was fun, but I sure wouldn't stand in line for an hour for it!

After that we headed home for one last afternoon swim and then to Olive Garden for supper.

Monday (Day 12) - flying back to Minneapolis
In the morning Nathan took the kids to IHOP so I could pack. They came back and I think they swam for a little bet yet. Then it was off to the airport. At which point we realized that we couldn't find one of the ipods and 6 of the girls ds games. We eventually figured out that I had left them on the airplane on the way down already. Yep, almost $400 down the drain. Not impressed.

We got to the airport, returned our rental vehicles and went through security. We were waiting at a different gate because it was emptier and I guess we just weren't paying attention to the time, or to the people at our gate. All of a sudden I thought I heard our names being called. We went to go check and sure enough - they were calling our party cause everyone else had already boarded and this was our last call or they were going to leave without us! But Nathan, Emma and Sophia weren't even there, they had gone to pick up something for us to eat on the plane! I immediately texted a frantic message to Nathan that we had to leave right now! Thankfully they were already heading back when he got the message and they were there in the nick of time. Ack!!! WAY too close for comfort.

We checked into the Staybridge Suites (so thankful we changed to a hotel with extra bedroom suites after our disastrous night at LaQuinta on the way down) and headed to Chili's for supper, then came back and swam for a bit.

Tuesday & Wednesday (Days 13 & 14) - driving back home
Tuesday we stopped in Albertville quickly where we realized that Nathan had left his credit card at Chili's in Minneapolis (I phoned and the mailed it back to us). After picking up a few things at the UnderArmour store (runners for $35!! Nathan checked and the same ones were over $100 here) we headed for the City and went to McDonald's for lunch. Nathan's parents and Shaun & Linsay drove straight home that day, but we stayed another night - did more shopping and relaxing and generally just delaying the end of the vacation. Oh, and Jacob got to "ride" a tractor.
We got back Wednesday to a freshly painted house! We decided to have our complete main area redone while we were gone - easy for the painter and for us. Nathan's other sister had gotten in from Alberta the night before, so we went to Nathan's parents for supper (I still didn't have to cook!) after getting a bit of the house put back together and stuff unpacked.

Home sweet home!