courage...it comes in all sizes

I started to write this blog post to brag about how proud I am of my girls.  After only a few weeks of piano lessons, both Jillian and Leah performed at a piano recital to play what they had learned.  Jillian even played and sang a song she had composed herself.  My first thought was to talk about how they showed courage in getting up there to do this in front of a group of about 25 people, most of them strangers, and other students who would be playing with far more experience.

As I wrote about what they did I realized while it was pretty awesome, it pales in comparison to what so many other children face every day.  I have a friend who has a son fighting for his life against leukemia.  I think about Joey facing this horrible disease and the chemo treatments that go along with what must seem like endless hospital stays. Compared to my kids and their average day it seems incredibly unfair.  Then there's the courage of people around us who make a huge difference...police officers and firemen who put their lives on the line to save others, missionaries and doctors who travel to the other side of the world to make life better for others.  When I was talking about a piano recital, all of a sudden courage didn't seem like quite the right word to use in describing their accomplishment in comparison to others.

Then I realized it isn't a competition about who can be the most courageous or face the biggest obstacle.  We are all called to be courageous in our every day lives, whether the things we are up against are big or small.  I'm thankful my kids have an easy life, I appreciate that right now we don't have big things that we are up against.  But that doesn't diminish their day to day accomplishments.  The little acts of courage are important too.  I think it's important my kids are able to show courage in the face of these minor hurdles to prepare them for life when they may have big hurdles to jump.  That's our job as their parents, to eventually send them off into the world prepared with a full toolbox...faith, love, kindness, courage, smarts, honesty, persistence, happiness, gratefulness, tolerance.  Showing these traits in the face of day to day life now will  help them to go onto bigger things as adults, to show courage and kindness and faith in ways I can't even imagine.

Right now I see my kids showing these character traits on a daily basis.  Making new friends, trying new things, learning from their mistakes.  That's what makes me feel like we are doing some things right on this parenting journey.  So it turns out I am going to brag about my girls.  They started playing piano just a few weeks ago.  They've jumped into their lessons with joy and excitement.  And they got up at a recital in front of friends and strangers and played what they had learned so far.  Way to go Jillian and Leah, keep it up!

Leah played two short pieces at the recital

Jillian played a piece she composed herself titled "Thunder"

successful first week of school!

The first week of school is finished.  We started school here one day later than we would have in Ontario.  Which meant on facebook I got to see all of my favorite kids from back home on their first day before we started.  It's bittersweet seeing all of those pictures - great to see the smiling faces but sad to know we aren't starting school together.  Even though it was only for one month, it was great to start school last September back home and see everyone on the first day.  That being said, it's nice this year to be starting the school year here from the beginning, a lot of information comes home in the first few weeks of school so I felt like I was playing catch up when we started school Oct 1 last year.  Also last year I had some anxiety about the kids starting at new schools.  Much easier this year to send them off to school knowing they have friends and know their way around the schools.

Here are some highlights from the first few days of school...

*Jillian has two of her best friends in her class and is excited to start playing an instrument this year
* Kyle didn't start until 12:45pm on the first day so he had a relaxing morning then we went out for pizza and menchies as a pre-grade 8 lunch
* Leah loves her teacher and class although her two best friends are in different classes (but they see each other at recess)

this kid was super excited to start grade 1!

* I was worried Leah would feel a bit sad or left out because she knows in grade 1 both Kyle and Jillian started learning French...I was wrong - she's actually quite happy to not have to learn French, go figure.
* we had beautiful weather all week for walking to and from school
* I met a few new moms while hanging around at drop off and pickup - always great to meet some new people
* this year Kyle is taking the bus to school which makes my mornings much easier than last year (with the move last September he was stressed about taking the bus so I offered to drive him at first and that turned into me driving him for the whole school year...this year we decided to give the bus another try and it's working out so far)
* at the beginning of the school year I have much more energy for fun lunches so the girls lunches have been looking like this...yes, I sometimes am that annoying pinterest mom, but seriously it doesn't last long...by the third day I was already losing steam.  I figured I may as well take pictures now while the lunches look cute and color coordinated - no need to have photographic evidence later in the school year when I'm throwing them together last minute.

Here's to another successful school year for Kyle, Jillian and Leah!

last weekend of the summer

Jeff took a couple of vacation days around the long weekend so we could get away for a nice 5 day family vacation to enjoy the very last bit of summer vacation.  We took advantage of living here in the PNW (that's Pacific Northwest for all of you non-PNWers...), we visited the Columbia River Gorge, Mt St Helens and Mt Rainier.  There was plenty of driving but listening to the Frozen soundtrack and watching Harry Potter movies helped the kids pass the time.  At one point I turned off the dvd player in the van and made the kids look at the amazing scenery.  They all looked up, said "yeah that looks nice", and promptly asked when the movie would be starting up again.  Ah well, at least I tried.

The only thing I didn't enjoy about this trip was some of the driving in the mountains.  The curvy roads that lead up the mountains are narrow, and the sheer cliffs on one side with massive drop offs are terrifying (no guard rails, no large buffer zone, NOTHING).  I may have used the phrase "don't drive over the cliff and make us plunge to our deaths!" once or twice or twenty-five times to Jeff.  Having loud sing-a-longs to "Let it go" and "Love is an open door" over and over again did make things less stressful.


First up on our list of fun outdoor adventures was hiking around the Columbia River Gorge.  Day one was spent driving 3 hours south to Vancouver, WA (yes, there's another Vancouver - who knew?).  Then it was on to Multnomah Falls.  What a beautiful spot to visit - the falls are a big tourist attraction with a shop and food around the bottom.  The promise of ice cream after climbing to the top of the falls and back down again helped the kids with the steep hike of switchback after switchback to get to the top.

looking up at the falls

view from the top of the falls...if you look closely you can see the bridge and walking path on the right

    ice cream - they earned it!

The next day we stopped at a different set of waterfalls - Horsetail falls.  This was a much easier climb to the top and included a cool cavern where we walked behind the falls.  We also visited Bonneville Dam and drove into Mt Hood which has a beautiful waterfront park and we saw kite surfers out on the water.

    family picture at the foot of Horsetail Falls in Oregon

    cool cavern behind the falls

    taking a break on the hike

shadow puppets...this is what happens when we go in to watch the Bonneville Dam informational movie and we are the only people in the theater

we found a nice park near Bonneville Dam so we stopped for lunch and play

Next up was visiting Mt St. Helens.  After the 1980 eruption, the area around the volcano was designated as a national monument with several visitors centers and viewing points.  We stopped at two different visitors centers where we learned a lot about the days leading up to May 18, 1980 when the eruption occurred.  It's amazing to see exactly what happened, to see how the landscape changed and how much scientists learned about volcanic eruptions from this one.  Something I didn't know, Mt St Helens erupted in what they call a lateral blast.  That means the side blew off the volcano and stone was hurled sideways at tremendous speeds, destroying a large area of lakes and forests.  We weren't able to see the top of Mt St. Helens because of clouds, but they told us it's only visible about 100 days of the year.  Even without seeing the top of the volcano it's a spectacular view looking around at the valley and mountains.

    listening to the Park Ranger tell the story of eruption

    Mt St Helens...we couldn't see the summit but the rest of the view was still spectacular (when you get this high up the mountain, even at the end of August it's cold!)

    sitting on the edge of the world (just kidding - there was nice, big, safe ledge behind them)

what kind of playground did they have at the visitor center?  One with a big, grey volcano slide of course

We saved the best for last...Mt Rainier...14,410 feet high, an integral part of the Washington landscape.  We see it from a distance almost every day.  Jeff really wanted to see the summit, he had gone hiking here in July and wasn't able to see it then.  But after having a cloudy day for Mt St Helens we weren't getting our hopes up about seeing the summit.  We spent our first day hiking around the Sunrise visitors center and sure enough, clouds were covering most of Mt. Rainier.  The next day started out bight and clear so we took the gondola up to the top of Crystal Mountain.  This is what we saw when we arrived at the top.  Here we were at 6,856 ft elevation.  We learned they often have snow available for skiing here until late June and sometimes even early July.

our view of the summit when we reached the top of Crystal Mountain

riding down on the gondola to the bottom of the hill...the kids enjoyed waving at everyone going up past us

Junior Park Ranger Jillian at your service!  Jillian and Leah both enjoyed the Junior Ranger programs at the visitors centers, they each earned two different badges at Mt St Helens and another one in Sunrise at Mt Rainier.

pretty wildflowers at the top of Crystal Mountain

on our hike at Sunrise - Jillian did an excellent job of keeping track of everything we saw for the scavenger hunt part of earning their Junior Ranger badges

that's Mt Rainier off in the distance, the white snowy part is one of the biggest glaciers on Mt Rainer, Emmons Glacier

this hiking trail was nice and easy with an amazing view of the glaciers and valley

eating s'mores and playing games in the condo we rented on Crystal Mountain.  We were going to do a campfire but it was just too darn cold so I cheated and used the oven to make s'mores...they were just as gooey and delicious.  We did however go for a swim in the outdoor pool despite the chilly temps.  The pool was heated so being in there was very nice (getting out though was very, very cold!).

This was such a great family vacation - plenty of time spent together, lots of outdoor hiking and exercise, amazing views and we even learned a lot about volcanos (which is good since we now live near one!).  I'm thankful we are getting the opportunity to explore a new part of North America we had never seen before we moved here.