I was upstairs in my office writing this morning, when Jack texted me:  You need a new blog post!

She’s probably my biggest fan.

So here you are, love.  The one I’ve had on the burner for a while, but as you well know, we’ve been far too busy being outside.  Swimming, camping, wandering, visiting friends, exploring trails and spending hours at city spray parks, when I get to sit … [Read More]

We wanted to be in the forest for the summer solstice, so we packed up on Thursday before and headed up the Sea to Sky to Paradise Valley and set up the trailer just before it started to rain.   I love our new tarp system, especially because I can wrangle it by myself.  At long last, after many years of admiring the tarp art of other campers.  Tarping is truly … [Read More]

Five years ago, when we moved back to the city from Pemberton, we accidentally bought a really expensive old house that tilted dangerously to one side and had black mould and a very creepy  tenant in the basement.

Buying that house was a mistake that would take an entire book to explain, but suffice it to say, it was not the house for us.  We didn’t last long before the … [Read More]

We have a very small kitchen, with a very small space at one end that gets the most use out of all the available space in the house.  It is our dining room (room?  HA!), our family art space, our sit-and-chat space, my office at times, and our dedicated homeschool and project space.   That’s a lot of responsibility for a wee little space.  What you see in … [Read More]

Oh, my, we sure do love our new tent trailer.

My camping mama-buddy just got a new trailer, so her and her three kids (including 10 -week-old infant!) invited us to join them at Rolley Lake, near Mission.

With most everything packed in the trailer, now it’s a lot easier  to head out of town on an impromptu camping trip.  I’m getting  better at streamlining what needs to come with … [Read More]

The kids and I just got back from our inaugural camping trip with our new-to-us tent trailer!

We’ve been looking for one for a long time.  Three years, perhaps?  And in the mean time, we tented.  But every time I hauled all the gear out from the various closets, and dealt with malfunctioning air beds, torrential down pours, and a car that had to be packed with Tetris-like precision, I … [Read More]

Each year, Grandma Cathie and Grampa Dave head south to their trailer in El Centro, California for some bone-soothing heat and soul-lifting sunshine.  We miss them terribly, and there’s lot of talk about when they’ll get back, when will we see them, can we mail them a letter, where did they go, how come they’ve been gone so long.

And then they come back!

We saw them last week, and … [Read More]

Every time Hawk sets foot in a hardware store, his eyes go wide and he whispers sweet nothings as he goes up and down the aisles.  ”Oooh.  I like this one.  And this one too.  I want that one for my birthday.”

Sometimes he stands in front of something, like a ladder or a shop vac, and he says in a singsong way, “This one is my most favourite thing … [Read More]

This Blue Jay California Oranges box came into the house just after Christmas.  Ever since, it has been the go-to item in our house.  This doesn’t surprise me in the least.  Not after five years of birthdays and Christmases as Esmé’s mama.  She’s the kind of kid who happily wanders into a toy store, looks around for a bit, and then happily leaves without asking for a thing.

Hawk, not … [Read More]

Even before we left Mexico, we were talking about when the kids and I could get out of town again.  I’m not actually a city person, so when we moved down from Pemberton almost five years ago, Jack and I made an agreement.  We’d move to a walkable neighbourhood so that I could have the illusion of still being in a small town, and we’d make it a priority … [Read More]