Best Friends

A regular occurrence in the Fitzpatrick household lately are play dates with the Nagtegaals. It is so fun because there is a play date for everyone including Meeko. Danika and Lize are 1 month apart and Adessa and Kailey are 1 week apart. And then it helps that Steve and I get along so well with Mark and Caroline! And Meeko has their 5 year old dog Wilson! So when we get together it is fun for everyone, and Steve is trying his hand at milking cows and quite enjoys it!
Danika has found herself an absolute best friend in Lize and cannot go 24 hours without asking for another play date with her. They are so sweet together and disappear whenever we get together and go play horses, or sleepover or vet. Lize is totally into horses and farm animals and Danika is a princess. It is neat to see them start to share interests and Danika has been asking for a horse lately.
It is also so fun to watch Kailey and Adessa together. They often hug each other, which then ends up in one hurting the other, and every time Adessa gets too close to Kailey she gets a hit in the head, and it doesn't even seem to phase her!
Today we headed out to the farm to help each other pass the afternoon and had a wonderful stroll around their property line, they live on a beautiful farm with a beautiful view!

Adessa

My sweet, crazy, full of life little girl. Completely 100% opposite to my other darling girl, even down to the blonde, blue-eyed fair complexion! This little girlie keeps anyone with her on their toes! This morning as I was hearing the common sound of Adessa's frustrated grunts, I ran into the bathroom to see one leg of Adessa's in the toilet, and she was mad she couldn't get the rest of her body in it! This is a daily occurrence with this little monkey, always finding something to get into!
One of my favorite things right now is watching Adessa with her puppy Meeko. The poor pup has no choice but to be good! She goes in with him and lays right on top of him, snuggling her face right in, putting his toys in her mouth and hanging out in his crate! They are quite the duo and I think they will grow up to be best friends!
However despite all of her little 1 year old mischievousness, she sure has a way of making everyone laugh and smile and she is loved so very much!

Rain Walk

Yesterday we woke up and slowly got ready and then met our friends the Burdges at Skutz Falls, halfway to Lake Cowichan. It was raining pretty good, but we were ready for it, in rain coats and boots for a lovely hike. Adessa was tucked nicely into her stroller and Meeko was loving being off leash and exploring the beautiful forest. The walk was nice and refreshing and our visits nice, as always. We then went back to their home to wrap up in blankets, drink chai lattes and visit by the fire place... while my baby slept and the kids were playing in the play room. It was the perfect way to spend a rainy day!

Wonderful Friends

So this week we got our flooring installed (we ordered the flooring way before summer, but haven't had a chance to install it.. until now!) and it ended up taking 4 days, instead of the proposed 1 day! It was quite the busy week, we were pretty much living out of our van and our friends homes. Tuesday I drove out to camp imadene to spend the day with a friend while Steve stayed home and tried to help out with what he could as much as he was able. We were welcomed by the smell of fresh cinnamon bread and enjoyed a slow paced day, with a long walk and nice visits. I then came home to go to girls club with Danika here in Crofton. Wednesday we woke up and Danika and I went on a "Honeymoon" with our good friends, the Nagtegaal girls. We have been planning a trip to "Coffee on the moon" for quite some time and Danika has been bugging me non-stop to go on a honeymoon with Lize. It was quite cute, not sure where she got that from, but that's what I love about her! : )
We did some shopping, got our coffees and headed out to a park where I was in a tank top due to the beautiful day it turned out to be! I then packed the girls up and we headed back out to Imadene where the girls and I had the house to ourselves, until the Burdges got home and Steve drove out for a lovely dinner together of "clean eating" food. I love the way Sharon shared our dessert story so here it is...
Dessert was a 'clean' chocolate mousse (dark chocolate and lite silken tofu), nicole and i were stoked to see if we could fool the boys into eating TOFU!! It was also one of steves's favorite desserts.
So, picture it:
We all sit down in the living room with our beautiful dessert
(sorry, no pic-but chocolate mousse with lovely fresh raspberries on top in a martini glass)
We are all about to dig in.
The goal was to let the boys finish before telling them
Nicole couldn't wait...
She looks like the cat who ate the canary as she giddily gushes;
"OK!! you HAVE to guess what the ingredients are!!!"
Chris looks up, totally unimpressed at me and says
'Tofu'
'How did you KNOW?' she asks, all bummed.
'umm...i was sort of joking...really? its tofu?'
sigh...as chris slowly puts his glass down and steve feeds much of it to little Adessa
not to worry, we WILL get them next time..mwah haha...
when they least expect it!
The next day we decided to take the girls swimming in the morning and then go out to a new provincial park to explore. The swimming went fine, we found out Adessa is truly fearless as numerously she went under only to come up spouting water and laughing, wanting to do it again! However the trip to Bamberton, did not go so well! We thankfully had picked up some lunch and were right before the malahat (scary hwy on vancouver island) when our van made a weird noise, steve quickly pulled over to declare a belt had fallen off! We just laughed... this week was sort of crazy and this was the cherry on top! Our van was fully lived in, complete with a giant dog cage in the middle! We called BCAA and were able to get a tow truck surprisingly quickly (not like Calgary's AMA!) and through numerous phone calls (due to our phone cutting in and out EVERY TIME a vehicle drove by!!) our friends rescued us! As the tow truck could only take 2 passengers, not so helpful when you have 2 adults, 2 children and a pup!
Our friends rescued us, even conveniently had a brother who worked at a mechanics shop not so far away from us! We then spent the day at their welcoming home waiting for our van to be finished!
Another day... Another adventure. We would have been lost without our dear friends, and we are so grateful for each and every one of them!!!

Busy Day

Today we woke up with a surprise! We didn't get home until late last night due to candy and trick-or-treating and so we were all sleeping in and cuddling in bed when we heard the door bell ring! Steve joked that maybe it was the flooring guys (who weren't supposed to come until tomorrow!) and sure enough, "surprise!" it was.

The girls and I quickly got ready and ran up to a friends up the street who graciously had us in her home for most the morning and fed us a delicious lunch. Then Steve came and picked us up after setting up the guys to install our new laminate flooring and we drove out to Goldstream provincial park to see the Annual Salmon run. We brought Meeko and took a nice walk in this beautiful park, we saw lots of fish fighting their way upstream and just enjoyed the fresh air.

We then had to run back home and pick up our babysitter as Steve was starting our first puppy training classes and I had to help a friend throw a baby shower! It was quite the day!

HALLOWEEN!

Today was fun! In the morning we dressed up both girlies in their beautiful princess costumes, and unfortunately I didn't get a picture of them! After church we had Danika's good friend Jolie come to our house and we got ready for a Halloween party out at our friends place at Camp Imadene. Danika got dressed up in her Pocahontas costume (I was lent a matching one!) and Adessa was a little moo cow again. When we got out to Camp Imadene the gym was all set up... it was amazing! There was a full carnival and the kids went wild, Danika was at the point of throwing a ball, or a dart just so she could grab a candy! I also found myself spending a lot of time "lost" in a maze of cardboard boxes. The younger girls were scared to go in by themselves so I went in with them and found myself crawling on all fours for what felt like forever! But it was sooo fun, there were slides inside and secret passageways, and I was having as much fun as the kids! I was talked into going on their swingas well, which is always scary when you have to pull the rope to let yourself go!

The Burdges were such GREAT hosts... there was a tractor/hayride around the camp, hot chocolate, a full pot luck meal and wonderful company! After eating we went around Mesachie lake for some trick-or-treating and finished up just as it was starting to drizzle! What a fun day!

Best Buddies

Morning Walks

Since getting our new pup I have started a new routine... one I am hoping lasts!
Every morning I wake up and take Meeko for a walk. It is good for both of us. Gives both of us excercise and me a chance to clear my mind and just have alone time before the day begins. This morning I decided to bring my camera and try and capture some of the beauty we live around and the view of our walk. I am not sure how long our adventure on the island will last, but we are so blessed to live in such a beautiful place and I don't want to take for granted living where we do!!