Blessed

Lately I have been amazed at the amount of strength, love, and support that my family and friends give me. I am so thankful to have them in my life.

You don't have to wait for Thanksgiving to reflect on what you're grateful for. What are some of your blessings?

Finally, another milestone

When your children are young, there are lots of milestones that happen - first tooth, first word, first steps. Now that I have a teenager and a preteen, milestones are far and few. Other than receiving the Aaronic priesthood and hitting puberty, it's been a long time since anything happened that changes the way we live...until now.

Connor attended his first youth conference this past weekend in Montreal. There were about 180 youth from the Ottawa, Kingston, and Montreal stakes. By the end of this 3-day retreat, Connor was on cloud-nine with the amount of new friends he made. Facebook has been a wonderful tool for him to keep connected with them all.

But how did youth conference affect the rest of the family?

One of Connor's new friends is a girl.

Not only is she a girl, but she's a girl who may have a crush on Connor due to the number of times she calls him and writes on his Facebook wall each day even after Connor tells her he's interested in somebody else (that's another story). We've had to adjust to the number of times the phone rings in the house, limit how long Connor is on the phone, and start being stern when we tell him to get off the phone when it's time for dinner. Wait until this girl's parents receive the long distance phone bill!

That's not all though.

Connor's made other friends. These friends are older. These friends are female. These friends want Connor and a couple of the older young men in our ward to go hang out with them. Did I mention these friends live 2 hours away and I think one of the young men can drive?

Record Breaking Runs

Aidan ran his first 1km race this last Thanksgiving.

His fastest training run was 7 min. His race time was 5 min!

I was expecting to finish the 10km in just under 70 min. I came in at 62 min.
Early enough that the family didn't see me finish.

Our friend, Spencer Collins, recovered from a heart attack last December.

As a part of his training for his 2nd climb up Mt Kilimanjaro, he walked the 10km and decided to run the last 3km.

June Summary

It's been a busy month so here's a quick recap...

Went to NYC for another business trip and they had all these lawn chairs in the middle of the street in Times Square. Apparently one of the reasons is to manage traffic by training drivers to re-route.

Annual Spaghetti Dinner and Pie (and dessert) auction...Connor made a Salt Lake Temple rice krispie square.

Aidan bid and won a pie with his own $10.

Sheldon was fed up with our old kitchen appliances...

We went to the Medieval Festival at Upper Canada Village.

Junior School Closing assembly. Connor received subject awards in math (2nd highest mark in his class), drama, and art. He's left-brained and right-brained...a well-rounded boy.

Celebrated Barb Booth's birthday. Can you guess what restaurant?

Organized the Stake Softball Tournament.

Aidan's new ride.

Actually, it was a limo we saw during our Mommy and Aidan day.

Aidan did really well on his Gr. 5 report card. Almost straight A's...just a few B's sprinkled in there.

And finally, our choir practiced and performed the musical presentation "From Cumorah's Hill". It was a lot of fun and the Stake President wants us to do an encore performance in the fall.

31

Here are the highlights from my birthday. Thanks to everyone who took part and made it memorable.

• Birthday shopping
  
• All-you-can eat sushi lunch at Sushi Kan with my three favourite guys
• Was totally zoned out during the sushi lunch because I overdosed slightly on antihistamines
• Napped for 2 hours to sleep off the antihistamines
• Dinner with the girls at Chez Lucien; one had a confrontation with the waitress
• Listened to some great music at the Grace Over Diamonds show at Greenfield's Pub
  
• Took the party to Denny's and didn't get home until after 3am
• Our friend Jon (who is an amazing cook) brought over a birthday dessert the next day...a delicious chocolate roulade.

Yup, I am spoiled.