Great friends and a whole lot of boys!

Some recent shots from a great evening with the Koogers!

Ever realize that you have good friends when you get together after months of not seeing each other and it's as if no time has passed? That's how I felt as we spent time with the Koogers this August :) With our 4 boys all similar ages, they had a great time in the backyard and even fell asleep successfully so that we could all visit some more after their bed time!

Thanks, Koogers, for your ongoing friendship!

For some reason these all got mixed up as you can imagine we didn't put all the boys in the bath and then take them back outside but I"m too lazy to rearrange so here they are anyways :)

I LOVE Cole's face in this one :)

Jacob and Cole are only months apart and they are so similar! Both have no fear and LOVED being thrown up in the air - when Jacob saw Cole doing it he wanted in on the action too :)

Our little Spring babies getting bigger :)

So, we started with this pose......

Which Jacob messed with, resulting in this shot....

Which, funny enough knocked down his older brother.....

And then eventually, Koogers' followed suit :)

Cole has some awesome looks and this is one of them :)

These boys were a bit better behaved on their own than when placed next to their brothers :)

Thanks again, Koogers for a great night. We are so thankful for your ongoing friendship and look forward to having our kids grow up together no matter where we live :)

Summer Adventures - Jer's Wedding

A good friend who found his best friend - enough said! Congrats Jer and Adrienne! So excited to hang out and get to know this girl of yours, Jer.

Summer Adventures #5 - 9th Annual SFU Crew Birch Bay Trip

I don't know any other way to describe this group of friends than as extended family. We all met in University and, over the years, we have all got married and some have started having kids but, what's really cool is that there has been a continued effort beyond University, beyond graduation and work or family taking us to locations extending from North Vancouver to Burnaby to WhiteRock to Langley and even Halifax, we have all made an effort to stay connected and that, combined with the strong connection we all had in University as well as what I truly feel is the hand of God on all of our friendships, we have stayed close and grown even closer over the years through all of lifes' changes. 

Some of the 'connecting' we do happens at get-togethers over the course of the year but once a year we all take time out and head down to Birch Bay to spend some quality time together. Next year will be our 10th annual trip and we're already starting to plan it so every one can be there. This year we missed the Mansfields, Zvonarova's and Andersons' but it was still a great time and so many memories were made.

I love all you guys so much and, Jon and I, look forward to the years ahead of continued friendship, fellowship and always silly fun no matter how old we get or how many kids come into the picture. You are all truly a gift from God and we so appreciate you loving us for who we are and loving our boys. We plan to return the favor with you all and your families for many years to come.


 

June 28, 2011: Campbell Valley Park

Campbell Valley Park & Good Friends = a great morning! With Jon almost being done school and our summer on the brink of starting, it was great to hang out with some home group friends one last time before disappearing off the social radar for the summer! I find that, in the summer, I fall off the map a bit when it comes to my usual hang-outs because we're trying to make the most of precious family time - one of the main reasons why it was easy for us to both decide to go into teaching. It's totally worth it and we have some amazing summer adventures together but I do miss seeing some of these ladies as regularly as I get to see them in the Fall and Spring when I'm on Maternity Leave.

This particular morning, I met up with Juliet and Kathryn at Campbell Valley Park and we decided to go for a little hike....totally great idea but I didn't exactly dress properly for a hike and there was a small but steep hill at the beginning of our hike that I got the blessing of experiencing in flip flops with the double stroller - I'm not going to lie, those boys are heavy but I think the highlight for me, while there were beads of sweat developing on my forehead, was hearing Ben from the doubles seat saying 'Go Mom Go.' At least I had my own cheering section and some good company to laugh about it with after :) We headed to the grass afterwards to cool off, have some snacks and I couldn't resist capturing some of these moments between the two older boys - Ben & Jonah, you guys were too cute!



Watching Ben interact with Jonah makes me excited for when Jacob and Ben can start interacting more than just when Ben steam rolls over his face :)




Just before heading over to Kathryn's to hang out, I decided to snap a few pics of the boys. Can't get enough, in my opinion ;)



I absolutely love the expression on Jacob's face in the bottom right photo - pretty sure he's just taking note of all these occasions for a future date when he's suddenly the BIG 'little' brother and I don't think that's far off :)



Impromptu hang-outs are awesome and this particular day we got a chance to see Holden & Jamie right after hanging out with home group friends. With Ben being hit and miss for naps these days we were totally up for a park date and, I had my camera with me anyways so we got some pics of these two little buddies!



Love this kid and his curly locks :)





Oh, child-like fun :)



I love that Ben is at the stage now where he actually interacts with other kids rather than just plays 'around them' and the interactions are pretty hilarious. Here they are sharing their uninhibited excitement at nothing in particular ;)



Good buddies



Thanks friends for such a great day. I'm so blessed to have so many mommas home at the same time I am & Ben is lucky to have so many good buddies by association!

June 21, 2011: The Ladies

Here are just a few pics from a recent-ish get-together with some of my favorite ladies! We headed over to Brita's place and had some yummy lunch and went for a walk. I actually was able to leave Benjamin with Jon's mom on this particular day so I was even able to carry on complete conversations with these wonderful friends.



Jacob and Huddy!




Thanks for your hospitality Brita and to all the other ladies for continuing to set aside time to hang out - what a refreshing morning. Love you guys!