Plenty of School. Plenty of Work. Plenty of Time with Friends.

He said

With week number two of Grade Eleven in the books, things have really settled into routine. It should be noted that the routine is basically shuttle bus for Emelia to all of her activities. It should also be noted that a lot of that shuttle-busing is really being handled by Danielle. But, this week started to feel like things were getting more routine and less like chasing our tails. Now, granted a lot of that has come at the exploded social calendar that Emelia has. When you add that she has a part-time job that has expanded her friend circle to kids from other schools alongside the new group of friends that she has now made since attending Lucas for high school. And then add in all the friends she has made through sports like Cheer, Softball, Rugby, and Wrestling (more about that in a minute). But on top of all that, she has her lifelong friends in the twins. Her social circle this year has exploded.

So yah… Wrestling. In Grade Nine Emelia tried and enjoyed Wrestling, but decided three-quarters of the way through her season to quit because she was worried about either Covid or injury from it, would have a detrimental affect on her Provincials and Nationals for Cheer. It had been a lingering regret of hers, but last year she tried Rugby and really enjoyed that, and was fine with her decision on Wrestling. And it helped that her Wrestling Coach was also the Boys Rugby Coach and was one of her biggest proponents of her trying Rugby. With the Wrestling Season being in the Fall and not contradictory to her Rugby season, Emelia has let us know that she is leaning strongly towards doing Wrestling again this year. And, it helps that one of her best friends from Lucas, Sienna does Wrestling and did with her in Grade Nine has been bugging Emelia to come back out. Sounds like Sienna may have convinced her!

The other big event this week was that my brother Greg needed to have unexpected hip surgery which is as much fun as it sounds, but we’re all hitting the age where unfortunately – like it or not – these things are more in our vocabulary. So, to help Testza out and much to the delight of Zoe, Abi and Emelia the girls had a couple of sleepovers this week while Greg and Testza sorted out their ‘fun’. It was different and a delight for us to have little ones in the house again as having a sixteen year old and Danielle closing her daycare down almost four years ago means the house had decidedly aged up. While Testza may have thought she was putting us out, selfishly we got way more than we gave this week and it was so refreshing to have Zoe and Abi here. And, in the end Greg’s surgery Thursday went as well as we could hope for and by Friday they (Physio) had him standing and weight bearing!

This week – tomorrow to be precise – Danielle cross another significant September milestone that means as much to us as anything else: our anniversary. As of tomorrow it will be 35 years of being together as a couple and 24 years of us being married. And, as much as our intent was to spend a few days at the trailer this weekend, I love that our plans ended up being focusing on the one thing that means everything to us, and what has always been there: Our Family. Our priority and our identity together has always been built around those that matter most to us—those that saw us come together in the earliest versions of ourselves and being able to give it all back by being able to drop everything to lend a hand. Because in all honesty every day of the year otherwise feels like we live out the honour of what we have made together. So… tomorrow Daniele, I hope that you feel every bit the regularity and consistency of the journey we started, officially, 35 years ago. Even if I had stole a kiss from you drunkenly when we weren’t officially a thing!

Love you to eternity and back!

She said

Well this week was one for the record books! What started out as a pretty regular week turned out to be anything but. Our week was already on the busy side with Emelia’s work, school and a full return to Cheer. We had one extra special other activity on our agenda this week. And that was our sweet niece Zoe’s 7th birthday. We all planned on meeting up at their place for her actual birthday as a family unit. Well things went a bit sideways just as the day wrapped up. With some lingering pain in one of his hips Greg was seeing the doctor when things went from pain to agony. That meant that he was going to need to go to the hospital for what turned out to be hip surgery. We went on with Zoe’s birthday making the evening all about her and much to the girls excitement lead to a surprise sleepover at our place. We got the girls all set up in the office which has affectionally known as ‘their’ bedroom. For the next two days we had our favourite little house guests to allow Testza and Greg focus on Greg. We are happy to say that the surgery was a complete success and he is on the mend. We went up a few times over the weekend and he is recovering fast and in great spirits.

The rest of the week was mainly about spending time as a family and being a Teenager Uber. As John mentioned and we have alluded to over the last few months, long gone is our shy, introverted and anxious girl, and in her place is a strong, independent and social child. She is constantly expanding her friend group. The latest add in is her bestie from work Nour. The big school friend group has happily folded her into the larger group. She is a super outgroing girl who adores Emelia and brings out a bit more of Emelia even more out of her shell. Emelia spent the weekend with her friends, first at her friend Ashlyn’s 17th birthday party, from there she went to her friend Bri’s place for the night and right back at it last night after work she had Nour over to hang out before the whole friend group came over to head out to a party. The party turned out to be a dud so the girls all ended up back at our place to wrap up the night.

Today John and I were up pretty early to try and get in another long bike ride before we started the go-go-go rest of our day. Emelia was back to cheer again today, then we went off to visit Helen and Doug and then up to see Greg again. I know it all sounds busy but we love more than anything being with our family so we were more grateful we could fit it all in. John’s work schedule does not always allow us this freedom to fit in so much on a weekend so we were happy to have this over the weekend. The weekend flew by in a flash but it was filled with lots of time as a family, time together and we even snuck in a couple sleep-ins which we really needed.

And finally on to on last thing, tomorrow. Tomorrow is a special day for us, it is not only our 24th wedding anniversary, it is our 25th anniversary of our engagement and 35th anniversary from when we officially started dating. It does not seem like that many years, we started out as kids and have been though more in our time together that have only made our relationship. I tell people all the time that John is not only my best friend but my soul mate. Nothing seems real until I have shared it with him. We are so grateful for the long life time we have been given to be with each other. And we hope that we have the same number of years to do this all over again. I love you John more than words can ever express. Thank you for being my biggest champion, the person who pushes me to be better, to push me out of my comfort zone to keep trying new things. Here is to another year of our life together.