This has not been my favourite week as exams started and all I am doing is studying…

He said

After having a run of weeks where we could sneak off to the trailer for at least a night and a day, this is one of those weekends where because of work, life and all of our schedules we were in London the whole weekend. I was really missing the relaxing by the fire pit with Danielle for sure. It would have been a nice getaway as the week was very busy at work, there was a lot of running around to help Mom out, and well Emelia is knee deep in exam prep and writing. Thankfully I had my daily, hour-long reprieve on the bike to decompress.

Mom was having some health challenges this week that put her in the hospital. Thankfully, it turns out she has rheumatoid arthritis and she was having a flare up which they’re getting under control. It has however brought to the forefront the discussion about whether she can still live in the retirement side at Oak Crossing or if she needs to move to Long Term Care. This isn’t the first time that the discussion has come up—in fact the conversation was approached when Dad was still alive as both their health was in steady decline. They both fought it vehemently, but now that Mom is on her own, we’re hopeful that she will move to a place of acceptance sooner that later.

Why it is been so busy at work is we’ve announce that we’re finally going to have Apple Vision Pro for demo and purchase in our store on July 12th! It launched in the US only last year and is finally coming to Canada. So, as a result it is a lot of planning, scheduling, training and getting ready for this completely new product for us. Given that our store celebrated our 12th anniversary today and that is also coincidentally how long I’ve worked for Apple, I have been fortunate enough to be part of a completely new product launch for us in the Apple Watch, so I know how exciting and fun this is going to be. The next few weeks will be a blur of activity.

Thankfully there is also a week off at the trailer coming up in a couple of weeks to look forward to, as well! This will be our first stay of any significant duration this summer and we’re really looking forward to that time. The hope is we can build a proper level deck for under our tent shed to make sure it’s level and supported. But also the plan is to plenty of time relaxing and enjoying our site. And the better news is that the next two weekends leave me the Saturday off so we’ll be able to sneak off at worst for overnight trips the two weekends leading into our week off.

She said

It is hard to believe we are sitting here today with a daughter who is about to wrap up grade 11. When they say the days are long but the years are short, it could not be a better description of parenting. Emelia has had an incredibly packed few weeks so adding prepping for final exams has made life even more crazy for her. She is doing really well this year, and considering what she has had to deal with over the last 6 months that is remarkable on all on its own. All of last week Emelia was in school taking every note she could in class when the teachers went over prep for the final exams.

On Friday she wrote her first grade 12 exam, she came out feeling she did well and felt she went in about 90% really prepared. I know she had put a lot of pressure on herself this term, especially for this particular course. The rest of this weekend she has been balancing a little bit with time with friends but mostly balancing having to work and preparing for her next exam which is math tomorrow.

Emelia has been keeping everything up—on top of being in full swing for the start of her last season in Cheer. Being on two teams will certainly have its challenges but she is so excited for what this year will look like. This coming week there is an ill timed (because it is in the middle of high school finals) 5 hours training boot camp again working on stunts. Although Emelia is very excited, she is stressed that is the night before one of her last exams. Not great timing at all.

One of the other big events this week was a huge milestone for our nephew Vaughan, not only it was his 21st birthday but he graduated from Fanshawe College. Vaughan has hands down had the worst two years of his life and in the middle of that he has not only kept up with all his studies he excelled at all his classes and got incredible marks. We were so honoured that we were able to see him walk across the stage and receive his degree. The entire day was bitter sweet. We loved seeing him achieve his dreams but the entire day we were all thinking about two people missing from this occasion. Greg would have been so proud of his son. He and Vaughan had such an incredible relationship and we know that Greg was there with us cheering on his boy. We were missing another of Vaughan’s champions in Doug. Doug was one of the biggest supporters of his children and grandchildren and I know how proud he was of Vaughan and would have loved to been there cheering him on.

After the ceremony the rest of the family met up together. Emelia had opted to stay home to study when we were at the ceremony and just met us for dinner. We celebrated with Vaughan, Naomi, Testza, Zoe, Abi, Sherri, Matthew, Shawn, John, Emelia & myself. It was such a great night celebrating not only Vaughan’s grad but his birthday too. There were lots of laughs and sharing of stories. It really was a perfect family night out. We could not stay out too long, Emelia had to get back to studying and the little girls needed to get back home for bed.

The rest of the week was really focused on supporting Emelia with her studying, but I did get a chance to sneak out while Emelia and John were at work to finally visit once of my close friends who used to work at Western. We used to talk every single day about life and mostly our daughters since they are the same age. But now we can only really chat over text so when she invited myself and one of my coworkers over for an afternoon in the pool we could not resist. It was the perfect afternoon and a break from the crazy heatwave we have been suffering through this week. We spent the afternoon catching up and it was exactly what I needed after a stressful and busy week.