Daddy and the boys took an opportunity early in the summer to go camping. We packed up all of the gear that we needed and left mommy and Roxy to the house to get some R and R.
We headed south of Kemptville to a nice little family campground. Here is the site where we stayed:

We got the tent laid out flat,and then up!

The boys, along with our neighbour Sean, had to inspect their work:
Daddy was, however, able to erect the clothesline without supervision or inspection:
after a quick swim in the campground pool it was time for some yummy burgers for supper.
after dinner we went out for a little nature walk. We grabbed some dead limbs for firewood and came across this little guy trying to make some new friends (and avoid becoming someone's dinner himself based on his coyness)
We lazed about the swings and the playground and took in some cloud watching. This one was the 'angry ghost'.
Sunset came rather quickly and was just gorgeous. Daddy lit up the fire and got ready to make some s'mores. The boys were excellent chefs and enjoyed their treats greatly.


Daddy did too!
after reading half a book to the boys by flashlight inside the tent, the little ones crashed hard.
after an Ok night's sleep we were prepared for a delicious breakfast. as the heat of the day picked up and the forecast for tomorrow continued to look gloomy, we started to pack up our things, go for a final swim in the pool and then hit the road home to check in on our girls.
Daddy thought it'd be a great way to finish our little boys' holiday by stopping for a soft ice cream cone. Here are the lads enjoying one last treat before we got home.

Daddy's Whitewater Canoeing Trip

This past weekend Daddy and 15 of his co-workers went for a wild weekend on the Madawaska river. Despite the rain on Friday, the mosquitoes all weekend and the 4 times that he was tossed from the canoe, it was a great time. The food was out-of-this-world, the company was fantastic, the guides were outstanding and the adrenaline rushes were ones to remember. It was perhaps the most fun that I've had outdoors in years and I'm looking forward to making these kind of memories with my boys.
Here are a few shots of our accomodations for the weekend -

and a few of the white water that we experienced

an action shot of Scott and I on the water (thanks so much to Scott for organizing the weekend and bringing so many supplies and cool stuff to make the weekend unforgettable)

and finally a few shots of the group

On Friday we did some flat water work to get our skills up to speed.
On Saturday we hit the first rapids and managed to keep our canoe free from damage, though we did manage to bail once.
On Sunday, we turned things up a little and went for the middle of the rapids. The crowd on land told us that we hit the first wave straight on, came cresting with the front of the boat right up out of the water on the second wave...and then totally ate the third wave before dumping the boat. It was awesome!
Here some videos (thank you Rachel for bringing your camera) of Scott and I taking on 'Rifle Shoot Rapid' and trying to slide into 'Feel Good Eddy'.




and finally Kevin and I taking on the last set of rapids. It was quite the long set (likely 250 yards or so) and we tackled it as best we could. I apologize for the wobbly camerawork.




Looking forward to some flatwater canoeing for the next long while (keeping myself and all of my gear dry) and getting out on the water with my boys in a more controlled atmosphere. But wow, what an amazing weekend that I'll never forget.

Silliness on the swings

The boys are almost too big to use our swing set as intended....that has not stopped them from coming up with this game though of counting down and leaping off the swings.It seems to provide hours of fun!!

Surgery and Recovery

I had my surgery yesterday at the Queensway Carleton Hospital. The recovery is going well, though I have been rather ill from the anesthetic. This is a photo taken about 10 hours post op. They were able to remove the two fibroadenomas and leave the rest. The photo is a bit misleading-my breasts are still there :)I'm off for the rest of the week and Dave is here babysitting. All in all, I'm doing pretty well.

Some health stuff-post 1

Here are two posts that I posted on Facebook. The first went up April 7 and the second on May 3.

I'll start off by saying that my health continues to be fabsolutely groovy. That said, today's appointment with the surgeon didn't go the way I planned for it to (and man was I glad that I had a friend there with me). I expected that the surgeon would say that the fibroma in my driver's side breast was the same size as it was 8 months ago and that she was still fine with me opting not to have surgery and that we would follow up in 6 months. That is what she said last time. Instead she told me that there are actually two of them and that they are both slightly bigger than before and that she wants to remove them surgically this summer. I reminded her that in October, she was fine if I waited. She said that she was okay with that last time, but that she is getting less and less okay with that now. She said that I can continue to delay it, but that she will continue to monitor me and encourage me to have them removed. The only reason that she would stop doing that is if they got smaller, which she suspects is not happening.

She explained that she would suggest to remove any fibroma that is more than 2 cm. The small one is around 2.3 cm and the large one is between 2.9-3.2 cm. They are attached to each other apparently and are now visible through my skin.

So now I am left to think about what to do. 8 months ago I was fine with leaving things alone-largely because she seemed okay with that. Now that she is less okay I am feeling less okay.

I do not want to surgically invade an area of my body that could contain precancerous cells and expose them to the tender tissues that surround them. My mother is an 8 year breast cancer survivor, so this is a very real fear for me. It is one of the main reasons that I am tempted to leave well enough alone.

Oh yeah, some triggers that will make them grow that she warned me about:

*birth control pills=not applicable

*soy products=not applicable

*a large Tim Hortons hot chocolate with a splash of coffee=arrrrrggggggg (she actually said coffee or chocolate, but you know what I heard).

So now she is waiting to hear from me. I have no idea yet what I'm gonna decide.

**Some notes: the fibromas were found by mammogram. I elected to start getting mammograms at the age of 30 because of my mother's history. My fibromas are apparently not worth biopsying as they do not contain anything worth looking at. They will never, ever become cancer. The worst thing that they could do is get bigger, more painful and leave a bigger departure scar when they do get surgically removed.

Some health stuff-post 2

This is the post that went up on Facebook on May 3. My surgery is tomorrow morning at 9:45.

First off, thank you to everyone who has been so awesome in lending thoughts/supports/prayers/questions and so much more. My friends rock!!

Since my last booby update a bunch of stuff has happened, all of it is good and I am still super healthy-no worries : )

1-I met with my GP and got a referral for a second opinion. That should take about 3-5 months to get. As you will see as I go on, the surgery will actually happen long before that second opinion ever happens. I'm okay with that.

2-I've done a lot of research, asked a lot of questions and done a lot of asking God for the best answer.

3-I met with my surgeon along with Steph and Nuyanne and we sat around a conference table and asked a lot of questions and got a lot of answers and some new information. I wont bore you with the details, but the main points are as follows:

*the fibroadenomas are encapsulated and removing them does not involve exposing the rest of my breast to nasty tissues.

*the reason that the surgeon wants to take them out is that the larger of the two masses is more than 3 cm. At this size it is difficult to confirm that there is no presence of tumor. There is a 5% chance that there could be a tumor present. THAT SAID, there is only a 10% chance that if there is tumor present that it could be pre-cancerous. So that is a really small chance, but it is still there. For my non math friends, that is a less than 1% chance that what is there is pre-cancerous.

*they need to come out a some point, everyone agrees on that.

*They will not shrink, they will not go away.

*They continue to be very painful and to get more painful.

I like my surgeon. She has taken a lot of time to explain this whole process to me and my support people. I trust her. I am comfortable with her. I honestly don't think that I want to hear another opinion at this point. I think that it would muddy the waters for me. My doctor's information makes sense and is consistent with my research.

So, in conclusion, I will be having surgery on May 17, 18 or 24 at the Queensway Carleton. The actual date will be confirmed in the next couple of days.

*I will need to take a week off of work.

*I will need adult supervision for 24 hours after I get home and Dave is 99% sure that he will be able to take that time off of work. Frankly I probably need adult supervision in general, but that is a discussion for another day ; )

*I would love loans of movies and TV series' on DVD and Blu Ray. We don't have cable and I plan to sit/lay on the couch!!

*On the day of the surgery we may need someone else to pick the boys up at day care if we are tied up at the hospital.

I couldn't be more at peace with this decision. I am looking forward to having this whole thing behind me really, really soon :)

The hair

The doodle seems to have moved past his "I want to be a girl" phase. He is now very sure that he is, and wants to be, a boy.
That said, he still wants to grow his hair long. Down to his feet is the current goal. His hair is long enough now for pony tails. So one day last week, we sent him in with one pony tail. Apparently the kids were rather nasty about it. They called him a girl, they teased him. He held his ground and told them that he is a boy and he likes his hair.
It also happened to be class photo day. Not individual photo day, class photo day. So the school called me, at work, to ask me if I knew about the pony tail on class photo day. In between two meeting and breathless because it was the school number on the call display, I told them that I put the pony tail in and that I knew that it was class photo day.
The next day he was not deterred at all and one ponytail became three pony tails all a different colour. The kids apparently didn't tease him on day two :)

Maxi the foster dog

Maxi is a foster dog from Sudbury. Her owner passed away and her other owner couldn't care for her on their own. So Maxi ended up at the animal shelter.
Now Maxi lives with us. In theory she is meant to be looking for a new home. She is also trying to loose some weight and get over a terrible case of kennel cough. Maxi is thoroughly loved by the boys already. They camped out by the window for the last hour of her journey here. When she finally showed up they raced out to greet her.
Now the doodle is "reading" Maxi stories about Clifford the Big Red Dog and Monkey is writing a school assignment about dog fostering.

*We've explained to the doodle that he needs to stay out of Maxi's bed : )

Hog's Back

Grandma C stole the boys and had some fun at Hog's Back Park. The rushing water is at its best right now and the boys were quite fascinated with the water's force. They had no trouble understanding why it was necessary to build this part of the Rideau Canal. We then walked to Mooney's Bay and tried out the exercise stations and the training hill.

Mother's Day 2011

The boys woke me up with lots of hugs and snuggles this morning. This has to be the best part about being a mom!! I got some homemade cards, some random seedlings and a coupon for breakfast in bed from the doodle. The doodle is 5, for those of you not keeping score, and daddy was out this morning. The doodle sees the coupon and disappears. I hardly notice since Monkey is with me and the doodle does often wander. I could hear him on the main level so I wasn't worried.

He comes back up with a Tupperware container full of cut mango that he found in the fridge :"here is your breakfast in bed mommy" he says proudly. He then goes on to explain that he tried to make me a peanut butter and jam sandwich, but he couldn't find the bread. Then he tried to make me cheese and crackers, but we were out of crackers-so this is what he found.

What an absolute sweetheart!!

The Great Friday Picnic 2011

This year the Good Friday picnic took place about as late in the year as it may ever have been. The weather forecast certainly looked upon us in favour as the weather called for rain all week until Friday, then sun, then rain through the rest of the weekend.
We certainly lucked out to start the weekend and prepared ourselves for sunshine, warmth, the Easter bunny, the creek and the barbecues. We were greeted with an absolutely beautiful day.
Here are some of the lads cooking up a storm at the picnic tables.


(Though I'm not sure that Ross did any actual cooking.)
The boys went for their usual climb up a tree and then a walk to the cliff side. Apparently they got quite close to the edge, but we have yet to see the photo evidence of that.
After enjoying some good food,
Dave snuck Saje away for a quite moment on Spy Rock, where just less than 10 years we exchanged our wedding vows. Here we are...goofy as ever and loving each other more each passing year.
Soon thereafter we were off to the creek.
It was particularly muddy this year, as evidenced by the three puppies that got absolutely filthy on their trip with us. (photo evidence being withheld for future ransom demands ;)
While we were gone, the Easter bunny visited. Here are the boys searching for their 'loot'

and Big C finding his Kinder eggs!

and mommy being quite pleased with her little treasure that made the trip here from Jamaica. It seems that the Easter bunny likes to spoil her as much as her loving husband.



All too soon we were taking the family photo and starting to pack up. Here's the gang from this year: