lots done, but no photos.

Well, faithful readers, it’s been about a month since I last wrote.  Somehow it feels much much longer.  I think I preemptively took loads of photos in the previous month because although we did loads of things recently, there is no photographic evidence of life in this month.  So you’ll have to settle for description in words.

First of all, Summer School started.  We have 4 weeks again this year as opposed to the 2 weeks we’ve had in the past 10 years.  It’s a good thing.  I mean, of course, I make more money, which is a good thing, but it also gets more students through the doors and exposed to the glory that is Trinity.  Hopefully that means more students during the school year.  This year’s first group was only 10 kids and they were pretty laid back so an easy group.  The second group is 20 kids and they are also fairly laid back so also a fairly easy group.  Plus we have great teenage “counselors” so that makes it very easy.

This means that we have nothing to do in the evenings except play with Jan.  Ken and Gail were here for one overnight and that was delightful for Jan to run around with his cousins. Ken gave me the genius idea to take Jan to see the new Cars 2 movie.  So with a little friend we set off for action packed animated adventure.  I think Jan loved it.  He certainly has talked about it a lot since.

We had a work night at church for our Bible study and we got a lot of painting done that was desperately needed.  Things look a lot better now in the atrium.   That is a good thing because David had another gallery opening and it was a member of the congregation.  Since she has to look at it every Sunday, it’s nice to have it looking good.

The Saturday after the gallery opening, we had a great, of brief, reunion with the Swartzes who moved about 9 or 10 months ago to Kentucky.  It was sure great to see them again.  Their son, Benjamin, is only about a month older than Jan and he is not quite potty trained and even shorter!  I told them that I know it wasn’t nice to take joy in such things, but it sure does make me feel better that I’m not the most ineffective parent in the world, nor is Jan the shortest person.  I don’t think the Swartzes are ineffective either; we are all just in the struggle together!

We went to Troy and Christina’s on Wednesday instead of Bible Study.  Actually it was supposed to be Bible Study, but everyone else said they couldn’t come.  We ripped up the floor in their kitchen.  There were eight layers (8!!), yes indeed!  There was everything from plywood to paneling to loads of linoleum on that floor.  The ceiling felt much further away when we finished.  Unbelievable.  They also discovered about a 4 inch gap between the original kitchen floor and the hallway floor.  No sub-floor. Why bother repairing a gap when you can just cover it up?  So now they just have to rip out a partial wall, rebuild a wall, frame in the ceiling, do all the electrical and plumbing, insulate, drywall, etc.  Nothing, right?  They should be done that room in about a year.   Lots to do!

The next Friday we went to the 4-H St Jo County Fair!  Wow, what fun!!  I thought Jan would explode from excitement!  We had to wait in line for a while, but it was worth it.  Jan rode little cars, little motorcycles (x2), a little dragon rollercoaster (did you know in French, they are called russian-montains?  It’s true – des montagnes-russes.), he rode the big peoples’ tilt-a-whirl, bumper-boats, a pony.  We had ice-cream, corn-dogs (Jan only, blech!) pizza (also blech, actually).  Man, it was a good time!   I tell ya, we’ll have to do that every year.

We’ve had lots of people over for lots of dinners, lots of barbequeing, lots of good times.  We went to the beach once on 4 July.  That was a good time too.   I’ve been watching lots of the Tour de France which everyone is calling the Crash de France because there have been so many serious crashes.  It’s pretty exciting even so.

There is moderate news on the potty training front.  He now sometimes tells us when he has to go (#1 only) and if we are just vigilant, usually he manages to make it to the toilet.  Still an absolute flat refusal for the other business.  Absolutely NO amount of bribing for good behaviour, or punishing for deliberate “accidents” is making any difference.  He has spent more time on the pot than I thought was possible.  We’ve read lots of books, made horrible poop faces, all to no avail.  He is adamant.  I’m beginning to think he might actually go to prom in diapers.   Sigh.  We are going to go canoe-camping next week and I’ve told him he will have to poop in the woods, so we shall see.  Maybe he will like that.

Yes, indeed, it’s true, we are going canoe-camping.  We used to do it a lot, but haven’t in ages because of you-know-who.  I’m expecting some good times and some not-good-times.  Just like regular life.  So I’m sure it will be fine.  It’s a bit easy than we used to go because every park I’ve ever canoed in in Ontario requires you to provide a somewhat iron-clad itinerary so the rangers can find you if absolutely necessary.  This means if a route turns out to be a beaver-dam, low-water, unmarked nightmare, you still have to keep going because you have to camp at specific sites.  The Boundary Waters allows you to camp anywhere anytime.  So we can have really short days if we want.  If Jan wants to get out and run about, he can.  So we shall see.   We do know we are waaaaaaaay out of shape, but we are still planning to blame our short days on Jan.

So that’s the long and short of the past month.  I’m certainly expecting that we will have some photos and news and adventures to relate the next post.