Thanksgiving: Joy and Sorrow

Thanksgiving was a little different this year.  For one thing, we were only celebrating with Aven's side of the family as my mom had recently had her knee surgery and was not up for the long drive down to the valley or hosting up in Princeton.  

The other thing that was different this year is that we (Aven and I) were planning to let everyone in on our secret joy and tell them about the new family member that we would be expecting to join our family in May!

However, as life does, a twist was thrown at us when at my dating ultrasound two weeks before Thanksgiving, the embryo was only measuring at around 5 weeks instead of the 9 weeks that my dates indicated.  

When the ultrasound tech told me the baby was too small to see, I thought she was upset at me for mixing up my dates and I was embarrassed that I had wasted their time.  She told me to re-book a new appointment in two weeks and so I did that.  I was completely baffled as to how I could have got the dates so wrong.  

It wasn't until my mid-wife called the following week after receiving the ultrasound report and informed me that it was likely the baby wasn't growing and there was a strong change that I would miscarry did it even occur to me that it wasn't my date calculations that were the problem.  The mid-wife said there was still reason to hope for the best because sometimes dates could just be wonky but the most likely scenario here was a miscarriage.  I still felt very pregnant at that time, so I was sure it was a dates thing.  

However, as the days went by, I felt my energy levels increase and my nausea decrease that I began to believe that all might not be well.  

But I still kept on hoping for the best, and hosted Thanksgiving as planned which was such a wonderful time of family and good food!  After our big turkey dinner was feasted on and then cleaned up, we packed up the coffee maker, S'mores fixings, and other yummies and headed across the street to the other little property where Aven made a wonderful fire and we sat around and enjoyed coffee and deliciousness-ess and the cozy comfort that only be found gathered around a fire with those you love.

The only sorrow on that day was that I had started to bleed.

Two days later I miscarried the baby that would have been our fourth child.  We had been hoping for a boy.  A brother for M to rough around with.  A baby for W to love and cuddle and play with.  A rounding out of our family.  

It was early in the pregnancy.  I know that.   But, still, I will always carry the little one around in my heard because he was already there.

Uncle Tom playing Reverse Charades with the older kids.

Grandma and Auntie with the two little ones in the playroom.

Carving the bird.  Haha - love you, honey! 

Gathered around the table enjoying the good food.

Yum!

Set up, ready for part 2 of the evening.

Just enjoying the fire.

 

Look What I Found!!

Haha - it's my old blog!  I had actually totally forgot about it until I stumbled across it last night, while going through really, really old facebook posts.  Because I was bored.

But.  I found the old blog and it was SO FUN reading through the old posts because I had forgotten already so much that had happened.  And I thought to myself, "girl, you have got to start that writing back up again, because you know your memory is not what it used to be and you are going to want to remember all the crazy shit that's going down right now!"   Or, at least something close to that.

So, I'm really going to try to start up regular blogging again, and it will be mostly for myself so I can walk down memory lane now and again and remember and the silly and wonderful things the kids did and just what it was like at this particular stage of life.

I do want to note though, the loss of memory of this particular blog was not due to sitting around eating bonbons....  it has really been a particularly crazy busy last few years.  Not only did we welcome our sweet baby to the family (who is now 3.5 - what?!?!?) but we also sold the house we had been living in for 10 years in a drastic move to a fixer upper out in the country.

PLUS, our oldest is a teenager now.  So there's that.

So where to start....  the move is probably a good place.  Settle in kids - here's a good story! :)

So, back when our oldest was in grade 1, she had just the most phenomenal teacher.  This was a huge relief after a year with a terrible Kindergarten teacher.  Anyways, this grade 1 teacher, Mrs. Yee, thought H was just the smartest, most all around gifted student she'd ever met.  Sure to be Valedictorian one day.  Of course I completely agreed.  Anyways, Mrs. Yee encouraged me to get H into the local Fine Arts school as it would really cater to many of H's strengths.  Mrs. Yee's son also attended there and she could only say good things about the school.  So on the basis of that alone, without too much research into the school, I put her on the wait list.  For five years, we didn't hear a thing from the school.  Finally grade 7 came along and we received an email from the Fine Arts school saying that if H was still interested in attending the school we needed to attend an Info Night.

So, off we went, still fairly ambivalent as to whether it was the best thing for H to attend there or not.  Well, after the info session, I was ready to go back in time and enroll myself there.  It seemed perfect.  It seemed like this school would offer the challenge that H required as well as having a student body that was passionate about learning and eager to excel.  We quickly decided that it was now a priority for H to attend there.  The only problem was that we were living in a different school district than the one the Fine Arts was located in.  This put us at the bottom of the priority list as far as entrance to the school went.  We hmmmmd and hawwwwed and would randomly browse realtor.ca but nothing was looking quite right.

One day I came across a particular listing that was in the right location but it looked a bit of a mess.  We decided to drive by.  It WAS a mess.  A huge mess.  But it was a mess that Aven had the skill set and equipment to deal with.  We thought about it some more and then decided to walk through the house.  The house was horrible.  It stank of animals and dust and over used essential oils to try and mask the smell.  It was suffocating.  Every room was filled with boxes and junk.  But the bones of the house were good.  It was a functional layout.  And it was an acreage.

We thought and considered some more and then we had walk through number two with our own realtor.  The house was even worse the second time around, like the owners just didn't care.  They left a dirty doggy pee pad right in the middle of the living room!  Ewwww.  And there was bird crap everywhere.  It was going to need considerable renovation, to say the least.

In the end, we decided to go for it.  We bought it for way less than asking, thanks to Aven's negotiating skills, and sold our home for way more than asking, thanks to the favourable market of our old neighbourhood and the adventure began!

H had her auditions at the Fine Arts in Music and Visual Arts and after an interview with the Vice Principal, (who I coincidently when to High School with and whose mom was my piano teacher for a long time), she was invited to attend starting in her Grade 8 year!

So that all went according to plan and the renos happened and are, to be honest, not fully finished on the house - the fireplaces and chimneys still need to be addressed, we need new exterior doors and the decks need to be refinished as well.  There's probably a bunch of other stuff that I'm not remembering right now, too.

The renovation was fun!  We added a huge shower to the master ensuite because there was previously only a toilet and sink (with hair rinser!) and re-did the second bathroom upstairs that the kids use.

New flooring everywhere, the whole house was repainted, floor to ceiling, trim, everything, we put in new countertops, sink and faucet in the kitchen as well as added a tile backsplash.  New windows everywhere, new light fixtures and door hardware.... there was a lot!

This is the three kids this fall going back to school. H is 14, M is 9, W is 3.

We celebrated Thanksgiving inside with a big turkey dinner and then headed outside for a S'mores and coffee.   It was wonderful!

This is an "after" of the kids bathroom.  I'm really happy with how it turned out!

This is a "before" of the kitchen.  It wasn't horrible, but I didn't like the laminate countertop and there was no backsplash.  Also the window was the old aluminum frame with fake diamond panels.  

This is the "after" of the kitchen.  New flooring, window, countertop, sink, faucet, and tile backsplash.  We also removed the upper cabinets on either side of the window.  We didn't have them up in this picture yet, but there are now open shelves on either side of the window.

The living room with new flooring and paint.  We also added the dark beam to the rear of the room where it opens to the dining room and removed a section of wall there.

The front of the house with the front walk way in.  The irrigation and electrical still had to go in but at least it is now all level!

Here's a picture from just this September!  The irrigation and electrical are in and we have a lawn!!

There is still much to do on the outside - gardens and patios and sheds and stuff, but we're off to a good start and hopefully in the next year or two everything else will be complete!

Whew - this was a huge long post!  Time to call it a day, but I will be back!