Bella, Gabe and Josiah

Last week was a long week. It was one of those weeks where so many random things are happening that it's completely exhausting and all you want is for the weekend to show up. On top of all, Pat took the youth group from church to LA to work with the homeless, so he was gone. And I was trying to get everything ready so that we could go only a family vacation. It was exhausting! Pat flew in Saturday night at 9:30 and we caught the 6:45 flight Sunday morning.  But, we are now in London! We even surving a 9+ hour flight with Gabe. It took about 5 hours to fall asleep on that flight, so he ended up with maybe 4 hours of sleep total. I got maybe 15 minutes, since everytime he moved it woke me up and I figured that him sleeping was more important. He actually did really well. He wasn't screaming or crying, he was just awake. On the plane, ready for our long flight: We got to our flat and then tried to beat the jetlag (as much as we all wanted a nap) by staying up until we could go to ...

We probably shouldn't have let Gabe play in the car while we were waiting for the ferry. Now I put him in the car and he just wants to do this... ...and this... ...and hang on the car window. Seriously, that little hand will catch the door as I'm putting him in the car and it's hard to pry it off. Perhaps we shouldn't have shown him how much fun he can have playing in the car... In other news, someone brought kittens into the preschool room today. Somehow, Gabe saw them through the window, on the other side of the classroom and immediately started pointing at them. So they brought him out and sat him on the floor and opened the crate. He loved it! He picked up one of them and snuggled it. He was petting them and he was even   gentle! Eventually they had to pry the kitten away from him. They told me it was adorable! I'm just bummed they didn't get any pictures!    

Random Notes from the Last Few Days... I took the week off of work last week to hang out with the kids. On Thursday I took Gabe to school so that Bella and I could clean out her room. It's possible that she has too many hats... Gabe wanted to help me do the laundry. This wasn't quite what I had in mind... On Sunday we celebrated two years since my adoption of Bella was finalized. The kids and I got crepes to celebrate. And yes, he does have a lovely shiner at the moment... We wandered downtown a bit and Gabe really liked the bear. And now he decided to help emptying the dishwasher.  Silly kid.            

Gramps sent me his pictures, so I have a few more to share... All ready to go! The best seat on the ferry!   Just hanging out in a desert in Canada... More pictures from the park. He seriously got those noodles everywhere... Waiting for the big moment that she'd been waiting a long time for. Clearly my kids were excited to go home... Gabe, on his way to explore the ferry.  

Gabe loves dogs. Every time he sees one, he points and shrieks and wiggles to make sure that everyone else sees the dog too. It's really cute! Two of my friends just got puppies, so we planned some puppy play dates. It was adorable! Can you get cuter than babies and puppies together??? Gabe got to meet Taco first. I think that they both knew that the other one was a baby because they were both very gentle. There was also a lot of kissing involved. But Taco was probably a better choice for Gabe's first kiss than a random girl in middle school, right??? Unfortunately, I can't post the kissing videos. You'll just have to trust me that they were cute! The next day we met up with Laura and Lupin. Lupin turned out to be rather scared of Gabe and wouldn't get very close to him.  But she also brought Greta, her brother's dog, and she thought Gabe was wonderful! This was also the first time that I let Gabe play in the sand. Puppies and playing in the sand? Does it get be...

In honor of 5th grade graduation, we decided to go to Whitehorse for the weekend. We brough Gram and Gramps with us, so things were a bit tight in the car. Luckily Gabe figured out how to get some extra space. Don't worry, we didn't actually drive like that... We stopped in Carcross on our way up. Bella and Gabe found a giant moose, which was very exciting. We were told that Carcross had the best ice cream, so we had to stop and check it out. Gabe thought it was great, but I only let him have a taste or two since he actually needed a nap. He did not appreciate that... Bella also found an old train engine. We stopped at the Carcross Desert, the smallest desert in the world. We only saw one bit of wildlife on the trip and I am proud to say that I'm the one who spotted it first! That never happens when I go somewhere with Gramps... Once we got to Whitehorse, we played at the Hot Springs and the pool, although I don't have any pictures of that. But we did find a fun park to...

He took a step today. My life will never be the same! Stop growing up kid!