pool partying

This past week was full of a pool full of people (say that 20 times).  I think every day we had a bunch of friends over.  Monday night (Aug. 31) a bunch of the neighbour kids came over for a night swim.  One of them brought ice cream and toppings for a late night snack as well.  It was a full moon and there was some smoke in the air so the moon was bright pinky orange.

I started work on Tuesday, feeling very sorry for myself for having to go back into "real life", after two full months of summer with the family.  Pathetic of me, I know.  I'm spoiled.  

When I came home after my first day, I saw several cars in the driveway so I knew we had company.  There were four neighbour kids, Maddy's boyfriend, Mark, our friends and their three young kids, and our kids all in the pool.  At first, for a few seconds, I felt like crying.  I wanted to burst into tears because I felt so sad that I had missed out on the fun that they had been having.  Then I realized how ridiculous that was - because they were still here!  More fun was yet to be had.

I tried to throw Mia into the pool and it wasn't working, so I just grabbed her and jumped in with her...with my work clothes on.  After swimming around a little, I went to get my actual bathing suit on and enjoy our company.  Most of our time was spent watching all (ALL) of the kids attack Mark while he valiantly defended himself with pool noodles and boogie boards.  They also all greatly enjoyed his crazy pool entries - flipping and flying into the pool.

Our friends left for a little while to dry off and all that, and came back later for dinner.

On Wednesday Maddy had a bunch of friends over and Thursday Mia had a bunch.  Before, after and in between all of that, there were still plenty of neighbor kids around as well.  It was a week-long swim-fest.  It thrill my heart to come home every day from work to find a pool/house full of people.  What a blessing.

ourmobilelife

My dearest friend and her family came for a visit.  In a 1986 Winnabego.  From PEI.  And their driving to their home in North Vancouver, BC.  And they are living my dream.

They've taken a month to travel across the country in this old dream of rust and gold, seeing the grandness of our fine country.  I've been wanting to do the trek, albeit across the US (but would love to do Canada, too) over a few months, with the whole family.  Most think I am insane, but I'm used to that.  Not everyone is up for adventure.  But I think you may as well explore and live life to the fullest while we can.  Okay.... back to the friends and enough about me.

We were absolutely thrilled to have them visit.  You have to understand that this is woman is practically a part of me.  She is so very, very dear... as is her family.  And I literally ache sometimes because I don't get to see her for so long.  But we had one afternoon, and it was glorious (as long as I didn't focus on the fact that we only had one afternoon - it is barely enough to get started, you know what I'm saying?)

We spent the afternoon in the pool swimming, talking, laughing and yes, even a few tears were shed (we can't go talking very long without going deep - as deep as one can when surrounded by raucous kids, at least somewhat, and deep usually means tears).  Unfortunately Lucy missed out on the occasion, which really was sad, because you want to share your whole family with each other, right?  Right.  And the last time we were together as two whole families is when Lucy was a baby.  Too long.  Much too long.

Time ended quickly and they had to move on to bigger and better things (I only say that to sound humble, clearly they had no where to go but down!).  We inspected their dream mobile, said our fond farewells, wrestled on the grass a little, and off they went.

It best not be another 10 years until our families are together again.

the summer of water

I think that is how we will remember this summer - as the summer of water.  Lots and lots of water.

Water in the pool, of course.  But also water in the basement and water in the yard.  Lots and lots of water.

Tonight we had another downpour.  And we have lots and lots of water.  The upside is that


Oh, the irony.....

Last night when I was writing this, Eric called me.  Obviously I left off mid sentence.  The reason he called is that I needed to help him bail out the tank where our two (yes, TWO) sump pumps are.  They weren't keeping up with the amount of water coming in, and if we didn't bail, our basement would flood.
That after Eric already saved Mia's room from flooding this same evening.
I scooped containers full of water into larger buckets and Eric took the larger buckets and dumped them.  We couldn't keep up.  So Eric had Cade grab a third sump pump, that we have clearing surface water from the backyard, and we used that to fill buckets.  Then Mia got involved (she was helping with other stuff before, grabbing towels and such).  She held the hose to dump into the buckets while Eric turned the pump on and off.  I dumped the buckets.  Cade came to help dump buckets.  We couldn't keep up.  So I went to turn the sump pump on and off (holding it in the hole, moving the bobber up and down to start and stop the water pumping), Mia filled the buckets and called "go" and "stop" and Eric and Cade emptied the buckets.  Much more efficient.  Then Cade filled buckets and Mia helped empty.
We were slowly gaining ground.  Slowly.
Then water started coming in from the drainage.  We were filling the septic tank too fast and it was coming up into the basement anyway.  That forced Eric to think through another solution which was to connect the third sump pump hose directly to where the grey water goes (?).  We could only have it on for a little bit at a time so that we didn't have more water coming in.... but at least it worked!
The night ended, at 11:40, with the four of us having a much deserved swim to rinse off our hot, sweaty bodies.... no showers as that would have just filled up the tanks with more water!

So yes, this is the summer of water.  Maddy's room flooded twice but Eric properly filled the window well so that too care of the problem (not sure why it wasn't done properly in the first place....).  We have a yard sump pump for every time it rains, although we are going to install drainage pipes and hopefully get all the neighbours to join in to take care of the problem in the whole area.  We have a pool cover sump pump, to make sure not too much rain is on top of the cover.  And we have two house sump pumps.  We are constantly draining water.
But like I said, hopefully all the neighbours will get on board and we'll take care of this problem for good.  It will be nice to not have to deal with it any more.

garage sale guest blogger

I'm honored to introduce a guest writer today.  It is my darling niece, Brooklyn.  You may recognize the name from this post.

Take it away Brookie Cookie

Hello! Okay, so the Giesbrecht family and the Ackermann Family (plus Grandma Irene) held a garage sale at the Ackerfolks. We all reached down to the very depths of our generous hearts and decided that other people needed our stuff more than we did. But we still wanted money. I want some money myself, because I'm going on this cruise with my dad and I'd like some spending money, right? Anyway we searched through our hoards in our houses and decided that we might be able to part with some of our collection. Somethings were harder to get rid of than other, for example, I could've thrown out almost all of my clothes, but my mom made me keep some. Stuffed animals on the other hand, I could barely part with just one. In the end I donated pretty much all of them, expect approximately 6. It was very hard and my heart is still aching and is yearning for the soft touch of their fur and their adorable faces. From where I sit I can see their little faces staring into my soul making me feel guilty. I can only hope that they'll go to good homes and forgive me for this horrid sin.

(that is Brooklyn, said guest authoress, on the left and my precious Mia on the right… they were awfully helpful)

Last night everybody came to the Ackermann's and started setting up for the garage sale. I was a little ADHD with my helping skills, or however I should word that. I started helping with somethings then got distracted easily, like one time my mom told me to do a puzzle but then I started looking at the stuffies and I got distracted by my Build-A-Bear, which I said I wasn't going to sell because it has sentimental values, and Alex has the same one so of course I'm not going to sell it,  because she's moving to Calgary and it kind of will be like a part of her left behind even though it's my Build-A-Bear... and I'm rambling, aren't I? Well I guess that kind of is and example of how I get distracted easily... Anyway what was I saying? Oh yeah! We were helping the day before. The most annoying to organize is the clothes, because like how do I price it? Do I change the price for Hollister, etc? Or what????? I'm so confused! Yeah, it was really annoying. Then it was Polly Pockets! Oh my word, those were so awful to organize, my mom stayed up until one in the morning one day to organize all of our Polly Pockets. We are getting rid of all of them, which was also kind of sad, because we played with them all the time! Oh we're also getting rid of our play structure! Okay why did Auntie Carla make me write this post, it's really depressing! I could've written any other post, but nooooooooo I have to write the really sad one! Okay I'm done.

 (A friend's piece of furniture that we were selling for her - it blew over twice in the gale-force winds and basically shattered.  Ooops)

(Mia being cheesy and Brooklyn typing this here post)
This is torture. I'll write about more happy things now.

On to today! Yay! Actually no, not yay, because today is even more sad than yesterday, because today people are actually buying your stuff and TAKING IT TO THEIR HOMES!!! Not yay. But actually I don't mind because I've actually made some pretty great moolah. There's this one desk here that I really really want from every single corner of my toes. I would very much like it for my room. I have this whole plan to redo my room and make it the best I make. I have visions for my room. If only I had time... and money. We've had a couple people try to barter with us saying things like "this is five dollars, can i have it for three?" and we're just like no. We gave it a price that's the price it is. Okay we said it more politely than that, and also if they just wanted to go down like one dollar, then sure why not. (i would like to apologize in advance to Auntie Carla for this highly exaggerated and very horrific blog post. I'm a newbie) Me and Mia have been working the till. I was going to tell you some funny till stories, but they're aren't really any good till stories, because who's ever heard  of till stories that's just stupid.

(Mia and Brooklyn made a sign for the sale…  we had to improve it a little to make it more legible - I handed Mia a can of spray paint)

Well I guess I have one, but it's not really funny it's just annoying. This one lady was just buying somethings for seven dollars, but she gave us a freaking $100 bill! Like whaaaat? so we had no cash and it was really annoying. I'm really just pointing out all the flaws in garage sales, and i'm just saying that everything is annoying. So by all means have a garage sale and have fun getting annoyed and counting flaws. I'm just kidding. Garage sales are actually really fun. I just keep complaining this whole post. So don't listen to me. Honestly I wouldn't care if you ignored me because I wouldn't have a clue because I'm just typing and can't actually see you reading this. But you you should still read the blog. That's what I do all the time. Like pretty much every single day I check the blog and I don't even know why. But anyway I'm going to go now.

BYE.

Thanks my darlingest Brooklyn.  Such a charmer, ain't she?
We also had approximately the entire neighborhood worth of kids in our back yard swimming, at one time or another, that same day…. and we fed them all pizza.  It was rather fantastically fun.

 (I'm pretty sure Glenda would get physically aggressive with me for posting the above picture, especially more now that I am drawing attention to it…. but what the heck is she doing?  Perhaps I caught her mid-one arm-pushuping (and pushuping in for sure a word)

So to sum up - We had a garage sale, it sucked, we will never do it again especially now that we've discovered the glories of VarageSale where you have much less hassle, is more lucrative, your husbands don't go all passive-aggressive on you, and you don't end up sweating in the heat.
GarageSale - stinks
VarageSale - smells like a make-you-want-to-cry-cause-it-is-so-fabulous mixture of citrus blossoms, fresh cut grass, and kids who have just come in from playing outdoors (mixed with a little cozy wintery cinnamon Christmasness, but then we are going into two completely different season and that just somehow doesn't work well.)
The evening was absolutely spectacular - crazy weird weather and skies (always the most fabulous skies here - although I say that neverendingly…. neverendingly is also a word, I am confident)

 Then in the backyard we had this crazy-amazing full double rainbow.  Yup…. full and double…. and the double was full - as in complete.  But it is hard to see it in the picture so just believe me.  I lie not.

 And then it got sunsetty (you guessed it, also a word), and the double rainbow was still there so it looked even more cooler (proper grammar, peeps, proper grammar……which apparently has no relation to this post).

If that doesn't just make all the discouragement of making very little cash at a garage sale after putting in a lot of work wash away, not much will.  God is Awesome.  Yup, He is.

moms and daughters

May long weekend, Glenda, Alex, Maddy and I drove on down to Minneapolis for a dandy old time of shopping, visiting and general carousing around (okay, we really didn't carouse at all).  The visiting was done with our fabulous hosts - brother Scott and sister-in-law Cynthia, and of course darling little niece Aianne.

Part of the agenda was to find some grad/"farewell" (a prom-like event for only the grads, put on by the school) attire.  That was done with great success.  For all four of us even.

Scott and Cynthia seem to know all of the good places to eat, so we ate very well.  Oh my, so much good food.

The initial reason for this little adventure was because the girls wanted to go to a Kodaline concert.  We thought it a rather lovely excuse for a trip.  The night of the concert, Glenda and I babysat Aianne while Scott and Cynthia went to a movie.  It was kind of fun to be with a little one again - its been a while.  She reminds Eric and I so much of Maddy, without the constant hollering, of course.

I can't even remember why, but Glenda gave Alex a piggy-back ride to the car at one point (forgot her shoes in the car??).  Impressive.  I don't think I could even do that with Maddy.  Although I don't plan on breaking my back to find out!  It was rather entertaining to watch.

Most people probably wouldn't put such a picture of themselves out for the world to see, but my pride could use some bashing anyway.....

I found this dress at one of the stores and just had to try it on.  It weighed a TON!!  It was a workout just wearing it.

Alex tried some things on too.  We were in Macy's - and the store clerk loved us.  Alex kept finding larger and larger cup sizes.... sizes I didn't even know you could find in a store.  Custom made is what I thought.

The day we left was Glenda's birthday, so the evening before Scott and Cynthia bought an ice cream cake for her.  They told me about it....  Somehow in the hours between them telling me and it happening I forgot (shocker!) and thought it was a good idea for the four of us to stop at Target and get some treats to eat while we watched a movie together.... treats which included ice cream.  My level of moron-ness just never ceases to amaze me.

And this is what we headed back into....  Nothing like snow at the end of May.  Not the best way to end a great weekend....we were a little worried about the drive home.  But c'est la vie!  It ended up being fine, by the way.

We found another lovely little shopping area on the way out that we would love to keep in mind for future trips.  I hope Glenda has kept it in mind because I don't remember at all where it was!  We stopped briefly, long enough for Maddy to try on a dress.  Sort of.  She wasn't motivated enough to actually go in the change room and give it a real go.  

The dress was not purchased, but fun was had.