I’m used to June being a busy month for Peter but this is the first year that it’s felt like a busy month for the kids too. Although this is Pearl’s second year at school, it’s the first where they’ve been able to do bigger end-of-the year events like field trips and Sports Day. There have also been a few events to get Rose ready for school next year – a kindergarten open house and a pre-K health clinic which included getting her vaccinations up-to-date. Rose’s music class also celebrated the end of their year with a Teddy Bear Picnic that the whole family got to attend. The big excitement of that was that Charlotte Diamond performed. I’m not sure how broadly known she is but if you were a kid growing up in BC in the 1990s, then you would be excited about this fact. Her song “I Am a Pizza” is a big hit!
The weather this month has continued to be fairly lousy (cold and rainy) but we’re starting to get more sunny days. Peter was away overnight last week (a rare occurrence) and the girls and I enjoyed an impromptu backyard visit with a neighbour. After dinner, I let them stay up a little later to ride bikes in our cul-de-sac and three other kids on our street joined them and I got to chat with some of our new neighbours. It just feels easier to meet our neighbours in good weather!
Rose is also working on making the transition from her balance bike to a pedal bike and is doing a great job!
Another big event of the last two weeks is that last weekend I went away on my own! I took two ferries over to Vancouver Island and met with three friends. While I’ve seen them each individually in the last few years, we haven’t all been together since we did a weekend away more than seven years ago. (For reference, I was super pregnant with Pearl!) In fact, at that time, three of us were pregnant (two of us with our first) and the fourth was engaged; we now have twelve children between us. (Only the youngest of these came along for the weekend.)
We all met while students in Victoria. We’ve been roommates, prayer partners, committee members, and bridesmaids together. Our friendships pre-date meeting any of our husbands and in many ways we grew into adulthood together. Being together again made me realize how formative these types of friendships really are. Despite all living in different places now, having different jobs, and varying political perspectives, we also still have so much in common. Hearing how they have each approached raising kids in particular, it was easy to see how much our thinking and values align.
30 Day Dress Challenge:
I am doing so poorly on this self-imposed challenge! I’ve skipped dress-wearing a lot of days and I neglected to even take a photo on others. Between the poor weather and busy days, it’s just felt easier to not put a dress on.
You can spot me in a dress in the photo above but otherwise that weekend saw me in shorts and jeans. Here are some other recent dresses:
Karissa Reads Books 
I never wanted to live in a dorm because as an introvert I get overwhelmed easily. Plus, the cost and potential to get a nightmare roommate! But when I hear about friends from college like this, I assume there was some connection to dorm life. Unless you were all on a women’s sports team together, or something like that!
I lived in dorm my first year – it’s not common here to spend more than that in res – and it did lead to some intense relationships but only one that really lasted longer than that year. I met two of these women through a Christian group on campus but all four of us went to church together and that’s really where our friendship developed. It was a small church, composed primarily of university students and it was quite a close-knit group. A lot of us still keep in touch.
I am flattered that you thought I played on some sort of sports team though!
Ohhhhh. Maybe you stayed friends BECAUSE you didn’t live together. I could see you being a volleyball or softball girl!
Haha, maybe! I was roommates with one but it was in a big house that six of us shared so it was a more spacious situation than sharing one tiny room like living in dorms was.
Wooooow. I immediately pictured all the hair in the drain. 😀
Hahaha, that’s fair! There were 4 bathrooms so at least it was divided up somewhat.
Oh boy! 😀