Starting school, departures, corn, beans and Artist Point!

Tuesday  (26th of August) was the first day of the 2014/2015 school year. It was extra special because Shantel was starting Year 1 and Mum always made an effort to attend each of her grandchildren's first day and assembly. And both Dad and Mum were here to do just that!

Assembly began in the church and Dad and Mum even got a special mention! We then went to the flag pole in front of the school and sang the National Anthem and the pledge of allegiance. Then it was off to class. Shantel confidently made her way to her classroom and found her seat. She was happy to be going to school; and her Mum? Well, she was happy that Shantel was happy!

Taleesha showing all the kids' shoes. They need to pairs; an inside pair and an outside pair!

Dad thought he'd see if he could sneak in some learning but he was too disruptive!!

And Steve also started with his class of 14 students!

The RV and its occupants arrived safely on the weekend and so Anthea was visiting us till we could get her accommodation sorted out. On Tuesday night we had a farewell BBQ and also went up the mountain overlooking our valley. The views were just amazing!

A Sunday we also took some family pics!

And on Wednesday was Dad and Mum's departure date. We made it to the airport in good time and met Teresa and Alex and his parents there too. After checking in the luggage, we headed to Starbucks for a coffee. And then it was departure time :(   It was sad to see them go but it was so nice they could come and spend time with us. We caught up with each other and it was great to see the little boys! Very thankful to have this time.

24 hours later they arrived back in Aus! Tired but happy!

Well, even though everyone had gone back home, there was still plenty to do!

The beans kept growing and needed picking again.

Anthea, Taleesha and myself headed over to Canada a couple of times that week as she had a job interview as well as sort out her accommodation, and organize the basics such as a bank account and phone plan etc. 

On Saturday Steve took her car shopping and she came home with this! Another Suzuki in the family!

Monday was the annual church picnic and the weather was beautiful, even just a tad hot! Abundance of food, delicious salads, hot chicken and corn on the cob. Yum!

After the picnic, Steve went with a couple of guys up the Skagit River in an attempt to catch dinner but apparently the river was fished out!

With Shantel at school now, Taleesha is home alone with me! As well as just playing (which she can do well) she is also learning her numbers.

Thursday was corn day at Bernice's. A couple of us picked a cartful of corn the evening before and so here we had already husked the corn and piled them on a table. We then shucked the corn where we cut the kernels off and put them in our coolers or containers. 

At home, we made a syrup type mix and put them in baggies and put them in the freezer! 

Sisters! They asked me to take this photo!

The following day Corrie and I canned beans. Steve picked 'tonnes' of beans the night before and so we now washed them, cut them and canned them. 

The finished jars! 21 of them! Thanks Corrie for the canner and your tips!

On Sunday after afternoon church, a few families headed up to Mt Baker/Artist Point for a hike. We hiked a long way up and hardly saw any snow, only in the distance on the peaks! We then had a picnic dinner before heading back home. 

Photo courtesy of Jan deMooy :)

Here we are with Rick and Jan and their kids!

 Heading back done we saw the moon coming up and the reflection over Picture Lake. Pity it was taken on my iPhone because it is quite grainy but it looked amazing!

Finally we're all to date! Yippee! For a while I thought I'd never get there! I hope you enjoyed catching up on our summer holidays! Feel free to comment; we love hearing from you too!

Next post will include Taleesha's birthday, our staff bbq and the golf tournament. Yep, I'm playing golf (never played it in my life!) and the dinner afterwards. 

But that post will probably be sometime on the weekend.

And on a final note, we have been here for a whole year! Hasn't time flown!

Thanks for popping past!