Well, it has been a long time coming but we are down to our last child in high school. I remember when we had Dan & Vicki in daycare and struggling to pay daycare fees and thinking, just get through this year and next year will be a bit cheaper once Dan is in half day kindergarten. I remember going from 2 kids in daycare, to 1.5 kids, to 1 kid, to 0.5 kids, to that great moment when all 3 kids were in school and we had no daycare costs. That's when school lunch costs for 3 kids kicked in.
Now we are at the opposite end of the spectrum. Andrew has started his second and final year of Computer Networking at Holland College and should graduate without debt. Daniel has started his first year of UPEI and with a bit of help from us, should be able to get through the first year without debt. And Vicki starts grade 11 and starts her bluephins swimming program again along with re-entering piano lessons. Should be a busy year for everyone. Vicki is also taking a swimming instructor course this weekend which will allow her to teach swimming lessons.
I think this was my favourite summer so far as everyone was employed and everyone was so busy with their own lives, that there were very few squabbles between kids. Vicki got her first job at Shining Waters as a waterslide guard. She worked lots of hours and bought her own school clothes, an ipad air and got her first taste of budgeting. Daniel continued working at Royal Garden Chinese Restaurant, and supplemented this with work at Sizzler BBQ and working at the Reebok Clearance Tent Sale. Andrew finished his position at Atelka and is now back at Residence at Holland College.
With everyone working varied schedules, this left lots of time for Cheryl and I to spend together. We toured much of the province and sampled a variety of restaurants including: The Blue Mussel Café, The Hunter River Bakery across from Sandspit, Lost Anchor pub, Glasgow Glen, Bored Wok Chinese in Cavendish, Point Prim Chowder House (AMAZING!), Mavors, Fishbones Rooftop Patio. It was a great summer for us to re-connect as the kids are now very much independent.
Summer Highlights include:
- Canada Day Party was great other than losing the green jacket to Bobby for the second year in a row.
- Seeing Weird Al in Halifax with Cheryl and Shane Fisher. He still looks and sounds the same. The inner geek in me was ecstatic.
- Seeing Sexy Laundry in Victoria, Putnam County Spelling Bee in Georgetown, Alice through the looking glass at Confed Centre, and Hamlet at Cotton Park.
- Having Greg & Karen Pineo over for a couple of days as they celebrated their anniversary.
- Camping with Jason at Pictou Provincial Park.
- Pub Crawl with Cheryl, Mark & Cathy and others on rooftop patio at fishbones.
- Brudenell Aerospace Conference where Cheryl joined me for a couple of days.
- Taking a week off by myself and finishing up yardwork and sitting on the beach reading
- Picking up Cheryl at work, stopping at Glasgow Glen for pizza and sitting on the beach with pizza and drinks while waiting for Vicki at work.
- Grenwich beach trip with Cheryl
- Renting a mustang for Cheryl's birthday and travelling all across Western PEI.
- Panmure Beach with Chris & Family.
Looking forward to the fall and planning a trip to Jamaica for February!
