Summer Afternoon

I’m sitting on a picnic bench, listening to a bird. 

The faintest sound of traffic is very faintly heard. 

It’s almost time for dinner, my stomach tells me clearly,

Although it seems like morning still, it’s really not that early.

There’s nothing else to do inside, for I’ve done all my chores,

So I am free to go and play, as long as I’m outdoors.

The dinner bell is ringing loud, the bird has flown away,

I have to go to dinner now, 

It’s been a happy day.

              

This is a poem I wrote a couple years back, on a quiet Sunday afternoon after meeting. I just thought I'd share it here for you. I have a couple other poems that I've written, 

so I might post them here sometime when I remember. 

Snapshots of Summer

Summer this year has been really beautiful. Here are a few pictures that will show you our summer so far...

We've had this swing for a couple of years now. It is really nice to be able to sit outside on the swing and listen to the birds and other nature sounds in the shade of the trees.

Working hard inside 

         I didn't realize until later that Loulou didn't have shoes on when I took this picture. :)

By the driveway, my mom has a rose garden with a rosebush for each of us kids, plus one for her and my dad. It looks really pretty in the spring and summer! This is a picture of my rose in full bloom.

The swing is also a good place to go relax and read a book when all the chores are done.

Peanut butter and jelly "sushi" rolls, with watermelon 'fish' chunks. It was really cute and really good!

This is a picture of our driveway in late afternoon. As it gets closer to sunset, the trees look even more beautiful with the sun slanting onto them. So pretty!

QB's LEGO house, complete with a full kitchen and a grand piano.

Five minutes after this picture was taken, it got dropped on the floor, and they used this picture to rebuild it.

Posing for a picture

(More likely he just wanted extra food :)

           Ricka, Butler, QB, Loulou, and Hal made sandwiches and had a little picnic in our front yard.  

Like I said earlier, summer so far has been beautiful. Us kids have a decent amount of chores and responsibilities to take care of, but we have even more free time to relax and enjoy summer while it lasts. How's your summer going? Enjoy!

West Coast Railway Heritage Park

Last Saturday, we went to spend the day as a family at the West Coast Railway Heritage Park.

We were dressed and out the door by about 8:30. We stopped along the way for breakfast, and then continued on  the hour and a half long trip to Squamish, where the park is located. Before we arrived,  we stopped at a grocery store and my parents bravely took all eight of us through the store to buy food for our picnic lunch of cold cuts, different cheeses, fruit, and more.

Most of the trip was travelling up the mountain right by the ocean, so we had a beautiful view that was extremely hard to take pictures of, since we were on the opposite side of the highway.

By the time we finally got there, it was about noon and we were starting to get hungry.

So, after exploring a bit and taking some pictures...

PC and Emma got a little carried away here..

...We settled down for a huge picnic lunch. We had so much food! After lunch, we were set free to go explore as we pleased. There were more than a dozen trains that were actually working trains years and years back. They were set up so people could go inside and see what the trains used to look like. It was so interesting!

Later, we all went on a miniature train ride, which was about 3 km long. It was cute and we had a beautiful view of a nearby river. There were so many pretty flowers and flower bushes wherever I looked!

After that, we explored some more before going into the gift shop. 

Earlier, we had gone in there to buy tickets to the mini train, and the cashier had showed us some paper bags filled with toy trains. She told us that there was a place in the train park where the little kids could play with the trains, and if they brought them back, they would get a prize. We were going to do that after the mini train ride.

So, we got the bags, and the little kids had a blast playing with the trains and train tracks.

The train bags were free, so all we had to do was take them back after we were done playing with them.

It was a super fun family adventure, and I think we all enjoyed it a lot, despite the hour and a half long drive there and back. This post is a little belated,  so I probably missed some details, but hopefully you enjoyed this!

Water Fight!

                                       Each kid had their own color weapons

   We had water balloons and a little pool to play in as well. It was mostly for the little kids who couldn't participate in the water fight very effectively, but the bigger kids ended up playing in it too. When everyone ran out of water balloons, they found some buckets and used the hose and pool for filling them up.

  We weren't supposed to throw water balloons by the water coolers, but sometimes we forgot- if you're being attacked, you have to act quick!

                                               The sprinkler made sure everyone got wet!

"Who should I target next?"

Iced Tea

-1/2 gallon water
-1/4 cup lemon juice
-1/4 cup sugar
- 3 tea bags

Boil  water and add tea bags. Add tea bags and steep until desired strength. Add sugar and lemon juice and stir well.
Refrigerate until cold. Serve with ice for a refreshing summer drink.


This is a recipe that I made up as I went. We were at meeting and I wanted to drink some tea, but it was way too hot. I decided I would just wait for it to cool down and then add lemon juice and sugar, and it actually worked! It's a pretty simple recipe, and I'm sure I'm not the first one to come up with these ratios, but it was good and I thought I'd share it here.

Sleeping Under the Stars

Last week we went to a family bible camp. One of the activities was an overnight hike for the older kids that two of my brothers, PC and Butler signed up for. They enjoyed it very much and had a great time. Yesterday, PC got the idea that we could do the same thing at home, with the little ones too. So, at bedtime, everyone was geared up and ready to go with excessive amounts of bug spray, blankets, and enthusiasm. We trooped out in two groups, me in charge of the little ones plus Ricka, and PC leading the older kids plus Hal. The original plan was for my group to sleep on the trampoline and PC's group out in one of our backyards (the willow field, as we call it). But, when I finally got my group in their sleeping bags on the trampoline and ready to sleep, I looked over to see half of my group upside down. I fixed them, and lay down to find three kids almost colliding together where my sleeping bag was supposed to be. Eventually, we gave up and went to go sleep with the other kids in the willow field. After that, everything went pretty smoothly, except for a few hiccups. It got pretty cold in the middle of the night, and QB decided to go back in the house because he was too cold. We all woke up around five at different times, and got to see the beautiful dawn. When the sun started to rise at about 5:30, we all went back to sleep because we were still pretty tired. At 7:00, we packed up all our stuff and went in the house, and because its really hard to get seven excited kids to be quiet, we accidentally woke up Mama who was still pretty tired and since she was already up preceded to tell her every little detail of our adventure at the same time, with no order at all. :)

All in all, it was a fun family experience and we would like to do it again!

First post...

Hi everyone! Some of you may have seen my mom's blog, Moments and Musings. By the way, here's the address to that: moments.csanyi.ca  Anyways,  my name is Dolly on her blog. I heard I was going to get a new nickname, but that hasn't happened yet:). This blog is going to be about daily life in a family of eight (almost nine) kids. I'm the oldest, so even though I have a few more responsibilities than my younger siblings, I also get to do stuff that I wouldn't have been able to do, had I not been the oldest (like this blog). I'm going to use the same nicknames that my siblings have on my mom's blog, so here's who's who:
                                                                     Dolly(me) age 14

                                                               

                                                                              PC age 13

                                                                         Emma age 11

                                                                         
                                                                            Butler age 9

                                                                       
                                                                         
                                                                             Ricka age 8

                                                                                 

                                                                               Hal age 6

                                                                   QB (Quarterback)  age 4

                                                                             

                                                                             LouLou   age 2                 

Some of the names have changed or evolved, so here's an update: Loulou has changed from Cricket to Loulou, because that's what we call her now. PC doesn't want to be known as prince charming for the rest of his days, so because of his love for all things electronic, it's changed from Prince Charming to the computer PC, which stands for Personal Computer.

Hopefully, I'll post again soon!