Before we actually had children, Jimmy was excited about the notion of sharing the movie Star Wars movie with them when the time was right. Recently, his excitement came to fruition as the original trilogy of movies and selective amounts of the expanded universe were shared with Claire and Rhys. As was to be expected, both children inherited Jimmy’s love of it (maybe it’s a genetic thing? Haha)

Building off of this hype, and with Claire and Rhys being really creative kids, Claire was recently on a mission to look like one of her favorite characters Ahsoka Tano -from the Clone Wars CGI show. Rhys followed suit wanting to be Count Dooku and voila, dress-up fun with Mom for hours!

 

 

 

 

 

Spring! The weather is warming up and we are packing away our winter clothes 🙂 One of the best things about living in Victoria is all the cherry blossoms this time of year….

We had a lot of fun adventures during the kids March spring break this year. Towards the end of the long break we ventured out to Sooke and met up with Senna & Chris for some fun adventures in their neck of the woods. We spent some time wandering Sooke potholes which is a summer hot spot for swimming. We toured the abandoned deer trail resort** as well which was very fun. We also visited a playground and the local skate park where we had a tailgate lunch party!

**The deer trail resort began construction in the 1980’s and after two decades of delays and financial issues it fell into disrepair and is now owned by the land conservancy and local parks department. There used to be more timber structure but as a safety precaution they dismantled it leaving just the foundation. It would have been an amazing resort if completed!

 

Archive photos of the ‘deer trail resort’ prior to the timber being removed:

Time keeps moving by so fast. Each day we are amazed how quickly Claire & Rhys are growing. We sure have a lot of fun 🙂

Claire & Rhys were gifted swimming lessons from their Nana & Papa for Christmas!

Our monkeys have always enjoyed swimming. We did toddler lessons with them when we lived in North Vancouver. We swam lots in South Africa as our building had a pool. However, they became certified water babies when we visited Aunt Christine and Uncle Mike in Perth, Australia. They have a wonderful heated pool so we swam every day maybe twice a day! We bought them swim shirts, flippers and goggles and they swam around the pool with pool noodles under their arms. It was super fun.

We started big kid lessons in January and Claire & Rhys love it! They cannot swim on their own yet but with more lessons to come I am sure it will happen soon. There are 5 kids in their class with their swim instructor, Oliver. In a few short weeks it is amazing how far they have come. Having the kids learn to swim is very important to us & fun for Claire and Rhys.

Thanks Nana & Papa!

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We had a wonderful Christmas this year! We had two weeks vacation from school and work. My Mom, Nana Tricia, came to visit us for a week as well 🙂

We did lots of fun activities, outdoor adventures, ate delicious food, and drank lots of wine after kid bedtime 😉 The kids enjoyed Christmas day with new toys, books etc. It was so nice having my Mom stay with us for awhile and we had a fantastic time out at Wendy & Chris’ for their west-coast dinner party. Such yummy food!

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St. Anne’s Academy visit:

Christmas eve…new PJ’s are a tradition:Sprinkling reindeer food outside for Santa’s visit:Bedtime stories with Nana:

Christmas morning mayhem!

Christmas brunch/day visit with Auntie Debbie:

All the Christmas excitement and neighborhood walk certainly pooped Auntie Debbie out:
Christmas dinner at Wendy & Chris’ home in Sooke:

Cousins:

Nana Nic’s musical Christmas ornaments:Miller siblings:

Over the holidays we enrolled the kids into a holiday baking class at a local cooking school- The London Chef. It is an amazing cooking studio to take cooking classes at…something I will look into for myself 🙂

Jimmy was very sick with the flu so it was a solo parent adventure with our terrific twins. Claire & Rhys bake with me weekly so they are not new to the kitchen. When we arrived all the kids sat at a long table and did some crafts, then they rolled out gingerbread cookie dough and used cookie cutters in Christmas shapes. While those were baking they made candy cane chocolate bark which was fun. All the kids were asked to take turns breaking the candy canes into small pieces with a large rolling pin. Rhys was the star of the show when he hit the candy cane bag repeatedly & would not hand the rolling pin onto the next kid 😉

The kids made peppermint hot chocolate as well. While drinking the hot coco the gingerbread cookies cooled down and as the grand finale they decorated the gingerbread cookies with icing and lots of different types of candy. It was so much fun for me to watch Claire & Rhys enjoy themselves and they had a hoot! We will definitely do this again…maybe an Easter class next.