Outdoor Cooking Class and a Busy Monday!

We left the wedding late and drove straight up to Wildside and Q slept at Tim and Lois' house. We were running a outdoor cooking class Sunday morning that we needed to be there for! We got everything set and all ready for the women to arrive

Lois sent this of them going for a morning walk in the park. She loves mornings at Nannie and Papa's house! But I missed her and was eager to be reunited in a few hours back with my girl! It makes me happy that we can leave her when we need to for things like this and know that she is well loved and well cared for. (But sleepovers are still pretty rare, because I don't love leaving her - I always think that she would like do whatever we are doing and I like bringing her along usually haha!)

We had quite the menu planned for the women. We told them when they arrived (with iced coffees in hand, that Lisa made for them all because she is awesome) that we would just cook for them and do demos to show them what we are doing, and they could just sit back and relax and enjoy the food. I think they really appreciated and enjoyed that! I love doing stuff like this with Jon. Afterwards someone told us that we work so well together, seamlessly working around the other one and making a good team. It was really nice to hear that! I feel that way, that we work so well together. We have had years of experience in ministry together to know how the other one operates! I made corn bread and honey butter and pineapple roasted with maple syrup, and Jon made cowboy coffee and cooked brie cheese and talked about wildside and what we do. I was watching to him and was struck again with how amazing it is that he is doing exactly what he was clearly created to do. He is so good in front of people and so passionate about Wildside, and he just thrives in this environment.

I sadly missed most of the weekend (next year I would LOVE to actually take this weekend in!!! It's just hard with Jon working at it. Maybe next year Q's Aunties will spend a weekend with her... hmm...) but everything I heard was overwhelmingly positive. And that is not surprising in the least! This woman works VERY hard for months on prepping this weekend and making sure the women have exactly what they need to have adventure, rest, good food, and feel filled up and loved. Sharon really does run a pretty spectacular retreat for these 100+ women

Two of those women this year were Nana and Auntie Rena! They both LOVED the weekend!! How cool that women my age can go to this retreat and love it and find adventurous activities to do, but then they can also go and find sessions that suit them also. Amazing. Nana was very impressed with us and the cooking session - yay! We don't often get to share what we do with family, and it is so nice when we get the chance!!! They loved the food.

Group shot that Jon took while I was cooking and talking - we had a few more join us after this one. It was so fun! Looking forward to next year already! After we were done, we quickly raced home because Tim was on a time crunch and needed to get Q back to us. Her and I had a quiet afternoon at home, and Jon went out golfing with Andrew. He hasn't had a day off in a few weeks, so having a few hours to go hang out with a good buddy and do something fun was really good for him. Great day all around!

That afternoon, Q and I both showered and got al clean after the busy weekend, and she was being silly on my bed and then just fell right off and banged into our nightside table. Yikes. Not many tears, but its a pretty decent size bruise. Welcome home!

We had new friends come over Sunday night to play games with us. I work with Jerrica and her husband Eric has been working on my shoulder (he's a physiotherapist) and we really like them! Easy and friendly and have similar interests as us. Because it was such a busy weekend and there were new people over, Quinnybear did not go to bed well. Finally I just yelled up the stairs "If you stop talking to us, you can go jump in my bed and sleep, but I'm not coming up to help you, and if you yell down to us one more time you have to go back to your own bed!" She yelled back "YAY! OKAY MOM!" and we heard the sound the of her little feet running into my bed where she promptly fell asleep. Sheesh. When I went to bed a few hours later, this is how I found her, all sprawled out.

Monday I took one of our awesome youth group girls Hannah out for lunch. I love these one on one times with our students. Great conversation, and she opens up and we can talk about real stuff. And she is a sushi lover, yay!

"Baby Norah" as Q still calls her, facetimed Quinny that afternoon, much to her delight! Baby Norah is growing SO FAST! We miss and love her!! These moments during the week are so great. I love FaceTime and its ability to connect us from a distance

We got a new ottoman coffee table thing (the squares flip over to be like tv trays) for free that we needed to fit in our living room. So we pulled our sectional apart since this was the only way it looked okay. Not sure if I am crazy about the couch being pulled apart, but we will leave it for a while and see. It looks a tad awkward, but it does give us more space in the living room

Jon took Q to the park while I worked that afternoon and he said it was pretty funny how tired she was. Here she is on her favorite swing, just laying there while he pushed her

He needed to go practice his timed swim for his NLS recent that was coming up, so he dropped her off to me for the last few minutes of my shift and he went to swim. She loves the youth center because theres so much to look at (it really is cool space! If only we could get lots of teenagers in there!). 

BP's for dinner! Salad for both Jon and I, noodles for the small one

My new pots! They were on clearance at London Drugs! Now I can plant some veggies, which makes me happy! The garden was one upside to the old house... doing these pots and being outside in our yard got us really thinking about what we need to do to make our yard better. We have plans to build a deck, fix the fence, dig up the rocks and plant grass. Hopefully by next summer it will be a much prettier yard!

Working out with me, and showing off her big muscles 

Henrik looks terrified here, but he is actually laying quite still and he seeks her out to go and sleep with her. Not totally sure why, maybe he likes being mauled by her? haha! They are best buddies