I am so tired of hearing people complain about what a crappy summer we've had in Montreal this year. I'm starting to feel like I'm the only one who actually enjoyed the summer - weather and all. In fact - not only did I really enjoy the last couple of months - I would say that it was one of my more memorable summers.


So... it wasn't really hot. I am well aware of this - especially after having a new pool installed in May! Had I known that it would be a cool and rainy summer, I may have tried a little harder to convince Brandon to put off buying a pool until next summer. As it turned out, our little pool only saw temperatures over 80 degrees for a couple of days in August. Still - we used it all summer (pretty much daily), it was always very refreshing (68 is sounding quite familiar) and as of a couple weeks ago, Layla is now confident enough to swim around on her own (with her floaties on of course!)... and that is kind of exciting for me.


Lot and lots of time with Brandon and the girls. Although Brandon did some tutoring and took on a brief summer school class over the last couple months - he was around A LOT - and I think I love him more for it. Our morning routine with the girls was smooth and relaxed... perfected by the time school was starting over for another year. Brandon would feed Layla her breakfast, I would feed Meaghan... we'd sit all together as a family, reading the paper, chatting with Layla, savouring my coffee... mmmmm... so nice.



My sweet little girls have morphed and transformed over the summer months. It's hard to believe, but Meaghan is already four months old and (as per my last post) sleeping nice long nights as of mid-August. She's cooing and laughing, reaching for her toes, rolling over... and chewing on anything in reach (what can I say? these are the things that totally excite me these days!)... Layla... oh my goodness... full sentences, running (without falling) along the sidewalk, going face-first down the slide at the park and swimming with JUST floaties! She's developing this weird and quirky sense of humour and constantly making Brandon and I giggle to ourselves. It's been fun just watching them grow. Truly fun. And memorable. Sigh... I love my family so much.


We spent our time mostly chilling around home but we DID take a couple nice short trips... (where it was hard to "think skinny"). A long weekend at a condo in Mont-Tremblant, a beautiful sunny weekend camping at Voyageur National Park. We were lucky enough to have good weather for both trips... and enjoy time with family and friends. The girls were gems for both trips - which as most parents can understand - can make ALL the difference!

We did do SOME work over the course of the summer months. of course. That's what homeowners to (so we're learning). We took advantage of nice days to do some outdoor projects... modify and extend our deck, build a pool deck, lay some sod, weed, weed, weed...(!) On the not so nice days, we headed inside to work on other projects... clean up and re-organize the workshop (the first step of several to clean up and finish our basement), paint the moulding, paint the doors (and install new hardware), install a french door, paint that too, ... etc etc etc.


So maybe all this doesn't sound all that exciting, but it was absolutely wonderful. I love my little house, I adore my husband, I'm captivated by my sweet little girls... Life is good and I'm trying to appreciate all of the small stuff that's making and keeping it that way (!)

I thought summer 09 was just great! Now... if only I could figure out photoshop... I would have added pictures to this post!



A.