Tripletville Adventures : Start of semi-vacation!

Well firstly, let me tell you about my big oops! We had totally forgotten that because I only worked for a semester, my summer will have to reflect that. As teachers, our 10 month pay is equally divided into a 12 month period. During the 10 months that we work, a part of our pay is basically set aside to make sure we have income coming in in the summer months. Well if you only work half your year, you only really made enough to cover half a summer's pay... My mom, ever the clever one, clued me in to something I already knew but had forgotten about! So there went my plans of a carefree summer!! Bah Humbug... We were able to plead our cause with daycare and I'll now have the boys on a part time basis so we'll pay less daycare (thankfully!) and be able to keep our place for the summer. I'm also trying to find ways to make more money, I'm just hoping that Jamberry kicks into high gear for me and I'll be able to contribute a little more. Oh well, them's the breaks!

I've been keeping a little secret from you all... We just got rid of our tenant from hell #2... I was abstaining from mentioning it while she was still living here because I was scared that one of you would know her and my nasty words about her would come back to her and she'd destroy the apartment. Well let me tell you, it couldn't have been much worse than the state she left it in two days ago! Remember all the trouble I had with the last one? Would you believe me if I said this one was worse?!? We asked her to leave because we just couldn't take her way of life anymore and the way she was choosing to raise her children was not something we wanted OUR children to be exposed to. We fibbed about the reason we wanted her to leave, again, worried she's destroy the place on her way out. I swear, we are not the common denominators here where it comes to our bad tenants... I think we just try and see the best in people and try to give the down and out families a chance (we even gave her a break with the paying of the damage deposit...MISTAKE! Now we have 200$ of her damage to try to fix what she broke...). NO MORE!! We have to put our foot down and be more strict about the type of people we let into our home. I swear the pot heads that were here for two years plus were the best tenants! BRING THE POT HEADS BACK!!! I'll share a little taste of the crap we were left with in the pictures below. The stuff we found left behind in that apartment is just too crappy to mention...

Aside from all that, we had a really good week. On Tuesday I had an amazing day with my mom and my sister. We started with a great breakfast and then we went to spend some quality time together at my mom's summer home where she promptly put us to work! It was fine, I learned how to change a screen and had some great and much needed quality conversation time with my sister. On Wednesday, we decided to start the day by going to the natural park at Centennial Park. We were the only ones there for a bit which was great. The boys got to play with some visiting puppies and had a great time on all the structures. We celebrated the rest of Canada Day as we've been doing for years now at my friend Josée's parents' waterfront house. The boys had a good time playing on the sand, on the dock and showing off for all the people. Eventually I think they may enjoy the festivities downtown with the inflatables and the music and stuff but for now, at their age, a safe, somewhat low-key event is just what we need. Thankfully, Nesha was with us again this year and she was our third chaperone. Had she not been there I'm sure one of the boys would have jumped right off the dock! Even with three people it's hard to keep an eye on my little Speedy Gonzales children!

On Thursday I went in to do some work for Gab's boss Lynn. It was fun, it wasn't a hard task and I got to spend some time chatting and trying a new place for lunch (Thanks Lynn!). Friday the boys were at daycare and I got so much done it was crazy! Since I learned how to change a screen at my mother's, I tackled our storm door screen that I've been nagging Gab to do. Of course the boys have already ripped it out of the door from pushing on it so hard. I was really sad today to see my hard work ripped to literal shreds... Anyways, I also made soup from scratch (first time and maybe last... I'm not a very good soup maker, I put in WAY too many noodles...) and I made spaghetti sauce (I'm really good at that at least). I mowed the lawn and re-arranged our backyard a bit... it was a long exhausting day but good.

Yesterday we decided to surrender our routine to the day and went to the beach at Cape Tourmentine which was an hour away. We thought our boys had maybe gotten to the point where they would no longer want to sleep in the morning... Nope, not the case... they were all out within 15 mins of driving on the highway... that's where we just had to go with the flow and throw our routine out the window... We had a great time at the beach. The water was so friggen cold though! Sam is not a huge water fan so he was reluctant to go in. Jacob and Zachary went right to the water edge and I know they would have gone further had the water been a little warmer. By the end of our stay, Jacob had gotten up the nerve to go almost past his knees! He loves everything water that kid! So does Zachary but he wasn't feeling the "let's go deeper" vibe that day. We left after our beach lunch and were hoping they'd fall asleep on the way home as quick as they fell asleep on the way there. Nope! Only Sam wanted to sleep and the other two were just chatting away, probably reliving their wonderful time on the beach... They fell asleep like 15 minutes from home! We weren't going to drive another two hours to make sure they got their nap in so we (I) decided to get home and try to transfer from car seat to bed. Sometimes it works but mostly at night. It didn't work at all for their nap... Oh well, we gave them a snack, loaded them up and went to check out the Rib Fest and the bikes downtown. They really enjoyed it all and weren't even as tired (read little devils) we expected them to be. We got home, they played in the newly mowed backyard and I went in to make supper. I was making the boys some nachos when all I hear is Sam screeching in Gab's arms on his way in. I know the boys' cries and this was a hurt cry so I rushed to see what had happened and discovered that Sam had gotten bitten by some type of bug. Poor little buddy... it started swelling right away and kept swelling up right up until bed time. I'm just happy that his throat didn't close up... It might be mean of me to say but I'm almost glad that he got stung and now it's over and done with for him and I know at least one of the three isn't allergic. That's a huge fear of mine. I know they're not allergic to nuts so that's out of the way but the wasps/hornets is always something I'm scared of. It's not like I'm going to go stick Zachary and Jacob in a nest just to check but I'm relieved that I know Sam is ok. The swelling went down quite a bit during the night and it was almost all gone by the end of the day today. My family hardly noticed a swelling when we went to visit them today.

Well that's it that's all for this week! I feel like I could write a book tonight but I also need to eat/sleep/read so I'll leave it at that and call it a night. Here are some pics: