Happy September! And for many of you, Happy 1st Day back to School! Sadly, I did not go back to school today, but we're keeping our fingers crossed that some teaching gigs come up soon! In the meantime, my summer employers, Pathways is keeping me on to finish my curriculum work and then for one week contracts to facilitate job readiness programs - the curriculum that I've spent the summer working on! They're great people there and I enjoy it, so it's great that this is working out. Mike starts teaching at Guelph on Thursday and is very much looking forward to it! The other news that we've got going on is that Lily has .... SHINGLES! Shingles is what presents when the victim/recipient has already has the chicken pox but gets the virus. She is in high spirits but is highly contagious so she is to be kept away from other kids until her sores crust over (!) which should be this Thursday or Friday. On a selfish note, we're really excited about spending time with her - she is such a great little person! Here are some photos from the past couple of weeks ~ enjoy! PPS

Other big news is that Lily is now in a BIG Girl bed! We set it up on Saturday and it is as though she has always been in a bed! It's funny 'cause in the morning she'll still call out for us to come and get her. I'm not really looking forward to the time when she realizes all that stops her from endless hours of reading and bedtime is her bedrail!


On Monday we took a family walk from our place near the University along the Thames River to downtown London.


Surprise, surprise... I stopped a passerby to take our family photo during our outing. Lily is adamant that when we go out for a walk, Mike and I are to wear hats too. :-)


Here is Mike and Lily at the fountains. The circular building in the background is Museum London.



Lily is checking out the playground....

The downtown park is filled with fun and beautiful flowers that I dragged Lily around to sniff :-)


Lily enjoyed her self so much running around the park!

Lily's new favourite hat (believe me when I say it was a big deal for anything to replace her Dora hat!) is a polka dot number from my sister that is pink with white polka dots - Lily loves it, and our biggest challenge is convincing her she does not need to wear the coat that goes with it!


This is a truly typical Lily face. It's when she's concentrating and squinting from the sun at the same time. Mike calls it her 'stinky face'. Sometimes she makes it when she is grinding her teeth!



Lily LOVES her buses! This is us taking the bus back from our downtown adventure. It was Mike's first time seeing Lily ride the bus.
Lily is so in her element when we're on the bus. We've taken this bus route so many times when she was at the downtown daycare. We'll pass buildings and identify them - when we pass the courthouse she says 'That's where Uncle David works' or when we go by our Doctor's it's awesome just how great her recall is!




There were some rowdy folks on the bus that Lily wasn't quite sure of...


Our niece Rebecca :-) We're pretty sure that Rebecca and Lily share the same grin - Lily just happens to have more teeth :-)