Tales From a “GREEN” Minivan

Remembrance Day has evolved into much more than wearing poppies and a moment of silence in my house, it’s become a day to remember family members who are no longer with us and cherish those who still are.
This family tradition started long before I met my husband Andrew and his family. Andrew’s maternal grandfather Charles, who served nine years as a trooper in WWII with the Princess Louise Dragoon Guard, had passed away on October 30th, 1988. Every year he had marched with the veterans in our local Remembrance Day ceremony. It was decided that since he was no longer able to be there physically, the family would all attend the ceremony and get together afterwards to visit his grave and have some soup. Twenty-one years later, this tradition still continues.

I first experienced the Annual McCormick Remembrance Day festivities in November 2003. (Although I had been in the family since 2002, our son Liam was born on November 9, 2002 and we weren’t released from the hospital in time to make it.) It has since become one of my favourite family traditions. A way to remember fallen heroes, lost loved ones and appreciate the extended family that you may not get to see as often as you’d like in these busy times.

Andrew’s uncle Ralph McCormick usually says a few words and then we all recite the poem, In Flanders Fields in English (and occasionally my daughter Mackenzie will say it in French). We then all attend the local Remembrance Day ceremony and meet up at a central spot to travel together by car (there’s normally six to seven car loads). Along the route we make stops for family members to pay respects to loved ones at different graveyards. Our last stop is at Andrew’s grandparents’ where we remove our poppies and place them on the memorial wreath.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow   
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 - 1918)

After being outdoors in the chill of November we all return to Andrew’s aunt and uncle’s home (Judy and Gary Lockhart) for hot soup compliments of all of the family matriarchs, although the past few years I have been bringing my Buttercup Squash Soup by request! It’s such an honour to be included in this family event, one that I hope will continue on for many years to come!

Be sure to visit The Memory Project- Stories of the Second World War  where you’ll find the incredible stories of service and sacrifice which are currently being collected and archived by The Memory Project.

Mom, if you’re reading this click your back button, I don’t want you to spoil your surprise!

There, now that I have that out of the way, I’m going to show you what I made on the weekend.  In March I took a class at our local Family Resource Centre that I really enjoyed and didn’t want to end!  I met Tina Weller (aka- The Serene Stamper) who is a consultant with Stampin’ Up!  She is a super exuberant gal with a passion for craft, and just what this gal with self-proclaimed “scrappers block” needed!

After the 4 weeks of  classes ended, some of the girls decided to start a “Stampin’ Club” and get together once a month to papercraft.  We made a commitment of 6 months to buy $35 each and each one of us will host a night and get some free products.

Last weekend’s project was a card and matching candle. I know I was a little curious as to how we could stamp onto a candle, but it was much easier than I thought and the result is just stunning!

We actually did not stamp onto the candle at all, instead, we stamped our designs onto some white tissue paper, the kind you use in gift bags. We stamped onto the shiny side of the tissue then used some chalks and blending pens on the opposite side.  We then cut each design out, Tina recommended wetting just around the perimeter to tear it away.

Next we positioned each stamped design  onto the candle and placed some wax paper and wrapped the entire candle we made sure to have some excess to use to hold onto from the back. The next step was using a heat gun, a paper crafting tool like a mini-hair dryer and in circular motions over each of the designs you will soon see the tissue disappear into the candle.  Once you see the edges of the tissue dissolve into the candle, roll the candle with the wax paper still attached several times on a hard surface.  Then carefully peel the wax paper away.

Here’s my completed project!

and the matching card!

I’m a little disappointed with myself as I really thought I was going to get to blog more during my month off. I’m pretty sure most of you were aware that I took the month of December off.  Things seemed to be piling up (quite literally) all around me and I needed to take a break from my screen time and focus on things that have been neglected around the house. The first part of the month was extremely busy with many appointments and general household CHAOS!  My dad was over for a few days to help get some unfinished projects around the house completed. Mid-month I got to take a little weekend vacation with my mom and Andrew’s mom down to Maine to do a little Christmas shopping without any of the kids.  It was a nice break and we had a great time without the men around! Then later that week I took a quick impromptu trip down to Halifax to get my BIL to an important appointment at a specialist.  The weather was very bad and winter driving does not bother me, so we loaded the van with Finn in tow and spent the night at my BIL & SIL’s home in Dartmouth then headed straight back to Saint John right after the appointment.  So sorry I didn’t get the chance to meet up with some of my friends in the area, but I was only in town for less than 24 hours!

After that busy week the next thing I knew Christmas was quickly approaching, luckily I was pretty much ready, most gifts were wrapped, I had already picked up the food for our Christmas Eve Seafood Feast.  Here’s a few pics from the evening and a tradition we have in our family every year!

Sweet Finn posing in front of the tree

The Miller’s looking a little Norwegian

Matching Jammies

Christmas Day was our usual tradition of getting up and putting on our…jammies!  Yes we spend the day in our PJ’s, we go to my dad’s for brunch and then to my mom’s for turkey dinner.  This year, I’m not sure what happened but I din’t get a pic of us in them!

Boxing Day was a hoot!  While we were in Maine we saw some red Christmas t-shirts at Old Navy in every size!  I thought wouldn’t it be fun to wear them to our annual family get together?  Andrew’s mom then saw them and said why don’t we get them for all 13 of the Miller’s that would be attending, so we ripped through the shelf and found 13 ranging from size 2T all the way to XL!  Here’s a shot of all of us!

We finished off the evening by getting a shot of the 6 Miller Cousins in the matching PJ’s

Not sure what we’re going to do for our New Years Celebration, we have a few invites, but I think it may be a low key gathering and perhaps a little Rock Band 2 for the Wii involved!  Andrew and I are ADDICTS!  It’s so much fun!

It’s finally here…December that is, and tonight we kicked it off with a new tradition!  One idea stolen from  fellow co-worker Tracy and the other usurped from my other co-worker Helen!  Such brilliant ladies!

So you’re probably wondering what we did well I’ll do better and show you!

We decided to burn an Advent Candle.  This has been a tradition of Tracy’s family for many years and I loved it!  Last year just before Christmas but too late for the countdown I saw some of these candles marked down so I bought them.  Funny enough Tracy had trouble finding them this year so I brought 2 out to her this afternoon so she would have them in time to burn this evening.  As you can see in the photo there are numbers down the candle and each evening you burn it until you reach the correct number.  The kids thought this was great!

My next stolen idea was while the candle was burning to grab one of our Christmas books and read it!  We have many Christmas stories so why not read a new one each night!

I’ll need to make sure I grab the rest of the books to put in the stack for tomorrow, of course one story was never enough so I may have to look for a few more in the coming weeks. I like this idea much better than one of those calendars with the no-so-tasty chocolates in them.  I think the kids did too!

and yes the boys need haircuts, it’s on the list, just trying to make it as close to Christmas as possible..lol

It’s officially December and the countdown is on!  Last night we started a new tradition by attending a local event called the Harbour Lights Tree “Unlighting” Ceremony!

Every year since 1997 our local CBC Radio morning show (Information Morning) organizes the “Harbour Lights”Campaign. It’s a fundraiser to support our local foodbanks for the time between Christmas and Easter, which is a time of the year traditionally that the foodbanks have a hard time getting donations.  CBC decided to start this fundraiser beginning Dec 1- 19 and light the tree up with a $2 donation for each light, as the donations come in the tree gets brighter and brighter.  Once they reach the $40,000 goal the star on the top is lit.

Last night when we arrived the tree was completely illuminated.  We all gathered directly below the tree in the large circle (my camera was having a technical difficulty so I’m waiting for a friend to pass along some photos) and they had hot chocolate and timbits for the kids and coffee for the big people. The Saint John Choral Group was there and sang some carols, as was CBC for Kids star Super WHY?  Finn loved him!  It was amazing to see the tree up so close as it’s on Port Property and you normally can’t get that close.  Once the SJ Choral ran out of tunes, they cut the lights!  The kids are now excited to see it light back up, and after we made our donation they were anxiously waiting for our lights to appear on the walk back to the van!

I think we’ll make this a new annual tradition!

As soon as I get those photos I’ll post them!

 Well today was Ciaran’s 4th birthday but he was completely oblivious, and I didn’t remind him. I’m assuming that youre thinking I’m a pretty mean mom right now.

I know many of you are wondering why we didn’t celebrate today? Well he’s sick and just hasn’t been himself since before Halloween. I knew that if he was aware that his Birthday was today then he would be wondering when his party was happening? gifts? etc. I didn’t want to disappoint him.

I know that some may not approve, but I think I’m doing him a favour, he’s not aware of the date so what difference will it make? I think celebrating when he’s feeling better and he can enjoy himself more will be better for him.

Here’s a few pics from his unbirthday. We spent part of the day at our doctors office, the the rest of the day in jammies. The doc fix us up with some yummy banana flavoured medicine for the nasty chest infection.

I love you my sweet boy, I haven’t forgotten your birthday, I just want it to be as special as I can for you. We’ll celebrate soon!

XOXO

Mommy

This past weekend Andrew’s sister got married on a beautiful Saturday evening. Being the non-traditional girl that she is, her and her fiance Ben planned a small ceremony with immediate family and a few close friends to be held in the early evening outdoors at Ben’s Parents house followed by a reception dance in their barn!

It was nice to get the cousins together, earlier in the day my SIL Tracy and I got the kids together and had a group shot of them taken.  It’s always a challenge to find one photo that we both liked, my Tracy and I have similar tastes and we both settled on this one, I played around with Smilebox to liven it up!

The boys checking out the horses before the Ceremony:

The boys all wanting to sit with Nanny!

Mackenzie was one of the Flower Girls, a first for her!

Andrew’s dad giving Colleen away. Her dress was made from Hemp, and she designed it!

Colleen and Ben being Bonded.  Before rings became the norm, couples were tied together to Bond them.  It was quite humourous to see Andrew’s very staunch catholic father squirm during this one!

The Millers

Colleen and her Sister-in-Laws - left to right: Tracy, Rebecca (Bens sister) and me

The wedding cake- A Delicious Carrot Cake (yes I got the recipe, I’m making it later in the week!)

Congratulations Guys! It was a beautiful day!  We wish you guys the best of luck on your move to Montreal!

This evening I got to meet up with a co-worker from 1992!  That’s over 16 years ago, I honestly don’t feel old enough to have worked there over 16 years ago, and most people most likely don’t recall who they worked with that long ago.  Disney was different especially my co-workers and fellow Disney Cast Members at the Canadian Pavilion at EPCOT Center.

Almost two years ago I joined a social networking site I’m sure most of you are aware of- Facebook.   Immediately I was drawn to the fact that I could look up people I had lost touch with and started finding some of my co-workers from Walt Disney World.  There are Facebook groups dedicated to former Disney Cast Members, and it’s been great to catch up with so many that I’d lost touch with.  One of these friends was Bea!  The last time I saw Bea was 3 years after we left Disney in 1995 when we had a reunion in Halifax and a Pub Crawl.  Bea knew I was back in NB and was coming to Fredericton for work, so I decided to drive up and get together with her. Let’s just say she looks exactly the same!  It was so great reminiscing and seeing where each of our After-Disney lives took us!

Thanks for the invite to Fredericton Bea!

Here’s a shot of us 16 years ago in 1992 when  we worked for the Mouse:

Here we are now in 2008 16 years later!

Today was Christmas (in July) at our house!  Everything kind of just fell into place.  Our original plan was to go away for the weekend, but at the last minute we decided to stay home.  Well, I didn’t want the kids to be too disappointed so wanted to do something fun in lieu of traveling.

On Thursday I took the boys to the mall to pick out a birthday gift for a friend of theirs and while there, the boys got really excited.  They starting shouting, “Look Mommy Santa’s here!”  Much to my surprise, they were correct, there in the middle of the mall was Santa’s little set-up big Green Chair and Christmas trees and all (no Santa though)!

It seems that our local mall in conjunction with a festival in the city where having a Christmas in July celebration, and Santa Claus was going to be at the mall on Saturday.  I knew we couldn’t make it to the mall on Saturday as the boys had a birthday party to go to, but a friend did and I had to laugh at what Santa was wearing!

When we decided not to go away, I thought why not take advantage of this and do our own Christmas in July!  We actually had this as a fun activity to do on our Summer Fun Calendar.  So Andrew, Mackenzie and I conspired and picked up a few summer themed gifts for the kids, Rocket Fishing Rods for the boys, a pair of inline skates for Mackenzie and a fun Mickey Mouse light up toy for Finn.

Finn really liked the tiny little Christmas Tree!

Santa even brought some summer reading material for Mom & Dad looks like Santa is going Green too.  Thanks Santa!

To finish off the day in true Christmas spirit we had a full turkey dinner with all the fixings, and ate outside on our back deck.  It was a little windy so we did end up going back inside for seconds and the fresh strawberry shortcake got forgotten, so I guess we’ll have that tomorrow!

Living in Saint John, NB definitely has it’s fair share of positives and negatives, but by far the worst has to be the FOG!  Saint John is the 3rd Foggiest City in Canada  with 98.29 foggy days per year. Second place goes to Halifax, NS with 99.53, and first place goes to St. John’s, NL with a whopping 118.96 days per year!!

I am 35 years old, and for the majority of my 35 years I have lived in Saint John, NB.  In those 35 years, I can honestly count on both hands the number of times that our Canada Day Fireworks have actually gone off on Canada Day.  “Why didn’t they go off?”, you ask.  They were fogged out, and this year was no different!  It was looking optimistic in the afternoon, then that late afternoon breeze brought the fog back in from the Bay of Fundy.  Living close to the harbour, also has it’s advantages and disadvantages too. One disadvantage being the Saint John Harbour’s foghorn, it could easily wake the dead!

Canada Day started off nicely, I got the whole crew dressed in denim and red shirts and we sauntered our way uptown.  Saint John does not have a “downtown”, only and uptown.  I never really understood this, but this is the way it’s always been.  Maybe I’ll have to look into the history of this some day!

  Finn rode on my back for the entire afternoon in my Ergo Carrier.  I can not say enough positive things about this carrier.  It really is amazingly comfortable even carrying a 25lb toddler for hours!  My favorite part is the extra padding in the waist band and the shoulder straps.  My only wish is that they’d come out with some more colourful designs or fabrics.  So ErgoBaby Inc. if you’re listening, you need to “pimp your carriers” as CPO’s Moderator of our Baby Wearing Board would say!

After walking around uptown and looking through all of the JUNK at the Giant Uptown Flea Market, we spotted a sign near the foot of King Street that said “Free Trolley Rides- 1pm, 2:30pm & 4pm”.  I instantly looked at my watch and got excited it was 2:25pm and then realized we must have just missed it as no one was waiting. I asked a gentleman sitting there and he confirmed it.  He did mention though that the driver was ahead of schedule and would most likely be back around 3:30pm instead of 4pm.  So we walked over to Market Square’s Boardwalk area to kill some time.

I’ve wanted to take one of these Trolley rides for a while now and actually mentioned wanting to take the kids on a tour in our latest episode of Momtalk Podcast called Your Perfect Staycation.  Here’s a little history on Saint John’s Trolley’s- one of the tour agencies in the city bought them a few years ago.  They are the San Francisco style ones made to look like street cars, incidentally Saint John, NB was actually the first city in Canada to have a Street Car. Well as you can see by the photo to the right we arrived back just in time to get the last free tour!  Ciaran fell asleep 3/4 of the way through, but I think the kids really enjoyed it and learned a few cool facts about Saint John, I know I did!

Our Canada Day Fireworks were postponed 3 nights in a row, then finally on the 4th of July, us Saint Johner’s got to witness a great show!

Earlier in the evening I hauled out my camera’s manual and looked up what setting would be the best for fireworks. I have to admit as much as I love my digital SLR, the amount of different settings are overwhelming, I really need to take a course!  We parked the minivan down by the waterfront and flipped the rear bench seat over so the kids could sit there and watch. This is one of the cool features I like in our van! Here’s a few shots from the evening: