Back to Grand

As anyone who knows my family of Yosts, they should know we have an affinity for (as my father likes to refer to it) Plato's Ideal Beach, located in a secret place...  Oh what?  I mentioned Grand Beach before.  Darn it.  Well, knowing that I wouldn't be able to make it up to the lake for month due to other commitments, I cajoled Cara into skipping her nephew's birthday and coming out to Grand Beach the first weekend of June.  We shall return Friday (or Saturday depending on how long Jeff's move will take).

This was planned to be a quiet easy weekend of enjoying the water.  Sadly, as I pulled into the cottage I saw this:

Really?  Come on guys.  I do not want to have to saw down 5 trees and haul them to the corner.  Cuss! Host! Tabernacle! Ah well, so I took out the chain saw and got the trees down and segmented, and then promptly ran out of gas.  CUSS!!  A bit more work on Saturday and Sunday and we solved the problem, and I inherited a great deal of firewood.  Why of course the trees blocking our view can't magically fall over like this is beyond me...  After this and a mow of the lawn we had the rest of the slightly abbreviated weekend to ourselves to relax and enjoy the sand.

Teresa is now a rockstar.  Oh yes, and she looks darling here.  Her cute poses are much improved since Pearl's visit.  Hey!  Wait a second...

Yeah.  That's a lake... Oh wait, in the middle of that picture?  That's a bald eagle!  Another tick for the weekend, along with a ton of pelicans and some spawning carp by the rocks.

Another cute pose.  I could have sworn I cropped this in iPhoto.  Blast.

More lakeside shenanigans.

They love throwing rocks into the lake.  Only once or twice have they almost brained each other or Rowdy.

The girls brought out toys and a blanket for Margaret to play with.

Now that is some quality decoration (and odd posing).  Frances' most recent "smile" looks more like she is growling at the camera.  As auntie Jackie would say "natural poses everyone".

May Long Weekend 2012

May Long weekend is the official start to the beach season regardless of the weather as we can finally go to the cottage and not have to rely on hauled water and outhouses.  This season was a special as Auntie Pearl came to visit for a longer-than-a-long-weekend.  The girls loved having another person around to read stories, take pictures, watch their general insanity and (of course) play with them.  Auntie Pearl of course obliged.  I shall let the pictures tell the story.

Saturday was a rainy and miserable day (what else could you expect from May Long?), so I hauled the new BBQ & lawnmower into the house and assembled them.  This was smart, as I didn't lose a single dropped piece!  And yes, the girls played in midst of the construction.

Teresa took advantage of all the bubble wrap to design a new dress for herself.  I see a career in high fashion for her (sigh...)

Miserable weather?  What troopers.  The addition of umbrellas really helps the situation.

Why look at me, all cute and such, surrounded by toys and the modern day children's classic (full of existential themes), "But Not the Hippopotamus". 

Come on Pearl.  You know that this picture had to end up on the blog...

Maragret spent most of the weekend trying to pull herself up on this toy...

Story time with mommy...

Our first  walk to the rocks, and the girls got to see the smashing waves.  Teresa and Frances have both gotten good at doing it on their own, though Frances often choose to ask for help.

This must be one of Pearl's pictures...  The girls enjoy the shore, especially throwing rocks into the lake.  Stupidly, I have since slid on the rocks, while trying to deal with a tired & crying Frances and a pretty sure I broke my little toe...  Sigh.

That is one wet, somewhat majestic looking dog.  Why do I have a picture of a dog?

Sunday was thankfully substantially better for weather, and we settled close to an "island" for the afternoon.  The girls had a great time, getting ice cold at times...

... so we went to the red park to warm up ... 

... where Margaret came to meet us ...

... and had her first "swim" without complaining!

A lineup of cuteness.

Monday I had to mow, so the girls went for a walk with Cara and Pearl.  I can only imagine that this ended in tears.  Whose, I am not sure.

Frances walking Rowdy.

Playing at the park Monday morning.

And what would a visit to Winnipeg be without the Original Pancake House?

Mother's Day 2012

Mother's Day is essentially the antithesis of Father's Day.  On Mother's Day, moms everywhere foist their children on the dads and then they get an afternoon of relaxing away from children.  Somehow on Father's Day, moms foist the children on the dads and ask them to parent, which they apparently normally don't do or something...  

This year, I put the kids in charge of planning Cara's day.  Because we needed some alone time to do what needed to be done, so Cara put Margaret down to a nap and fled to the coffee shop to knit alone.  We then made the dinner the girls planned and wrapped the gifts.

Making cupcakes for mom. Sifting was a surprising amount of effort.  Cockeye cake is a versatile recipe...

Gift wrapping time.

Oh look, Margaret woke up.  What you see as a wrapping job for Frances' gift is essentially how Cara got.  Oh yes, and Frances chose the wrapping paper.

Teresa is getting rather good at posing for pictures.

Gift wrapping done, I recalled the most important part of making cake.  Licking the bowl clean.

And of course, licking yourself unclean.

And here is the dinner the girls planned for Cara: Hotdogs, Chicken nugget, Carrots & Strawberries.  The girls & I got Cara an angel figurine, a set of Smurfs Season 1 DVDs & a cast iron frying pan.

The Girls In Action

As mentioned previously the girls are busy during the week.  We feel swimming lessons are important and we were lucky enough to get the girls into lessons at the same time.  This is Teresa's last set of lessons named after an animal (we think it is Sunfish, but we can't recall), as she will be 6 next round of lessons so she will numbered...  Both seem to be having great fun, but they seem confused by the idea of "swimming" at Grand Beach.



Cara and I also had a slight disagreement about soccer, but both the girls asked to be in it so we put them in soccer, which once again was conveniently scheduled at the same time for both of them.  It is also quite nice that Teresa gets to see a bunch of her pre-school friends, as Teresa broke Cara's heart earlier this year when she told Frances that she would make lots of friends at pre-school and lose them all when she went to Browning...  Also the two girls are on the same teams as another pair of sisters that Teresa made fast friends with this year in kindergarten.  The girls though are not the best athletes (I know you are stunned, how could they not with such a lineage that they are bred from?) and as such are generally more interested  in the social aspects of the game, like dandelion picking, snack time and breaks.

The girls proudly wearing their jerseys.

The girls normally ride to & from soccer.  Teresa may be able to graduate to no training wheels this summer, and Frances to Teresa's old bike.  That bike was Teresa's 5th birthday present.

Frances practicing her kicking.

Teresa's soccer team having a tête à tête.  I am pretty sure the discussion went something like this: "OK, so we will all chase the ball in a pack.  Oh, Grace, you want to pick dandelions?  That's fine.  Also, remember never to anticipate where the ball will end up, just run to where it is.  Dylan, when you get the ball make sure you kick it towards our net."

Frances enjoying the social aspect of the game.

Hey look, Teresa's working at getting to the ball!

Magaret & Rowdy regularly come to the games.

Rowdy is in heaven as everyone wants to pet him. 

Teresa actually excelled at goal, attacking the ball, coming out to block angles, and generally behaving like a goalie should!

Narcisse 2012

I can't quite recall when Teresa, Ray & I last went to Narcisse, but I had made plans to do so again this year.  After carefully checking out how the snakes were doing online and consulting the weather reports, I decided that the Sunday where I was alone with the girls (Cara was shopping in Grand Forks with Myrna & Andrea) would be the best.  As previously posted, I spent that Saturday at the lake.  When I got home, I checked the weather report and it was to be +25 with sun all day in Winnipeg & Inwood (right by Narcisse).  I spent some time finding someone who would come with me, and after I learned that one co-worker is a sissy face who is scared of snakes, I found someone to come with me, the head football coach & his three year old son Bobby.

I awoke Sunday morning and swore as wind & clouds had rolled in proving the quackery of the pesudo-science that is meteorology.  After church, we rolled on over to his house, and we rode on to Narcisse.  Once there, I realized that I was a terrible parent and the girls were way underdressed for the wind & 12C temperatures we had.  The only good thing about this weather is that it limited the number of snakes that were out, so the girls didn't get freaked out by a bajillion of them slithery around and into their pant legs...

Oooh! Red sided garter snakes!

Frances doesn't have a soft touch, it's either too soft to keep the snake under control or too hard.  It's kind of like with Margaret.

Walking Rowdy

The girls.

Love.  Frances is wearing Doug's toque, and I gave my jacket to Teresa, and Doug lent me a spare windbreaker.

All Quiet on The Western (Yost) Front

Clearly it has been a while since we last posted here.  Since the advent of the blog, we have never had a month without a post in it, and while it has been quiet here it has been anything but quiet in our lives.  With Margaret taking up a pile of Cara's time, I am seemingly in charge of the girls when I am home.  Cleaning things up seems like an endless and interminable chore.  In fact when I am done this, I think I will going downstairs to check on laundry...

The past month has seen the girls out three nights a week to swimming and soccer, myself beginning to take 35 km bike rides on a somewhat regular basis, Cara trying to get out on a weekly walk with friends (a broken foot [not Cara's] seems to kiboshed that plan), Grandpa Yost visiting, Mother's Day, my birthday, Rowdy's birthday, a visit from Pearl, opening the cottage and visiting it, my annual Flin Flon trip, spring football, all the things that come up in the last month of school, I know I've forgotten some things from this list but I hope it gives you some idea why when the girls are in bed Cara and I try to find a moment of relaxation and this blog has seemingly slid into darkness.  I can't make promises but maybe I can try to post a little more often.

Clearly Margaret has changed massively.  She is now a fast crawler and is pulling herself up on stuff.  She is getting into the garbage, Rowdy's water, the bookshelf and the girl's toys...

I'll add a few pictures now and if I can find time this weekend I'll post a few more specific events from the last month (+).

How can one not love this cute & chubby face.  Someone at work recently said she reminded her of a Gerber baby, just the right amount of chubby & roll :)

Margaret is enjoying Anika's second birthday party during a nice afternoon at Assinboine Park.  I had to teach the other two girls how to pee in the bush as there were no washrooms nearby.

Celebrating Myrna & my birthdays with a BBQ at their house.  While Ray was grilling, Teresa & Frances decided to "pose" on the runway for us.

One of T's pretty poses.

The two girls being pretty.

Teresa put on a tiger dress and this was her scary pose.  She also did a silly one, but the camera was too slow...

Margaret enjoying the soccer ball.  She scooted into the dirt around the tree base in the bottom right.  That's my girl!

Sisterly love can quickly become sisterly suffocation...

Teresa dressed teddy up all fancy and placed him (or her depending on the day) on a xylophone.  Why?  She can't give a definitive reason other than "He was playing about a story where someone dressed fancy laid on a xylophone".