Blog Move

I am moving my blog to a new site due to email issues connected with this blog. The Drage Diaries will now be located at Life's a Zoo. See you there.

How?

So, I haven't had a blog entry since, what, last February??....and part of the reason is because I just sit and look at the screen and say HOW?....How do you catch up on all the important stuff between then and now....So, here's the last 10 months in memo form....

March.... Family vacay to Florida:
Seaworld, Discovery Cove, Everglade tours and alligator spotting, Florida Keys with Para Sailing and Reef Snorkeling
April: Jordan Turns 17 and the horse shows begin.

May: James and I are a year older.... no pics necessary. Trip to Boston to a Jack Canfield seminar. (Chicken Soup for the Soul guy) Very motivating...got to meet Jack. Nice guy.

June: Erinn off to Bahrain for International Children's Games for Volley ball. James and I head for a weekend seminar in North Carolina.
Chris' mission call comes while we are away.... Nanny hides it until we get home for him to open it.....He's off to Edmonton Alberta Sept 1st .
July: Jordan heads to Poland for Coalition for Kids, Canadian teens volunteering for a program similar to the children's wish foundation.
Camping trip to Risser's beach with the Fraser's! August: August was insane. James and I reached 20 years of marriage...but had NO time to celebrate. Erinn leaves for EFY in Calgary, James takes the kids and heads for New York and picks up Jordan who is passing through New York on the way back from Poland. He then heads to Toronto and Ottawa with them. I have a few days to collect my thoughts and then I am off to Calgary to pick up Erinn and we head to Edmonton...to spend 3 days in the West Edmonton Mall. We come home in time to see James and Chris off...on their way to Guatemala to see the Mayan ruins....a special father/son trip before Chris' mission. I have one day to wash and repack, then off camping with my sister in PEI. We get back , James and Chris return, my sister niece and nephew stay for another 5 days....We say goodbye to them and quickly prepare for Chris farewell and Ethans baptism. Thank goodness for good friends who planned and prepared so much for us. It was an amazing night. Then reality hits.... one week until Chris leaves. Lots of packing, shopping, crying, and preparing...Then, we drive Chris to the airport on Monday Aug 31. Very emotional.

That brings me to Sept.... In the midst of sniffling that Chris is gone, I need to prepare Jordan for her journey. Heading to Neuchatel Switzerland for her senior year of High school. On the 7th, I flew with her to Toronto, got her where she needed to go, said a sad goodbye and then flew home.
Three weeks later, Chris arrives home from Edmonton, on medical leave from his mission. Very emotional for everyone on all sorts of levels.
Two weeks after that, mid October, we head to Europe... Chris too, for a two week vacation and visit to Jordan. We stopped over in Morocco and Paris before heading to Neuchatel Switzerland.
Arrive home Nov 3 to the news that Jordan is in ICU in critical condition...I fly back to Switzerland Nov 4 to stay with Jordan for 4 weeks (2 in hospital, 2 afterwards) while she recovered from a nasty strep infection causing multi organ failures! Scary stuff. But she's all good now! That brings me to the end of November.
Back in time for Christmas shopping, decorating and traditions of the season...Dec 2o, Jordan heads to Kenya(from Switzerland) on a school trip with a charity organization to build a school for an impoverished village, so we don't have her home for Christmas.....then Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day traditions and family visits....... And then a week of recovery until today...New year's eve. PHEW
SO...that's how you catch up a year of blogging in one post. (I stopped adding pics to get through it all !)

Volleyball mom

Each of my children have something they love or excel at....and I've posted on a couple of them...Ethan and Aikido, Jordan and horseback riding....

Today, it's Erinn and the sport of volleyball.
She started in grade 7...couldn't serve a ball over the net...was so short she could almost walk UNDER the net!.. but boy has she ever developed into one talented volleyball player. She played for her school team for the 3 years of Junior High...This year on the "A" team. And for 3 years she has played for a metro club called Armview Storm. I love watching her and her team play together. They're great.

Erinn is on the right, receiving a serve.

Another serve receive..the ball is a blur just in front of her arms.


Her given position, and what she does best... Setting the ball.




Her, on the left jumping for a block.Took a lot of practice to get high enough to
get her hands above the net!! She still has some growing to do.
I'm glad she has a love of a sport to keep her busy and out of trouble. Very very important during these teenage years!

Facebookless....a new word?

My name is Lis Drage....I was a facebook-aholic.



A few weeks ago, I was feeling particularly grumpy and antisocial so for whatever reason, I deactivated my facebook account. I found I was spending way too much time on it, my email was overflowing with post reports, and honestly...did I need to know what was going on in the 200+ friends lives at any given moment....ummmm no.
I have my moments of withdrawl.... I have a couple of people who noticed I fell off the face of , well , facebook. I get more done now and don't feel the guilt of wasted time on the computer....(so what do I do? turn to blogging!...)
I will probably reactivate it though. I am a social creature at heart..it's a sad comment that it makes you feel connected to the world but I do I feel in the dark right now. The key would be to set a limit of a reasonable amount of time...stop in, catch up on what's going on, and log out!

Anyone else getting sucked into the vortex of computer usage? Facebook, blogging, twitter? What do you think is a reasonable amount of "social use" on the computer? I'm curious to know what others think.

Ethan's Birthday Party....in October????

Yes, I had his birthday party in October. And why is this such a crime? Well....Ethan turned 7 in August....the BEGINNING of August. So, yes, I'm a little late.

Anyone who has August babies, (I have 2) knows that planning a birthday party in the summer months is a royal pain in the butt. Trying to get hold of kids in the summer, when you don't even know all the their last names, let alone where they live COMBINED with the fact that IF you locate them, at least half will be on vacation...ug...Too much hassle.
BUT, my dear son was expecting and planning a party. Sure, we had a family party...but, we are just not all that cool.
So, I convince Ethan that we wait until after school starts, people are back from vacation and it is MUCH easier to get the invitations out. He was not really excited with this plan. WHY???? Because I convinced him of the very same thing last year and guess what....It never happened! By February, this sweet little boy looks at me and says " I guess I'm not having a birthday party" (it took him 6 months to accept this fact)
Yes, that would be my millionth "Motherhood of the year" award.

SOOOOO I swore that would not happen again this year. And all through september, and into october it was a game of.... "ok, what about this weekend; nope, Erinn has a volley ball tournament....what about the next weekend; nope Daddy is out of town. How about the weekend after that; Nope, Nicholo (another buddy) is having his party that day...."'

Finally I just said, ENOUGH, the party will be on the 24, we are going to see Astroboy at the movie theatres, hopefully someone can come!

So out go the invitations and it finally happens. It was NUTS lol. Erinn did have a volleyball tournament that day so james stayed to watch her and I dealt with 8 little boys and 3 little girls at the theatres. Having had my two sons 11 years apart, I had quickly forgotten that putting 8 little boys in a confined space results in a one hour wrestltling match accented with fart noises, belches and armpit squeaks, and since they were eating hotdogs for dinner, many giggling references to weiners. Wow.....it's amazing the human race continues....boys are gross. LOL I sat with the three little girls and stared in unbelief at the chaos before us. Then the sweet theatre employee marched us down to get popcorn and into the movie we go....(my husband shows up at this point...thanks for the HELP honey!)

BUT, I don't care how chaotic or loud or crazy the kids were, I fulfilled my promise and had a party to celebrate my son's birthday. He will not know that my blood pressure topped the charts that day, he will not know I thanked God multiple times that he was my last child!....all he will know and remember, is that I did what I said I would do. The big hug and "thank you Mommy" will stay with me forever.

See my gray hair???

.....I didn't have this much gray hair last week.... I blame Jordan , ....for crashing her car

and she managed to flip it too...

in a ditch...

ON SOME TREES....(narrowly missing a telephone pole)

She still has some seatbelt marks, a bruised and cut left wrist...oh right,...she broke her right arm too...
(and she's right handed, ....That's great for the school thing.) She has to see a specialist next week...Possible surgery?

I'm still is shock. I think she is doing better.
Somedays, I wish my children were small again so I can keep them close and protect them.

But I think someone else was protecting her....

and again, I can't thank Him enough.....



Most of you have seen the pics on facebook already but I just wanted to document it all on the blog.

And this cartoon came through some forwarded mail and made me smile...cause now it means something to me.

Bill Waves

Actually, the waves caused by Bill....

We decided to go for a drive down the Purcell's Cove Rd on Sunday evening (as did many many MANY other people) so we could get a look at the waves caused by our recent brush with hurricane Bill.

I have to say....after having recently visited the mountains for the first time in my life, I was reflecting on the great wonders of nature. The mountains were amazing, very surreal.... overwhelmingly BIG and oh so peaceful. But, after coming out to see the waves, I have decided that I am in love with the ocean. The mountains were incredible, but ah, the sound and smell of the ocean...I just couldn't live without it! I could sit for hours and listen to the crashing waves, the squawking gulls, preferably(but not neccesary) with a sunbeam on my face, and be completely content. The sound of the ocean is a comfort to my soul...When life is the toughest, I guarantee you that you will find me at Peggy's Cove or some other rock or beach near the ocean. I find the tension within me eases and I breath deeper until things seem ok again.

So,we took the camera, the kids and the dog and enjoyed a few minutes (actually about 2 hours) watching an angry sea. It was breathtaking!

And before anyone comments, the kids were always a safe distance from the violent waves....the camera just doesn't give you the same perspective. Don't worry, I was a very paranoid mother!

(A lot of the pictures are of Christian because he seemed to be the one who would stop and stand to watch the water long enough for me to get some good shots.)




Erinn joined him in this next shot.



The surf crashing way, way out.


These huge waves would come out of nowhere and race across the middle of the Harbour .

These teenagers (not mine of course!) were sitting a little too close and ended up having to scramble as the waves crashed in. They got pretty wet here, and hopefully learned a lesson.