Kurt turns 4!!

We had a toboggan party for Kurtis over at Burns Park that is behind our place. There were about 25 kids there and about 18 came back to the house for hotdogs and cake. Kurt had a blast!

Kyra and a bunch of her friends were tobogganing too! We all had a great time.


Kurt didn't want to have any hotdogs or fruits or vegies. He wanted to sit at the cake table until it was time to cut the cakes. He had two cakes. One was Bob the Builder that was chocolate and he had another one that was white. He was a tuckered out little man after such a fun day on his birthday.

Happy New Year for 2007 from The Marsden's

Wow...how time flies! 2006 was a great year! We did lots of fun things, saw lots of friends, travelled to new places and enjoyed all of it. We started off in the spring when we travelled back to the okanagan to pack some more of our belongings from our Summerland home. We stopped and visited Mom and Dad then went over to Donna's farm and visited with her and Craig and Beth. In August, we sold the Summerland house and Gary and a buddy took the kids back for a visit and finished packing up the rest of our stuff.

Here's a picture of Kyra and Kurt with Mom and Dad when we visited at spring break.




We did lots of landscaping in the back yard. Hired a bobcat guy to come in and level out the back, installed sod, fabric, roses, trees, kids wooden fort, sandbox with roof, interlocking block patio, vegie garden for kids and perennials. Sure looks beautiful. 100% useable space now. We plan on installing a boardwalk along the far left of the picture where the creek runs and maybe a gazebo and some new decking along the house. Hope to paint the house and frame in the double garage. Time will tell. Reno'd the downstairs and it looks fantastic now. Made the bathroom bigger, wood stove and two extra bedrooms. Now have 5 bedrooms up and down. Having the extra rooms for office space etc is priceless.

Here's a picture of camp from up on the highway. What a wonderful place to spend weekends and days just relaxing and visiting with friends.

Here's a snapshot of Kyra and Kurt playing inside the cabin. They sure had a great summer out here and Gary and I did too! We bought them a blow-up sea-doo with a little electric motor on it and they toured around the beaches and had lots of fun. Kurt loved his fly fishing rod and practiced inside and outside the cabin. Kyra has some playmates from school stay in trailers at camp all summer so the kids were kept busy. Camping at the cabin on the beach was breathtaking some nights when the sunsets were glowing yellow and gold. How magnificent.

Kyra and Kurt rough-housing around at home on the livingroom floor and laughing like kids do. Kyra will be 7 this June and Kurt turned 4 a few weeks ago. How time flies when you have kids. Both of them are taking skating lessons. Kyra has a good handle on it but Kurt takes about 15 minutes go get from one end of the rink to the other. Not worried about him as he'll be faster than Kyra by next year. Kyra is in Sparks and has 7 of her little classmates in Sparks with her. The girls have a great time in and out of school together. Kurtis is busy with Playgroup and his little buddies. Seems I've got little feet running around me all day and night. The summer flew by and we visited with lots of family and friends. Fall arrived so quickly and Halloween was here before we knew it.

Here's a picture of Kurtis at Halloween. He couldn't decide between being Batman, Spiderman or Superman. He chose this costume because he liked to show off his "pipes". He's such a character!

Kyra wanted to be a wicked witch so this is what she ended up looking like. The kids went to the local rec center for fun night then travelled the local streets around the neighborhood. This year was Gary's turn to travel with the kids.

Well, this is the end of 2006. We did lots this year and had a really fun time. Our little home town has turned out to be a really great place to live and the kids are doing awesome. We did lots on the inside of the house and lots of landscaping in the back yard. I spent tons of time at the cabin on the lake and the kids played with their buddies and swam and fished lots. Gary was out at camp when not at work. We will be doing the same in 2007 so book some holidays and come out and join us. My business 'Buy The Hour Child Care' is doing fantastic. I've got lots of little tykes and parents that are thoroughly enjoying their time here and away. I get to spend time with my kids and have fun with the others and still have time with grown-ups too. Couldn't ask for more. I officially retired from the Federal Government after 20 years. Gary's busy with work, as usual, and things are progressing really well now. They are hoping to get a new plant installed here so time will tell. This picture is taken at Gary's work party just before Christmas.

So, hope you all have a wonderful 2007 that is filled with lots of fond memories and happy and healthy times! Take care of yourselves and your familes. With love and hugs, the Marsdens.

Wow!! How time flies. I haven't updated the Blog since I started it so thought I should give a couple of updates. We went to our old place during spring break and caught up with a bunch of friends. We finished packing our belongings and moved them down to our new place.

Easter came and went quickly. We stuck around home and did some more work on the house. The electrical work is now completed downstairs and so is the plumbing. The electrician just showed up and he's now completing the work in the carport and the back deck area (well, the area in the back that will some day be a deck).

We've gotten the turf installed. We had some friends come over for pizza and beer last night and they helped pack it from the front street into the back yard, unroll it and lay it. It looks fabulous and sure covers all of the dirt up. The roses are shrubs are planted and Kyra's little garding is already starting to show signs of peas, raddish, lettuce and sunflowers. She's going to be enjoying picking all the goodies this year.

We've managed to get our little cabin up the lake. It's a little one bedroom but we're phyched to get out and have some relaxation time. We have a beach front cottage that has a little one bedroom, kitchen, livingroom, and bathroom. We'll be bunked in with the kids but should end up being a really fun summer. I think the cabin is ours until October so maybe we can see you out there with us sometime.

Kyra's busy with ballet and tap, looking adorable in her Sparks outfit, loosing teeth, mastering how to ride her two wheeler and just being a beautiful girl. Kurt is busy with his play group friends, practicing his fly-fishing technique's and just being a wonderful little boy. Gary has an endless list of things to do at work and to do at home but we will be getting some fishing time in amongst the house-work things.

Anyway, hope you all are doing well. You know where to find us to say hello. If you're down our way please drop by the house or the cabin.

Retha

The Marsdens - December 14th, 2005

Ho Ho Ho and Merry Christmas from the Marsden clan.

Well, as you can see, I am taking the advice of a good friend and am starting a blog of the Marsden family. Here's a recent photo of us taken in Kyra's Kindergarten class last week. We were there in preparation of her Christmas Concert.

I just can't believe how fast this past year has gone by. It seems it was spring, don't know what happened to summer and now it's Christmas again. We've moved from the sunny Okanagan to the beautiful Kootenay's and are really enjoying it here. The scenery is absolutely beautiful and the people here are really friendly.

The kids have settled in really well and both have some terrific little friends. Kyra is thoroughly enjoying Kindergarten and spending time with her little buddies. She's in ballet and tap dance and just loves to twirl around and dance her heart out. She made it to big kids level 2 swimming during the summer. She just blossomed and seemed to mature so much within a few weeks of arriving here. Here's a picture of her getting onto the stage with her classmates. She has 20 students in her class and her teacher is totally fabulous.



Kurtis has been involved with Mother Goose, Parent/Tot, Gym time and Story time. Our weekdays have been filled with fun times and good memories. We had a wonderful fall session and had a visit from Santa last week. As you can see by the following photo, Kurt wouldn't let go of my neck and sit on Santa's knee.



I've been busy with helping out with Kindergarten and also very busy being involved in the Parent/Tot group. I was asked to take over producing the quarterly news letter for Parent/Tot and have been asked to organize crafts for each week. I'm thrilled to be involved. Some of the crafts that the children have made are absolutely fantastic. I'll try to post some pictures of our little ones creations.

I've also been busy dismantling our basement walls and ceiling as well as ripping out the carpeting. Sure seemed like a straight forward project in the beginning but now seems I'm up to my eyeballs with wall studs, concrete, and ceiling joists. Reminds me of the Solly house. Sure will look great when we get it completed. We're adding another bedroom downstairs and enclosing the laundry room, framing in around the furnace and fixing up the existing lower bedroom and playroom. Good thing I live with a carpenter. Poor Gary, I've got a list 10 miles long. Good thing there's beer in the fridge too!!

Speaking of carpenter, Gary's been really busy around the house. He's fixing up the back yard and stabilizing the rock wall that leads down to the creek at the back of the property. We erected the kids swingset and slide in the back yard and are doing some major landscaping. Gary will be busy over the cold months in the basement until spring thaw happens. He's already installed a wall down there for me as we discovered when I removed the ceiling tiles that somebody years ago removed one of the main supports in the basement. We were wondering why our upstairs living room seemed a little sloped. Anyways, the floor looks better and we feel much better now that we have some wood below our feet. We installed a new woodstove in the basement about a month ago so Gary's spending some evenings splitting firewood and cleaning up the double carport. Sure is nice and toasty in the house. Gary's future plan for the house is to also frame in the carport properly and to install two garage doors. Also to straighten out the back sundeck as whoever built it didn't square it up right so the outside walls look more like a ski hill than totally vertical. Oh well, projects, projects, projects. The list never ends.

Well, I'm going to sign off for today and will add more as I have time.

Merry Christmas and love to you all.

Retha and family.