Sorry for the long delay in updating the site, I have been swamped with thesis work; it is due in a few weeks and I have been working very hard to finish it. Also, I was at several conferences (in Halifax and Barcelona) and I also spent some time in England with the Schwab’s and Atkinson’s. The conference in Barcelona was great, well, Barcelona was great, the conference was ok…I was able to take a bus tour of the city and I loved the atmosphere and I was sad to leave after only four days. When I returned, I had a week alone while Becky and the kids were still in England, which was very weird – quiet, but weird. I was, however, happy to have my family back and after a couple of days, we were all back to normal and in our regular groove.

We have been working on getting the kids to have a normal sleep pattern again, as it got out of whack a while back after the kids got sick with various colds and other issues, like croup. It is very difficult to change sleeping patterns when you are trying to be gentle on them (i.e. no crying it out), but we look at how Charlie is a wonderful sleeper and we feel that our method works, it just takes a long time.

We will be going to Ontario for a couple of weeks at the start of August, which should be nice. Now that the boys are older (they are 20m), it is much easier to travel with them and they can get a lot more out of the experience. We plan to divide our time between the Atkinson’s and Morrises and we hope to see many of our friends, some of whom we haven’t seen for years.

Charlie is currently in summer camp at the YMCA and she is really enjoying it. Becky and I usually get to the park twice a day with the boys, with each of us taking turns going so that the other person can be efficient at home or run errands. There is a heat-wave going on here in Montreal and it is tough living in an apartment with no air conditioning but there are several water parks close by and we have been frequenting them to cool the kids and ourselves off.

I really like this picture of William; he has an interesting expression.

Eli is on the left, Will on the right. This was taken in England.

Charlie at a park in Highgate Wood.

Charlie in Aunt Irene’s garden.

Eric is working very hard on his thesis. It is due in the first week of July and he is very excited about having it finished. Eric is also taking his last required course from the Master’s degree.

Charlie and the boys are doing very well and none of the kids are sick with colds, which is a treat for us.

Becky and the kids are heading to England in a month to spend time with the extended Atkinson and Schwab families and Charlie has been talking a lot about the flight, which she is very excited about.

Charlie’s YMCA pre-school official picture.

Here is Grampa Morris with Eli.

Here is Eli at the park.

The boys LOVE kicking and throwing balls. Here we are at one of our favorite local parks.

In terms of news, we have had some fairly significant events happen over the past couple of weeks. Eric was accepted into the PhD in Counselling Psychology at McGill and has nearly finished his two-year Master’s program in only one year. This is due to the fact that his department is recognizing most of his previous graduate work, which is wonderful, and it means the PhD will be shorter than for other people.

Charlie was accepted into a great local school and will begin French Immersion Kindergarten in September. Since she is three months younger than Quebec’s cut-off age, we had to have her assessed by a Psychologist. The Psychologist was very impressed with Charlie and wrote a letter to the effect that Charlie NEEDS to be in school starting in September because she is so smart and social. Lastly, it looks like we may have found a full-time daycare for the two boys. In September, they will start at a great daycare centre near to our apartment. This is a very exciting development because it means Becky can find a job and also begin focusing more on her true passion, which is writing. So, things are going really well for us and the future looks bright.

Finally, please check out Becky’s new site, http://lifeaftertwins.wordpress.com/, where she will be chronicling her life with kids.

This video was taken a few weeks ago when the Morris Grandparents were here. Grampa Morris is playing with Eli.