Catching up with life

It has been awhile since a Clotterspoors post, so there’s lots to catch up on.

First of all, we enjoyed an outdoor Family Day at Oma and Opa’s house with the cousins. First time seeing some of them since Covid started.

Then we celebrated Dad’s 70th birthday as much as the restrictions would allow, with a small family gathering and an extended zoom call with friends and family. There was also the surprise sign on Dad’s front lawn…

Isaac was next with his Lego 6th birthday party. He loved being able to have some friends over to celebrate. He got a new gear bike so that he can climb bigger mountains lol.

The restrictions on indoor gatherings lifted again just in time for Lindy’s 40th birthday party – so we had a party! (And another surprise sign appeared on the lawn lol, as well as the surprise tickets to Bluesfest). After two years of covid, this was the first time that people were cancelling attendance because they actually had covid as opposed to just having symptoms or lockdowns…but amazingly most people were able to come!

Thanks to the support of friends and family, Isaac and Lindy raised a bunch of money and cycled in the CN Cycle this year, joining Lindy’s co-worker’s team “Michael’s Minions”. Michael is a teenager who has spent most of childhood fighting cancer, but he received his 5 years cancer free clearance this year so it was a big one! Isaac loved the “race” and biked 15 kms in under an hour, even getting back up and continuing after a pretty big wipe out half way through.

Oma and Opa helped us open up the cottage, with Dad involved in all the manual labour of putting in the docks and raft. We told him that he didn’t have to do hard work everytime he visited – but he said it felt good!

The May storm hit, knocking down many trees and causing a lot of damage all around us, shutting down many parts of the city again, similar to the tornado in 2018. Our pocket of the neighbourhood was spared again this time thank goodness. Even the cottage survived pretty well, since a few dead branches had already fallen over the winter.

Here are the spring photos. Summer highlights and gallery to follow below.

This summer was a roller coaster of ups and downs.

Cadence surprised us all and learned to ride her pedal bike without training wheels!

We had a good holiday at the cottage, with several visitors. Although some people had to cancel visits, the kids played decently well together this year. We did a few road trip excursions to break up the holiday. The kids loved the aerial tree course in Gananoque and the Aquatarium in Brockvile.

Isaac loved fishing again this year, and Jon decided it was time to get a more comfortable boat to spend the summers in. He bought a small fishing boat with seats, which we took out at the cottage, on the Ottawa river and also on Mississippi lake.

Lindy and Zavier ran in the Foam Fest (5k obstacle course) in July and had a blast. We’ve signed up again for next year – and we’re bringing Isaac next year too!

We did a couple camping excursions too. The beach at Presqu’ile was perfect for the kids, and their excitement with the waves and sand made the day fly by. We bailed on the second night in a tent, although the kids liked it, we didn’t think packing up tents in the rain was the way to end such a great weekend. They liked our Silver Lake experience too, with a day visit from Oma. It may be the last year that we can get away with all sleeping in the Toblerone trailer.

We had many neighbourhood pool parties, the community fun day, we went to the Perth fair, and more cottage visits. We acquired a play structure for the back yard and spent lots of time trail biking and going to the skate park.

The kids forced us to continue living this summer, between devastating hospital visits that ended much too soon. We weren’t prepared for the loss of Dad so quick and spent the rest of the summer in a state of shock and grief. We gathered the family together around Shelley and Matt’s pool on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year.

Isaac started Grade 1 this year and was worried about not being with his friends or having toys in the classroom. He bravely started a new after school program at the Ottawa Academy of Martial Arts. While he hates having to sit in school all day, he has adjusted well and is loving the Jiu Jitsu lessons. He is learning to read in French and English and his teacher raves about him. He also lost his first tooth!

Asher has really come out of his shell this fall, and is turning into quite the mischievous kid lol. We now know that if he disappears for longer than a few minutes, that he’s up to something – usually eating candy in his room.

Everyone loved all the Halloween activities and our trip to Saunders Farm. They championed through trick or treating, collecting enough candy to last the year. Asher was hilarious with his costumes this year. He loves to dress up and wears costumes to daycare all year round. But we were unprepared for what to say when he came home from daycare, having worn a chicken costume for an entire week, and said “Mom, I don’t like it when everyone calls me a chicken!” I guess it’s not correct anymore to tell a child that they will get called a chicken if they dress like a chicken…

Cadence and Asher did ballet lessons this fall, and Isaac started Beavers and did his first Beavers sleepover. We’ve also been going to gymnastics drop ins, and all the kids love to jump from high up, and love jumping on the “jumpalines”. Isaac does front flips and hangs from his toes from the bars – and then complains that his tummy muscles hurt.

We had Dad’s celebration of life on September 17th at the sailing club. It was a good party with lots of family and friends. Unfortunately it might have been a covid spreader event. Lindy got covid two days later, followed by all the kids. Luckily everyone had fairly mild symptoms and it was a beautiful weekend to go for walks in the woods. Jon was away sailing, and never caught it. The timing really couldn’t have been better, not having to miss the celebration of life, and also getting everyone over covid before Jon and Lindy left for their trip to Italy (separate post about that to come!!)

We are keeping on keeping on…however leading up to this Christmas season has been extremely difficult with grief sneaking up on us in full force. The kids talk a lot about missing Opa, and are very blunt about it. When Opa was in the hospital, Asher would ask “is Opa dead yet?” The final night when Lindy got the call from Greg that the nurses had said it would be minutes to hours – Lindy had to explain to the kids that she was leaving to go see Opa because he was dying. Asher looked matter of factly at Lindy and said “Dying is NOT good.” Made Lindy laugh out loud. Days later, Lindy got a message from a parent at the daycare asking if we were okay, because the kids were talking a lot about dying at daycare and the other parents weren’t aware of what was going on. Asher is especially aware of others, often saying “I miss Opa! But Oma misses Opa more!” It is nice to know that Dad remains so much in the minds of the kids.

The kids are especially excited for Christmas, which will hopefully carry us through this holiday.