On Sunday, a 13 year old girl shook up our quiet existance here on the Left Coast.

Well, maybe that’s being a bit melodramatic.  I must be picking it up from Gwen.  At any rate, Kayla (Gwen’s cousin and Goddaughter) flew into Abbotsford International Airport (seriously,  *international*) on Sunday from Halifax.  She’ll be staying with us for the next three weeks.

We picked her up from the airport and took her to lunch in the booming town of Fort Langley.  It was an interesting place … the proprietor was a chatty Asian guy who came to our table often with weird jokes.  It was more than a little too hands-on for me, and more than a little creepy and odd.  It served as a good way for her to decompress and for Aidan to warm up to her.  He was pretty shy at the airport initially, but did hold her hand walking out from the terminal.

After lunch we drove back to Vancouver (sitting in the long line waiting to cross the Port Mann back into Vancouver) and relaxed for a bit.  Then it was off to the playground so that Aidan could blow off some steam.  Kayla was pretty tired by the time we got home … apparently she didn’t sleep much the night before and it’s a long flight from Halifax.

Everyone was pretty tired and would you believe we were all in bed by 8pm?  I think Kayla was out by then.  Aidan checked out at 8:30 and I was gone by 10pm.  And other than me, no one was up until 7:30 in the morning.

By all accounts today was a hit, with Aidan and Kayla hitting it off pretty well.  She’s going to be pretty sick of him by the end of it!  We’ve got lots of things planned for her — she’s going to need a vacation from her vacation by the end of it.

Yesterday, my second cousins Hendrik and Andreanna came over, Hendrik with his girlfriend Lisa, and Andreanna with her husband Sean and their kids Nellie and Juliana. Aidan and Nellie and Juliana are third cousins, which is to say, they are the children of second cousins, who are children of first cousins, who are children of siblings. Got that? Aidan’s great-grandmother and Nellie and Juliana’s great-grandfather were siblings.

We got the party started in the usual way, with wine, Guitar Hero III, and mutual humiliation.

We got down to some serious eating, and managed to squeeze everyone around the table:

Nellie liked Aidan’s doll:

And Aidan and Gwen liked Juliana. Aidan was really quite gentle with his baby cousin.

This past weekend was the Canada Day weekend. It was also Lorraine’s (Nana’s) few days visiting with us.

On Saturday, we went to the Reifel Bird Sanctuary down on Westham Island in Ladner. I’ve blogged about this before. It was a wonderful bright sunny day, and Aidan was finally old enough to fully enjoy the various birds. The big attraction (for kids, at least) at Reifel is the ducks. Hundreds and hundreds of ducks. And geese, but they’re much more annoying and aggressive.  You can tell from the photos and video how much fun the place is now.

Aidan’s godmother Lynn wasn’t able to come on the weekend for Aidan’s birthday but she came for a few days last week and stayed with us. It was so good to see her, and Aidan spent as much time with her as he could. It was soooo busy (and rainy) though that I didn’t get any pictures. I can’t believe that. I feel so bad. We did get to do a little shopping and Lynn spoiled Aidan rotten. She got him a Little People police station and petshop, and then when we went to Chapters she got Aidan a new train for his track. I am sure that by the time Lynn left on Friday she was mighty tired of reading Aidan his truck books and hearing “the TRUCK n’ the Truck”.

I think that Lynn had a good time and she certainly managed to get a lot of visiting in, and even managed to get to a Nelly Furtado concert. We can’t wait to see her again.

Love you Lynn!