I don’t feel that this is unfair. That’s the thing about cancer. I’m not the only one, it happens all the time to people. I’m not special. This just intensifies what I did. It gives it more meaning. It’ll inspire more people. I just wish people would realize that anything’s possible if you try; dreams are made possible if you try.
Terry Fox
September 26, 1958. That was the day my Mom was born. My family loves birthdays, anniversaries, and other holidays or celebrations. They were/are celebrated to the fullest.
It is so very weird to have September 26 as just an ordinary day now. Over the past 4 years that day has become important to our family for a different reason. For the past 4 years we have celebrated Mom’s birthday by participating in the Terry Fox Run. Terry Fox was a Canadian man who was diagnosed with cancer and had his leg amputated. He was born in Winnipeg but lived in BC. To raise awareness for cancer he ran, with a prosthetic leg, across Canada. He started in St. John’s and was sadly forced to finish in Kenora. Every year the Girls and I run for Nana. We also donate the same amount of dollars that she would be each year. This year we donated $59 to the Terry Fox foundation. Dad also likes to get involved and he pitches in for half of the donation. I know Mom would love the way we have chosen to honour her name.
It is so very weird to have September 26 as just an ordinary day now. Over the past 4 years that day has become important to our family for a different reason. For the past 4 years we have celebrated Mom’s birthday by participating in the Terry Fox Run. Terry Fox was a Canadian man who was diagnosed with cancer and had his leg amputated. He was born in Winnipeg but lived in BC. To raise awareness for cancer he ran, with a prosthetic leg, across Canada. He started in St. John’s and was sadly forced to finish in Kenora. Every year the Girls and I run for Nana. We also donate the same amount of dollars that she would be each year. This year we donated $59 to the Terry Fox foundation. Dad also likes to get involved and he pitches in for half of the donation. I know Mom would love the way we have chosen to honour her name.
There are some people out there that ignore their loved ones birthdays after they have passed. It is a day of sadness for them. It’s not for me. It is a day that brought my Mom into this world. To me that is not sad, the sad part is people forgetting her. I will never let that happen. I talk about her and remember her every day. My YBesty and my HLBesty helped me celebrate Mom by bringing me gorgeous yellow flowers, lips smacking pastries and chatting with me about her over a pot of coffee. Thank you Ladies for being there and for being Great Friends. I truly appreciate you both so much 💛.
On September 26, the day that she was brought into this world and on the day she was taken from us I will put her name out into the community because that’s who she was, an active part of her community. A part of our lives. I celebrate her birthday because she was here and I owe it to her to keep her memory alive by honouring her in a way that she would’ve loved. By giving back. I Love you Mommies. I miss you. I will always remember.
Speaking about remembering… Remember the time Ninja and I decided to take our date nights public? Yeah 😂. We are currently on episode 34 of How Was Your Week, Honey? You may have missed the last few episodes because I haven’t shared the link. So, check out the last 4 episodes. Our podcasts are basically the stories to the pictures that I post here on HoneyBears and SydneyBeans but made for adult ears only! 😳😜
A while back I mentioned that HBear has been getting involved with the cooking of dinner. One night not too long ago she made us this delicious 1 pot chicken Caprese pasta. It was super tasty and ridiculously easy to make… An 8-year-old did it!
1 Pot Chicken Caprese Pasta
Adapted from The Seasoned Mom
Servings: 6
NUTRITION: 340 calories
2 cups diced, cooked chicken
1 3/4 cups halved grape tomatoes
1 can niblet corn, drained
3 cups uncooked penne pasta
3 ½ cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded and divided
½ cup fresh basil leaves, chopped and divided
3 cloves garlic, pressed
½ teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Spray a baking dish with cooking spray.
In the prepared dish, stir together chicken, tomatoes, corn, uncooked pasta, chicken broth, 1 ½ cups of cheese, about half of the basil leaves, pressed garlic, and salt.
Cover the dish tightly with foil and bake for 40 minutes.
Uncover; stir. At this point you should check the pasta to make sure that it is al dente. If it isn’t, cover the dish and return to the oven until pasta is al dente.
Garnish with remaining basil leaves just before serving. Sprinkle remaining ½ cup of cheese over the top. Bake uncovered for 5-10 more minutes.
We have officially finished one month of Dance. In the past, HBear has been in acro jazz and SBean has been in musical theater. This year HBear decided to focus on dance and the swim team. So, she added jazz and musical theatre to her dance schedule. SBean, wanting to be like big sister, added acro jazz. That’s 5 classes! I too decided to get a bit more involved. I can’t be a teacher, I can’t be a coach, I can’t volunteer and I am certainly not the dance mom everybody would go to for help with their buns and wingtipped eyeliner 😜. So, I decided to join the adult jazz class. Seriously. It has been interesting so far. The Girls start classes at 3:30 and SBean is done at 5. I take her home and bring back dinner for HBear. She then has another class followed by my class. So we are at the studio from 3:30 till 7:30 🙄. We spend the first half an hour warming up or as I like to think of it, Cardio Hell and then we learn some “basic” moves and we end the class by putting all those moves together and learning stages of a dance. Do you know how fast Beyoncé’s, Single Ladies is? Fast! So far we are all having a blast and although trying something new is scary, I never leave there unhappy that I went.
School is in full swing as well! Something new this year that is never happened before is after school play dates. We have always been very busy after school but this year we have no activities on 2 of the school days! Hence, my children come running out of school on those days begging for play dates. SBean is in MusicBesty’s class and so far they are inseparable. Every time she has free time after school she wants to be playing with him. Their first play date was spent having snacks and colouring superheroes that come alive with a super duper cool app! It is a colouring book called Colour Alive by Crayola and it is super cool to see the characters you just coloured pop-up in 3-D on your phone wearing the outfit you just designed for them! I would definitely recommend checking it out!
The plums are ready. Granted we don’t like plums but my in-laws do! The girls helped them pick a bunch the other day. Nothing says fall like the harvesting of autumn fruits and vegetables. Usually right now I am in full-blown dehydration mode making pounds and pounds of raisins for the upcoming winter. However, the deer have cleaned our vines and we were left with not enough grapes to make even one batch of raisins this year! 😡
Another fall activity we enjoyed was the Rock Creek Fall Fair! This was the first time we attended the fall fair and we had such a fabulous time! We watched livestock competitions, horses, checked out blue ribbon zucchinis and of course participated in the chicken scramble. If you have never heard of a chicken scamble before, I am sorry! It was a blast! About 50 kids signed up to run around the dirt field horse arena trying to catch 8 chickens! The prize was, if you catch it, you get to keep it! Ninja looked at me and said, “are you sure they should do this?” Me, having worked on a farm before and having chased down errant chickens before said, “oh yeah! Neither one of our Girls will ever catch a chicken and even if they were fast enough they would never actually hold one!” You can imagine my surprise when I turned around and there stood a beaming HBear holding onto a huge chicken with the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on her face! As I sat there flabbergasted she yelled, “look Mommy! I caught the chicken!” 😂. It took me 20 minutes to track down the organizers to find out what other options we had for that poor chicken LOL. We ended up finding a nice family that had pet chickens. She gave it to the little girl who promised to name it after her 💛. It was an awesome day!
Another awesome day that I had recently was when I went with a few of my ladies on a fabulous Wine Tour. We toured The Golden Mile and hit up some of the best wineries in the region including: Hester Creek, Black Hills, Dessert Hills, Moon Curser, Nk’Mip, Maverick, and Stoneboat! It was such a beautiful day and I got to hang out with some pretty amazing women! The tour started at 9 AM and Ninja picked me up at 5 PM 🤣 it was a good day!
Instead of stopping at one of the very expensive restaurants in any of the fine wineries, we did a delicious potluck lunch on one of the wineries beautiful picnic patios! I brought my super yummy Sonoma Chicken Salad Croissants! I made this recipe for my Sister’s wedding shower and it was a hit! I also made it for SweetPea’s birthday 1 year and again everybody loved it. It is the perfect picnic potluck item! I whip it up, put it in a Pyrex bowl and bring a spoon and everybody can make their own sandwiches. Usually I use fresh rye bread but I thought croissants were much better with a shit ton of wine 😊. I was right!
Sonoma Chicken Salad Croissant
Adapted from Key Ingredient
Servings: 12
NUTRITION: 433 calories/serving
3½ cups cooked shredded chicken, about 2 pounds
1 cup celery, diced, about 3 stalks
⅔ cup red grapes, halved
½ cup dried cranberries, chopped
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, finely grated
12 Croissants
⅔ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup apple juice
3 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon prepared yellow mustard
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
½ teaspoon onion powder
salt and pepper, to taste
In a large mixing bowl toss together shredded chicken, celery, grapes, dried cranberries and Parmesan cheese, set aside.
In a separate mixing bowl whisk mayo, apple juice, honey, vinegar, mustard, poppy seeds, onion powder, salt and pepper until well blended.
Pour dressing over chicken mixture and toss to evenly coat. Serve over croissants.
While I was off sipping wine Ninja and the Girls went for a bike ride, had lunch at Dairy Queen and took a sundae up to Grandma’s 💕.
The next day I nursed my hangover by hosting our annual Hockey pool! I am not too happy with my picks and don’t foresee retaining the championship belt this year 😞. However I have a second chance to win because I was chosen by the 4th Line Podcast to draft a team for their exclusive hockey pool!
Our school hosted its annual Open House Barbeque this month and we met both of the Girl’s teachers, bought some burgers and jumped in the bouncy castle. Unlike barbeques of the past this one was quite chilly! It was still nice to get out and see the community come together for the new school year.
The Girls also participated in the dreaded yearly Picture Day. I say dreaded because really, school pictures never turn out well. In fact, I can think of at least 4 of my old pictures off the top of my head that I shutter thinking about 😂. The Girls were very decisive in their outfits this year and I think they just looked adorable!
The kids also participated in a schoolwide Orange Shirt Day. Orange shirt day raises awareness for all of the survivors of residential schools. It is something new but something I feel is very important. It wasn’t that long ago in history that these kids were treated terribly by schools they were forced to attend. I think it is so important that our kids hear about these past injustices. Perhaps, it will light a fire in one of their bellies to be the next fighter of freedoms. After school we went to MBesty’s house to play boardgames, enjoy the sunshine, and laugh… A lot! When we got home there was a package from SweetPea! A package of ring pops and bubblegum? Thanks Sis 😒.
Friday was Pro D day. Obviously, there has been 16 days of school so of course they need a Pro D Day 😏. We took advantage of the gorgeous sunshine and instead of going to Costco like I had planned we took a walk on the beach, played at the park, and enjoyed the beautiful day!
HBear had a sleepover this weekend and Ninja and I took SBean to her first skating lesson of the season! It took her a while to get back in the hang of it but at the end of the 45 minutes she was nothing but smiles!
After skating we went to Kelowna for that much-needed Costco trip and lunch at a fabulous restaurant called Smack Dab at the Manteo resort. It is right on the water and the food is amazing! SBean got her favourite Caesar salad but really just enjoyed having Mommy and Daddy to herself for the whole day!
After Costco we picked up HBear and went to my in-laws for Dinner. Ninja’s 2 Aunts were in for a quick visit so we went to my in-laws for a delicious pork roast dinner. The next morning Ninja took the Girls for a early breakfast to The Bear’s Den to say goodbye.
And that was September! Looking forward to an awesome October! Please feel free to share, comment, and like this post 😊.
