I know, I know...It has been far too long. Well, although I have thousands of valid excuses as to why no blogs for the past 5 months, I will spare you all and get on with more pertinent issues.
April 2008
....Hmmmm....just got back from Cuba. Came home to a tonne of snow which stuck around until maybe...June? Major excitement for the month of March was the discovery that the Hawleys will (in 8.5 months) consist of an extra person. I am sure anyone who reads this allready knows this item of news however, definitely worth reporting as Mum and Dad are very excited (well, Mum was immediately and Dad is now). Ollie and Emma are also looking forward to the arrival of their new brother or sister. There may actually be more then one addition as Emma keeps telling us that there is a baby in my tummy, as well as her tummy, Ollie has one and so too does ddy. Now of the three (other then Mum)mentioned only one of those has a belly that might suggest there is a baby in there but thus far it is physiologically impossible so there must be another explanation I am sure.
We did have a few nice days in March which, due to the enormous amount of snow we had lead to ridiculously large and fun puddles. Ollie and Emma became expert puddle jumpers . One day we went to the Elmira Maple Syrup festival. We had invited Auntie George to meet us there because after all, how busy could the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival be? Well after getting there we realized that all of Canada must know about and attend this Maple Syrup Festival so unfortunately, we never met up with Auntie George as she must have been lost in the crowd somewhere. Despite the crowds we managed to have a good time. Ollie and Emma especially enjoyed "old MacDonald's Farm" where Emma frightened all the young lambs, piglets, chicks and calves with her excited squealing. Ollie andEmma also enjoyed a turn on the tractor that was there. They waited patiently for their turn on the tractor and reluctantly got off when it was the next person in lines turn. Emma had to be removed forcibly as despite the fact that she looked rather non-plussed while on the tractor, she was decidedly unhappy about having to get off. In fact, she stood in front of the tractor and wept and wailed ensuring all onlookers were aware of her dismay! On our way back to the car, we of course skipped the long line ups for pancakes and opted instead for a big ice cream! Yum, Yum! After the ice cream we continued our travels back to the car and managed to find an absolutely ginormous puddle that demanded a stop!
On other decent days Ollie and Emma helped Mum and Dad in the garden. Foolishly, Mum and Dad felt that this was the year of the garden. We would finally have a weed free outside living space. Unfortunately, soon after the snow and frost kept everything at bay, work schedules have once again interfered with our best intentions and the gardens have fallen into a state of horrendous disarray. Now, the gardens have taken on the look we like, where there is very little bare patches of soil however, when we originally envisioned the garden the space would be filled with plants we had picked and planted, not the enoromous thistle bushes that have taken over!
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Emma also perfected the art of nose picking as you will see by some of her photos, there is no point asking her to remove her digits from her nose as this is interpreted by her to mean, "put another digit in as far as it will go!".
May 2008
Of course May is always an exciting month!! Of most importance Ollie celebrated his third birthday!!!
A wonderful day was had by all, except poor Nanny Carol who had made arrangements to fly in on Ollie's birthday and be in time for birthday dinner and of course, ice 
cream cake. Instead she was delayed by 12hrs in Manchester and missed the dinner. She did however, make it in time for Ollie's official birthday as she finally got to our house at 10pm. Ollie and Emma were too excited to wait until the following day to see her so, they both woke up and had a quick visit before heading back to bed. Lots of fun things happened in May. We had a family trip to the African Lion Safari in honour of Ollie's birthday and were joined by both Nannies and our friends Auntie Tarika, Uncle Balaji, Sachin and Rhea. Fun was had by all but I still think Ollie's personal favourite are the elephants. After watching the show where the elephants would stand on three legs and lift their back leg up in the air, Ollie and Emma decided to practice this themselves, pretending to be elephants while walking down the main thoroughfare. Ollie and Emma not only got to touch an elephant, but they also got to ride an elephant with 
Mummy and Nannie Frances!!
We had many other exciting events/trips planned while Nanny Carol was with us. Ellie, Noah and Hannah would have been envious of our day out on the train. There is a new train ride from Waterloo park to St. Jacob's and if you are really lucky...it's a steam train. Well, we were lucky ducks that day because we were on the maiden voyage (for this year) of the steam train which Ollie insisted was Donald (although the train driver said he had a different name).
May was marked the start of Ollie and Emma's soccer season. Ollie and Emma were on the same team "Team Orange" (very original names in this league). Ollie andEmma made up 2 of the 5 players on the team! Can't say that they will be named team MVP as most games were spent clinging to Mummy's leg demanding a dody or proclaiming that "I'm too tired to play soccer, lets go home". Perhaps 18months and 3 is a bit too young to start! They did however, have some stellar moments...they were just very short lived! Here are a few pics of the cutest members of team orange!
Well folks, I know I promised more, but this has taken me over two weeks to get to ...so perhaps I will just post this and then take up where I left off in another five months or so!! Ha ha. I will try and get to it some time this week however, all you brits might prefer to see us in the flesh as we will soon be over there! We are enroute on Dad's birthday on August 12 arriving on the 13th. Not looking forward to this flight since the last flight we went on Emma wasn't walking yet...She is very proficient now and not one to enjoy sitting still for too long!! I will sign off now. Take care.....looking forward to seeing everyone...will try and get to june and july before we go!
TTFN!
