Thanks for your questions everyone! If any of these posts spark more inquiries, keep asking in the Questions post and we will do our best to answer them. We will be breaking them up in to a few posts, so here are the first two questions and our answers (in order from oldest to youngest). I hope you can get to know us all a little bit better!

1. Are there any plans for a sister or brother for Hailey any time soon? -Anonymous

People are always very interested in knowing the answer to this question (why is everyone so nosy?).  First I will ask a question back at the person who wrote the question- why are you anonymous? I’m more likely to tell someone that I know my future life plans, rather then a perfect stranger.

I’ve never really been secretive about the fact that I want my children fairly close together.  I loved growing up and having sisters close to my age.  We have plans for a brother or sister for Hailey but are not sure of the timeline yet,  I definitely want to go back to work for a bit first.

2. Do you all want kids? have you always wanted them? and will you want to have a big family like the one you grew up in or just 1 or 2? -From Jamie

Erica says-: Yes, I want kids! Growing up I imagined myself with children in my early twenties, but based on current life plans I’ll be at least 29 by the time I have our first.

Note that I say first – although I don’t think five is a reasonable number for us, I would say that three is a possibility. Denis is from a small family (two boys) and is a little intimidated if numbers drift above that!

Micaela says: I have always wanted two boys and two girls so that I could experience having each and so that each of my kids could have at least a brother and a sister (of course in this plan they’d all get along perfectly too…) Mostly I wanted my boys to have a brother and my girls to have a sister since I always loved having sisters. Kent wants three kids and I imagine that’s how many we’ll have because three sounds okay to me too, and my plan involves a lot of wishful thinking.

Katelyn says: I love having lots of sisters, and have always wanted a nice big and fun family.  Big meaning four (possssssibly five if Scott gets his way), which didn’t used to be a big family, but these days two kids seems to be the norm.  I am drawn to having an even number of kids, probably because I was a middle child and hated it so much. I feel like if you have an even number each kid has a friend, having a odd number causes someone to feel left out (even if they are not actually are, they feel like they are).

Leah says: I will definitely have children and for me it was never a question of whether or not I would have them – I have always planned on having a family. It won’t be happening anytime soon as I’d like to do it in the traditional order – get engaged, then married, buy a house then fill it with babies (preferably with my main man, Tim). I love, love, loved growing up in a big family and would like to have a large(r) family myself – I’d like to have at least three or four.  And of course I have all of the names picked out already!

Lauren says: I have always loved being in a big family.  I love how there is always someone to talk to or hang out with, and always at least one person who wants to do what you want to do.  I’m with Kate on the even number of kids thing.  I think one would be lonely, and with three, two might gang up on one.  Although the end choice would definitely have to be thought out when I’m actually in a relationship or married, I think that four would be a good number.  Obviously, same as Leah, I have the names picked out. I have about 10 names picked out actually. I had to take one off once because Mic wanted it!

So there you have it folks! If we all get our way there could be 19 kids between the five of us – holy smokes. Moral of the story: we loved growing up in a big family and want to pass on the same opportunity to our children.

How about you – did you guys grow up in a big family or a small family? Which would you prefer?

Since we seem to be lacking posts lately, and I’ve seen lots of bloggers doing this…
Ask us any question you have.
Direct it at one of us (Erica, Micaela, Katelyn, Leah or Lauren) or direct it at all of us.

It can be absolutely anything- from “what is your favourite nail polish brand?” to “How is Lauren so awesome?”.

So have some fun, ask some random questions, and think, “What have I always wanted to know about Fiveblondes?”.

It wasn’t really fair of me to be all ‘Haaay, I’m going to move across the country and then crawl into a digital hole and not update you with what is going on in my life anymore’. Well, here I am again. Living in Toronto. My life has been one big vacation for the past few weeks, but now it is back to reality. I got home last Sunday, did the whole family thing, went to a wedding, had an interview (yay) in Toronto, moved to Toronto, then took off for Montreal over the weekend for another wedding. Montreal was, how can I say this, equivalent to a sparkly unicorn riding a pink rocket over a rainbow while throwing popsicles and lollipops throughout the land. I went with Mich of Who is Mich? and Natalie of Over the Prairies and Far Away (also known as my Calgary family, who I have been missing dearly). The void in my heart that is the entire city of Calgary and all of its inhabitants is still pretty raw. I miss it, and I miss my job and I miss the mountains and my friends and family, but deep down way in my soul I feel like I made the right decision. The past few weeks have been the most tear-filled weeks of my life, but that is something that only time will heal. Seeing my amigos in Montreal gave me the opportunity to say some goodbyes I wasn’t able to say before, and in that I was able to gain more closure and start to heal that raw hole in my heart.

Now I am back in Toronto full-time and today is the first day of the rest of my life.  By that I mean that it is time to focusfocusfocus and get my butt in gear to get a job that fulfills me as much as my job in Calgary did. Okay let’s be honest: it’s time to find a job that gives me a regular paycheque. I am very excited to discover Toronto and make it my home – today I’m taking the subway all the way to Micaela’s house – GULP.  I’m pretty quick with figuring out public transit so I’m expecting myself to be an expert in no time at all.

Oh yea, speaking of public transit, did I mention that thanks to my seizures I have now lost my license for a full year? I can’t even explain how this has thrown a galaxy-sized wrench into my entire life. Many a tears have been shed over this loss of independence and freedom, but the move to Toronto has brought me to a city that offers me an incredible public transit system. Since that first seizure I have had two more and have done all of the necessary testing (MRI, CAT scan & EEG) and it seems that I am in perfect health. I am now taking medication which are helping a lot, and taking care of my body and soul. Other things I can’t do anymore: take baths, go swimming, go to concerts with a lot of strobe lights, apply for jobs that require licenses, and forget to take my plethora of medications both morning and night. Things I CAN do still: be incredibly awesome, be a good sister and friend (aka suck up to them so they will drive my sorry ass around town), borrow my sister’s clothes and find my Toronto identity. Whenever I find myself sitting around feeling sorry for myself I have to continuously remind my brain to take deep breaths and to focus on what I am able to do instead of what I can’t do anymore.

Oh, and can we talk about how amazing Micaela looks? Her belly has really “popped” over the past week, but luckily she was still able to fit into her bridesmaid dress.

And I wore it to that aforementioned wedding in Montreal last weekend:

And probably Kate will probably wear it to  wedding in a few weeks. Then Erica will probably wear it to a wedding a month later.  This is how it works in our family, and it sure does save on the clothing budget. (Lauren’s gorgeous self can’t wear the dress but don’t worry – she will consistently upstage us with her wicked style and shiny Rapunzel hair.)

Now it’s on for the rest of my day: do the dishes, get pretty, apply for a job, trek to Micaela’s and head to a party at home.

Maybe you read our cousin Lara’s blog, or maybe you’ve heard about this from somewhere else, but recently I signed up for (free) emails from The Universe.  It makes me feel special, you know?-getting emails from The Universe, haha.  They come from a place called TUT’S Adventure Club, where you sign up, give your email address, name, that sort of thing.  Then you finish a couple of sentences, which ultimately give “The Universe” an idea of what you would like to receive emails about.  If you choose to make an account on “Tut’s Adventure Club”, you can add friends, go on forums, make vision boards and such, but you can also choose to just get the emails and nothing more. I’ve saved all my favourites in a folder in my email account to share:

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This summer seems to be our summer of wedding- I have 5 to go. It’s fun to get all dressed up and celebrate friends who love eachother. The only hard part is finding a babysitter who is brave enough to babysit the babe.

Congrats to the 2 couples who have gotten married so far!

Dennis & Yvonne- June 19, 2010

Michelle & Jeff- June 26, 2010

Micaela was a bridesmaid- here’s a cute photo of her (baby) and Kent:

The who family attended Michelle & Jeff’s wedding so we took a family photo, Leah and Tim are there in spirit. (PS Mic and Lau are in love  haha)

It’s been a great start to the summer! I’m looking forward to all the other weddings we have.

Being the father of 5 crazy blondes isn’t easy, believe us! But dad has proven his job as our dad to be a breeze!

Happy Fathers Day dad! We love you!

A few weeks ago my mom decided that she was going to run in the Donnybrook Dash, a fun run in the next town over (her first race), and started training. Yesterday, I conveniently decided that I wanted to be in the race too (my first race also), without any training whatsoever. I can’t even remember the last time I ran, but I thought 5k shouldn’t be thaat hard. But we did it! She finished at about 32 minutes, and I finished at about 35 minutes. The worst parts for her? When we started, she took about 10 steps, looked up, and it looked like everyone was infront of her, and when an old man passed her. My worst parts? When a bigger lady passed me and continued to whip my butt, and when the first 10ker passed me about 400m from the finish line. I was like okay. No time to walk now, this guy just lapped me.
This race is 1 of about 6 races in a series, but we still haven’t decided if we’re going to run in any other races in the series. Only if they’re 5k though, no 10ks for us yet!

Have you ever run in a race like this- or longer? And do you have any tips for a girl just starting out?

Also, thanks SO much for all the amazing birthday wishes and super nice things written about me yesterday on the blog, Twitter, as well as on Facebook! Yesterday I went to work, then came home to an awesome dinner of steak, sweet potatoes fries and caesar salad, and then me and Kate had a baseball game against mom’s team- which we won! For my birthday weekend my plans are to get my hair done after work tonight then go out tonight with friends, tomorrow go birthday present shopping with mom (hopefully it will go better than last time-3 hours and no present!), then on Saturday I’m going to a shower for a friend, then to her stagette in Toronto! Pretty solid birthday weekend I think! I was talking to my Opa on the phone yesterday (we have the same birthday!), and he told me that for his 21st birthday him and his friends partied from 6 in the morning to 12 at night. Well, it’s 6:47am right now, and I couldn’t even think about partying from now to 12 tonight!

Last week mom, her friend Deb and I went treasure hunting.  But it’s not what you think!  Mom and Deb have recently gotten into Geocaching, and on Sunday they invited me to a local Geocaching event celebrating the 10th anniversary of Geocaching in Canada.  If you don’t know what Geocaching is, here is a little video describing it:

I found my first geocache in the parking lot of the church the group met at.  That was my “training” geocache.  The next one one a bit further away, and after searching for about 10 minutes, the three of us still couldn’t find it.  Lucky for me, I was looking in super random places, so I soon found it!  And cue Lauren getting hooked on something.  We found about 5 different geocaches around our house on Sunday, and there are tons more in a 5 km radius.  I wanted to see how many there would be in downtown Ottawa, so I wrote my address into the geocache finder on geocaching.com.  My house is pretty downtown.  About a 5 minute drive to Parliament.  And would you believe that there are 132 geocaches within a 2 mile radius of my house!  I thought that was tons, and I am hoping to get a gps to bring to school to find them!

You can find all sorts of things in geocaches.  In most of the bigger ones there are little souvenirs that you can take, and then leave something of your own.  In one of my first finds there was a keychain with “Kristin” spelled out in beads, so I took that, and we left a little something for someone else to find.  I am super excited to find another one so I can leave the keychain and take something else!

Mom and I took Erica out on her first geocaching experience yesterday, and she found her first geocache! We tried to look for another one in our town, but our GPS wasn’t working very well, so we’ll have to go back for that one.

There is tons more about geocaches that I have no idea about, but I’m hoping to learn more, and find more!  Here are some pictures of our adventure geocaching around London!

Tuesday

I was teaching at different schools for the morning and afternooon. When talking to another supply teacher at my morning school I found out her afternoon school was in the same area as mine. She didn’t have a car and so her lunch hour trek would have included two bus rides, a subway ride, and likely a whole lot of waiting and frustration. Naturally, I offered her a ride to her afternoon school and she accepted.

 Wednesday

1. I decided to take the subway to my school and when I stepped out my front door, the bus was just a few blocks away. I booted it as fast as I could to the bus stop, and the nice bus driver stopped before the stop to pick me up.

2. After school the weather was beautiful and it was only 3:00 so I took a long walk past a few subway stations before finally getting on. Another supply teacher at the school I’d been at that day who I’d only talked to for about two minutes drove past me and stopped to see if I wanted a ride. I declined of course since I was just walking for the sake of walking.

3. After getting off the subway near my apartment I walked home and it started raining really, really, really hard. I didn’t have an umbrella since it had been a bright and sunny day up to that point and a perfect stranger stopped and asked if I wanted a ride. So nice, right?

So that’s my evidence that anything good you do in your life comes back to you, times three!