congrats jon and shanelle!

3 down, 1 more to go and all the Ducommun children will be married! its been crazy to see my younger brother Jon get engaged, and now married. On September 30, he and shanelle tied the knot in Armagh, Ireland! i wasnt able to be there(unfortunately) but i have loved looking over all the pictures my parents brought back. here are a few from the wedding!

congrats you two! we all love you and are so happy to have shanelle become a part of our family! we wish you only the best!

SALTIMBANCO!

Back in april, I had been watching tv when i saw an ad for Cirque Du Soleil. I have ALWAYS loved watching it on tv and only really have only dreampt of seeing it live. I mentioned it to julian later as going to see it for my birthday but he said we couldnt afford it. Well, Julian surprised me last night! he told me to pack an over night bag and wear something fancy so i knew right then we were going to see it! Our very good friends Scott and Katrina also surprised me HUGELY by coming along with us! what an incredible evening!! The acrobatics were by far the coolest thing i have ever and probably will ever see! the strength they had was out of this world!! What a blast it was going and getting to have that experience with our best friends! Unfortunatley we werent aloud cameras in the show, so i dont have any pictures that i took of it, but i have before and afters of us!! If anyone ever gets the opportunity to go see Cirque Du Soleil, i can tell you with 100% certanty, you will not regret it at all! it is worth EVERY penny!!

these 2 are brothers from Russia, as you can see,

their strength is beyond crazy!!

these 2 girls did some pretty incredible stunts on this

swing that was about 50 feet above the crowd

our hotel room

the boys were impressed taht our room had nintendo...

one of the best friends a girl could have!

couple pics...ours is sideways...dont know how to fix that

mmmm pizza!

thank you ju for the BEST birthday present i have ever had! love you babe :)

happy birthday dear baby

1 year ago today, our lives were blessed in a way neither Julian or I could ever imagine, Allistair was born! What a joy he has been to have in our lives and we are so thankful for everyday we have with him. Today we celebrated his 1st birthday (yes, it actually was his bday) and had some of (his) and our closest friends to help celebrate. Although Allistair wasnt a huge fan of the balloons/wrapping paper, and didnt even realize it was any special day, its a great memory for us as parents! Thanks so much to all who came out! what a great day!!

food galore!! and that was just the half of it!

i thought that even though allistair wont remember this

cake, it would still be fun to do something special.

how much do we love our little man!

"happy birthday dear allistair!"

"grandma says when God made me, He was just showing off"

Allistair absolutely adores any stuffed animals, so this

giant bear from uncle jon and auntie shanelle was a GREAT gift!

it took a bit of coaxing to get allistair used to the icing...

we are looking forward to celebrating many more birthdays as good as this one!

camping!

well, when august comes along, it means one thing...mcf's annual camping trip! Julian and i werent ablet o go last year as i was 9 months pregnant, but we were quite excited to get out this year. we packed up much more than we needed, and yet still not enough?! and headed out to mcgregor point provincial park! we were some of the first to arrive so we spent about an hour setting up and then just sat back and waited for everyone else to come. unfortunatley, it rained ALL weekend...so that put a damper (literally) on our plans , we were stuck sitting under a leaking tarp all huddled by are barely-there fire trying to stay warm. At about 5 30 on saturday evening, we decided it just wasnt worth allistair getting sick over so we packed up as fast as we could (we were dripping wet by the end of it!) and decided to head back home a day early. it was a fun weekend dispite the rain but hopefully allistairs 2nd time camping will be a bit better than his 1st! we came home with wet clothes, muddy tents and lots of laundry but we also came home with great memories! heres a few pics.

julian setting up the tent

hanging out, waiting for the others to arrive

kris and i

trying to keep the fire alive despite the rain!

allistair and i playing

in other news...allistair took his first steps yesterday (august 10th) what a proud moment for julian and i as parents! our little baby is not such a baby anymore ...he'll be 1 yr already on the 24th! amazing how fast its gone!

goodbye

Those of you who didnt already know, my grandma Ducommun has been sick with Hepatitis for a number of years. The past few years she has started to go downhill. We were able to go see her in May and although i knew it would probably be my last time to see her, i had hoped otherwise. After we left, she seemed to really go down in her health quite fast. Last week she took a turn for the worst so my parents drove down on tuesday to be with her. I wished i could have gone as well, but it was such short notice and i dont think Allistair (or me really) could have handled seeing her so sick. Anyways, after a week of sometimes being in a coma-like state, and sometimes being able to nod when asked questions, she passed away last night. My parents and aunt and uncle were able to be with her when she went and we are able to rest in the fact that she is finally with the Lord. her pain is gone and she is with her sister and with my grandpa again. Your prayers would be greatly appreciated as thought we know she is in a better place, its still so hard to say goodbye to the ones we love the most. also, we will be traveling up to wisconsin once again for her memorial service, so that will be a long drive for us and for allistair so pray for safety and strength.

just an update

Well, here i am again, sitting at my computer when i defiantely should be grabbing my chance at sleep while allistair is down for the night, but i will wait a little longer for sleep and give you all an update.


As i mentioned in a post below, we were looking at a house we were going to buy. We went to look at it again a few weeks ago before making an offer and decided to ask one of the men from ntm to come along (he builds all hte houses at new tribes). After walking in and looking around he told us that he strongly suggest we wait and try to find a different place. I took his advice right away since i wasnt feeling 100% right about the house to begin with but julian had a bit harder time letting go of the idea. We found out a week later that it was a good thing we did wait because of waht happened with the bank.


As for the bank, we have paid off our 'debt' because we got a letter saying if we didnt pay it immediately, collections would be called on us! it was a pain to have to learn the lesson the hard way but i've moved on and feel it a blessing that we didnt loose more money, and no one got hurt!


Allistiar is doing great! hes learning so much, and turned 10 months last tuesday! hard to believe my baby will be 1 in less than 2 months! he seems to be cutting in another tooth so hes been pretty fussy lately, i just have to remember he wont be small forever! that seems to be the only thing that gets me through those days of nearly constant screaming! As for julian and i , we are doing really good. julain has the next 3 days off in a row so we are looking forward to getting some time together, and hanging out wiht some good friends for canada day!


If you could keep my sister and brother in law in your prayers that would be great! they are moving back here to durham (YAY!!!) this coming month which is SO exciting!! so hopefully everything goes smoothly!




ju and my day out together at the Bell Golf tournament..we came in last!


me and my goofball son!


hes almost too big for sink baths!! but he still loves them!

be careful who you trust!

Well, a few weeks ago i posted an add for my electric guitar on Kijiji for sale. I had a quick reply from someone who was very intersted in buying it from me, so after a week or 2 of writing back and forth, i was sent a money order cheque for 2500.00$ i was told to take out my money for the guiart and then i was asked to send the rest to anohter guy who was also buying something from this man so he would be paid. I thought it seemed a bit strange but i have never done anything like this so i didnt really think anything of it. I sent the money, and was awaiting someone to come pick up my guitar. I checked my online bank today only to find out that the cheque was fake and i now owe 2500$ to the bank to make up for the fake cheque! after many tears, julian and i went to the bank to see what was going on, and were told that there was nothing they could do, that we were just going to be out that money. We went all over to the bank that cashed the cheque for us and they also told us it was our fault and that we owed taht money back to the bank. All my accounts have been frozen and will continue to be until i pay this off. We still felt as if we were being just shoved aside so we called up julians mom who came down with us to my home-bank. we talked for a good long time to the manager who siad she will see waht they can do, but she really has no idea what will happen...i guess this is teaching me a good 'trust the lord' lesson but i gotta tell you, im not liking the way i have to learn it very much. we would REALLY appreciate your prayers through this whole ordeal...i always knew it would suck to be conned, just didnt realize the extent of it. thanks for your prayers though. We will let you know how it all turns out.