Four years ago today I become the dad of two girls. Since then we’ve added two more to our clan and this one – Emerson Paige – continues to be one of the bright shining stars in my life.

I am so thankful for this little girl. She makes me laugh, she reminds me that life is meant to be fun and she melts me to the core with those dimples. How awesome is it that I get to be her dad??

I’ve got one and he certainly is. This is a photo of me and Spencer on a boat ride together a few summers ago up at my parents’ cottage -

Spencer is a gentle giant. When we got him as a puppy we were told he’d grow to be about 65 pounds. We could handle 65 pounds. Unfortunately 65 pounds came and went fairly quickly and he’s now 95 pounds of strong, playful, fun dog. Spencer is a big boy with lots of energy but he is beautifully tender with our four kids. He loves cuddles and hugs from them, loves to have them chase him around the house, loves it when they give him treats. Our kids love to climb on top of him (they probably think he’s as big as Clifford) and when Spencer has had enough play time with the kids he just gets up and walks away.

Spencer will turn 6 this spring and I can’t imagine what our family would be like without him. He’s our fun-loving boy, my backyard companion, always lying in the most inconvenient spot in the whole house – usually right behind our feet! – but he is a treasure and he makes life fun.

Two videos found their way to me today, both tributes to dogs that have died. Hopefully we’re not going through this with Spencer for a long time but I thought I’d post a little tribute to my pup and share these two videos with you today –

Thanks for following along with my Magical Blog Friends posts (1|2|3|4|5) last week while we were away. We had an incredible time at Disney World – better-than-expected weather, small crowds, good friends all make for a great experience. My kids loved every moment and it was definitely a magical experience for them. Princess and fairies are still very real for them and you should have seen their eyes light up when they had the chance to meet Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, “No Tite” (as my 2-year old Isabelle calls her) and a bunch of other characters.

I was so impressed with the Disney staff, their commitment to service and their desire to see us have a great experience. We had a couple of interactions that really stood out and I sent an email to someone behind a Disney contact form to let them know about the impact those two specific staff had on our time at Disney.

We came home Saturday morning, plowed the driveway, loaded the washing machine several times and tried to unwind a bit before I had to hit the road again for recreate. Added in that whole mix was an unexpected adventure to the emergency room when my 5-year old, Avery, slipped off a chair and split her chin open. An extra 3 hours at the hospital I wasn’t planning on – she’s fine, a little glue and a band-aid and she’s good as new.

When I’m back home next week I’ll pull some photos together and get them posted to give you a glimpse in to our time away. Our kids are already asking when we’re going back! :)

Right now we are on our way from the frigid, sub-zero tundra of central Ontario and heading towards the land of sunshine, palm trees and Mickey Mouse. We’ve been saving for this trip for a couple of years and very, very excited to be taking our kids to Disney this week.

Best part of the trip? We convinced some very good friends of ours who also have four kids to come along for the insanity. Between the two families, we have eight kids under the age of 7. This will either be awesome or awful but, either way, we are going to be making some memories!

I won’t be blogging while I’m away but I’ve written some posts introducing you to some blog/twitter friends of mine. Each day there will be a new post with a link to their website and a little write-up on why I want you to meet them. Hope you find some new folks to follow and some new inspiration!

As things on the blog have aged (and, honestly, as twitter has become my main connection point with other worship leaders) I really haven’t spent much time talking about my family here. You may be a read of the blog and not know that my wife & I are the proud parents of three incredible girls or that we are expecting our first boy in September. When the baby arrives, we will have 4 kids under the age of 5 – you can pray for us!

On April 28, 2007 we got to meet our second daughter, Emerson Paige. She has brought so much joy to our family – her jokes, her silly voices, her dimples, her big-as-the-moon brown eyes. I can’t imagine life without her and consider her to be an incredible blessing from God.

Today we celebrated Emmy’s 3rd birthday. We woke her up and congratulated her on the big day. We sang songs and danced around her bedroom, making sure all of our neighbours heard that it was Emmy’s birthday! Tonight we had Emmy’s favourite dinner – pineapple pizza, from scratch! – with homemade cupcakes and blue icing for dessert. We sang happy birthday, told Emmy how much we love her and how special she is to us and then we opened some presents, gifts from mom & dad and also gifts from some friends. Nana made a special appearance by phone during dinner to give Emmy a special birthday message.

At bedtime, I told Emmy again how much I love her, how happy I am that I get to be her daddy and how thankful I am that God has given her to our family.

Emmy on the day she was born. Little angel.

At about 18 months. Check out those dimples!

Emmy has the most incredible big brown eyes, just like her momma.
This is just after her 2nd birthday.

I took Emmy and her big sister Avery out for ice cream on Monday night.
Look at those pearly whites!

I don’t post a ton of family stuff here but that doesn’t mean that life at the Vacher home isn’t incredible, exciting, exhilirating and all of those other “-ing” words that describe what goes on in this place! Sonya & I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary this spring and today we celebrated our third daugther’s 1st birthday. For the next two months we have a 3-, 2-, and 1-year old making up the rest of this great family.

We really do take our role as parents seriously and consider it a real honour to parent these three little girls. I’m constantly amazed at how similar & different they each are from one another – so incredible to think that God has designed each one of them in just the right way and now Sonya & I get to see these little lives unfold before us.

Avery, Isabelle & Emmy

Our good friend Gillian took this photo earlier in the spring and she was able to capture beautifully the personality of each of our kids in this one moment. They are my princesses and I treasure each one of them.

I’m wrapping up a couple great weeks of holidays – hence the quiet time around the blog lately. We had some great family time the first week up at my parents’ cottage. The weather didn’t really cooperate but we made the best of it. The second week was awesome – Sonya & I got away to New York City on our own for four days. Incredible city and a great time away. Here’s the quick recap of our trip –

Sonya & I were able to get away this week on our own for the first time since before we had kids. We’ve done nights away here and there but this was really the first time that we’ve gone away for a chunk of days and not had to worry about kid things. Thanks to Sonya’s sister and our nephew we spent four days in NYC and had a blast.

Here’s the day-by-day hilights –

Monday

• We flew out of Toronto early, landed at La Guardia, got our bearings and hit our first of several bus/subway trips to get to Yankee Stadium
• Found a pretty sketchy spot to store our bags while we were at the game – we casually slipped anything worth anything out of our bags and in to Sonya’s purse :)
• Yankee Stadium & the game were incredible. Sonya is a trooper for playing along!
• We could not have possibly had better seats for the game. Unbelievable.
• Made our way from the Bronx down to the Upper West Side and got to our hotel. You have to see the photo of our amazing view – I’ll post it soon.
• Dinner at a very cool dim sum place and then back to the hotel

Tuesday

• Up early to get down for our ferry to the Statue of Liberty – thankfully we got an early ticket because by the time we came off the island the line was ridiculously long.
• Statue of Liberty was very cool – the story of the statue and of liberty is told throughout the landmark itself
• Walked through downtown, grabbed something quick to eat before walking by Ground Zero – no real memorial setup yet but lots of construction going on for the new buildings
• Very moving displays setup at St. Paul’s Chapel telling the story of the 9/11 rescue workers and of the volunteers who helped them in the months following
• Lots of artifacts still in the chapel from that time – letters from kids, patches from fire departments, lots of flags
• Visiting St. Paul’s was pretty emotional and brought back lots of memories
• Another subway trip up to Times Square – just in time to be in the middle of it all during Michael Jackson’s memorial service. Not sure how many photos I got but it was AMAZING to be there for that moment.
• Tuesday night down to Little Italy for dinner at the legendary La Mela – wow!

Wednesday

• It was kind of hard to contain my excitement but we got up early to head to the Regis & Kelly studio – only about 10 blocks south of our hotel
• Surprised at how small the studio is – only seats about 150 and the room is actually really small
• Hayden Panettierre was the big guest – if you think she only looks good on TV, you’re wrong.
• Seeing the production side of the show was pretty cool – very slick operation. Regis & Kelly seem to genuinely enjoy their jobs and their fans – very gracious and good at what they do.
• Regis & Kelly should do a separate contest for Canadians. Not fair.
• We also got to be there for the taping of Regis’ birthday show on August 25th – lucky us!
• Some more time on the west side before heading to Studio 54 to catch Nathan Lane and others in Waiting For Godot. Thanks for the tickets, mum! Incredible play with some very moving moments.
• At some point on Wednesday we ended up in the Apple Store on 5th Avenue – loved it.
• Legit NY pizza on the 16th floor terrace of our hotel is a pretty awesome way to spend an evening.
• Nightcap at a VERY cool underground place called Gus & Gabriel’s. If you are in NY and can get there – go!! It is on 79th between Broadway & Amsterdam. If the waiter recommends the Belhaven Twisted Thistle, take his advice!

Thursday

• For the first time in as long as I can remember I woke up this morning on my own – no alarms or children. Beautiful.
• We spent most of Thursday in Central Park – carriage ride, nice walks, incredible musicians, beautiful fountains. Very cool place.
• Made our way to the Imagine Mosaic and heard the whole story from Gary, the mayor of Strawberry Fields
• American Natural History Museum is an amazing place – Sonya just kept talking about the scene from Friends where Ross & whatshername share some intimate moments in one of the displays. She was disappointed when we couldn’t find it.
• One last stop at the Broadway & 75th Starbucks and then another subway ride back out to La Guardia. Nice to get home and nice to have had a great trip. We’ll definitely go back.

Friday

• I’m not sure how much walking we did over the four days but it was a lot. And today my feet are freaking sore. Really sore!

Thanks to my beautiful wife I’ve got 3 incredibly beautiful daughters – Avery, Emerson and Isabelle. Our youngest, Isabelle, needs your help on her way to doing a photo session with our friend (and unbelievable photographer, Gillian Gauthier). We’ve been bugging everyone we know to vote for her and now it’s time for me to harass my blog readers!!

So – if you’ve got two seconds to spare, head over here and vote for Isabelle. She would definitely appreciate it! :)

It’s late. Isabelle doesn’t want to sleep. I do. We’re hanging out and decided that we should make some videos.

Things have been busy and restful. We are enjoying some great family time while we are on holidays – spent time with family, did a quick trip up to Ottawa to visit my parents and now we are home spending a few days around the house. Regularly scheduled blogging will continue next week – there is lots of good stuff coming up!!

RSSers might have to hit the blog to see this but I thought I’d share some photos of our Christmas morning together – we had a great day!

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