april, 2005

happy april fools' day, i mean birthday, kellie ;-p

april 27

oh, that's great.. just what i need. i'm happily listening to virgin radio online [the best radio station in the world], listening to my uk traffic reports etc. when who should appear but tony blair waffling on and on and on about values. is there no escape?

apparently i'm supposed to vote for the liberals in the uk election according to the who should you vote for website. sascha did point out that anyone who's ever done it seems to be liberal so he's suspicious.

i've just been booking the children's classes for the summer. so far we've got art camp, sports camp, preschool camp, swimming [toby] and paleontology [aly!] with probably some golf and ballet to follow. they vary from one half day to five half day sessions so it's not really as bad as it looks! aly just passed her first swimming level today but strangely it's only toby who wants to take another class this summer. it works out well for me.. if i can get him to the same level i can get them back into the same class in the fall.

april 26

you must be thinking 'no posting for weeks on end and then 2 come along at once' :-)

i'm actually making the most of the fact that it's early (8am - early for us - i don't usually let the children downstairs until 9am i'm so lazy :-) however, the children are playing very loudly, but very happily in aly's room. too loudly for me to stay in bed and nap through, but happily enough that i thought i'd make the most of some unexpected peaceful time. they did the exact same thing yesterday and were playing so well that we were late for swimming class because i couldn't bear to disturb them!

i did think about using the time to do some client work but really, it's far too early for that sort of thing.

speaking of being lazy and me making the most of the year or so i have left of this lifestyle... i signed toby up for next year's preschool yesterday and opted for the afternoon classes again. i also popped across to the school office [same building] and changed aly from mornings [which i'd made sascha get up early and line up to get a place in] to afternoon kindergarten. hooray!

sascha and i made the most of our weekend - i spent the entire day [11am to 10pm] scrapbooking [for charity!] [27 pages and the whole of our honeymoon complete] and sascha spent sunday playing golf. back to family activities this weekend though.. besides a birthday party to attend, i promised the children that we'd all go to watermania once they finished their swimming lessons, so it's off to the wave pool for us.

toby had his first golf lesson yesterday. i had told him we were going somewhere that was a surprise and that he'd really like. half way there he got very excited when he thought he had it cracked and we might be going to 'A GOLF STORE.. IS IT GOLFTOWN? HOORAY! he's a strange one that toby. anyway, when we arrived at the golf course and i told him what he was really going to be doing it was like all his birthdays had come at once 'THAT'S FANTASTIC... THAT'S REALLY FANTASTIC.. I CAN'T BELIEVE IT.. THAT'S FANTASTIC' [very loudly for at least 5 minutes. weirdly i don't remember hearing him say the word 'fantastic' until now]. turns out he was the only kid signed up and they had been planning to call me and cancel, but since they'd forgotten to do that, they went ahead with a great private lesson. he was the star of the putting green - impressing all the old ladies. he made 9 2ft putts in a row, got better at chipping, learnt how to put his golf clubs down gently and how to mark his ball etc. i only heard him say he didn't want to do something because 'daddy showed me a different way' once or twice ;-) i think we later persuaded him to listen to the pro! it's only a 2 week session so we're both very excited about next week's lesson

the weather here has been amazing - 23/24 degrees for about a week now. only problem is i'd forgotten how ridiculously hot our townhouse gets. i guess we'll have to spend the summer outside.

april 22

WOW, busy few days - as you might have gathered by the hopeless lack of any updating. had to sort out a trip to disneyland in the middle of may and aly's birthday party at the beginning of may. after much debating i think we've sorted out both. aly's birthday went from trying to persuade her to do nothing at all [she IS going to disneyland later in the month] [didn't work - EVERYBODY has a class party with EVERYONE invited], to a farm trip [too far out of town], to mcdonalds [cop out option which would meet with disapproval from several parents no doubt!.. must remember to cancel that one], to richmond arts connection princess/wizard themed birthday [too expensive. must remember to cancel my preliminary booking], to finally, the richmond arts centre art truck visit to our clubhouse - complete with pirate theme [even though aly's friend cole apparently doesn't like pirates]

even the date [school day or not school day, making sure to miss mothers day [her birthday], and the school tea party for mothers] was a major decision. not to mention the time.. before school, after school, on a non-school day, between meals, at meals, after sibling naps? etc. etc. anyway, not being much of a caterer i've opted for 2-4pm - cunningly between meals.

i made my treasure map invitations last night [i swear my fingers are going to stay tea stained for at least a week]

have confirmed i can use the clubhouse without having to rent it out [i didn't mention quite how many children might be attending but anyway..], and am just waiting for confirmation that i have an arts and craft instructor booked so i can give out the invitations.

at least toby should be a lot easier. hopefully he'll be happy with a round of golf and a trip to the go kart track with close family again :-)

the trip to disneyland was a breeze in comparison - we're booking a package for the first time in our lives because it seemed to work out cheaper [especially since the kids would fly free]. i can't wait to see all my friends from ventura again :-)

i have a client commissioning meeting about an hour from now which should be good. i just have to remember to not get lazy and stop looking for new business now.

on a different note, i had always thought that peta was a derivative of peter [pete and petra both are] meaning rock, but my suspicions were aroused when i came across a reserve called petawawa when compiling media contact lists for ontario the other day. after some further checking, it would appear that peta means 'golden eagle'. there... much nicer than rock. having said that, 63% of the people on the baby names site i looked it up on had rated the name as 'i don't like it at all'. i won't take it personally though. it still doesn't explain why there are so many peta's in australia and south africa of course.

april 10

congratulations to lara, roj and jody on the arrival of miles :-) he's VERY cute.

we went to science world [again] on saturday but with new rules implemented - instead of taking a child each and following them around the museum [or just sitting watching them play with balls all day long in toby's case] - never to speak to one another again, this time the children took turns deciding where the whole family would go. i still didn't get much of a chance to chat to sascha but at least we didn't loose each other. it is nice having annual passes to museums and just being able to drop in there for 2 hours or so.

aly at science world

i watched the first new Doctor Who this week and was very very impressed. since we've just watched the last [and decidedly a little inconclusive] west wing, this will fill a hole in my viewing schedule very nicely.

aly's imaginery mammouth has returned. i'm trying to remember his name but it's something very obscure.

sasch and i have had a very misspent weekend trying to finish burnout 3 - takes me back to my misspent youth.

i've put some new photos up on the website: science world, maritime museum, treehouse building, burnaby village museum, toby's sports class, reading and swimming lessons.

april 2

the easter break was very enjoyable. we did lots - burnaby village museum [it was limitless carousel week so i was very dizzy by the time we left]. there was also a clown which aly [the loud one at the front of the crowd] could have watched all day, the maritime museum [for pirate week], the beach, the family place, the hamilton easter egg hunt, kidsfest at the university of victoria [chaos], another egg hunt and a visit to the royal bc museum [where we lost aly and nikki for an hour or so while they pretended to live in the little heritage village section!] we also managed to build the best part of a treehouse at sascha's parents' place [just the roof to go]. in fact, we had so much fun that the kids and i ended up staying an extra day.

work seems to be falling out of the sky at me so i'm taking it as a sign that i may as well work from home for a while longer at least.

the children both started swimming lessons this week. aly has already had them before, but this was toby's first. he did really well and his class only had 4 kids so they each got plenty of attention. it also helped that he got to watch aly's class [which is basically the same thing] before he went in.

toby's first swimming class

speaking of toby, i can't remember if i've ever mentioned 'mr oppino' before. anyway, 'mr/mrs oppino' is something which, for some unknown reason, toby started calling people [a] if he couldn't immediately remember the person's name eg. daddy?! or [b] in order to be cheeky eg. "toby pick up your cars before i trip over them again""YES MRS OPPINO". anyway, in revenge, we started to call him mr oppino so the whole thing is starting to get a bit out of hand!

dani came to stay for a few days while she did a course at the art institute and colin [sascha's dad] stayed for a couple of nights so he could see her show yesterday. we all decided to go to the show, followed by a trip to metrotown to eat and shop. apparently they got lost on the way back to the car which is something i dread doing each time i go. with 500 shops it's a ridiculously large place above ground. below ground things get even more confusing.

aly was on the local news this week for all the wrong reasons - there was a record-breakingly big marijuana drugs bust at our apartment complex this week. bc is pretty ridiculous on the pot front to begin with [the hydroponics stores all over the place should be a pretty big hint], but even by bc standards this was a big one. we had our suspicions but didn't realise how much there was. i opted not to give an interview ['you're a young mother - aren't you concerned for the safety of your children?' - well maybe a little but i'm not about to cry and snivel on camera for you]. anyway, aly was on the news peering out of our window. maybe we will move sooner after all!

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