june, 2005

i'd kind of given up on the birthday thing, but happy 80th nanny!

june 27

big news is I have a job - a real one where i have to get up in the mornings and travel to an office!! that'll be a shock to the system. it was quite telling when I was explaining it all to toby this morning. i explained that I'm going to be starting a new job next week but that I won't have to work as many hours as daddy -

"so you won't be working 45 hundred thousand hours like daddy?"
"no toby, i'll be able to come home and play every afternoon, but you know toby, it means we'll have to get up pretty early in the mornings from now on"
"like when?"
"oh, i don't know, maybe around 7.30"
"7.30??? but that's still the middle of the night"
i had them SO well trained!! at least i made the most of all the sleep while i could!

after a trip to see the tall ships in victoria yesterday, today we went to miniature world, took a harbour ferry tour up to the gorge and my parents did afternoon tea at the empress hotel [a present from kellie and i for my mum's birthday on july 2nd]. after all that there was just time for toby to beat dani putting on the putting green and for my mum and i to treat colin and dani to a big pan of scouse [which apparently wasn't as scarey as dani had feared and seemed to go down quite well]. i'm in victoria right now, waiting for dani and colin to bring nikki back from the airport [she's been to book expo in toronto]. since i have some time to kill, I thought I'd do some journaling for my scrapbooks in advance. lord knows, i've taken enough photos over the past couple of weeks [although not the 320 my parents are up to so far]. anyway, i figured i may as well post my journaling to save having to do it twice....

[monday] miniature world was kind of interesting but a little stuck in the past - for example the 'modern day london' still had trams running about all over the place. we're still bemused by the women who came back to reception just as we were going in to ask if she could come back after lunch because she didn't realise how big the place was and how much stuff there was to look at.

[sunday] it was a bit of a rainy day for the tall ships but it did mean that the chaotic crowds of the previous 2 days were kept to a minimum. it was difficult to get on the ships and it was a getting a little late by the time we'd collected my parents from the ferry. fortunately, the pirates area provided huge amounts of entertainment.. the children made pirate maps and carved piratey things into soap. the kids [aly, toby, dani and my dad] got piratey tattoos and faces painted and aly and toby graduated pirate school. there was many free pirate hats, balloon and foam swords for numerous sword fights - including those with a giant pig and giant frog [or alligator? - it was difficult to tell]. walking back to the bus stop my dad was getting some particularly strange looks. the children were not too impressed that it was only a single decker bus back to my parents' hotel after the excitment of being upstairs on a double decker on the way there... [to be continued if i ever get a chance!]

june 25

where to begin? it's been an action packed few days.. the space centre, maritime museum, trev deeley motorcycle museum [dad and toby], scrapbook stores [there's still more to come], buddhist temple complex ["can we go in this chinese store" quote from aly regarding the largest temple], gulf of georgia cannery [much more interesting than it sounded], last day of school/graduation for the children, maple ridge - including whonnock lake/beach and golden ears provincial park. today toby has his last soccer class and aly has her end of year dance recital at the gateway theatre which i'm very intrigued to watch. later on we're headed off to victoria for a few days with my parents following us over tomorrow.

i was particularly happy to have gone to the buddhist temple because it is something in richmond which i've passed a million times and something which people come from miles around to see. right now they're applying for planning permission to add a 140ft buddha [actually only 90ft of buddha i think - the rest is for the building around it]. the children were really good - very quiet. it helped that toby could read all of the signs so knew he wasn't allowed to throw coins in the water, or be noisy. it was a pretty spectacular place - you wouldn't believe for a minute you were in the middle of our city.

right, go to go, places to go, people to see, luggage to pack. i'll fill in some more of the gaps later on.

june 9

aly: so you hair grew back huh?
me: yep, looks like it.
aly: you know, you should get it cut like grammy's again. i liked it when it looked like grammy's. you should have your hair like grammy's all the time.

we spent a lovely weekend at victoria this weekend. aly did some bareback riding [the show off!], we went to the oak bay tea party [which was more fairground/midway rides and less tea drinking than you might think], toby played golf and the boys went to see star wars, while the girls went to see travelling pants. apparently toby liked star wars and it wasn't scary. rumour has it he asked questions non-stop though - a bit like going with me i suppose.

today we did our stint at the sharing farm [mainly moving some dying tomato plants to a more suitable location]. actually, aly and i did that while toby played golf. on the way home, aly suggested we went strawberry picking, so despite having a fridge full of strawberries i'm already worrying about how to get through, we went. it was good fun. toby insisted on bringing his talking jacket so it could pick strawberries too [which wouldn't have been so bad if i hadn't washed it yesterday]. maybe his jacket is going to be his imaginery friend. strange children - aly has an imaginery mammouth and toby has an imaginery jacket.

i went to see a dietician for the first time in way too long this week. i've been meaning to go for a very long time because even though i've given up wheat, eggs and dairy, my ability to digest food [and therefore remain a reasonable weight] is far from good. as i expected, she wants me to do an elimination diet since i haven't done one for about 10 years.

to give a brief explanation - you begin by having only distilled water, pears, carrots, rice or tapioca and EITHER lamb/mutton OR 'wild meat' [elk or moose anyone?]. these are the things which supposedly nobody could ever have a problem digesting. after 3-5 days of this i can introduce some excitment into my life - oh, say some lactose powder [for 3-5 days], then uncoloured skim cheese [yummy yummy]. it's going to be a very long month or 2! i'll let you know when i've plucked up the courage to begin the ordeal. apparently i should stock up on some jars of baby food because strained infant foods make a good soup base or sauce for meat!

anyway, i couldn't possibly be too unhappy because my parents arrive here next wednesday for 2 weeks - hooray :-)

june 1

so toby's new hobby is reading out the prices in the ikea catalogue. i've just got my fingers crossed that he doesn't notice the really detailed small prices because at the moment he's only reading the ones in large print. we spent a good hour going through most of the catalogue yesterday - i'd read the left page and he's read the right. occassionally - just to add some exciting variety, he'd read out something other than the prices eg. 'quick, aff..[affordable] kitchens for everyone'. he's a strange one. this all came about because i was looking for something in the catalogue and he started trying to read the prices which were in the hundreds and was confused. as soon as i taught him how to read them, there was no stopping him. at least i managed to get him to read it by himself today. it's just a shame that he hasn't learn to 'read inside his brain' [as aly puts it].

my wonderful friends in california put me onto the flylady. i think i might have gone a little over the top. i hadn't received my first email from her yet so i got impatient and made a whole control journal to run my life by. for those of you not in the know - it's a way of maintaining house cleanliness/organization without stressing out. apparently it's important to take baby steps which, clearly, i'm not doing. rumour has it i'll be burnt out before you know it. i figure it can only help matters. our house is never really cluttered, but cleaning's never really been high up there on my priority list. i think i have to succumb to buying a proper feather duster [or finding the one i have somewhere]. my days of a quick wipe with some kitchen roll when we can't see the tv picture any more might be numbered. my sink isn't quite as shiny as the flylady would like it yet and she hasn't persuaded me to wear my shoes to do the housework, but it's getting there.

back home

	Enter your search terms
	Web www.petawilliams.com Submit search form