may, 2005

may 27

we're back! it was a fantastic trip. just the perfect mix of high octane disney mixed with a relaxing weekend with friends.

miraculously i've managed to get some photos online for you already. although the flight went remarkably well [we managed to get on an earlier flight which was direct instead of via portland and even got a ride to the gate on one of those nice carts], the holiday didn't start off all that wonderfully because poor toby had the beginnings of a sore throat the day before we left which made him pretty miserable for our first disney day. when we got to the first ride he said he just wanted to go home instead of going on dumbo. however, at some point in the day between the medication kicking in, and the drowsiness wearing off, he did perk up.

the gang!

sascha was at the e3 conference in LA for our first disney day which had me a little bit nervous - disney with 2 small children by myself. but fortunately, 10 of our closest friends showed up which made the day go a lot more smoothly :-) it was so great to see them all again and the children got along very well. it was lovely having people to watch the kids when necessary and it made the day very easy for rides eg. aly got to ride on the matterhorn while i took poor toby on a more sedate ride with the younger ones.

when it was time for the venturians to hit the LA freeways to go home, we met up with my good friend renukha [who lives just around the corner from us and whose vacation happened to overlap with ours by a day]. we just had time for a few more rides with them - including buzz lightyear - everyone's favourite. once they had left, aly and toby argued over whether they wanted to stay for the fireworks or not. aly who hates loud noises, is really not usually a fireworks fan, but she told me she wanted to watch them so we got all lined up in perfect position in tomorrowland. 10 minutes before they were due to begin, she panicked and said she definitely didn't want to watch the fireworks. toby was not impressed by her decision and neither was i since it is almost impossible to escape disneyland from the wrong end of main street 10 minutes before the fireworks. anyway, i gave it my best effort. i ran over a few feet with my stroller along the way, but the people i ran over seemed fairly understanding [i don't think i was the first one to do it]. we managed to get half way up main street when they started so i paused to see if we could see tinkerbell since aly has wanted to see her fly from the castle. anyway, we seemed to have missed tinkerbell and aly was really unimpressed by the noise so we finally struggled out of the park to watch the rest of the fireworks [aly buried under me] from the shuttle bus stop.

sascha's conference and parties seemed to go very well and friday the 4 of us got to go to california adventure which i was particularly excited about because the tower of terror [my favourite ride in the world] is now there. i also wanted to see the new bug's land. aly and toby had both reached the magical 40" mark. in fact aly had reach 42" which meant they could go on almost all of the rides. suddenly, instead of figuring out how to juggle rides and young children, we could all go on everything together. even better, since they didn't know much about the rides they'd never ridden before, there were no arguments about who wanted to do what! we were especially liberated on monday when we decided the children had had enough relaxation over the weekend that we could do without a stroller.

back to california adventure - it was a great day. the bug's land was not quite as exciting as i'd hoped, but the children both loved everything that was there. aly got to ride the water rapids with sasch - one of the few things toby was too small to go on. [after being soaked from head to toe for an entire day the one time i went on it, i boycott it now]. we all loved soarin' over california. it was sascha's favourite ride and aly had tears of happiness in her eyes afterwards because she got to see tinkerbell flying over the castle.

" i can't believe my dreams really came true" [quite the disney moment]

for some reason, toby decided he wanted to go on the tower of terror [obviously absolutely clueless about what it was since he'd never really had the opportunity to go on any proper rides up to this point]. the poor little guy didn't know what had hit him. i did spend a lot of time explaining to him what would happen. he missed most of the story on the way up in the elevator because he was so small he couldn't see over the edge! he held my hand very tight through the drops [and there seemed to be more of them than i remembered] and at the end said to me "that was pretty scary". the women next to him [who was hoarse from screaming so loud] said "aren't you brave coming on this ride. was it scary?" to which toby boldly replied "nope, it wasn't scary AT ALL!" and that's the story he stuck to from them on - in fact, he decided it was his favourite ride. i was so impressed i had to buy him an 'i survived the tower of terror shirt'. of course, it's a little on the large side since there aren't many 3 yr olds who go on the tower of terror. i have a feeling that toby and i are going to have a LOT of fun in theme parks over the years. i can't wait!

toby's attitude to rides did seem to change a little after that. he always looked a little more nervous and asked whether there was an elevator on this ride and will there be a big drop? anyway, he doesn't seem to be scarred for life since his other favourite rides [besides autopia of course] were the matterhorn and big thunder mountain.

aly's favourite ride was dumbo and least favourite things seemed to be the 3D movies - mostly because they were so noisy. actually, in the muppet's 3D show, toby pulled a bit of a drop and cover maneuver and disappeared under his chair when the theatre started to explode. one minute he was there, the next he was gone! fair enough i suppose.

the biggest surprise of all was the sun wheel in california adventure - we opted for the sliding cages instead of static for the first time and that's got to be one of the longest, scariest rides i've ever been on [which came as a huge shock because i don't scare easy]. it's probably the fact it's so high, it swings so violently and it looks like you're going to slide straight into the water! it's also very disconcerting not being strapped in or having much of anything to hold on to [except the children!]. i think there's an unwritten williams family rule that we'll never be doing that again!

we had the perfect weekend - dave's parents let us borrow their beautiful villa on saturday night so we had a nice relaxing time in ventura without the LA freeways beckoning us back to our hotel. we got to hang out in heather's backyard and receive visitors all weekend! saturday night i even got to do some scrapbooking at dee's while sascha, kenny and the kids went to golf and stuff [the highlight of the holiday for toby]. sunday, sascha, bruce and dave went to play golf at sascha's favourite course [which apparently they've managed to ruin while he's been gone] - so everyone was happy. it was so nice to see everyone again and amazing to see how big the smallest ones have got.

monday was back to disney for our last day and we did it at a much slower pace since we'd done most things by then [although sascha did have to keep telling me to slow down and stop dragging the kids around - it's DISNEY - it's hard to stop!]

tuesday, after getting to sleep in until 10 or 11ish we finally headed to the airport for a laborious journey home via portland but altogether a wonderful trip.

i've decided that, despite the mountains of laundry and grocery shopping i'm doing, i'm pretending that we're still on vacation until monday morning. since we got back we've been on a school trip to the local bug lab and the first gardening club session for family place at the local sharing farm [which grows fruit and veg to donate to the food bank]. today we're off to the local water park with friends after collecting dani from the ferry.

toby the entomologist

thank goodness it's almost june, this homepage is getting out of control.

may 16

quick update before we head off to disneyland on thursday. the rest of aly's birthday weekend was good fun. toby even got a present from his grandpa - this very fetching golf outfit which he wants to wear every day from now on!

i'm in the process of putting some short movie clips of the kids on the site but have exceeded my allocation. in itself this would not be a problem because sascha can re-allocate some of his space to me. however, since sascha is only home for about 4-5hours in the middle of the night to sleep at the moment, it's not really high on the priority list - you'll have to wait until the chaos that is preparing a new game for the E3 conference is over.

we might be moving house - only a couple of street away, but to a bigger house. watch this space

right, i have to go pack. i've got a crazy day planned tomorrow, so this is my last proper chance to get things done while the kids are at school. i can't wait :-)

may 7

well isn't that nice.. the party is all over and was apparently "the best birthday party ever" [aly] - so i guess that's a thumbs up. the children were all extremely loud but well behaved, the weather was even better behaved [a beautiful sunny day sandwiched between 2 rainy days] which meant they could all have a run around, treasure hunt and bubble blowing [bubbles and coins were the treasure] at our playground.

the arts teacher came prepared with great pirate crafts and was quick to move things along whenever the children started to get a bit restless. the parents were the best behaved of all. about half stayed and the ones who did were really good at cleaning up :-) [especially nikki's mom who managed to squeeze it in before giving birth that evening!]

unfortunately, i had to go out an hour after the party finished which led to some turbo vacuuming of the clubhouse [which reminds me - the vacuum cleaner is still in the trunk of the car from when i threw it in on my way to drop the kids at the babysitter!]

it's been a good, but very hectic week. it's made me realise what good friends i have too.

wednesday evening i had a mingling doo at the child care resource and referral centre in richmond on behalf of richmond family place and i ended up winning a hair cut as a door prize which was a very pleasant surprise [especially since i had just started having to tie my hair back again]. the thing i went to last night after the party was a volunteer appreciation celebration at the family place which featured silly hat making and 'circle time' for all the volunteers where the staff had composed songs for each group of volunteers [and gave us chocolates, a pin and a certificate]. it was very lovely.

letizia and ruby leading the singing

karina and cecilia

this weekend is aly's actual birthday [on mother's day]. nikki and dani are staying tomorrow night so i expect we'll do a birthday brunch on sunday morning before they leave. sunday afternoon is aly's friend, kishoore's birthday party at a gymnastic's place [giving sascha and i 2 hours of krispy kreme quality time!]

may 3

we had a very aly conversation the other day: "i wish someone would colour me in with this yellow crayon"
[knowing glances between sasch and i] "why aly?"
"so i could be a shiny trumpet and play 'do be do be dooooooo' properly" "really aly?"

may 1

aaarrgh. may is here already [do i say that at the start of every month?!] it's going to be such a hectic month. one birthday party to give, 3 to attend, visitors, 2 evening meetings, one event to attend and all that before we get ourselves to california on the 18th. i'm always stressed about trips until we're sitting on the airplane ready to take off.

i love ebay. i love the concept [a way for people to get rid of stuff they don't want to people who do want it], it's a way for people to run a business who otherwise might not be able to make money, location doesn't matter... it's everything i love about the internet. in general it's a very good thing [of course my dad is an ebay-aholic so maybe there is a down side ;-p]. it is a strange strange world though. i read the feedback people had left about me today for the first time [as you can see, i haven't really bought that much]:

• Wonderful Buyer. Easy to deal with, fast to respond to emails, and quick to pay!
• Fast payment and great communication. Thank you.
• Fantastic transaction. Buyer is a true asset to ebay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• GREAT BUYER, FAST PAYMENT AND EXCELLENT COMMUNICATION THANKS
• Superior ebayer. Prompt payment. I recommend highly +++

it's all very nice, but does it not strike anyone else as a little over the top to say the least? all i can recall doing was paying these people by paypal once i'd won an auction. i'm not sure that should qualify me as 'a true asset to ebay'.. 'a superior ebayer' but i suppose if you only have one line to differentiate between people who paid on time and those who paid a little slowly this is what happens. as i said - a strange world.

as i think i've mentioned before, i'm a big virgin radio online listener and at the moment i'm all excited about 'wires' by athele. it's such a great song. i hope it makes it to canada at some point.

speaking of canada, i've just been dialing directory enquiries. impressively, after almost 5 years of living in north america, i didn't have to call sascha to ask him what the directory enquiries number is [it's 411 by the way]. anyway, it's a voice recognition system which i have trouble with. the thing is, i always try to talk as clearly as possible when it's voice recognition, unfortunately this means it's a posh english accent so the computer has no clue what this might translate to in a canadian accent. i'm not quick enough to convert to a canadian accent when it asks me to repeat. very frustrating!

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