october, 2006

october 22, 2006

i finally went to see toby playing hockey today. we were only there for the last 15 minutes and aly spent the whole time sulking/complaining very loudly about how cold and miserable she was. i guess she takes after me then. anyway, toby was amazing. as sascha pointed out, he'll be better than either of us in a month or 2. he can already skate across the ice backwards [albeit a little slowly] and is working on his crossovers. it never fails to amaze me how quickly children can pick up new skills.

aly has kindly provided some halloween decorations for unblog with her cute skeleton and ghost [see above]. i took her to her first vancouver riding lesson this weekend at crescent stables in ladner. it had been a long time coming. i decided against the only place i could find here in richmond because the trainer was mean to me. this one was more expensive, but i was much much happier with the lady who took the lesson yesterday [she's been there 30+ years]. unfortunately she's going in for an operation this week so won't be available for a couple of months. i think i'll still go ahead and book another couple of lessons there - they all seem very professional, safety conscious and polite.

my october resolution is to get outside more. i'm terrible as the weather starts to get worse and worse. i get into my pjs the second i walk through the door and really don't want to leave the house for anything. i get pretty miserable and seem to feel ill in some way or other for a couple of months straight. i'm pretty sure i suffer from SAD [seasonal affective disorder] and sunlight is supposed to help, so i'm going to try to leave the office at lunchtimes if i know i'm not going to be outside any other time. maybe i'll even make it into my rollerblades. richmond family place is right next to the most beautiful park so i really have no excuse!

aly and i also went on a trip to the local pumpkin patch on saturday with her sparks group while the boys were busy with hockey and golf. it was aly's initiation ceremony for sparks this week [sparks are the youngest version of girl guides]:

october 12, 2006

we have a new family member - rodney. my robot vacuum cleaner. i am SO happy. he can do about 2 rooms at a time and then finds his home to do some recharging. he's an iRobot roomba discovery and i think he might be my favourite birthday present EVER. aly even has to clean under her bed because he can fit under very small spaces.

i went on my semi-annual clothes shopping expedition after work on tuesday. aly was with me because she'd been so helpful last time

aly: hmm - you look like a teenager mommy
me: thank you aly - not the look i was going for [as i put it back]

again she was very useful [although i think i may have picked out too many items - she started to get bored and lick the mirror instead of passing me things off the hanger after about 7 items!]. the first shirt i tried on she said

oooh - you look like a worker
perfect i said - that's just what i'm aiming for [i bought that one].
next shirt:
hmm. you look a bit like a judo master [that one was a reject!]

toby is up to no good at the moment. his listening and co-operation skills need some work. maybe it's turning 5 that's done it. maybe it was us going away. maybe it's a new school and kindercare. fortunately, i know it's just a phase. he'd been driving sascha and i up the wall but his montessori and kindercare had both noticed issues with listening. we had parent conferences for aly and toby last week so i asked toby what his kindergarten teacher would say about him. he said i think i've been good in mrs butlers class - her class is the only one. anyway, it turns out he was right - she said he'd been doing great in her class. i told her she was the chosen one [and if not, definitely the lucky one]!

aly's conference went really well. her teacher suggested she made some books in her spare time and she's been churning them out non-stop ever since! i should put a couple online at some point. aly is also reading really well. she's still not keen on reading, but she can do it when she tries.

waiting for the halloween train

we didn't do too much for canadian thanksgiving - although there was turkey involved. we went to the stanley park halloween train on sunday. i was sitting next to aly. she looked really worried as the train was leaving the station so i said they can't scare us, right?! so every time we saw something she'd say that's not scary. that was until the man-eating frog leapt out of the bushes at which point she turned to me and said now THAT was scary! anyway, between the train and the haunted barnyard [petting zoo] a great night was had by all.

october 1, 2006

aah.. that was refreshing. we're back from our cruise and sascha is busy planning the next one! [with the children this time]

coral princess at canada place taken from the roof garden of sascha's new office downtown

we had a great time. we've been away together for the odd night and maybe a weekend since the children have been born but nothing so completely away from life as you know it. i didn't have the weird missing-limb type feeling i usually have when i'm out without the children. i think maybe because it was just so different from anything we've done with them. i was very stressed before i went and it probably took me until the end of the first night to completely relax but after that i relaxed with a vengeance! sascha had booked us into an hour long massage at the spa which really helped the relaxation along :-)

we had an eventful beginning to the trip. approximately 6 minutes after we left the dock, they closed the harbour due to this freighter embedding itself in stanley park under the lions gate bridge. doh!

after hanging around on deck for a while we decided to head down to the all day buffet and watched the action from front row seats on deck 14. many snacks, 20 tugs boats and a high tide later, the freighter was moved aside and we finally got underway!

leaving vancouver at dusk

the cruise was to LA but since we were getting the first flight out of LA and were shrouded in fog for most of the 3 days, we really could have circled vancouver harbour and wouldn't have minded one bit. between the food, pub quizzes, casino, golf challenges, spa, hair salon, shows etc. we really didn't have much time for watching the view [although we did see a great white whale along the way]. i even managed to fit in 2 library books and an audio book which is more reading than i've done in a year. we were definitely on the youthful end of the passenger scale so name that tune was a little out of our era, as was 'treasure quest' [we left when one of the items the teams needed to find was false teeth, and the lady next to us threw hers off the balcony to the team below!]. anyway, all in all, lots of fun and plenty of time to just sit and chat and laugh together which there's never enough time to do with the little ones around.

the children seemed to survive very nicely. toby had had a good time but was very happy we were home. aly was happy enough to see us but would have preferred us to stay away another day really! we're now having a lovely weekend together with a new appreciation for one another.

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