Daddy Weekend

This weekend was a very rare occurrence as Kerry was away at a vampire party with her best friend Melissa. Maybe I'll take a step back and start over. Melissa lives in Coldstream near Vernon and is a bit of a Twilight fan. (Here's a shot of Kerry from last summer during their trip to Forks Washington.)  She's had a special party for each of the movies where slightly older then teenage girls get together and watch the latest Twilight movie. There's food and lot's of red, white and black. Kerry was in desperate need of some time to herself so she took advantage of her brother's job at Air Canada to get a cheap flight up for the weekend. A rare occurrence for many reasons but mainly because she hasn't spent an entire weekend away from both kids ever.

We dropped Mommy off at the airport and headed home for Family Movie Night.  Kerry left us a surival kit of chips and other goodies to get us through our two days alone.  Callie had a bright idea to have it in her room using her portable DVD player which resulted in a large amount of supplies stuffed into a very small area and lot's of spills. We're still cleaning chips out of Wilson's dog bed and I never did find all the Malteasers.  Those things really roll!

Saturday morning was a plan well laid that never quite came to fruition. Carter has multi-sport at 9:15a and Callie has ballet at 9:30a. Kerry had arranged to have me drop Callie off at her friend Ashley's house and her mom would take both of them to ballet and I would pick her up after Carter and I were done. I managed to get her out of the house and to Ashley's on time but I think Callie was feeling a bit out of sorts without Mommy around so she was sticking very close to Carter. (Notice I said Carter and not me.)  Multi-sport was missing several people and became a bit of a free for all by the end so Callie got to join in for soccer and an impromptu game of what our family likes to call "Run and Hug". This was Carter's turn.

I needed to figure out something to pass the afternoon so we drove to King George sky train station and we went to Metrotown. The train ride itself was a majority of the excitement. I don't think we ended up doing much of anything except for riding the mall train and checking our Lightening McQueen or as Carter refers to him "Red Buttah Queen". We have no idea why he calls him that.

Mommy did return. Both kids are still alive, the dog didn't run away and I'm sure we'll find those Malteasers during spring cleaning.

Week In Review

Not a lot happened this week but I figure I should post something or I'll get out of the habit. Things should pick up nicely next weekend when Kerry heads to Vernon for the weekend and the kids stay with me. I'm sure the weekend will consist of a lot of borderline events such as sidewalk chalk in Daddy's shop. The blue line underneath Callie is supposed to be the limit of where they can go. Unfortunately I left the blue chalk with her so her nefarious solution was to redraw the blue line. Carter specialty appears to be grass of various colors.

Carter had another great day at multi-sport.  This contraption was supposed to be a giant basketball net however it started out as a tent during warm-up.  It looks like Carter's trying to chat up a couple of his class mates however as soon as they invited him in he would run away.

He eventually got over his fears though and they took turns being targets.

Similar to hockey Carter appears to be a natural lefty. This shots a bit blurry because he's already hit the ball and has pulled the bat back to take another swing just in case he missed the first time.  By the end I didn't even have to help him with his grip.

Our final event was the parachute.  (He's able to say parachute about as well as he can say Chuck-E-Cheese)  Once again the instructor was not very impressive.  She put the heaviest balls she could find on it and they slave whipped us until we got them off. Eventually parents were trying to cheat and push the balls off because they weren't moving.  I'm thinking I should take over the course or put one of the kids in charge instead.

First Day of Multi Sport

Today was Carter's first day of multi sport. It's for kids three and under and they spend a bit of time on as many sports as the instructor can fit in. Today we had soccer, basketball, hockey and t-ball.  Carter's forte was definitely soccer. He spent the first 10 minutes kicking the ball all over the gym, often in stride. I wasn't overly impressed with the instructor. She tried to get some of the kids to dribble the basketball even though many of them had trouble even picking it up without kicking it across the gym.



As long as Carter can grow out of his Theoren Fleury physique he might have a chance with hockey. He seemed to know how to hold the stick right away and by the looks of it he's a lefty. The sticks don't have much curve on them so it's too soon to see how good his wrist shot is.

Snowmageddon!

Well it wasn't quite Snowmageddon but it was a lot of snow for a short period of time. On Sunday The Weather Network was predicting up to two feet over four days for Surrey and by Monday morning the forecast was for all rain.  In the end it ended up somewhere in between. We got 22cm at our house before it turned to rain. Since I take the bus and Sky Train to work it's not very difficult to get to work. Unfortunately all the regular drivers chicken out and also decide to take the Sky Train so it was easier if I just worked from home.

Carter's daycare was short staffed so we decided to keep him home and let him watch Diego. Callie went to Kindergarten in the morning but rather than going to daycare in the afternoon she decided she wanted to come home at lunch and build a snow fort with Daddy. This is highly unusual. Normally any change from routine usually doesn't go over very well.  Apparently she believes I'm the only parent with fort building skills. She was amazed when I suggested we create a tunnel. "Yes Daddy.  No snow fort has ever had a tunnel before!"

Carter spent most of the time eating snow. The highlight was when Callie shouted "Caaaarterrrr!  Stop eating the table!"

A New Beginning

As many of you are aware I spent 2010 doing "A Photo a Day for a Year" via Facebook.  This was a lot of fun and brought you such greats as "Boy Drinks from Dog Dish" and "The Mud Children".  

This year I've decided to do a blog. The issue I had with Photo of the Day was that some days had lots of activities and other days had virtually nothing. I haven't worked out an official theme for my blog but I think it will be very similar to Photo of the Day. Family and Woodworking.  I also haven't worked out the frequency. I was thinking of doing it every Sunday but I already have a lot for my first post so I think I'll just do it when something of interest happens. My goal is to keep family informed on what we're up to and to have something to look back on when the kids are older.

The year started out with some really great sunsets. Based on the activity via Facebook I wasn't the only one who thought so.  Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me so I've had to borrow a photo from a colleague at work. Thanks Cheryl. (I'll ask you if I can use it next time I see you. :) As with most January 1's it is time for New Years Resolutions. I've never been a fan because I always forget them but this year I've decided on a few "Things I'd Like to do Every Day" and I'm keeping track so I can see how I'm doing. It's a big list so I'll maybe do a special entry for that.

January 2nd saw us head over to Kerry's school for a bit of sledding.  It snowed about 4" at our house and stuck around for a couple weeks.  The highlight may have been when Callie and Carter used Daddy as a sled.  (No picture here.)

This year I've started Geo-caching.  Geo-caching is like a high tech treasure hunt.  People hide cache's all over the world and post their location online.  My goal is to make an effort to go places I've never been before.  There are thousands of them in the Lower Mainland.  Today we went to Tynehead Park with the kids for a hunt and a picnic.

It's a big difficult finding things to do outside with the kids when the weather is bad but this was a good trip on a cool crisp sunny day.

I'll leave you with one last photo.  You'd think this would have been after the walk but Carter's got a bit of a cold and passed out soon after getting his shoes on.