Oliver's First Snowfall

We've had about 30cm of snow over the past week and Oliver got to experience his first snowfall. He reacted as most dogs I've had have reacted in the past. He is very confused with the white stuff covering all of his normal scents and he tries to uncover everything with his nose. There was already about 3 cm when I let him for the first time and it was hard to get him back inside. He sniffed and ran around the entire time.

When Callie came home there was even more snow and the two of them had great fun running around in the back yard. Oliver was due for a hair cut and long hair on dogs that don't shed is very good at collecting snow. By the time he was ready to come back in he had snow balls all over his feet. Luckily we have a hot tub and a very quick dunk of his feet had him clean and ready for a towel. The snow is still around on December 21st. If it gets cold again soon we might have snow on the ground for Oliver's first Christmas.

Las Vegas

In November I got the chance to go to a conference for work. The conference was related to one of the software vendors we use for designing changes to our electrical system including dams, substations and transmission lines. Now that I've explained what the conference was about I should probably mention that it was in Las Vegas. It may seem odd to have a work conference in a location like Las Vegas but it actually makes a lot of sense. In the off season there is a lot of hotel space and they have some excellent conference facilities.

My room was a bit over the top however it was in the hotel where the conference was and it was a very good deal. It seems all the rooms in the Palazzo are laid out like this. It was definitely nice enough to want to bring the family back at some time since they've offered me a 3 nights for the price of 2 deal for a future visit. The room had two levels with a full living room area. The bathroom had both a shower and a tub and even had a makeup area separate from the double sink.  Definitely more room than I needed but I wasn't complaining.

The hotel is relatively new to the Las Vegas strip so everything was very well thought out. The  pool area was amazing and was a string of five or six pools on the fourth floor roof. It was November so it was only about 20 degrees at the peak of the day but the hot tub was warm enough for me to spend a bit of time in. It was obvious I came from the north since I was the only one out there. Apparently 20 degrees just isn't warm enough for people in Las Vegas. 

The conference was a great learning opportunity for the work items I was there for and it was also fun for my outside of work interests as well. They had whole sections on 3D printing and manufacturing as well as CNC mill's demoing the creation of parts out of solid aluminum. The most interesting cross over was the use of artificial intelligence to create a piece of furniture. They use the computer to come up with thousands of variations of a chair and then they picked one that looked good and used the software to print the parts in metal. It was a nice looking chair. Not too long before people are not involved in the process at all.

I did do a bit of gambling at the slot machines however Las Vegas isn't as interesting a town as a place like New Orleans or San Francisco. I did get to enjoy some music at the Rock and Roll Marathon that was happening on the first night I was there. I also got the chance to go on the 'High Roller' which is a giant Ferris wheel that gives great views of the strips. It takes about 40 minutes to go all the way around and you are in a car about the size of your living room with a dozen other guests. It was all part of the conference because they had rented out an entire street including pubs and restaurants for the evening. Some great food was available including Kobe Beef Sliders and some excellent Mexican food. It was a great trip.

Carter's Stick Fort

Surrey has plenty of park space but it's not the type of park space where you can walk into the woods and build a fort without someone assuming you are homeless and getting you in trouble. This didn't stop Carter and I from enjoying the task of building a fort. He noticed several dead branches from some recent tree trimming and we brought them home to build a fort in the yard. A simple structure that Eeyore would have been proud of. Carter really seemed to enjoy it so I think we will try to do something similar when we're in Prince George next year and possibly even try to get him into Scouts.

Carter's Birthday

I almost forgot to blog about Carter's birthday which would be about par for the course unfortunately for Carter's birthday. It's in mid-September and with back to school we just don't seem to have as much time to prepare for it. Originally Carter was going to do something like bowling or a fun park but at the last minute he decided he wanted a Pokemon party at home. He only recently got into Pokemon with the release of the new app you can play on your phone. Somehow in a very short period of time however he's managed to memorize most of the 500+ different types of Pokemon.

Callie really helped out with the planning for the party. Her and Carter looked up Pokemon related things to do online and Callie helped with the refreshments including Squirrel Juice, Charmander Cheetos and Nidorina Nachos. Carter did all the goodie bags and made a personalized Pokemon for each one. Pokemon was the theme for gifts as well which suited Carter just fine. We are still playing the phone game and he checks every day to see which Pokemon we've captured.

GG's Birthday Weekend

After our quick trip to Oliver the weekend before it was time for a quick trip to Prince George. At least the Prince George trip was on a long weekend. We left right after school on the Friday again but due to the longer trip we spent the night in 100 Mile house. This left us with just a short trip on Saturday morning allowing us to arrive in time to visit with family before Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's house. It was prime leaf raking time and Grandpa hired Carter to take care of the first raking of the year. He subbed some of the work out to me but still did quite a bit including cleaning up all the piles.

Oliver had plenty of fun as well. This was his first experience with leaves and I was able to get a few hundred leaf pictures with Oliver and the kids. A good thing too since it ended up being too wet for leaf pictures in Surrey this year. We can't do the annual calendar if we don't have some good pictures of the kids jumping in leaves. The kids also had a good time playing with their other real cousin. (There are lot's of second cousins that apparently don't count.) Jackson even helped Carter line up the balls for a game of pool.

The main reason we came up for Thanksgiving was to celebrate Great Grandma's 95th birthday. She insisted she didn't want a party but of course we didn't listen to here. She came for Thanksgiving dinner at the Schwab's on Saturday and then we had an afternoon tea event at her retirement home on the Sunday afternoon. GG made sure to visit with everyone and she was easy to keep track of with her giant birthday balloon attached to her wheel chair. It was good visiting with first cousins, second cousins, distant cousins and aunts and uncles. For some reason we didn't get a lot of family pictures but we did get some good ones of GG. She looks great for 95.

Festival of the Grape

The timing worked out for us to attend the Festival of the Grape in Oliver this year. We are Crush Club members at a local winery which means we get a box of wine each year and a discount on all purchases. It also includes a Pick Up party in the fall where we pick up our wine as well as get some free food and entertainment. It's a whirlwind trip since we leave right after school on the Friday, attend the party on Saturday evening and then Festival of the Grape on Sunday morning before heading back in the afternoon on Sunday. Luckily Oliver is only a 4 1/2 hour trip so it's not too bad.

It was an even fuller weekend for Kerry, Barb and Reg. Barb and Reg are close friends with the owners of the Silver Sage winery and have been spending some of their free time helping out at the winery. Kerry joins in the fun from time to time as well and even has her alcohol serving ticket. Kerry helped out at the winery on the Saturday afternoon which was very busy due to so many people in town for the festival and Barb and Reg helped out at the Festival itself. A fun weekend and the weather was quite nice.

Donut Dash and the PNE

We took part in the Second Annual PNE Donut Dash this year. This was our second time doing this run. I think it would be neat if we could continue it as a family for the next several years and be able to say we've done every one. The run is a pretty good deal compared to some other runs. For your entrance fee you get a 5k run, a t-shirt, a finisher's medal, donuts and entrance to the PNE for the day. The entrance fee alone is around $20 so compared to other races for a similar price it's well worth it. 

We had also purchased ticket's for Gub and Gampoo however they weren't up for a run so they went to Starbuck's instead and cheered us on at the finish line. Carter had a bit of an incident last year where he got tired half way and decided to blame it on the time we had spent warming up. For all races since that time he now refuses to do any of the warm up exercises. We still have to work on our 5k times but there are so many 5k races in the lower mainland it's easy to get practice in. We're looking to do the Star Wars 10k in a couple years at Disneyland so these runs are perfect warm ups. The weather on this day was perfect for the PNE and we did our usual tour of the food booths and a trip to the Super Dogs. Barb and Reg hadn't been for several years and I think they really enjoyed watching the dogs. Callie of course loves petting the dogs at the end of the show. We are usually some of the last to leave as she tries to get to everyone of them.

Mike Lake Hike

If you are a true outdoors person and you want to live in the Lower Mainland, the North Shore is your ideal location. Within minutes you can be in areas so secluded you can't see any sign of civilization. Living in Surrey we aren't quite as close but we're close enough to make it a nice day trip. At the end of August we took a trip across the river to Mike Lake in Golden Ear's Park. This is a provincial park north of Maple Ridge and since all of our drinking water comes from the North Shore mountains they keep the parks as natural as possible.

I'd never actually heard of Mike Lake and I'm not entirely sure you could call it a true lake. It might have been grander a few thousand years ago but since then it had filled in form the edges and was more marsh then lake. It has a bit of history as one of the main logging camps from when much of the old grown timber had been cut down in the 1800's. A typical site in the lower mainland are the 10 ft wide stumps of old grown trees with notches cut in where loggers placed planks to get up high enough to cut down the tree.

It must have been incredibly intimidating to walk up to a tree that big and have to cut it down by hand. Still amazed they took so many of those big trees. We only had time to do the short loop around the lake but one of the local maps showed an enormous network of trails. We'll definitely have to go again next summer with proper hiking  gear so we can explore some of the more secluded trails. Having said that I think we only saw a handful of people along the way. There were a few more people in the parking lot but they seemed to be trying their hand at a bit of fishing and kayaking.

Seaweed Forts

In August it was a beautiful day so we took a trip down to White Rock Beach with the Kilden's. The tides are never at the same time each day and we never really know how far out they will be. At times there can be at least 500 feet of sandy beach to walk on. I'm pretty sure that's what Ryan was expecting because when we got there he looked quite dejected that he wasn't able to play in the sand. I've never actually seen the tides this far in. There was not a spec of sandy beach to play on.

As it turned out however, it was a blessing in disguise. The tides had been even farther in at one point and the whole beach was covered in about 6 inches of seaweed. It had apparently all blown in when it was windier and was far enough up on the beach that it had already mostly dried. If I had a truck and it was a more secluded beach I might have considered taking some home for the garden. Instead the kids and I had other plans.

It was easy to pick up big chunks of it at a time and within about an hour Carter and Callie both had their own seaweed fort. The walls were almost 3 ft tall and two feet thick. Ryan decided he wanted to build his between two big logs so Carter and Uncle Corey helped tow one of the logs down the beach for him. We were definitely the envy of the beach. Several other kids watched for a while and then eventually joined in and took over the forts when we left. 

Disneyland Day Five - The Missing Ariel Scarf

Our final day at Disneyland didn't really have much of a plan except to try to hit all the rides that we hadn't hit and to ride the ones we like the most. For our first days at the park the focus is on getting the most rides in with the least amount of line ups. This means we get there early and try to do the big rides first, then we spend the rest of the day riding the small rides that are typically less popular. This leaves some rides that we want to go on but we never quite prioritize high enough. Our last day is meant to rectify that though it started out as our busiest day yet.

Our first ride was Buzz Light Year. It's a very efficient ride from a volume perspective because there is a line of cars picking up pairs of people every few seconds. It's also very popular because you get to interact with the ride with your laser blaster. You can move the car you are in to focus on your targets and the game keeps score so you can compete with your family. I usually do well enough when compared to the family but am nowhere close to the numbers that some people are getting. There must be a trick to get past L-3 and into the higher levels. (Probably involves many trips to the park.)

After some time in Tomorrow Land we went back to Big Thunder which is a roller coaster type ride. It's right at the max of what I like for a roller coaster. I have no problem with the sharp turns or the heights but the drops leave my stomach in my throat. This is of the reasons I left Kerry and the kids to go on Star Tours again while I checked out the Star Wars exhibit. I'm fascinated with the level of detail that has gone into models for Star Wars over the years. (Possibly fascinated enough to attempt to build an item or two. Money and time dependent.)

Our final destination for the morning was Toon Town. To be honest I think we only go there because it is a land on it's own and we feel we have to go to every land. It's not super exciting and doesn't seem to change much from year to year. It does have Minnie and Micky's house which we try to go to every visit. I like Mickey's work shop and I have to get my picture in Pluto's dog bed. We also do the Gadget coaster which as Kerry puts it, has more kick than you would expect for a kids coaster.

For the evening we went back to California Adventure. There are several areas of this park that I could probably just hang out in the whole time. I like the natural forest setting and the rides are all relatively new and well thought out. We went on Soarin Over the World again and Kerry, Corey, Callie, Carter and Kristen went on Grizzly River Run. It's my favorite ride but I'm not very interested in walking around wet in the evening. We also went on Radiator Springs Racers twice. A nice man gave us some Fast Passes that were good for any ride. He left before we even knew what he had given us.

This was the end of the day for Carter and I but Callie and Kerry wanted to close down the park so they headed back to Disneyland. They finished off with Pirates, Big Thunder Mountain, Hyperspace Mountain and a corn dog. Things went well until they were almost home and realized Callie had lost her Ariel scarf that she had bought for her birthday. It was too late to go back to get it so we had to wait till morning. No luck with lost and found and the only place to buy it was in the park and we couldn't get back in anymore. A very kind attendant at the gate was willing to go in and get one for us and surprised Kerry and Callie by simply handing it to Callie and saying Happy Birthday. It left us leaving late on our first drive day back home but was still an excellent memory for a fun vacation.

Disneyland Day Four - Birthday Day

Day four was a special day for us. Callie is turning 11 and Kristen is turning 7. We timed the trip such that we would be here for their birthday. This works out great for Callie and Kristen though I will admit Carter has now realized that we will never be able to do the same thing for his birthday. We have chosen to deal with this via the Alice in Wonderland approach of the 'Unbirthday' on the following day. So far it's working. We'll see whether Callie picks up on this trick in September when it's his birthday.

Callie has been planning this day for months and sometimes it's difficult to fully pick up on her expectations so yesterday we had her write out the complete plan. This worked out very well as we all knew what was next and Kristen got to review the plan and add her items as well. The day started last night with retrieving Birthday Pins from the front gate so that all of the ride handlers knew it was their birthday. This also entitled them to some special mimed birthday wishes from any character they met.

After that we had a few hours to spend at Disneyland. We finally managed to do the Matterhorn. Not all the kids wanted to go on it so Corey, Carmen, Callie and myself went while Kerry took the kids over to the Teacups. We definitely got the good end of the deal. Ryan insisted on going on the teacups four times in a row and the ride was empty enough to allow this to happen. Kerry likes the teacups but after four times the spinning will get to you. It didn't help that Callie then wanted to go as well. Five times on the teacups for Kerry.

Next up on the schedule was a Star Wars area that opened at 10:00. We weren't really quite sure what to expect. The Tomorrow Land theme for the year is "The Season of the Force" and they added some sort of museum area with props from the films. There was also the opportunity to get your picture taken with some of the characters. We didn't know what we were doing and just picked a lineup. Luckily it was Chewie which was the one we wanted. The area also had a lot of high end collectibles. Unfortunately I can't afford $9000 for a full size Storm Trooper.

One of the many highlights of our morning was Goofy's Kitchen. We go every time we come as it is a good opportunity to get pictures of the characters and the kids. Goofy is of course there as well as Chip, Dale, Minnie and Pluto. If you only wanted to have one meal for the entire meal this would be a good place to visit. It's buffet style and we went there for brunch so there was both breakfast and lunch food. I don't waste too much space on that food though. I'm just there for the desserts. If I had a purse I would have taken a few extra cake pops with me.

For the afternoon we headed back to the hotel for a small dinner. We had arranged with the hotel to have a cake delivered to our room but they went even further with a gift basket and balloons for each of the girls. At this point it became obvious that Carter was going to have to have a very special 'Unbirthday'. The girls were very happy.

After dinner it was back to California Adventure. Everything was going to plan and Callie had marked off most of the big items off her list. This was a good thing too because California Adventure wasn't quite ready for us. The major rides had long line ups and had already run out of Fast Passes for the day and the next two ride choices were broken down. Kerry and Corey lucked out though because we had an unused ride share ticket from the day before that didn't have a date on it. They accepted it and were able to do California Screamin again.

The day was scheduled to end with a light show and we had a bit of time to kill so we went to the Animator's Workshop where Callie, Kristen and Kerry learned to draw Pooh Bear. (Some better than others.) The rest of us went to Turtle Talk with Crush. They had already updated it for the new movie as Dory, Destiny and Hank the Septapus all had key roles. It's quite amazing how they manage to make it look like Crush is actually interacting with you. He has actions for all the key questions that kids might ask him.

Our final scheduled event was the World of Color. This is an amazing spectacle of light, water and fire. The great thing is that they update it every year so you aren't stuck with watching the same show each time you visit. This year was emceed by Micky and Neil Patrick Harris. The best part was when they were doing the part of the show with a Frozen theme. We didn't realize there were light, noise and smoke generators right in front of us. I like the fact that they turn a spray of water into a screen for projecting real images. The fire is pretty exciting too.

Disneyland Day Three - Stuck Behind a Parade

Day three started very early. When you get a five day pass there is the opportunity to go into the park 1 hour earlier then everyone else on one day. The options for this day included Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. In previous trips regular opening was 9:00a but in the summer things open at 8:00a. This mean that Magic Morning was at 7:00a. After two days of walking constantly, I can tell you that 7:00a is not very magical. Things didn't quite start the way we expected since the hotel breakfast didn't open until 7:00a so we were off to the park on an empty stomach.

I've learned this in the past but Magic Morning is not really the 'line free' time that you would expect. There are a few items to consider.
1) Not all rides are open.
2) The rides that are open aren't running at full capacity.
3) There are a thousand other park goers vying for the same 'typically long lineup' rides that you are.
4) Fast Pass isn't available until the park fully opens at 8:00a.

Long story short, we got in Star Tours and Finding Nemo and suddenly it was 8:00a. It is good that we got two of the rides with longer line ups out of the way though we still had to wait about 20 minutes for each. The true payoff was when we walked over to Fantasy land right at 8:00a. The line ups from Magic Morning had cleared and we managed to get Mr Toad, Snow White and Pinocchio all out of the way. It was now time to head back to main street for a quick breakfast since we were all very hungry by this time.

Breakfast was at the 'secret' Starbucks on Main Street. It's not really a secret but it definitely doesn't look like your typical Starbucks from the outside. It's dressed as an early 1900's cafe and only once you get inside do you find the regular Starbucks fare. On the way we made an attempt to pet one of the horses that drags the street cars around. Callie was quite disappointed that there was a 'no touching the horses' policy in place. Too bad because they look like really nice animals.

After breakfast we tried out the new Space Mountain, now called Hyper Space Mountain. Space Mountain has gone through quite a few image changes in the past decade with musical themes and upgrades. This latest change was definitely the best so far. The roller coast portion stayed the same and there are still lights that look like stars throughout but now they've added in battle scenes from Star Wars. The way they've done it, you almost feel like you are actually in the battle. Very cool. I can't wait until the new Star Wars Land opens in a couple years.

We had a bit more time before lunch so we went down to the Pooh Bear Ride area to see if the characters were there. Callie has had her picture with Pooh Bear every time we've visited and each time brings her Pooh Bear which is now over 11 years old and starting to show his age. The fun part is always when Pooh Bear hugs himself and tries to feed him some honey. The kids enjoyed getting their picture taken with Pooh Bear, Tigger and Eeyore.

We went back to the hotel for an afternoon nap and some time by the pool and then the two families went in different directions. The Kildens had booked a surprise birthday dinner for Kristen at Arial's Grotto and we went to California Adventure for dinner on the pier. Kerry had gone to Fast Pass the Tower of Terror while I did the same for Grizzly River and the plan was to meet back at the bridge near the food. Unfortunately we both got stuck on the wrong side of the Toy Story Parade. It wasn't very long though and we got to watch a parade we weren't planning on seeing.

It was still warm after dinner which was good since our plan was to go on Grizzly River Run which remains my favorite ride. You are strapped onto a giant tube and it takes you to the top of the mountain for a roller coaster like ride down the river. There isn't really a 'dry' option for this ride. Even if you wear a rain coat, you can still get soaked from the bottom up. I think this is why by 8:00p it's pretty easy to get on. Carter and I went and managed to remain somewhat dry. We finished the evening off with a trip to the Tower of Terror. This will be the last chance for us to ride this one because the plan is to turn it into a Gaurdians of the Galaxy theme. There are quite a few rocket scenes in that movie so the elevator equipment should make for a good ride. I hate big drops but will have to try the new ride at least once.

Disneyland Day Two - Some Weird Rabbit

On day two of our trip we decided we would spend the morning in California Adventure which is the park right across from Disneyland. Disneyland, California Adventure and Downtown Disney are all effectively the same place but they have different entrances off the same square and Downtown Disney doesn't require a ticket. Each year we go the security gets a bit tougher and this year they have added metal detectors. They aren't super sensitive since I don't have to take my belt off but they do slow things down a bit.

The fun part of going first thing in the morning is that there is often a character waiting for you right at the entrance for pictures. California Adventure always seems to get the 'less popular' characters and today it was some odd looking rabbit. Callie knew his name was Oswald and I recognized him as that character that was created around the same time as Mickey. Poor guy. In a different world maybe they sing songs of Oswald instead of M-I-C-K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E.

As soon as we got in we Fast Passed Radiator Springs Racers and then went to Soarin, previously known as Soarin Over California. They've made it more worldly now and have simplified the name so they can switch out the scenes more often. I think they took some of the footage from Flyin Over Canada and you could tell they had higher quality footage with the new show. The only thing I missed was the smells that they had with the old version. When you flew over an orange orchid it smelt like oranges. I don't think that there were any smells now. (Except the feet of the people above you.)

We spent the next couple hours hitting rides on the Paradise Pier. This included Arial, the Rockets, Jumpin Jellyfish and Goofy's Fly School. Each of us took turns avoiding rides we weren't very interested in. I avoided the Jumpin Jelly fish since it doesn't really do anything and Callie made a good effort of trying out Goofy's Fly school but as soon as we got close and she saw the roller coaster esque hill at the start she jumped off pretty quickly.

Our fast past for Radiator Springs Racers was ready so we walked over to Cars Land. This has to be one of the most elaborate rides in the entire world. The ride itself has scenes from the movie and ends with a high speed race where you are banking at a very high degree. The ride itself is surrounded by manufactured mountains which includes my favourite scene which is a waterfall with a bridge. Not quite full scale but the way they do the perspective it looks amazing.

After the ride we headed back to Paradise Pier where we had Fast Passed California Screamin. This is a very fast paced roller coaster that includes a section where it goes upside down and Carter and Kerry had been talking about it for months. He will now be talking about it for years. Things didn't go well with his first attempt as he chickened out and decided not to go on. As we decided who would go next he got up the nerve and tried again. Success!!! Of course he screamed the whole way and took two hours to fully calm down. Never again.

As we left Callie got in line to see Jesse who was a character that in previous years has absolutely terrified her. Now they are good friends. Jesse left early but still walked down the line and gave everyone a hug. Carter also picked up a new stuffed animal to hug. This time it's a bear from the Grizzly River Run area that he has named brownie. Kerry and the kids then took one more ride on Soarin while I scoped out my next sweet purchase.

In the evening we decided to skip Disneyland and do California Adventure again. We had an early day planned the next day and felt a quick tour of Bugs Land would be a good way to finish off the day. We did Flick's Flyers, the angry lady bugs, bumper bugs, and Heimlich's Chew Chew train and finished off with Mater's Junkyard Jamboree. We thought about going on the new Luigi's Tire ride. The old one was some giant floating tire bumper cars but was very slow and not very exciting. Unfortunately they replaced it with yet another tea cup style ride. I think they could have done better.

Tomorrow will be an early day as we have our Magic Morning opportunity which has us start at 7:00a.