A Trip to Steveston

If you were hanging out in Steveston last week and a wailing child interrupted your afternoon coffee, then my apologies.  I'll get to that a bit later. My birthday ended up on a Thursday this year so we decided to wait until the weekend before going out for dinner. The weather on the Saturday was amazing so we decided we'd head to Steveston for lunch on Sunday. The weather was nice but down by the water was quite a bit cooler then we were expecting. Steveston has quite a bit of history with several buildings being preserved. One of my daydreams involves retiring and taking up boat building. There are a few buildings that would make great shops for working and teaching.

For lunch we ended up at Pajos. It's a great fish and chip place on a barge in the harbour. They've been there for 27 years and they serve everything in cones of newspaper. (Special food safe news paper. I don't see places using real newspaper anymore.) The cones fit in holes in the picnic tables and chairs. We had to eat up top on the dock in the wind because we brought Wilson. "No dogs allowed!" After lunch we stopped off at Starbucks for hot chocolate and were planning on going for a walk on the dike but Carter had other ideas.

Carter's usually pretty good at holding hands when walking across the street but today he decided he had a bit of an independent streak in him. Sometimes I'll let him walk on his own as long as he stays right beside me but this time he wanted to be as far away from me as possible and with a busy intersection it wasn't working out very well. Big Mean Daddy decided he would force Carter to hold hand and get across the street. This didn't work out too well and Carter decided he had to 'redo' the intersection. No matter what we tried he wasn't moving forward until he had a chance to walk across the street without holding hands. Kerry tried to go with him and got across one street but then he tried the running away thing again and it was Big Mean Mommy's turn to force him across the street. We didn't get our walk and ended up having to force him into the car seat. He managed to cry about crossing the street the entire 45 minutes home. It wasn't until I explained to him that I needed his help so that I could be safe that he decided things were okay. Now whenever we cross the street it's so that he can keep me safe.

Snow Day!

On Friday night we got about six inches of snow. For the rest of the country this might be  ho hum but for us it's a big deal. The weather was amazing.  So great in fact that by lunch the melt was on so we had to hurry to the hill. The kids are still young enough that they're content with a hill not far from our house. It's only about 50 feet long but it's steep enough to get up some good speed and has a lot run out room. Even though we went a few times last year both Callie and Carter were a little apprehensive about going by themselves. This is handled by easing them in on Daddy's back to start.

Last year we bought a couple of newer fancy sleds that were on for cheap at our car dealership. Not surprisingly those didn't work out too well. I think they were broken after about three trips down the hill.  At the end of the season I picked up a couple of old standby's. A crazy carpet and a flying saucer. I think they're great sleds because they keep you nice and low to the ground and they're simple. Our particular sleds have proven to be quite slippery too. A good and bad thing. You get a good ride if you don't accidentally fall down the hill while trying to get on.

We actually spent two days on the hill this weekend. On our first trip we managed to get Carter going by himself but Callie was a bit more stubborn and decided to start making a snowman when I told her I wasn't going down with her anymore. Day two was much more successful. We started by going about 10 feet up the hill and then incrementally increasing it. She of course figured out what we were doing and tried to make it her idea that we were going from farther up each time. By the end she was going down the little ramp I'd added at the top of the hill and getting a nice big push from me.

A Trip to Granville Island

Since my Dad was down to visit we decided to take a trip down to Granville Island. It's a great place to visit though we usually only make it down when we have company. Callie decided that she didn't want to go and after 20 minutes of screaming and coaxing I remembered that they have a great bead shop there. It didn't take long to convince her once we let her know that we could go bead shopping. She's had a number of sets given to her as gifts and she enjoys making up bracelets and necklaces. It's a good hobby because she can always start over if she doesn't like the end result. I'm not a fan as at least every few days someone makes a wrong move and you hear the tinkle of beads flooding across the floor.

Although the bead store is a great place with literally thousands of options, the prices seem out of this word. I think the average price for the beads in the picture above was about $1.00. Callie truly enjoyed herself though and picked up a little vile of beads and one 'special' bead. After bead shopping we bought some treats and headed outside to sit since inside was packed. Callie had a great time chasing and feeding pigeons. I plan on using this trip as an example in the future of. 'Trust your parents. You'll have fun!' She got beads, treats and two Nancy Drew books. Poor Carter didn't complain once and only got a cookie!

Christmas I and Christmas II

Somehow two weeks off at Christmas just isn't enough. We don't travel anymore since our 13 hour odyssey from Prince George a few years. Instead we get the parents to come to us. (A good thing this year since Carter decided to have some sort of terrible cold that had him sick and cranky for 10 days with a high fever for 5 of those days.) I've lost track of whose 'turn' it is but this year Barb and Reg were down before Christmas up to Boxing day. We had a fondue with Barb, Reg, Corey, Carmen and Ron on Christmas eve. (No fire this year.) Christmas morning was chaotic with wrapping paper flying everywhere. I won't mention everyone's favourite gifts but I'm sure Carter's was not they grey pants he got. His exact words were "Pants!?!? That's just weird!"

On Christmas day we had everyone over again for traditional turkey Christmas dinner. The kids spent the entire day playing with all their new toys and surprisingly there were very few melt downs. This year Santa's pajama theme was Penguins and he even knew to give a set to Kristen. We didn't get a white Christmas this year and I'm starting to think that the prediction that this year will be 5 degrees cooler than normal is not going to come to fruition. We've been wet, windy and plus 7 for most of December with very few frost days.

Christmas II came on December 29th. This year it was just my Dad as my Mom had to stay in Prince George to help my grandma who fell and injured her knee on Christmas Day. We opened gifts from my parents and brother and the kids had another day of playing with their new toys.

It's now New Years Eve and Kerry and I went mattress shopping. We've now reached the point where we'd rather have one nice gift for both of us and a good night's sleep was first on the list.

A Trip to the Dentist

A few weeks ago the family made a visit to the dentist. This was going to be Carter's first time in the big chair. Based on our experience with Callie we were a little worried (more on her later). I got to go first and they brought Carter in to watch. He decided he wanted to sit on my lap and help. The dentist let him try out each of the tools and he was quite fascinated looking inside my mouth with the big spot light turned on. When it came time for him to go had no problems climbing up in the chair and letting them go to work. They managed to floss, clean and fluoride without even a whimper. (He still thinks they painted his teeth red though because the dentist said she was going to paint his teeth with Strawberry fluoride.)

Callie unfortunately is still a different story. We always try to start with her first and it always turns into Kerry going and then Callie takes her turn while sitting on Kerry's lap. I always like to deal with moments like this by thinking that this can't possibly continue until university so at most we've got another 12 years of this. Should be a snap.

Boots to Blades

This fall we put Carter into Boots to Blades again. This was his second time and I was hoping that we'd be able to try the blades this time but no such luck. As soon as I'd tell him that we were going skating he'd get excited and say. "We're going skating...but I will not wear skates Daddy." I'm thinking we might have had a better go at it if we had just skipped the boots part and threw some skates on him.  This time around he was the only one that didn't wear skates and most of the other kids were quite good on theirs. He still has lot's of fun when he goes though. Some of the events include picking things up and putting them in boxes. He likes it so much that I have to stop him about half way through so the other kids get a chance.

As per usual a highlight of the class is the chair rides. They are little plastic lawn chairs and the instructor gives them quite a big push. I'm sure once in a while the chair must hit a rut and just send the kid flying.

I think we'll try going during family skate a few times this winter and see if we can't convince him to put on skates. Though if he decides he doesn't want to follow in the footsteps of Crosby we've still got soccer to fall back on.

Grey Cup 2011

This year was the 99th Grey Cup and it was being held in Vancouver. After an 0-5 start it didn't seem likely that the home team would be attending but an amazing second half of the season resulted in a playoff berth. This was even more exciting for me because my father-in-law Reg had purchased tickets for myself as well as my brother-in-laws Corey and Ronnie. Originally our seats were in the lower bowl but quite close to the top. After some additional bargaining, Barb managed to get us seats in the first three rows. They weren't beside each other but they were close together and incredibly close to the field on the 15 yard line.

Reg and I left our house around 10:00 as we needed to go pick up an umbrella. It had been pouring rain all night and didn't look like it was going to get much better. (We ended up carrying them the whole day as the sun came out and it was clear all day.) We then picked up Corey and headed to Ron's house. The plan was to park the car there and take the Skytrain downtown. It's a much easier exit and we wouldn't have to worry about parking. We got downtown around 11:30 and wandered around the city for a bit before heading into the stadium. Our seats turned out to be just as good as Barb had predicted and had an excellent view. :)

The halftime show was Nickleback. I was quite amazed that they've sold 50+ million albums. I guess they're a natural choice for a halftime show though I would have preferred if they had done some of their older songs. I'm not very familiar with their new stuff and it was so loud it just sounded like noise to me. There were quite a few young kids in our section and I was glad their parents had thought to bring ear muffs for them. The show was still fun to watch though and you could feel the special effects flame from our seats.

There were only a few points in the game where it seemed that Winnipeg had a chance to make a game of it. I think this was a good thing for Reg who is a big Lions fan. The home team won and the crowed went wild.

Oh yes. This was the first time I'd been in the new BC Place since the 550 million dollar renovation. It's a great stadium though I do question whether it would have been cheaper to tear it down and rebuild it. Hopefully it brings in enough events to pay for itself quickly.