Carter's Birthday Party

I sure am glad that Callie enjoys planning birthday parties so much. With Carter's party in September things get a bit hectic with back to school time. This year he decided he wanted a super hero party and Callie helped with shopping, making the goodie bags and making the super hero juice that included two flavours. Hulk punch and Spiderman punch. She even helped with the decorations on the day of and was completely responsible for this nicely set table.

After several  years of somewhat poorly executed cakes thrown together on an evening at work, mostly by me, we broke down and bought Carter's cake. Much easier and in the grand scheme of things really not that expensive. We found out afterwards that it even included a battery operated light thing that probably would have looked pretty cool in the dark. (I don't really agree with this. Seems like a bit of a waste but it probably only cost them a dollar or two to include. We'll have to watch for cakes with less plastic next time.)

My favourite point of the party was when Carter went and got one of the lawn chairs and set it up in the present opening area. Callie always opens her presents in the same spot we had no idea how important it was to Carter. I think he really enjoyed being the centre of attention even if it was only for a few moments.

Carter's Field Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

In October Carter got to go on his first field trip which is the same one that Callie got to go on. A trip to the Rondriso Pumpkin patch just a few minutes from his school. There aren't too many field trips for the kids in primary school so I try to go to as many as possible. When we went with Callie three years ago the kids thought it would be fun to throw hay on the cows heads. (I'm afraid Callie may have accidentally been the first.) I was amused to hear the farmer issue his rules on petting the cows which included that as rule number one.

They manage to pack in quite a lot for what amounts to just a couple of hours on the farm. We started with crafts where the kids made a pumpkin, then over to the barn where they learned about running a farm and finished up with a hay ride to the pumpkin patch. The farmer is quite a young couple and they've gotten much better at their lessons over the past three years. Everything ran very smoothly.

The rule in the pumpkin patch is you get to take one pumpkin home but you have to be able to carry it yourself. Carter was very careful in his selection because he felt this was a very important rule. (Even pointing out a few other kids that got a bit of assistance from their parents.) He wouldn't let me help at all and I think he picked the perfect sized pumpkin. He had a bit of difficulty getting it back but he did it all by himself.

Eric & Tara's Wedding

In September we went up to Prince George to attend my brother Eric's wedding. After Jesse he was the last of GG's grandson's to get hitched. Coincidentally Jesse's west coast reception was a day after Jesse's birthday and Eric's wedding was a day after his birthday. Callie was especially excited to go because my parents had recently got a new dog named Chloe and this was going to be our first chance to see her in person. With Tara's dog Winston visiting as well Callie was in dog heaven. I think we should have brought Wilson along too.

The wedding itself was at the Knox United church in downtown Prince George with about 100 attendees. Both bride and group had three people in their wedding party and it was a lovely ceremony. My favourite part of course was the envelope in a box tradition that they had decided to follow. Eric built a box and they put letters to each other for a future anniversary. The box was nailed shut and I believe they will be burying it like a time capsule. (I think I need to give Eric a few lessons on box building techniques.)

The reception was at the Holiday Inn though my understanding was that it almost wasn't. I believe they lost their reservation a few times however in the end everything worked out. It was a great space for the number of people. Room for the tables and a dance floor. The Holiday Inn can adjust their room sizes based on the wedding which really gives it a cozy feel. The kids got their own table with activity books. We were nervous at first because our table was at the other end of the room but it worked out great. The kids didn't bug us once and spent much of the night dancing up a storm.

The task of creating the cake was left to my Mom which meant we got to have a wedding cake that actually tasted good. (So many of the professional ones are baked more as construction material rather than something you are supposed to eat.) The decoration was simple but elegant and a bit of whimsy was added in with a Yoda figurine hidden behind some of the flowers.

One of Carter's favourite parts was the photo booth. These little franchises are popping up everywhere. We had one at one of our work christmas parties. They are simply a camera, a booth, some props and a printer. The wedding couple gets to keep all the digital copies and everyone gets a set of four to take home and another set of four that get added to a photo album. A great memento of the occasion. There are some great shots of Carter in a moustache.

Most of the Schwab family got to put their mark on the occasion. Dad's contribution was a garden bench that was designed to be the guest book. Everyone wrote on it in black Sharpie and when it was done Dad took it back to give it an epoxy finish to keep things nice and permanent. A functional yet meaningful bench that will last for years.

It was a great wedding and we're happy to welcome Tara to the family. (As I write this, she's already 4 months into the process of adding a new Schwab to the clan.)

Oh yeah. There was also a guy in a blue suit.

The Penticton Challenge

When we went to Penticton in August we timed it so we could be there to watch the Ironman. Technically it was the Ironman the year before and was now called the Penticton Challenge since the Ironman had moved to Whistler this year. The race remained the same however with a 4k swim, 180k bike and a 42k run. We went to watch our friend Sean who had signed up for his first Ironman distance. Our favourite quote from him is a story he tells his running buddies. He's not doing a marathon unless it's on the tail end of an Ironman.

True to form he signed up having never swam that long, never biked that long and never run that long. The race started early and I wanted to see as much of it as I could so I drove from Oliver to Penticton first thing in the morning so that I could see everyone get in the water. They started in waves and spent about an hour in the water so I had plenty of time to catch where they get on the bike. I had also found out that one of my co-workers from BC Hydro was in the race as well. He's pictured to the right here. I knew his number and managed to get a few shots of him as he started the bike. Amazingly I accidentally got a shot of his wife and kids in green across the street.

As soon as I saw Sean get on the bike I drove as quickly as I could back to Oliver. They move pretty fast on that part of the course and I knew if I waited too long I would get stuck in Okanagan falls where the road course met the highway. I also wanted to get a few more shots of my co-worker and he had gotten out of the water several minutes before Sean. It was too early for the whole family to come with me to Penticton so they were camped out in front of the A&W in Oliver with signs ready. It was good that I knew how far ahead my co-worker was as it gave us a warning for when Sean would get there.

For that portion of the bike he was right on time. He knew to look for us and this early in the race he still looked fresh. The bike course then headed up the mountain behind Oliver. On one of the up hill portions his family was going to see him so we got updates on his progress. He was still going strong but had started to slow down a bit. In the end he finished the bike in a little over 6 hours. Definitely a respectable time for 180k. Things really started to slow down when he started the run.

Of course if I had just swam for an hour, biked for six and then was expected to run a marathon you'd expect a guy to be a bit run down. One of the issues that came up for him was that the food provided during the race was different from what he had trained on. This left him with more of a stomach issue than an endurance issue. Where he normally would probably have paced out a marathon in under four hours it was time for a six hour plus gruelling walk on a hot dusty road. We saw him in OK Falls and then drove to Penticton to see him at the finish.

He managed to summon his last ounce of strength to jog through the finish. It was an amazing atmosphere as his daughter Kennedy and her two friends finished the race with him. (Kennedy apparently ran ahead of him and left her in his dust. Not very sportsmanlike.)

The weekend was a lot of fun and I now have an inkling of appreciation for the gruelling task that the Ironman distance is.

Summer in Oliver

At the end of August we headed to Oliver for a second time to watch the our good friend Sean participate in the Penticton Challenge. (I'll have a post dedicated just to that since it was an event all on it's own.) It's a 4k swim, 180k bike and 42k run. Ironman distance.

It's become tradition that we go visit some friends of Barb and Reg who live on the water at Tukelnuit lake. They have pretty much every self propelled water toy imaginable including a pari of Kayak's. It's the perfect lake for it with no power boats.

Although Kerry and I had our 11th anniversary in August we decided to delay celebrating it until Oliver. There is an amazing restaurant at Tin Horn Creek winery that we had wanted to try out so we got on the phone to our travel agent (Barb) and she booked us the best table in the house. It's on the corner of the balcony overlooking the valley. The food was almost as good as the views. I highly recommend it to anyone heading to Oliver.

This year we finally got to float down the canal in between the two lakes in Penticton. We've thought about it in previous years but the kids took turns being afraid of going in the boat. We managed to get them used to the boat on the lake near Barb and Reg's and with each of them with a life jacket of their own they finally both agreed to go. The kids and Kerry went in the boat and I went on a round floating matt that had washed up on shore near some friends of Barb and Reg. We only did half the canal and it was a good thing too because it moves much slower then we expected.

We also took some time to go mini-golfing at Rattlesnake Canyon. Previously Kerry and I would go on our own as an anniversary date, however it didn't seem right to go without the kids. Callie just seems to enjoy being there and isn't too worried about her score. Carter on the other hand takes it very seriously and although he's not keeping score yet he's gets a bit upset if it takes him too many tries. I think he's going to be a bit more competitive then Callie is at sports.

Callie's Birthday Party

Most of Callie's friends have started having their birthday parties at special locations, however Callie continues to want to host her party at our house. I think the fact that her birthday is in the summer and we can take advantage of both inside and outside makes a big difference. This year she wanted to make it a Hawaiian theme, in part because we had already booked our trip to Maui and we had a bunch of Hawaiian Lei's left over from Reg's retirement party several years back.

Summer is a difficult time for parties since there is always at least a couple families that are out of town. Kerry always polls the attendees in advance to try to see what date works best and we usually have it during the week since most people have plans over the weekend. It was a small group compared to some parties she goes to but that worked out well for me because I was able to build bird houses for the craft portion of the party. We even had a couple left over so I've now got a total of four bird houses in the yard ready for families to move in in the spring.

Kerry's brother lives just a few blocks from us and we always invite them to the kids parties. Ryan is still a bit young and keeps to himself but Kristen and Carter have a ball with each other. They are pretty much inseparable. Here they are finding eating cake is the most hilarious thing in the entire world.

It was another great Callie outdoor birthday party with perfect weather.

Jesse's Wedding in Sydney

In July we headed over to Sydney on the island for my cousin Jesse and his new wife Genevieve's wedding. Actually the real wedding took place in Toronto a few weeks earlier. This was the reception for their west coast friends and family. We headed over first thing on Saturday and immediately headed to Beacon Hill Park. Kerry has many fond memories of feeding the birds there when she was a kid. We never made it over to Victoria very often when I was a kid but I'm fairly certain our family went there as well. The whole place seemed oddly familiar.

We drove over and Mom and Dad flew so they came with us to the park as well to kill some time before the reception. The kids enjoyed the ducks and at one point there were about 30 of them streaming towards Carter. Luckily they like to stay in the water, otherwise he's small enough they could have trampled him. Dad seemed to enjoy the peacocks. All the birds in the park seemed to be very used to humans. There were no signs saying don't feed the birds so I think the park is resigned to the fact that these birds and fairly domesticated.

After the park we went down to the waterfront in Victoria and toured the grounds around the parliament buildings. I'm always impressed by these buildings. It took true craftsmanship and I'm sure a lot of money to create them but they are an excellent heritage item for our province. We took lot's of pictures of the kids. Who knows, maybe one day they will be members of parliament or work in the government and it will be fun to have Carter sitting in a replica of the Speaker of the House's chair.

Everybody got dressed up for the reception. Callie had on a lovely purple dress we had bought just for this occasion and she accented it with a set of fake pearls. Very glamorous. Carter had on a nice little boys outfit though parts of it didn't last very long. He was feeling a bit ill and had to throw up on the beach. Whatever the issue though, it passed quickly. The reception was at the Saanich yacht club and it was an excellent venue for a reception of 100 or so. Right on the water of course and the building itself was over 100 years old with trees to match.

A well planned wedding doesn't forget about the kids. There was a bucket full of older toys for them as well as some brand new ones purchased just for the occasion. One of the highlights for the kids was the air powered rocket. They all lined up and took turns placing their rocket on the launcher, stomping on the foot pedal, watching the rocket soar and then retrieving it before getting back in line. Things started off a bit rough when Dad launched the first rocket into the trees and it got stuck. The adults had fun using soccer balls to knock it out.

We had to head home somewhat early as Carter was feeling a bit under the weather and the next day we went to Uncle Bob and Aunt Glennis' house. It's a small house but the location is amazing. On a hill with stairs down to the water. We stayed for a few hours and then had to catch the ferry back. It was a quick weekend but very enjoyable.