Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Christmas in the summer

We spent last weekend in Tofield at my parents' place.  It was our family's annual 'Christmas in the summer time' weekend.  There are just too many of us to try to get together in one house in the winter when we can't send the kids outside.  This has proved to be a nice alternative.  My sister and one brother each brought their RVs and my other brother was staying with his in laws.  That left just us to stay at my Mom and Dad's, which worked out nice.  It also happened to be my uncle's 60th birthday, so my grandparents and all my Mom's brothers were in town too.  It was a good weekend for visiting and reconnecting. 

We spent our first evening at my sister's RV, around the campfire, playing bingo and eating smores.  Good times.  Ginny was a little freaked out by the fire (we don't exactly camp much...or at all), but CeCe was oblivious and kept walking too close for comfort.  Everyone made in out unscathed except for the marshmallows. 

The next day we had turkey, stuffing and all the fixings - it was Christmas after all.  The grandkids exchanged presents and we hung out some more.  CeCe was playing with her cousin Carson, who is a year older than her.  There was a disagreement over a plastic meatball.  He had it, she had it, he had it.  Finally CeCe had had enough and lost her cool.  "Bad baby!" she yelled.  "You go to the corner.  NOW!"  Maybe not the best way to handle the situation, but standing back and watching them, it was pretty funny.  Especially since the baby was a year older than her. 

That night was my uncle's party.  He had rented the curling rink for the festivities and even had some live musicians.  The girls had a blast running around in the open space playing with their cousins and then dancing the night away with their one girl cousin their age.  One lonely guitar player and four little girls proved to be pretty good entertainment.  Probably not the usual bar crowd he was used to.

Sunday we headed home and then it was back to work on Monday.  We've been letting Jorja stay up a bit later than Ginny this past week.  Sometimes we let her read in her room or sometimes downstairs with us.  Last night, after having read downstairs with us for a while after Ginny was in bed, we told her it was time for bed.  I went up with her to tuck her in.  Her asthma has been really bad this year, so she does her puffer every night before bed.  Just before putting it to her mouth, she asked how come she gets to stay up later than the other girls.  As she is puffing away, I tell her that she is older.  It seems to be a revelation.  She just realized that this may have benefits.  Her eyes lit up, the corners of her mouth curled up around her inhaler, and seeing as how she couldn't talk at that moment, she gave me a thumbs up.  What a kid.  Later. 

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Vegas, baby

We had to go to Costco on Sunday to pick up a few things. We've been going there more often lately and the girls are starting to enjoy the samples. Some days are better than others though and this fact has not eluded them. When I take them first thing Friday morning, the sampling is not too great. So as we were getting in the car to head out there, Ginny said she hoped there would be samples. Jorja piped up, "Of course there will be. It's the weekend."

I realize I haven't written yet since I turned 40. I have to say I don't really feel any different, which is good I guess. My party was awesome. I had some great friends and family out. The weather was great. Julie surprised me with a child-free trip to Vegas in November. I was shocked and ecstatic. It had been our goal/hope/dream to go this year, but I had pretty much given up. Then her cousin volunteered to watch the kids, she booked some flights and hotels and we're off. Well we will be anyway. Pretty cool.

I'm trying something new today. I set up my blog to be able to post from email so I am typing on my iPhone during my lunch. Hopefully it works ok. I'll have to check out the formatting when I get home. Anyway, beer calls. Later.

Sent from my iPhone

Friday, August 10, 2012

Olympics, spilled milk, iPhone and turning 40

We are nearing the end of our second and final week of holidays for the summer.  We spent this second week at home just hanging out.  The girls had some appointments - Ginny got her four year shots finally (there were a few tears but she did pretty good) and Jorja had her seven year doctor check-up and dentist check-up (no cavities!! - given my dental history, that is monumental). 

We've also watched a lot of the Olympics.  Julie and I both love watching the Olympics and the girls really got into it this year too.  They would go outside and play on the trampoline and play Olympics.  They did running events around the edge of it, as well as swimming.  They did diving by doing various jumping routines.  It was quite entertaining to watch and listen to.  Jorja shows her patriotic spirit and always represents Canada.  Ginny would apparently defect for whoever is winning.  She was representing China for most of the games, but has now switched to the USA as they are in the lead for medals.  Somehow they were both able to both win gold medals in all their events though.  Yesterday I overheard Jorja say, "Maybe someone else should win a medal now.  How about the Netherlands?"  I'm not sure where that came from, but it's nice to see she thinks everyone should win something.  However she does have some competitiveness in her.  She was asking where Canada was in the total medal standings today and I told her twelfth.  She got a funny look on her face.  "That's pretty good, isn't it?" I said.  She scrunched up her nose, shook her head and said "No."  Oh well.

The other day we had an interesting breakfast.  The girls were all having cereal.  Jorja and Ginny were almost done, and fooling around.  In the process, they spilled most of Ginny's milk all over the table.  I was not impressed.  I told them they were now done breakfast and that they should just go wash up.  As I was going to get a rag to wipe up their spill, CeCe decided to throw her entire bowlful of milk onto the floor.  Wow, unimpressed does not begin to explain how I felt at that moment.  There was some corner time after that.  The funny thing is that that night CeCe brought me a book to read her.  It's about a baby bear asking his Mom about how much she loved him.  On the second page, the little bear asked, "Will you still love me even if a make a great big mess?"  How fitting.  The mother bear still loved her little bear and so did I.

I do a lot on my iPhone.  Texting, surfing the web, facebook.  I really am becoming addicted to the autocorrect function it has.  I will find myself typing on the computer and pausing after I know I've made a typo waiting for the correct word to pop up.  It doesn't and I realize I will have to correct it myself.  Or I'll be typing and come to the end of a sentence and just double space.  When you double space on the iPhone, it puts a period in for you and capitalizes the next letter.  Very handy, but it makes typing on the computer very annoying.  Can't Microsoft just know what I want to do?  Is that too much to ask? 

I am typing this tonight on the eve of my fortieth birthday.  I don't really think I feel forty.  Well, I guess I don't know how that feels yet.  I don't think it bothers me either - I guess we'll see tomorrow.  Other than the fact that I've got less hair on my head and more in my nose and ears and on my shoulders and back, I feel pretty good.  I had my yearly physical a little while ago, and I think I am in better health than I have been in most of my adult life.  I don't smoke anymore.  I have a healthy weight now.  My blood sugar levels are good.  My bad cholesterol is low.  My good cholesterol is high.  My blood pressure is medicated, but under control.  And I asked my family doc when my physicals had to get a little more personal and she said not till I'm 50, unless I have trouble.  Woot woot! 

We're having a party tomorrow - I think about 20 people will be here, so it should be a good time.  For the last time as a thirty-something year old, later.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Holiday Road part 2

We left Calgary early in Wednesday morning.  Early because our children cannot sleep in.  It doesn't matter what time they go to bed, they are up between six and seven.  Holidays were no exception.  Probably worse than normal actually.  So we got up, packed and headed for the mountains.  Before going to Canmore, we went through the Banff first and took a trip up the gondola.  We all had fun and it wasn't even too scary.  Here we are on the way up.


After the gondola, we headed back to Canmore and spent the next three nights there.  We met up with my sister and her family who have a condo there.  We did some more shopping, some walking and spent some time in the pool.  The weather was still pretty good although we did have some rain.  It was nice enough for ice cream one afternoon though.


Saturday morning we packed up again and made the long trek back to Saskatoon.  The girls have seen Julie put her feet up on the dashboard a few too many times, to they thought they should stretch out too.  Here's Jorja's foot behind my head.

 
And what would a holiday be without our theme song.  We sang it at the start of every leg of our journey.  Look out Griswolds, here come the Kroekers.

Later.