Holiday Road, part 1

This year's family vacation started on Saturday with a long car ride to Calgary.  We got away at a decent time in the morning, and took a different route this time through Drumheller.  The road was good and not as boring as the normal way.  Our original plans didn't include stopping at the museum, but we were there midafteroon, so we thought, what the heck.  The girls had fun.  With CeCe wreaking her own brand of mayhem, we didn't get as much out of it as we could have, but it was good nonetheless.  The girls were most thrilled with the fossilized poop I think.  Figures.

Once in Calgary, we stayed with Julie's brother and sister-in-law.  We spent Sunday shopping and made a serious dent in the Crossiron Mills Mall.  Lots of new clothes and good deals.  Julie was very proud of the fact that we saved more than we spent at the Gap.  That's some good shopping.

Monday was off to Calaway Park.  It was quite busy and super hot.  We petered out a little sooner than last year and didn't have the patience to wait for the log ride, but the kids had fun anyway.  CeCe was into it this year too.  All the rides that she was tall enough for anyway.

Today we hit the zoo.  We were last there two year ago when there was a sign that the penguins were coming in 2012.  The girls have not forgotten that fact, so we had to go back this year.  They we pretty cool.

We made our whole loop of the zoo and almost missed the flamingos.  We found them on our way out and Jorja did a pretty good sleeping flamingo impression.  Tomorrow we are off to Canmore.  Later.

Neil

Last Friday was Friday the 13th.  It was definitely not unlucky for me though.  No, I got to go see someone I've liked since I was a kid.  I remember listening to the vinyl record of the Jazz Singer soundtrack over and over when I was a kid.  I loved it.  Yes, I went to Neil Diamond.  Julie does not share my enthusiasm for one of the greatest song writers and performers of our time, so I asked my Mom if she wanted to go with me.  She said yes, so she and Dad came down for the weekend.  The concert was amazing - our front row seats didn't hurt either.  There was no fancy stage show or lights or anything.  Just two hours of great songs performed by an amazing band.  The band has been with Neil for 35 years, and they were awesome.  Great musicians and entertainers - funny too.  And for some elderly men, they still have some moves.  They were having a great time and it showed.  Here's a few pics from the night.

Now I must confess that leading up to the concert and since, I have been listening to a lot of Neil Diamond.  The girls are starting to appreciate some of his songs too.  CeCe loves Beautiful Noise and all the girls like Sweet Caroline.  It took Jorja a while to warm up to the song, but she has embraced it now.

The love for Neil lives on.  Later.

G-U-M

Today was my first day back at work after a week and a half off.  It was a nice break, and productive too.  I was planning on getting some stuff done in the yard and paint the trim on the house.  It rained solid one day, so I painted a bedroom.  The wind was near tornado strength the next day (not good for climbing a ladder), so I painted another bedroom.  A little while ago, we decided that we would switch the girls' sleeping arrangements around.  Jorja is always up at the crack of dawn, and the other two seem to sleep in somewhat.  We let them each pick out a colour for their new rooms (from three carefully selected options) and now they're done.  We made the switch Wednesday last week, and the transition has been fairly reasonable.  Here's my handy work.

 On the one day that it was nice outside, I did manage to get the trim painted on the house.  It turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself.

I've also been playing around with a new collage app on my iPhone.  I think it's kind of cool.

Jorja and Ginny are really into chewing gum these days.  We just buy the sugar free stuff, so I figure as long as they don't swallow a ton of it, it's okay.  They are actually really good at spitting it out.  But because they have gum, CeCe wants gum.  Sometimes I'll break a tiny piece off and give it to her.  Surprisingly, she chews it fairly well too.  In an effort to be more clandestine, Jorja and Ginny have started spelling the word.  "Dad, can we have G-U-M?"  Well, it didn't take CeCe long to figure out what they were up to, so now she asks for G-U-M.  It's pretty cute hearing a two year old spell words out.

I think we may have picked the wrong names for the girls.  Lately when they are playing their role play games, Jorja is Jennifer and Ginny is Louise.  I'm not sure where they got them from (especially Louise?), but that's who they are.  Every time. 

Jorja got her ears pierced last week too.  After seeing the movie Brave, they were wondering around the mall, and Julie asked her if she wanted to.  She took some time to think it over, but decided that she was ready.  There were a few tears, but not too bad.  She did pretty good.

Now to fold some laundry.  Later.

Photo shoot

Happy belated Canada Day!  We spent most of Canada Day indoors because of the rain.  Yes, it rained most of the day again.  It wasn't raining first thing in the morning though, which was good.  Every year, our church puts on a pancake breakfast for Canada Day, and it just so happened that it was on Sunday this year.  So we put on our Canada Day shirts and headed out for pancakes, sausage and church.

The shirts didn't begin as a traditon in our house, but they have become one.  Every year, everyone gets a new shirt for Cananda Day.  This year I even got some for Julie and me.  I was trying to get the girls to pose, but Ginny was getting devoured by mosquitoes in the early morning humidity, so this was the best that I could do.  You get the idea - young patriots. 

The rain held off for breakfast, but by the time we were out of church, it was coming down.  It stayed that way off and on pretty much all day.  The kids are not at an age yet where we would even attempt fire works, so it didn't matter that much. 

Saturday was a beautiful day out and we spent a good portion of it outside.  I was able to get a section of our fence that was pretty wobbly shored up - hopefully for at least another year.  Julie planted some more flowers, and the girls played.  Jorja recieved a flower from her birthday party that we had planted in the garden the other day.  She insisted over and over that the plant was dry and needed water.  Now I've learned that it's not a good idea to bring out the water until you're almost ready to go in.  So when we were all done, I turned on the hose and told her and Ginny that they could water the garden.  By this time, Julie was wrapping up and I was BBQing supper.  I went back to inspect their work at one point and saw them watering the potatoes which are along our back fence.  The fence backs our neighbour's garden. 

*A little aside about our neighbour - He is a fairly elderly fellow that never looks happy.  He doesn't say much, but always seems to be in his garden, just watching it and us.  He is quiet, and I'll be in the backyard doing my own thing, or something with the kids, look up, and there he is, looking at us through the fence.  He must really dislike us - his garden is spotless and right though the fence is ours - not so spotless.  Add to that the noisy kids, and I think you have a recipe for disdain.*

Now the hose isn't quite long enough to reach the back fence, so if you knew what you were doing, you could arch it just right and hit the potatoes.  Or if you are Jorja, you could just blast it through the fence and hit our neighbour.  I yelled at her to stop and she said ok.  Then she gave him another shot.  He was walking away by this time, but not that quickly.  I yelled again, saying someone was on the other side of the fence and she was spraying him.  "I know," she said, and then proceeded to give him another shot. It was all I could do to keep from laughing.  Finally she had things under control, but he was out of reach by that point.  He never did say anything - just stared through the fence with his usual unimpressed look.  Oops.  Sorry.

Friday afternoon was haircuts for all the girls.  It went reasonably well.  The girl we take them to has her salon in an old building downtown.  Each stylist has their own room and their own waiting room.  It works really well for CeCe.  Ginny went first and CeCe wasn't too bad.  Did some colouring and watching.  Then it was her turn.  She got up there in that chair and had the apron (not sure what it's really called) put around her and she didn't flinch.  She is quite the little girly-girl too.  The only thing she ever sits still for at home is getting her toes painted.  Here she is.

Then on Friday evening, the girls went for their photo shoot.  The photographer and her daughter were amazing - both during the shoot and with the editing.  We couldn't be happier with the results.  Here's a link to the photographer's blog, where she posted a bunch of the pictures.  It saves me uploading them all.  http://www.saucysprinkles.com/2012/07/pettiskirt-sisters.html
Right now, CeCe is napping and Julie took the girls to a movie - the new Disney one - Brave.  They were pretty excited about that, so hopefully they (I really mean Ginny) were able to sit still long enough to enjoy it.  Have a great rest of the long weekend.  Later.

Jorja's last day of Grade 1

This has been a week of some nasty weather.  On Monday evening, the power went out at about 5:00pm (it's a good thing I was BBQing) and didn't come back on until midnight.  It was still fairly nice at our house at five (hence the BBQing), but by sevenish, it was pretty nasty.  Thunder, lightning, hail.  Some of the bigger hail I've seen in a while.

The girls were all a little freaked out and scared, but the worst was Jorja.  Her little imagination must run wild sometimes I think.  We got them all calmed down and to bed, but Tuesday wasn't much better.  Jorja was supposed to go on a field trip to the swimming pool, but apparently they cancel all field trips when there is a tornado watch on.  I'm not really sure why - the pool was indoors, and they let them play outside at school anyway.  Speaking of playing outside, Jorja's class got to play in the spray park which is on the school grounds.  Except Jorja that is.  The poor thing was so worked up about the tornado watch that she didn't want to be outside.  She stayed in with the Grade 2 class and read her book.

I'd like to say the weather was better by Wednesday, but my fence wouldn't agree with you.  Wednesday was the day for wind warnings, and my fence got flattened in the process.  Oh well, what can you do?  It could have been worse - I saw a lot of trees down too. 

I was off work Wednesday, so I drove Jorja for her last day of school.  Here she is right before it began. 

Slightly wind-blown but we made it.  Her day was alright - she had mass in the morning and an assembly in the afternoon.  When it was time to leave at the end of the day, I think the finality of it hit her.  The kids were filing out of the room and the teacher was saying goodbye, some were giving her hugs, some parents were saying thank-you.  All fairly typical until Jorja came along.  She was in tears by the time she got to the door.  She hugged her teacher with the kind of feeling and emotion you see in airports when people are saying goodbye.  Her tears were now flowing in full stream and she was sobbing.  They hugged for a while and her teacher whispered words of encouragement and praise in her ear.  It was all I could do to keep myself together.  We made our way back to the car and headed for home.  I sure hope her love for school and learning continues thoughout her life.  Her report card was no surprise either - she's a rockstar.

I was off work again today, so we went to pick up the pottery from Jorja's party.  It turned out really well - such a cool idea for a party.

This afternoon while CeCe was napping, we took the baby monitor into the backyard and did some gardening.  (Is June 28 too late to plant tomatoes and cucumbers?  I guess we'll see.)  Before we could plant, there was some weeding to do.  I showed the girls what plants to pull and they went at it.  The was not complaining or whining about it at all.  It was just the opposite actually.  They were really into it.  Too into it.  Jorja would pull one, hold it up and exclaim, "Look!  I got the root!"  Not to be outdone, Ginny would do the same, "Look at the root on this one!"

It was nice to see their enthusiam for what most deem a chore.  After a while though, I realized if I was going to wait for the euphoria and reaction after every weed, we were never going to get anything done.  I got out the hoe and took care of the rest.  We got the vegtables planted and even found a couple of earth worms.  The girls weren't squeemish at all about picking them up.  Mind you, they were wearing gloves.  Still impressive I thought. 

I'm home alone with them again tomorrow, and for some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to take them all for haircuts.  Even CeCe.  Well, they're getting pictures taken later in the day, so that's why the haircuts.  Should be interesting to say the least.  Later.

Jorja's early 7th birthday party

We had Jorja's birthday party this weekend.  It's not really for another month, but we thought it would be easier to get kids together before school was out.  We held it at a pottery studio in town so the girls all got to paint a piece of pottery.  We don't have the finished products yet, as they had to fire them in the kiln first.  I'm curious to see what they all came up with.  They have a special party room, where all the birthday kids get to put their hand prints on the wall.

As you can see, she was pretty pumped about that.  Julie also made all the girls a gumball necklace.  She found the idea on Pintrest (which I am told is a necessity).  They ended up being a lot of work, but they looked great and the girls all liked them.  One thing I never envisioned though, was just sucking on the gumballs.  Both our girls started out with eight nice, shiny gumballs and now some are missing, but the ones that are still there all have their finish sucked off.  Just didn't see that one coming.  Oh well.

CeCe is really starting to get in touch with some of her bodily functions.  Yesterday she woke up from her nap and came to the door of her room and yelled over and over again, "Daddy, I'm stinky!"  Why she always chooses to tell Daddy's she's stinky is a mystery.  I'd be happy if she told Mommy.  Anyway, I went to get her out of her room, and asked her, "Did you poop?"  She replied, "Yeah, right there."  And then turned around and patted her butt.  As if I didn't know where to find it.  Thanks CeCe.  Then today as we were getting out of the car for church, she reached her finger into her nose a pulled out a big booger.  "Here you go.  Booger," she said as she held it out to me.  What was I going to do?  I took it off her finger and said thank you.  "You're welcome!" she replied cheerfully.  Manners too.  What more could you ask for?

It was a really nice day out yesterday.  We were all outside in the late afternoon playing in the backyard.  I got the hose out to water some flowers.  Ginny came running over and asked me to spritz her.  I did and she squealed.  This brought CeCe over, and she wanted some too.  So I gave her a little spray and she yelled too.  Soon it was more, more, more.  What started out as a little flower watering turned into a four-year old running around in her underwear and a two-year old running around in her diaper having a great time.  CeCe would run through the stream and then come out and yell, "Too wet!  Too wet!"  Then she'd be right back in there. 

 You gotta love summer.  Later.

Father's day and catching up

It seems to have been a while since I've written again, so maybe I'll start with today and work backwards as far as I can remember.

Jorja had her last skating lesson tonight.  It's pretty amazing the progress she made in 10 lessons (5 hours on the ice) compared to the one time we tried to go as a family this winter.  Bambi no more!  As she was getting ready and I was tying her skates, Ginny was asking about girls playing hockey.  I said that of course girls could play hockey.  She said that mostly boys do and I said that lots of girls do too.  Jorja said she didn't like hockey.  "What do yo mean, you don't like hockey?!" was my response.  She said, "Well, I like watching it, and playing with you.  I like skating and maybe figure skating, but lots of people on the other team...and lots of people on my team, **scrunches up her nose and shakes her head**, not my thing."

Ginny had a soccer game last night.  One of the few this year that hasn't been rained out.  I'm sure the poor kid has only got to play half her games.  She has one more on Sunday and then the final game is next Tuesday.  Then we are done all the lessons for now.  No piano, no music, no soccer, no skating.  What are we going to do?  Hopefully we get less rain than the rest of this spring and we can bike more.  I've really got to get Jorja biking with no training wheels.  The last time we went out didn't work so well.  But Ginny did really well with the training wheels - she could pedal and steer this time - quite the improvement over the previous time.

Sunday was Father's Day.  I got to sleep in and had an awesome breakfast.  It wasn't in bed because it was deemed too messy for that.  But it was definitely worth getting up for.

Cinnamon raisin cream cheese stuffed french toast...soooooo good.

I was spoiled with crafts and pictures from the girls.  Jorja decorated a 'koozy' for me (goes around cans to keep them cold) at school.  She told me I could use it for a pen or pencil holder, or I could put my beer in there.  Can you tell where I work?  I'm sure she told her teacher that too.  Oh well, it can't be any worse than my coworker whose daughter told her teacher that her mom drank beer for a living.  Kids.

Julie got me a Star Wars tshirt, and ice cube tray that is in the shape of Han Solo when he is frozen in Carbonite (how cool is that?!) and a little microscope that plugs into the computer with a USB port so you can see your stuff on the screen (how super cool is that?!!).  Yes, I know I'm a geek. 

I've got a great family and great kids and I'm proud to be their Dad.  It was a great day all around.

On Saturday we went to a BBQ/pool party put on by one of the doctors Julie works for.  Jorja was at a birthday party, so it was just Julie, Ginny, CeCe and me there.  The girls loved the pool and even got their faces painted.  One tiger and one kitty.

I'm not sure what happened last week from Monday to Friday.  Julie cam home a week ago Sunday, so that was awesome.  We all missed her and the girls were super excited to see her at the airport.  So was I.  Later.