Two Beautiful Days

This weekend we were fortunate enough to have two absolutely gorgeous days coincide with Bruce's days off.  With the sun finally shining we certainly didn't let those days go to waste. I will give credit to Bruce for doing all the planning and research into where we should spend our days.  He found a couple of great parks: Whytecliff and Lighthouse.  It's amazing how much you can feel rejuvenated by the sunshine, I think I will be ready to face this very gloomy week just by looking back on these pictures and knowing that there is an end in sight!  Eli had such a fantastic time as well, if he could be outside 24 hours a day he would be.  As soon as we would pull onto our street at the end of our adventures he would immediately realize we were going home and start saying "no go home, go walk".  All in all we had a fantastic weekend.  This first batch of pictures is from Whytecliff Park but both parks were in West Vancouver.

Wild crocus flowers that grow everywhere!

Whytecliff Park

Some of the climbing was a bit treacherous

Eli asked me to take his picture- what a ham

In the water with Daddy

Just throwing rocks

The next day we went to Lighthouse Park with another family that we are really close to.  They have a little boy, Liam, and they are best buds.  We brought a picnic and stayed for the afternoon but I think I probably could have stayed all day.

Dan, Liam and Eli trying to skip rocks

Bruce and Eli after climbing the huge rock formations

The view from the top of the rock

The boys generally just ran around while we ate

The lighthouse

These last couple of days certainly made me anxious for summertime even though I know it is still a long way off.  The annual Cherry Blossom Festival is coming up soon though and hopefully we will be able to go and get some great pictures of all the amazing cherry trees that are beginning to bloom.

It's a Boy

Well I guess that the title of this post says it all.  We had our ultrasound appointment this week and luckily our little Chenuz baby cooperated enough that we were able to find out what we are expecting! Turns out that in July we are going to have ourselves another little bouncing boy!  Bruce and I are so excited and I think that Eli will love having a little buddy to run around with.  So far everything is still going well with the pregnancy and I can't believe that I am already halfway done.  It's all going pretty fast I just hope I will have enough time to prepare for this one like I did with Eli.  Hopefully I'll get some baby bump photos up soon but so far I don't have a single one.  Here's just one of the ultrasound pictures (sorry it is so grainy).

Our newest little man

March Messes

Well February continued to be a pretty busy month.  We had a wonderful trip to Edmonton and right now I just don't have the energy to go through all the things that we did so I have decided to save that for my next blog entry.  Today I have just a few choice pictures of Eli being a crazy kid.  Lately, it seems like every time I turn around he is making another mess.  Whether it is opening a jar of sprinkles and spilling them all over the kitchen, or somehow finding our stash of gum and taking a bite out of every piece and then spitting it back out onto the couch, I am constantly cleaning up.  I did get some pictures of some of the funnier messes so here they are...

He was being a very big helper when I was making pizza dough the other day. He unwisely decided to rub it all over his face.

What a mess!

A couple of days ago I tried to get him to take a nap so I put him in bed, sang a couple of songs and left the room.  I could hear him playing with his toys but after a few minutes he quieted down. I was so happy because I thought that he had finally fallen asleep.  I was wrong.  To help with his dry skin I had mixed up a batch of Glaxal Base and Vaseline and put it on his changing table, apparently I did not put it high enough.

Looking appropriately ashamed of himself

The vaseline made his hair so greasy I had to wash it 5 times to get it out!

Just an extra shot of my cool kid

Beaver Lake

So far February has not been the best of months for our little family and Bruce's family.  I won't go into detail but there has been a lot of stress and phone calls back and forth for the last couple of weeks.  Tomorrow we will be driving up to Kamloops to spend the long weekend with Bruce's family and I think it will be good to be together instead of Bruce and I feeling like we are always playing catch up with everything that is going on.
There were however, some good things that have happened this week.  I finally got the courage to bring Eli into a salon to get his hair cut.  In the past his Auntie Alyssa has cut his hair so we have had no problems but there were a whole lot of tears and screams this time!  Thank goodness we were the only ones in the salon because I was pretty embarrassed.  I'm hoping that next time it will be a little bit easier but I don't think I can put it off for as long, he was beginning to look a little unkempt.

Before

After- so grown up and handsome.

 Today Bruce had a day off so we decided to explore Beaver Lake in Stanley Park.  That's where the "after" picture was taken.  We have made it a new goal to get outside and explore something new every Friday no matter the weather.  Luckily, today it wasn't too cold and the sun even peaked through the clouds a couple of times.  Eli absolutely loves being outside and has that inexhaustible energy that only toddlers seems to possess so he had a great time.  There were ducks everywhere and he was amazed by all of them.  Several times he tried to step into the water to go after them but Bruce and I were never out of reach.  I am still getting used to how green everything is here even in the middle of winter.  I am so used to the bare trees of Alberta not the moss covered ones here but they are beautiful.  I can't wait to go back to Beaver Lake in the summer when all the flowers will be in bloom and maybe even catch a glimpse of the beavers that live there.

Ducks!

The Lake- complete with beaver dam

Running to give Daddy a hug.

A January Visit

Well the visit from my Mom went by very quickly and now suddenly it's a week later!  We had so much fun when she was here and also had a ton of naps.  Eli got a cold on Monday so unfortunately he wasn't very good company for the rest of her trip but he is feeling much better now and I hope it stays that way for our visit to Edmonton in February.  The first night that Mom was here she let Eli open a few trains that she had bought for him and he was so excited.  I'm fairly sure he hasn't put them down since.

He could hardly wait to get it open!

We didn't take enough pictures while she was here but we did go to the aquarium and we had to have dinner at Las Margaritas one night.  Mom and I also went on a date to see Les Miserables and I loved it!  We even found a lost iPad, which we were able to return to the owner, and now I have an unopened bottle of wine in my house!  All in all we had a great time and we were all sad to see Grandma go.  Eli will still ask me throughout the day where she is so I think he will be very excited when we land in Edmonton in February.

The other day on a morning that Bruce was home I was getting ready in our bedroom and I could here Eli shouting, "Help Daddy!" over and over again.  I could also hear Bruce laughing and taking pictures so I assumed it wasn't too serious.  Bruce showed me these pictures later, I guess Eli had pulled all of the shoes down on himself and then pretended to be stuck under the weight of the shoes.

Help Dad

I've been getting a bit of the winter time blues so Bruce has been making sure that we get outside and do some activities when he is home.  Today we went to the beach for about 5 minutes because it starting raining pretty hard but the mist over the ocean and the lights from the boats looked pretty neat.

Black and White

 We also went to Lynn Canyon and went for a bit of a hike on a day that was nice and clear.  Eli had a great time and it was nice to be able to just let him run and explore the trail.  I think that my Dad may have had a heart attack when we went over the suspension bridge though.  It was probably about 3 feet wide, very bouncy and spanned some extremely rough water.  Needless to say I did not let go of Eli while we walked across.  It is so nice to have the mountains so close and so many beautiful sights.

Eli got tired of all the stairs

A little creek

Climbing in and out of HUGE trees

Bruce had fun too

The view from the suspension bridge

Long Week

This week has been pretty low key and boring.  Mostly we have been counting down the days until my Mom comes to visit us from Edmonton.  The day will finally be here tomorrow and I cannot wait!  I missed my family a ton over Christmas vacation and I will be able to visit them all in February but it will be so nice to see my Mom sooner.  I wish that my Dad could come too but he is a busy guy and we will miss him for sure.  I have so many activities in mind for when she gets here but I know that even if we just sat around and talked all day that would be just fine with me.
Eli has been helping me do chores and get the house ready for a guest.  However, when a two year old helps with the chores that usually means that you have more clean up to do when you're done. He was being very helpful when I was trying to fold the laundry the other day.

Books, books, books

Most people who know me will know that I am a pretty avid reader.  I'll read anything that I can get my hands on and I'm not too picky about the genre.  Most of my favourites are fantasies, romance, mysteries and basically anything fiction.  No biographies... unless I know you.  Recently, my Dad finished writing his first novel!  I am so amazed by him and proud that he achieved such an incredible accomplishment.  It's a romantic thriller featuring librarian, Blanche Delaney, and the people and situations she encounters when she moves to Georgia.  Everyone should make sure that this is the book that they read next!  I absolutely loved reading it and could not put it down.  It is available on Amazon and if you want to learn more about it you can take a look at the website:

www.withcruelintent.com

His first novel

For Christmas I was able to go to Chapters and pick out a new book because I got one duplicate.  After finding out what my Dad's next book was going to be about (be on the lookout for it this year) I couldn't resist getting an end-of-the-world novel.  It isn't quite post-apocalyptic but very nearly.  It's called The Postmortal by Drew Magary.

It surrounds the writings of a single man after the cure for aging is discovered and humanity has the chance to live forever.  This book is terrific if you have the stomach for violence and you don't mind losing your faith in humanity. I'm fine with both so I loved it!  I think it was an incredibly accurate description of what some very real problems would be if humans were given the chance to live forever. We're mostly selfish beings so you can imagine what would happen to the planet and it's resources.  Given my religious beliefs I would absolutely not want to live on Earth forever because I know that something better awaits me but it's a good read nonetheless.  So now you have two books to go purchase this year... go!