Tuesday, September 29, 2009

2917 = Five Years

Happy Fifth Birthday Project David! September 30th marks the fifth anniversary (and 2,917th post!) of this blog. To commemorate this occasion, I thought I'd share some random facts:

  • Back in 2004, Andrew (yes, you read that correctly, ANDREW!) thought it would be fun to start a blog to chronicle the life of our soon to be born son, David.
  • Back then, I wasn't at all interested in blogging. I thought it sounded boring. And too complicated for me to figure out.
  • It wasn't long before Andrew got me interested...though funnily enough, back then it was just because I wanted to play with the templates for the design of the blog.
  • September 2004 was also when we first made the jump to a digital camera. Once again, this was technology I just wasn't interested in. I thought digital cameras were stupid.
  • It didn't take long before I was the principle blogger in the family. It was something to do during that hour long spell (in the middle of the night) where David didn't want to eat, but he didn't want to sleep either!
  • In the beginning we used Hello! to upload pictures. Individually. Hence the almost 3000 posts.
  • After only a few short months I had several blogs (I still do today. All sadly neglected.)
  • After only a few more short months, I hated blogging. Never enough time to do it justice. I promised myself I'd give it to the five year point.
  • I think my mum would kill me if I quit blogging. Which is as good a motivation as any to keep going. Though since it's the only way I've been chronicling the kids lives I think I'd better keep it up anyway.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Funfilled Weekend!

On Saturday we decided to use our last airmiles certificates and head to the Greater Vancouver Zoo.

First stop was the lion area to watch the lion feeding. Funny story: as we pulled into our parking lot I recognized someone I went to highschool with. By the time we'd unpacked and gotten to the gates he and his family were no where to be seen. I took these pictures of Elisabeth and me without being able to see much of anything except that she was in the frame...later when I looked at the pictures this friend of mine was in some of the pictures and his baby was in some of the others. See?? Cute, chubby little baby:

This guy wasn't too hungry, but right at the end he came and ate out of the keeper's hands. So cute (and totally terrifying too!)

Traditional picture on the giraffe!


The wallabies are so cute. Too bad I always forget and call them kangaroos. It's funny how many animals we moms misname when we're at the zoo with our kids. Oops!

This was awesome. Turtle one was minding his own business, chomping away on the grass. Then turtle number two (the one on the left hand side) comes marching over...like so:

walks straight up to turtle number one:

They engage in 10 seconds worth of a shoving match...
Then turtle 2 wanders back off (and into their house) and turtle 1 goes back to chomping.

Crazy.

This is a capybara. In middle school choir we used to sing a song about a jaguar and some capybara. I never guessed they looked like this. There used to be quite a number of them hanging out on the hill, but last time we were there we didn't see any and this weekend we only saw two. Strange. But I'm glad to see them again.

Hippos lying back to back and enjoying the sunshine.


They had face painting by donation so Elisabeth got a crown and princess jewels:
And David got tiger stripes.
That night we went to Cody and Kathi's for a bbq. No pictures except this one of Jade's fort.

Playing out in the driveway.

Sunday afternoon we tried to head to the river for a fire. Everyone in the area must have had the same idea because it was PACKED. So we drove to Fort Langley, which was also packed, and had a picnic there.




My sweet boy.

All weekend he complained about not liking kindergarten and not wanting to go back. I didn't think much of it since we were having a fun weekend (figuring he just didn't want to stop playing to go back to school) but this morning he told me everyone in his class laughed at him last week and it made him cry. He's a sensitive little chappy, but after some questioning I decided it wasn't too serious...but I was still worried about how this week would go. After all, we had house guests last week so David was probably just overtired.

Anyway, today he bounded out of school in a much happier mood. Things went well and he talked and answered questions in show and share so he was much more positive about school.

Still, lately I feel like I need to be more purposeful about my parenting. Anyone have any parenting books that revolutionized your life? Let me know in the comments section below!
After lunch we headed to the train museum...there was a volunteer working who pretty much dragged us in for a tour. It was the first time we'd been inside the station in all the times we've been there; it's pretty cool.


I can only look at a model train set so many times. So while the rest of the family wandered through the cars looking at the museum-y stuff in there, I took pictures.








Lovely first weekend of fall. And maybe we'll get to have our fire later this week...

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Possibly the last nice evening for a while??

Friday night is often pancake night in our house, but after spending the afternoon outside in the sun with the kids, I had a really strong hankering to head to the ocean. After all, the weather forecast is calling for rain by next week, and the sun is only going to start setting earlier and earlier. So after finishing a few chores we all bundled up and headed to Crescent Beach for dinner.

We stopped at the fish and chip place and waited for our cod'nchips.



Then headed right down to the water's edge to munch.

As you can see, it was a gorgeous evening!



With supper done, we decided to play awhile.

That's a flock of planes flying there.










With the sun pretty much set, we headed up to look in the windows of the toy store.