Thanksgiving

Okay so the last few days have been eventful. Last Wednesday CJ and I headed to Seattle. After some major problems at the airport with US Customs officer, Roberta, who didn’t want to let me into the country, we finally got on the plane and headed to Seattle. It was moderately turbulent on the way down in Seattle and I almost had a panic attack. I realized that since I have had kids I have a really hard time flying. I am so nervous and anxious. The reason why is obvious, I panic because I am so worried about something happening to me and the kids being without a mother. It is very scary.

Anyhow, we arrived safely. Then after waiting a ridiculously long time to get our rental car we drove to Kirkland to the Lucky 7. CJ and I were overwhelmed when we walked in to find two tables with our closest friends. It was amazing. It felt so good to hug them and laugh and chat again.

Thursday was spent at the Wheelers Annual Thanksgiving Party. It was lots of fun and the house smelled so good and the food was awesome and the kids were adorable. I apologize to Dawn and Darwin for crashing on the guest bed for 1 and a half hours. I guess I was a bit overtired.

Friday was spent shopping with Karen (FUN!) followed by lunch with Karen and JL followed by a nap at the hotel and then sushi with all our buds. Saturday morning it was back on a plane and back to Toronto. The trip was WAY too short. I would have liked a full day to spend with each of my friends separately. Now I miss them all more than ever.

On the way back CJ and I watched about 6 episodes of lost on the computer. I think during our whole trip we probably watched about 12 episodes. I LOVE that show. Can’t wait to see some more.

And that’s it in a nutshell

The boo game

It works like this. One of us (me, for example) stands behind the wall. This person jumps out and we all scream (and I take a picture). It's tons of fun :)

office email humor

why do I find office humor so funny? Not the chain emails that everyone forwards. But little work related comments like:

me: I won't have time to make any changes to the draft that week. Don't worry, I will just make sure the draft is perfect so their are no comments.
other1: Just don't tell the client it's possible to do something right the first time.
other2: as always.

Okay... now that i typed that out it's really not funny AT ALL. Yet i sat here and read those two responses about 3 times each and thought that they were the funniest things ever.

I think i need a drink.

weekend in review

It was a good weekend all round. On Friday CJ and I went curling while his mom watched the kids. We played against our old teammates and lost miserably. But we still had fun and lots of laughs all round. It’s nice when the people you play with and against are not super serious.

On Saturday CJ had to go to a work training course in the morning so the kids and I hung out with Pat and didn’t do much of anything. In the afternoon after CJ got home and his mom left I went shopping and got a bunch of scrapbooking stuff. When the kids woke up from their naps I took them to my mom’s house and left CJ at home to watch the Ohio State vs Michigan game. On my way I called him and asked him to pause the game after before the 4th quarter started so I could watch the last quarter with him. So I got home around 7:20 and we were all ready to watch the rest of the game when we realized that our sub-par Tivo-equivalent screwed up and that the last 30 minutes of the game did not get recorded. Well then there was a mad panic to find out what the final score was. CJ got the final score - 42 to 39 for the buckeyes!!! and he and I whooped and hollered in the kitchen for a while 

We were invited to a party that night but we were both way too tired and drained so we decided to skip it and stay home. It was actually really nice. I did a few more scrapbooking pages, we watched a few episodes of LOST season 2 and went to bed relatively early. It was so nice to sleep in on Sunday morning.. I mean SOOOOOO NICE! So CJ went to pick up the kiddos and my friend Ewa came over. We had coffee and chit chatted for a while before heading out to the Toronto Christmas Sgow. It was so fun. All kids of neat decorations, stockings, food items, beer, wine, etc. We spent about 2 hours at the show. I was so happy to have found this one little booth. They had all the little wooden Christmas decorations that I remember as a kid (made in Germany). Everything is hand crafted and they are so detailed. I bought a small candle holder. It has 2 levels of figures and when the candles are lit, the little “wings” at the top move from the heat of the candle and it spins around. The kids LOVE it. I also got some hot pepper jelly for CJ and some crackers for our Christmas dinner.



Last night we stayed home and just hung out. It was a nice weekend. This is a short week at work for us. CJ is only working today and tomorrow. I am also working a half day on Wednesday. And then we are off to Seattle for Thanksgiving. WOOT!

Hey… if any Seattlite’s read this… CJ and I will be at the Lucky 7 on Wednesday night around 9:45 (we’re going to have the cab driver drop us off there with all our bags). Come join us…. PLEASE!

so cute

my 15 seconds of fame

Don't you just love it when people talk about you in their blog? It's even cooler if they actually put a link in to your blog.

Even if i don't understand anything that Steve writes (which 95% of the time is the case), I'm still drawn to his blog every day to see if he will give me an honorary mention.

There are actually a whole bunch of smart people that DO understand what he writes about. They read his blog. And in said blog HE TALKED ABOUT ME (well not really talked about.... but my name was there)..... and he put in a LINK!!!! TO MY BLOG!!!!! So now smart geeky people know I exist!

how cool is that!

On a side note... just to highlight how odd and geeky Steve really is, you gotta read this. It cracks me up. I keep going back to read it again.

CJ is well!

CJ is good and almost all better. On Tuesday I went home at lunch and took him to the ER… we ended up staying there for almost 4 hours and we were still waiting. It looked like we would be waiting another couple hours and CJ was feeling god-awful so we left and came back home and he went straight to bed. I picked up some Tylenol 1’s for him. That is one great thing about Canada – the ability to get Tylenol with codeine over the counter. He took some of those and they at least lessened the body aches and headache. He stayed home on Wednesday too and by the end of the day was starting to feel better. Yesterday he dragged himself into work …. This morning he is almost 100% again. I am so glad. I was very worried.

I have to apologize for not updating sooner. Especially to Dawn and Hadley who were both very concerned and sent several emails and left phone messages. I AM SO SORRY! I should have called you back sooner but I just got tied up with work and kids and day to day “stuff”. (Dawn, it was adorable hearing gabby’s little voice on the phone – can’t wait to see her next week).

So life is good. It’s Friday today which means I only work a half day. CJ’s mum, Nana is at our house. She came to visit and will be staying till tomorrow. CJ and I are curling tonight. Tomorrow I will hang with the kids (CJ gets to watch football is peace) and tomorrow night we have a party to go to (like real people, with friends…..). then on Sunday I am going to the Christmas show. I am really psyched about it. CJ put our Christmas lights up last weekend and they look awesome. I am also really excited to spend a few hours with Ewa without kids so we can talk and catch up. :)

So there you have it. I will leave you with these pics of our goofy daughter.

Starting to get settled.

First of all I need to start by saying that CJ and I are going to Seattle next week. We are only there for 2 days (I couldn’t ask my mum to watch the kids longer than that) but we are both planning to pack a lot of fun into those 2 days. We are going to spend Thanksgiving Day at the Wheelers which is one of our favorite times ever! I have amazing memories of the Wheeler Thanksgiving over the past 6 years. It is a special time when all our friends get together – we talk, laugh, play with kids, drink, eat, watch football. What could be better :D On Friday I intend to do a lot of shopping. One of the things I miss most about the US (beside friends of course) is shopping. I will say it… shopping in Canada sucks. I am seriously bringing an empty suitcase for all my purchases.

Now, back to Canada. Things here are going well…. Well not entirely. CJ is terribly sick right now. He stayed home from work which is very unusual for him. He feels horrible (body aches, terrible headache, etc). It reminds me of when he had meningitis. I am praying that that is not what it is. I want to call him but don’t want to wake him up if he’s sleeping. So keep him in your thoughts and send get well wishes to him okay? Thank you.

I dropped the kids off at their respective “schools” this morning. Sebastian, as usual, did not cry and was perfectly happy there. His teacher showed me the jelly fish that they were going to make today since this week’s theme is “ocean creatures”. I was reminded again how lucky we were to have found this daycare for him. As I left I picked up the report from Friday (which CJ must have forgotten to take). It had the following comments: “Enjoyed storytime with puppets, painting and colour matching. He loved the mini pizzas and salad and fell asleep very quickly”. How perfect is that.

Then I brought Kenzie to school. On the way there she was chatting away “at’ me about random things. She told me that Courtney’s mum always makes them a snack when they get to her house and that first they have fruit “to make them feel good” and then they get a cookie and then they play. She told me how Courtney and she did a princess puzzle THREE times last week. She sounded so happy and carefree. We got to school and Kenzie went into the play area for the kindergarteners. Soon Courtney came running up to Kenzie to give her a big hug. She almost picked Kenzie off the ground. Then they had to stand against the fence with their respective classes before they all march into school in single file. As the kids were against the fence, Kenzie and Courtney kept smiling and waving at each other. I can’t believe she has a best friend. It is so darn adorable.

So.. the kids are doing well. CJ and I are both looking forward to curling on Friday. Saturday CJ has a HUGE football game to watch (Ohio State vs. Michigan – GO BUCKEYES!). We have a party to go to on Saturday night. And on Sunday, Ewa and I are going to the Toronto Christmas show where I intend to buy a bunch of stuff to make our house more festive. WOOT. Things are looking up.

To all our dear Republican friends.

Sick Sebastian

I have to say that Sebastian is the most pathetic little sick person. Yesterday shortly before lunch I got a call from his daycare saying that he was feeling a bit under the weather and that he had a slight fever. So I went to get him and we spent the afternoon together. When he is sick he only wants me. Part of me loves that because all other times he couldn’t care less about me unless he wants something to eat or drink. But when he’s sick he wants me to carry him everywhere and he wants to snuggle. He also has no desire to play or eat and he moans a lot. Oh yes, and he’s very crabby. So yesterday afternoon we hung out watching Thomas episodes and other cartoons on TV. I rubbed his feet and wiped his nose – and in return I got some sweet smiles and lots of hugs. He also loves chocolate so when he was feeling exceptionally poopy I gave him a bowl with a few Smarties and a Halloween Aero bar. His face lit up like a Christmas tree.



He is home with Omi today and she is taking him to see the doctor later this morning. I suspect he has an ear infection and may also be getting pink eye. I miss my little smush. He was sad when I left the house this morning and I just wanted to stay home with him all day. At least I am glad he’s with my mum. I know there is no better nurse to spend the day with him. She revels in cooking chicken soup from scratch, and doing all those other “grandmotherly” things that regular folks don’t have time to do.

blah blah blah blah blah

Wow, the last week has flown by but I can’t think of much that we did. CJ started his new job of course. It sounds like he’s enjoying it and it’s going well. The childcare situation is almost all sorted out – we found a wonderful little daycare of Sebastian and a great woman who runs and after school program for Mackenzie. The cool thing is that this woman has a daughter who is also in kindergarten so the two girls will have each other to play with.

Sebastian is going through the typical run of colds that kids seem to go through in their first couple years. You know – where he recovers from one cold and then two days later catches another one. The problem is that he is a very cranky sick person (must be a male thing). So that has been a bit draining for all of us. Hopefully he’ll feel better soon.

This weekend we did a lot of hanging around. On Friday the kids and I went to Toys R Us. We got some giant pink plastic castle thing for Kenzie and some trains for Seb. Sebastian is addicted to his trains. Seriously - he wakes up in the morning and the first thing he wants to do is play with his trains. He plays with them all day long. He even pushes them around in a stroller. So we spent a lot of time this weekend, lying on the floor making train track arrangements and playing with little dolls and castles.



Oh yes, and we spent a lot of time playing with water. It’s amazing how long a few Tupperware containers, measuring spoons, water and a couple drops of food colouring will keep the kids entertained.

So all in all a very uneventful weekend. This however will be the last weekend in a long time that we have no plans. Starting this week we have things planned for almost every weekend until Christmas (parties, dinners, a trip to Seattle!!!!, birthday parties etc). YAY… we have a life. Well sort of.

Happy Halloween!

We had a blast last night. Sebastian has a cold again so we weren’t sure whether he’d be able to go trick or treating. But in the end he was a trooper and wore his costume (refused to ear the head part though) and he went. He apparently wasn’t too clear on the whole concept though. When we were at the first house and the woman opened the door, Sebastian walked right in and headed for the kitchen. LOL.

So I seem to recall that when I was a kid and went trick or treating we would get a little piece of gum or a roll-up of candies from each house. I was always thrilled if we got anything chocolate from any house. We would have to walk a long way to get a decent haul. Last night though, people were taking handfuls of chocolate bars and regular sized bags of chips and dumping them in the kids’ bags. K and S also got pencils with funky erasures, toothbrushes and a bunch of other cool stuff. We were halfway around the crescent and Seb's bag was overflowing and Kenzie was having a hard time carrying hers.

Okay so we get to Tony and Glenda’s house – they live behind my mum (adjacent backyards) so we see them a lot in the summer – lots of chatting over the fence or having a beer or casual bbq together. I love these guys. They are in there early 50’s, no kids. They love to spoil Kenzie and Seb and they are really fun people. When we got to their house yesterday, they were sitting on there porch, with two big boxes of wine on the table – one red and one white. They were handing out candy to the kids and giving the parents dixie cups of wine. How awesome is that!