Counting...

Brrrrr! Nothing like -30 weather to make you stay inside for a few days! Yesterday I used it as an excuse to put on a Bob the Builder video and bake some muffins. Today, we will probably have to bundle up and venture out. I say again, Brrrrrrr!

We've been keeping a pretty low profile since we got back to NS. Making yummy food, playing with tractors, watching shows on our giant screen with our brand new projector, oh, and counting. Seems we have a counting prodigy on our hands. So far he's up to eleven. He just likes to count things.

One...

Two....

Three....

Four....

Victoria 2011

Hello Again! We're home! (I knew it for sure when a green crayon dropped out of the cereal box and into my bowl this morning, amongst all the Cheerios.) We had such a good time, visiting with people and places.

Griffin did really great on the airplane. He loved the airport.

He was so excited about planes in general that it didn't even matter that he had to sit on our laps for the entire eight hours. Whew!

The hardest part of the whole trip was just trying to adjust to the four hour time change.

The first night we were there Griffin woke up at 3:30 in the morning and said "all done!" (and I thought "uh-oh.") I could easily have slept for four more hours, but I just couldn't quite make him see my side of things. Anyway, we both handled it pretty well, considering. Griffin was just in Heaven being surrounded by all those family members!

It was really wonderful - definitely the best part.

We were feeling a little lonely yesterday, when it was back to just the two of us. What a wonderful thing it was to have so many wonderful people around.

We did a couple of day trips - one to one of my favourite beaches, which was covered in lovely driftwood. (Yes, I begged an extra suitcase from my Dad, and carted a bunch of it home. Of course I did! I also borrowed a whole pile of photos from my grandparents' albums, so check back soon for some fun new pieces.)

We also fit in a day trip up to Duncan to visit my Dad and his family, and the family farm. Griffin loved everything about it. He met two more grandparents, two new uncles, another great-grandparent, and a whole lot of cows. There were tractors big and small!!!!! It was heaven for my little boy! (Although both tractors and cows, it turns out, are a lot bigger in person than you might think!) (Thus, there are no pictures of Griffin actually on a tractor.)

A day hasn't passed yet where he hasn't asked to go see cows.

We also fit in a trip to the Royal BC Museum, where I spent many happy hours as a young child.

Griffin got to see the Woolly Mammoth, and the sea cave and all sorts of dead animals. His favourites were the owls. He likes to say "whoo whoooo." And we all like the Long House, even though they closed off the coolest part.

OK, and it's taken me all day to get this far, so I'll just leave you with pictures of friends and relations galore!

Good times!

Connections

2011! So far, so good!

Only a few more days now of Jai's holiday. It's been so wonderful having him home - Griffin loves it, and I do, too. But, alas, such a state of affairs cannot continue indefinitely. All good things, and such stuff.

We are trying to enjoy these last couple of days to the utmost, though :)

And later this week, Griffin and Grandma and I are hopping on a plane for an epic journey across the country, from coast to coast, and back again. My Grandparents treated us to plane tickets, so we can come out and visit all our friends and relations on the West Coast. Well, as many as we can manage, anyway! (There are a lot of them over there!) I'm excited about showing him some of the places that I loved (and, really, still do.) It's mostly bookstores and museums, so I guess that explains a lot about me!

Plus the place where our little family began - good old Yo Video. I've been thinking a lot about personal mythologies as they relate to place. I think it's important to feel connections to places and people, not just through the direct experience of meeting a particular person, or being in a place at a particular time, but also through the layered experience of having stories and histories surrounding that person or location. Because many of my personal histories remain on the West Coast, by extension, many of Griffin's personal mythologies will have connections to the West Coast as well.

It will be interesting, though, to see how time has changed things, because the people and places remain static in my memory, as though they've become mythologized - passed into story, if you will. There is so much I want to see and do in such a short period of time! Creating new stories to layer on top of the old.

Huh, I didn't sit down to write all this stuff down (I mean, really, who actually uses the word mythologized?!) but there it is, all the same. These are the kinds of things I think about.

Farewell to 2010

Hello! Here it is, the last day of 2010. "2011" looks so futuristic to me.

And what an eventful year we've had. One of us learned how to crawl and walk and talk and feed himself and blow kisses. And the rest of us survived it all!

In all seriousness, though, 2010 has treated us well. It was a very comfortable year for the most part, like a comfy chair you just fit into nicely. We all settled in a little more, into parenthood, into our house, into the big life changes that 2009 brought to us.

2011, I suspect, will be another big year of changes. Griffin and I have a big trip coming up (more on that soon), we'll be getting a new roof - we're just full of plans, big and small.

And while there is definitely a part of me that wishes we could just stay here, like this, the rest of me is looking forward to seeing what comes next.

Merry Christmas!

Ah, Merry Christmas! Hope you all had wonderful holidays!

We had an eventful one here, it seemed like. Griffin had a cold, so he spent much of the holidays being not quite himself. We took him in to get checked out on Christmas day, though, and he was pronounced generally healthy, with a good set of lungs (Doctors and Nurses have not been on his list of favourite people since he had to get bloodwork done, and it took four nurses to hold him down, and a miss on the first side resulted in not one, but two, needles. He was perfectly happy in the waiting room, but took one look at that room with that bed in it, and hightailed it in the other direction!)

He did rally himself quite well on Christmas morning, though, once he realized what was going on. He tested out each and every one of his new toys, and didn't notice in the slightest that some of them were only new to him. I think we've read through all the new books, and watched most of the new Bob the Builder shows. All those dinky toys were a big hit,

But the biggest pleasure has come from using his new kitchen to bake up toast and pizza. He's a busy, busy boy these days.

And I found myself enjoying the company more than ever this year. Yes, I got some excellent presents of my own, which I have already begun to enjoy, but the biggest treat of all was getting to take a couple of days and do nothing but enjoy myself visiting and reading and relaxing and snuggling, without any nagging "shoulds". Lovely!

This last few days before the year ends are hopefully going to be spent in quiet pursuits, taking a brief respite with each other before the crazy whirlwind starts up again. I wish you and yours some of the same!

A Very Blustery Day

Where to begin? As I'm sure some of you know, our little Valley was hit quite hard with a bad winter storm this week. Griffin was up in the middle of the night, and I went out to go to the bathroom, only to discover water pouring, dripping, seeping, and streaming into the front half of our house. Several towels and many buckets later, after rearranging some furniture and possessions, we went back to bed. In the morning, we discovered a large piece of our roof had blown off in the wind. Hmmmm...

Several days later, we are still waiting for the insurance adjuster to come around (they've been a little busy, to say the least!) but we have mostly managed to deal with it ourselves. It's been an extra busy, extra stressful, extra expensive week, though (to say the least!)

Luckily, I had gotten some Christmas baking done the day before!

And Griffin had a great time splashing in all the (outdoor) puddles.

I can't even believe that Christmas Eve is only a week away. I don't think I'm ever actually ready, but this year we are further behind than usual. It's so easy to let this season get stressful, and I just have to keep reminding myself that most of it is extraneous to what's really important. We have our tree, we have some small gifts under it, but mostly we have each other's company, with a roof (mostly) over our heads, and a fire in the hearth. There will be good food, and there will be family, and everything else is just a bonus. (so... if you're a family member who is waiting for a Christmas package in the mail, I apologize in advance - look for it some time in the new year, I expect!)