May 4 - May 10, 2008

Well, the past week seems to have begun right where the last one ended off (how surprising), my folks departed Sunday morning to drive down to Billings and visit Ray & Jodi, and the laborious work on the yard continued.

As I sit here writing this, I realize how poor my memory is and how much I struggle to remember what happened earlier in the week. So I hope my (patient) readers will not begrudge my attempts for detail in some of these posts as I have no better hope for an archive than to narrate the family's activities here.

Monday or Tuesday we put in a couple of trees and about half the sod on the front yard. Plus it has been eventful at work, with a new engagement begun that includes the use of codewords (to keep everything confidential - downtown Calgary is so stuffed full of oil and gas people that even a casual comment on an elevator somewhere can undo a several hundred million take-over opportunity) and several late nights.

Wednesday was haircut night at Donna's place, and now Hayden, Kirsty and I are all looking respectable again. My mom & dad arrived back in town after their short jaunt to Billings and were able to spend a bit of time with us that evening (Thursday evening too).

Saturday was soccer morning, and Hayden was able to add a couple more goals to his season's tally. The afternoon was spent putting in the last of the sod in the front yard, before we headed out to Spencer and Gina's place for an enjoyable meal in the evening.

Hayden has become quite the number junkie lately and lets me know how fast I should drive based on the speed limit signs, wonders how many seven '1's would be (1,111,111; one-million, one-hundred and eleven-thousand, one-hundred and eleven) (rapidly followed by the question of how many eight '1's would be - i am pretty good up to about 11 or 12 of them), and he always ask Kirsty to count out loud to a thousand as she puts him to bed (don't worry, she rarely gets past 5- or 6-hundred before he falls asleep).

Fynlee continues to grow like crazy and smile most of the time. She has also started to develop a new little giggle, which with any luck I will try and get posted today.

Things will be different around here for the next couple of weeks as I depart for a two-week trip to Peru early on Wednesday morning. I am pretty excited to go, but expect to get thoroughly homesick (one of the few potential sicknesses I wasn't required to get immunized for) as I have never been away from the family for that long before. If I can find some internet access points I will try to get a few comments up on here while I am away.

~craig