Week of April 18 - 24, 2011

I'll bet you thought I would never get around to this eh.

Of course it is so long ago now that I will never remember all that happened.

We got a couple packages in the mail this week. The first was a game-worn Jason Weimer Flames jersey that I won in a sports collectibles auction. Originally I had bid on5 jerseys in the auction, including a game-worn Iginla Olympic jersey, game worn Tim Hunter and Reggie Lemelin jerseys as well as an Yzerman autographed jersey. All ended up selling for more than my offers other than the 'stink bid' I put in for the Weimer jersey. Despite all of that, it looks better than I expected it would so it is growing on me a bit. It is huge however (size 56) so it likely will never get more use than being hung on the wall.



The second package was far less interesting unless you consider new brake pads exciting.

The real news and events of the week comprised our annual trip to Edmonton to celebrate Haydens birthday. Each year we let people know we were going up and that they are welcome to join us and we have been able to have several family members spend some time with us there in the past. This year my entire family and most of Kirsty's made the trip - for a grand total of 43 of us if my math is correct. While I was able to entice everyone to come on the trip, somehow I was unskilled enough to not arrange a group picture of all who came (sorry Hayden).



It seems everyone had a good time since I have received no complaints. On Friday we spent some time at galaxyland and then in the evening had a pizza party at one of the hotels with the Gorham side of the Family. On Saturday morning the five of us visited the Royal Alberta Museum and then headed over to the Mall's waterpark where the balance of the group was located. Saturday evening we had an impromtu birthday party at Jim and Sharon's suite with doughnuts and Twizzlers.



Sunday we again visited galaxyland, with the Ehlerts and Walls this time, for a few hours before journeying back to Calgary and joining in on the tail end of Easter party at the Greens home.


Certainly easy to see why I wasn't able to get an update posted last weekend.

Merry Easter! April 11 - 17, 2011

No don't check your calendar, it really isn't easter yet, but the bunny came early to our house this year.

Since next weekend we are going to be travelling to Edmonton Kirsty and I thought we should have the egg hunt and presents doled out this week.

Hayden and Fyn had a wonderful time searching for the eggs and then Hayden must have re-hid the eggs for Kirsty, Fynlee and myself 4 or 5 more times throughout the day.

As can be seen, the big items they got this spring are inline skates for Hayden and a glide bike for Fyn - Wonderful things to get when there is two inches of fresh snow outside (good thing for the basement). Of course there was some candy, bubble wands and smelly felts too.



As for the rest of the week, Hayden's school had an inline skating night on Thursday that dad and him were able to attend (dad didn't skate this year). Seeing 60 kids plus many parents maneuvering (not always successfully) in a modestly sized gym provided a great deal of entertainment for dad. How they didn't need a STARS evacuation throughout the night I'll never understand.

Friday, Fynlee had her dance class where she was measured up for her performance outfit. Between the cost of the class, her outfit and tickets for the event, her skipping/galloping had better be impressive.



Saturday was Hayden's wrap-up party for his Blackfoot hockey team. He had lots of fun at Southland leisure centre with his teammates and came home with an impressive amount of swag.

That evening Dad and the girls slipped out to Karma for dinner while Hayden was next door at Greens. The food and company was delightful - Karma's butter chicken is still tops in my books and even Fynlee thinks it's "liscious."



Besides the easter hunt today, Hayden also had to head out to his spring hockey ice-time in Fairview. After we got back and enjoyed our leftovers from Karma, Dad and Fyn were able to play several games of hide-and-seek throughout the house (good thing she giggles non stop or dad would never find her) and Hayden spent some quality time next door with his cousin.

Week of April 4-10, 2011

As you can see the family is starting to get settled in together. It has been two weeks already so I guess we are going to keep her.

Zettie, as you can well imagine, has overshadowed most of the events since I last wrote, however our little clan was still able to get up to a few adventures.

Hayden has been a wonderful big brother and will spend an hour or two everyday after school holding his newest little sister on his lap without compliant. The complaints all come whenever he doesn't get to hold her on his lap.

On Wednesday he had a school field trip to 'Aggie Days' at the Stampede grounds. He didn't come home wanting to ride a bucking horse or bull - enjoyed watching everyone else do though.

He starting his spring hockey program today - crazy that we are going to have to plan around hockey again for the next three months. He does enjoy it and seems to be able to keep up with the rest of the kids.

Fyn was back at dance class on Friday after missing a couple weeks due to illness and spring break respectively. They measured her up to get her recital outfit made up. It will be interesting to see what they have planned for these little ones.



Zettie continues to be a very easy baby - at least from the non-lactating members of the family's perspective. At her appointment on Friday she measured 7-4 which pleased the Dr's as she was up over her birth weight again.

She doesn't fuss at night except briefly to get mom's attention and then she will feed and fall back to sleep right away - that's how I imagine it ;-)

On Saturday I spent the day at an off-road driving seminar learning ways to safely take my new toy off of the beaten path. It was put together by the Canadian Toyota 4-Wheel Drive association (www.ct4wda.com) and was full of new (to me) information.



It probably doesn't look like much of an off-road machine but underneath that cladding and those running boards is a full-fledged Toyota Land Cruiser just waiting to be unleashed. Here's hoping this summer will give us the chance to put it and the family through some adventures.

Forgot about this, obviously - plus big, or rather little, news

While battling a night of insomnia I realized that once upon a time I kept a blog.

Sure enough it is still here - more impressive is the fact that I could figure out the password.

Should probably note that there have been a few developments and changes in the last few years since i posted. Most dramatically is the fact that we have recently added a new addition to the family.

That's right, I picked up an new (to us anyway) truck. Of course maybe more importantly the reason we needed another vehicle was that...

Zettie Liza joined us last Sunday (March 27, 2011) at 3:36 p.m. Her delivery was far more eventful than we would've liked but everything has been just dandy ever since. She was 3 weeks early but weighed in at a very respectable 7lbs - 1 oz and 19 inches long. She would've been a whopper had she gone to full term.

Kirst woke up Sunday morning and stated "I am going to have the baby today," needless to say I wasn't convinced but had her track her contractions (yes there is an 'app' for that). She was contracting about every 4 or so minutes by about 10:30 which was frequent enough to justify a trip to the hospital for a checkup, after lunch and running some errands.

Roshanne was available to take the kids so by around 1:30 p.m. we were able to make it to Rockyview's Unit 62. Dr. Van Essen from kirsty's Obs group happened to be there at the time and was able to confirm that our 'silent dilator' was indeed ready to have a baby (plus the delivery ward wasn't very busy).

By 2:30 Kirst was comfortable, checked-in and ready to have her water broken. At 3 she was clean and composed enough to be coerced by the nurses to wander the halls for a bit to help keep things moving along - plus it was shift change for the nurses.

At 10-after we were back at the room and Kirsty was noting that she 'was ready for the epidural' and I dutifully relayed the decision to the nurses at the desk. When a couple minutes (i.e. one contraction) later they hadn't yet arrived i popped out again to relay the news.

Our new nurse then hustled in to check on things and, as you can tell by how the time clock has been running, the next stages happened rather urgently. To spare you some of the details lets just say that no epidural arrived and shortly after Zettie did our nurse was finally able to introduce herself to Kirsty.