Christine & Steve's website

Well, not really, but he is 18 months old now and getting to be a little terror!  He's running around, scrambling up and down the stairs and getting into everything!  The kitchen cupboards with all the pots and pans are infinitely more fascinating than the toys strewn about the family room!  Well, the musical ball popper is a close second, but it is still second to kitchen utensils ;-)

I am way behind in posting photos as well.  I really have to sit down this week and do that... or not... We'll see...

Steve is enjoying his new status as an official sous-chef at the Parkerhouse... better hours and a raise!  Gotta like that!

And I'm enjoying the change that came with switching jobs as well.  Yup, after 11 years at GD, I've moved on, and while it's been a bit scary, it is proving to be quite fun and a good challenge as well.  Suncor is a huge corporation, as is Telus, so it is interesting seeing how they operate.

Well, that's about it for now... it's late (11 pm) and I need to head to bed so I'm fresh for work tomorrow morning!  Man, it comes early sometimes!!

Christine

Wow, I can't believe that I haven't blogged since September!  Lots of things happening of course, and I just haven't thought about updating things on here.

Steve?  Well, he's working a lot!  As usual, at least 10 hours a day, usually a bit more.  I don't know how he does it.  I'm tired thinking about it.  Of course, a lot of times he ends up taking a taxi home from work rather than the c-train just so he can get home in time to tuck Ryan into bed.  Rather bad on the pocketbook, but at least his son still recognizes him ;-)

Ryan?  Well, he had a great Hallowe'en... dressed up as a monkey (yeah, I really need to download photos... another day perhaps...).  Steve and Ryan went around to a few houses in the neighbourhood, and collected a few treats.  Of course, Ryan didn't really get much of the treats - we're still making sure he doesn't have much refined sugar, but hey, Steve and I are enjoying the loot :)  Ryan also has lots of teeth now - including molars.  It makes brushing his teeth in the morning lots of fun.  He's in a refusal stage so once I get the brush in there he often clamps down and I can't move the thing!  Or better yet, if I use the finger brush, he chomps on me! Ouch!  He has also decided that walking and running are fun things.  Before he used his walker to get around, but a few weeks ago he all but abandoned that and is tottering all over the place.  If he doesn't think about it he gets quite a distance before sitting down and crawling.  I definitely have to keep the gate closed at the stairs as he is almost moving faster than me.  I still usually beat him to the gate though :)  If 'Gina Cat is around and then runs out of the family room, he beetles right after her!  He loves chasing her and if he actually catches her, he loves shrieking at her and then petting her (well, pulling her hair most of the time).  She's remarkably patient with him though.  She hasn't hissed at all and will actually sit there for up to 30 seconds while he pokes and prods her.  Amazing for such an ill-tempered beastie.  She must be mellowing in her old age.  She still resents Steve though... Hmmm, what else, well, Ryan is quite a little talker.  Not too many recognizable words yet aside from Mum, Dad, Ya (in response to one of us saying No...), and Cat!  But he does babble away when you speak to him or when he opens a book - he loves to tell us the story.  Guess the night-time ritual of us reading stories to him inspires him to tell some to us too :)

Me?  Well, I've gotten back into the swing of things workwise.  I've still got lots of extra vacation so I'm still only working 3 days a week.  Well, it's usually a bit more than 3 days a week just because people always come up with things that need to be done on my days off, but that's okay - I've been able to do much of that from home.  I'm looking into getting some additional dayhome hours in the new year, and possibly working 4 days a week - and eventually 5 days a week.  It's Friday's that are the hard ones to find dayhomes for.  A lot of dayhomes don't open on Fridays because they are run by moms with schoolage children themselves and well, schools take a lot of Fridays for professional days...  Anyway, working on it. 

So what else are we up to?  Well, we're sticking around here for Christmas - very hard for chefs to get any time off near Christmas.  Although Steve did manage to get a couple days off - well, next week - in exchange for working this Monday and next Monday, so that we can have a little pre-Christmas visit in Victoria.  Oh shoot, now that I've realized that it's coming up so quickly, I've got to drag the wrapping paper out of hiding and get the Christmas presents sorted for people.  Might as well take them with us rather than mail them off.  We also have to sit down this weekend and figure out what we want from some on-line shops and send our list to Steve's parents.  Ahh, 'tis the season.

Well, time to go - Ryan is smelling rather ripe ;-)

Christine, Steve & Ryan

I can't believe how fast September has flown by.  Things have been very busy. 

Ryan is almost walking.  He doesn't quite have his balance yet, but he constantly stands and furniture cruises.  Every so often he forgets to hang on, and is actually free-standing... then something distracts him and down he goes!  Makes for lots of bumps and bruises these days, but remarkably little crying about it!  He's also continued to go great guns on the sprouting teeth front.  He's now got 8 in various stages of eruption... well 9 if you count a left bicuspid that has been threatening to burst through forever.  He's got his two lower front teeth of course, four front uppers, a left upper molar (just peeking through), and a right lower bicuspid, also just peeking through.  And he's been pretty good about those too... he never seems to be too much out of sorts.  I just happen upon them when I'm brushing his teeth :)

Steve is still working like a dog. He works some very long hours at times.  Poor guy only gets to see Ryan for about half an hour at night when he's working :(  But he seems to be fully recovered from the operation these days, and he's developed a taste for sushi recently.  On Tuesdays we pretty much make it a thing to order in (his first work day during the week as he has Sunday and Monday off these days), so he's a bit tired, and well, I'm always a bit uninspired ;-)  At any rate, the last few weeks, he's actually said to me "why don't we get sushi?"  Hee hee, I converted him :)

Me?  Well, work at GD is ticking along.  I've got lots of stuff to do, both on the MHP project and on BOWMAN.  More than enough to keep me busy for my current 3 day work week.  And I'm having fun with my part-time Usborne venture as well.  It gets me out a couple evenings or days a month to do my thing and talk about books... oh my, figure the odds... me liking to talk about books... Yup, little miss bookworm is still and always will be, only now I get to pass that love onto my little guy, and hopefully inspire other people to instill that love of books in their children!

Us?  Hmm, should I blab here?  Sure why not!?!  We are thinking about a vacation property in BC (in Parksville on Vancouver Island).  We went out there a couple of weeks ago to check out a few sites.  Very promising, and we might be putting in an offer in the next little while on a quartershare.  Wish us luck!

That's about it for now,

Take care,

Christine, Steve & Ryan

PS  Just added some photos, so flip over there and check them out.  Some of Ryan for Aug and Sep, and a few of Parksville and the place we're considering!

Ryan has been super busy these days - he's trying very hard to get his balance and start walking!  He's usually trying to stand on his own, and is doing a not too bad job of that fairly frequently - mainly pulling himself up with me offering him a finger to grab onto, but also occasionally pulling himself up via the couch cushions or the coffee table.  Once he's up, he's doing the furniture cruising thing.  He really likes to get himself between the couch and the coffee table and he can practice walking with one hand on one and one on the other.  Unfortunately that also means that when he loses his balance, he usually plunges forward, so he's got a couple of rug burns/bumps from where he got off the playmat and on to the rug when it happened :)  He did that twice today, silly boy!!

He's also really enjoying his musical caterpillar and the piano, along with all the other toys he got for his birthday.

Now onto the other news... it was also an exciting day because he finally decided to cut another tooth.  Wasn't there yesterday, but it had definitely made a presence this morning... I felt it when I was brushing his teeth.  A nice front upper tooth sticking out!  He was a bit fussy at the day home yesterday apparently so that certainly explained that!

We were also busy today because Ryan had his 1 year vaccinations - MMR, chicken pox and meningitis.  It was quite a long appointment because I actually enrolled him in a study for the meningococcal vaccines.  Basically they follow him through his meningococcal vaccine schedule and draw blood to see how effective the vaccine is, and will give a booster if necessary.  It's to see which provincial standard is more effective (some provinces give 2 shots at varying times up to age 5, and some give 3 shots).  Anyway, Ryan was very good with the drawing blood (they put some numbing gel on his arm before they do that), but did not enjoy the actual vaccinations.  He was okay with the first, but the second and third, he'd cottoned on to what was happening and didn't like it at all.  But he doesn't seem to have had any reactions, so that's good.  He's playing away now happily, just waiting for dad to start getting him ready for bed.  He does love his evening daddy time!

Not much new with Steve and me.  He's still working away like a dog most days at work.  I sure wish he'd have more reasonable hours, but hey, I guess that's life for now.  And I finally got the proper go-ahead to work on a Threat Risk Assessment, and so I spent Monday through Wednesday in our "tin room" at work, where we do all the classified document processing.  I'm actually enjoying it though... I do like the TRA analysis... as warped as that may be :)

So that's about it for now

Christine, Stephen & Ryan

Wow, a whole month has passed and I haven't blogged.  Just busy with so many other things!

First - Steve's parents visit.  It was good - but not so good as well.  Good in that we thoroughly enjoyed their company and we got out and did a few things... but not so good in that 4 days into the visit, after a nice time at the Canada Day celebrations at Prince's Island, and a look at the Stampede parade (and lunch downtown at Steve's restaurant), Steve's mum fell and broke her hip on the Saturday!  Yes, came to Canada and BROKE HER HIP AT THE CALGARY STAMPEDE.  Now before you ask, no, she wasn't participating in the rodeo or anything ;-)  She'd just had her picture taken beside a wagon, moved to get out of the way and tripped on the hitch and fell!  At first she thought she'd just jarred her hip a bit and it would go away, but it wasn't getting any better, so we toted her off to the hospital.  A couple of X-rays later, she was admitted, and the next morning, she was in surgery and had a partial hip replacement.  Unbelievable, eh?  And thank goodness for travel insurance!! 

So after a couple of weeks of convalescing here - we set up a bed in our dining room area so she'd have a bathroom on the same level, and be able to sit or lie down as need be during the day, but still be part of the activities - they got the doctor's approval for her to fly back to England.  That was about a week after they were originally supposed to return so they got a bit of an extended holiday.  It was nice having them here - we got a couple of date nights where we went to dinner/a movie when they were here.  Once Ryan is in bed for the night (7:30 or so), he pretty much stays there so all he needs is someone listening to see if he wakes up and if he needs some help settling again.  So it was pretty easy for Grandma and Grandad to do that even with Grandma's broken hip ;-)

Also while they were here in July, my Dad and Donna came for a quick visit as well.  Originally Steve's parents were going to go up for a week to Edmonton (well, Wabamum) and visit them, but with the hip situation, Dad and Donna came down here instead.  Also got to see Dad's cousin Butch, who I haven't seen in years.  He'd been visiting them so they timed their visit down here for when he was starting his trip back to Washington state, so he could drop in quickly on the way.  Nice!

Then Dad and Donna headed back home, and we got ready for our big July barbeque!  Dad and Donna couldn't stay for that as they had Leona and Mike visiting that weekend (18/19 Jul).  Too bad they all couldn't have come down here, but that would have been way too much driving, and the house would have been even more chaotic!  Anyway, Steve spent Friday and Saturday sorting, organizing, and marinating - he was in his high glory.  Then on Sunday we had about 20 people drop by in the course of the afternoon/evening.  Now what was the barbeque bash all about you may ask?  Well, it was a combination of Steve's birthday (on Friday 17 Jul), our anniversary (also on 17 Jul), and an early birthday celebration for Ryan - since Steve's parents were here, we wanted to celebrate with them.  So, oodles and oodles of meat and veggie skewers, salads, chips, cake and ice cream were had!

Then voila! It was August and 3 days later, it was Ryan's birthday!  It was great that it fell on the long weekend Monday, as I had the day off... hmmm, forgot to mention that... as well, I started back a couple of weeks early at GD - 20 Jul to be exact.  I actually picked up a laptop that week and worked from home, and then the following Monday, I started back to work.  Three days a week.  Although, I'm getting full-time pay, as I had too much vacation so I have to "burn" it over the next few months.  So I worked out a deal where I work 3 days a week, and take 2 days vacation.  I figure I'll be able to do that until the end of the year... Nice, eh?  A good easing back into the workforce for me, and a good gradual introduction to daycare for Ryan!  But, as usual, I digress...

Back to Ryan's birthday!  He was spoiled rotten - clothes, toys and money!  Now before I forget, and in case I haven't thanked everyone already, here's an electronic THANKS!

Gammy (my mom):  thanks for the cute shorts onesie (monkeys!!) and the money!

Grandma and Grandpa Wilson:  wow, I think Grandma Donna went a little toy crazy this birthday... much appreciated!  Thanks for the book, the puzzle ball, the spinning top, the puppet, the clothes, the brick trolley... anything else?  Can't remember!  :)

Grandma and Grandad White:  you too, thanks for spoiling Ryan rotten.  He's loving the activity centre/walker, his shoes, clothes and the early gift of the spinning puzzle carousel.

Auntie Nonie and Uncle Mike:  thanks for the uber-cute shorts onesies and other clothes!

Aunt Caroline, Uncle Neil and the boyzz:  thanks for the Tigger clothes, Ryan loves his new jacket!

Barb and Pete and the kidz:  thanks for the puzzle ball!

Manisha, Ketan, and Suhani:  thanks for the book!

Dave and Trish:  thanks for the piano - especially since it has a volume control on it!!

Teresa, Kevin, Sam and Violet:  thanks for the golf shirts and pants!  Ryan is going to look so cute in those!

Christy, Pat and Sean:  thanks for the money!  Steve has promised he won't raid Ryan's piggy bank and spend it on beer. And also says thanks for the beer you left behind for him at the party ;-)

Hmmm, I think I accounted for everyone with gifts.  And of course thanks for the phone calls from everyone else!  Ryan's not much of a talker on the phone yet, but we're working on it.  He's funny, he'll be babbling away, but bring the phone near him and all goes quiet.  I think he's staring at the buttons and plotting the best way to get it out of your hands, so he can push them!

Well, that's about all for now.  Check out the new photos I posted last night if you want to see some of the birthday shots.  And hopefully I be able to post some videos as well - of Ryan enjoying his toys.  Last time I tried to post video here, it wasn't working well... so we'll see how it goes this time.  May have to post on Facebook though instead if it doesn't cooperate :)

Ta Ta For Now,

Christine, Stephen & Ryan XXXOOO