This year, we hit the pumpkin patch at the Applebarn Pumpkin Farm with some friends and man oh man it is a completely different story when you have a little go getter like Kale. Fortunately, there were many many things to look at and do and see and shove in our waiting cakeholes. And there were goats. Kale loved the goats and the hayride and the pumpkins and the popcorn and the apple cider slushie. I do recommend the Applebarn Pumpkin Farm – there was lots to do, it was a gorgeous day, and it was good fun. I took a fair amount of pictures, and most have captions. I’ve set this slideshow so that the pictures change SLOWLY so you should be able to read the captions, but if not, just pause and play.
Hi there! Been a while, hasn’t it? Listen, it’s not you, it’s me. I’ve just been really busy. I didn’t mean to neglect you, but I guess I did, and I’m sorry. To make up for it, I am going to post an ASSAULT on your senses.
First – the market. Oh man, things are great. We had the Mayor, a cannon, a piper, a gajillion kids and pets… it was awesome. I love my job. I posted pictures to the Royal City Farmers Market’s page on Facebook and also linked it on my profile.
Second – the boy. Well, remember how we posted that little video of him walking the other day? And how he was all stumbly and tentative? Yeah, well, uh…. he’s pretty much running now. Holy cow. We are having a birthday soiree for him next weekend (ZOMG!) and I am stunned at how fast he moves.
Here’s a cute video of him displaying something he has learned:
Today, we took some time out and went for a family adventure. We wanted to go to Point Roberts to test out our passports and so I could buy Red Vines, but we arrived and there was a 30 car lineup to cross the border so we u-turned and headed to Centennial Beach. Weirdly, randomly, we ran into Ross’ cousin Nicole, her husband Paul, and their two munchkins Noah and Theo. Kale got to check out the ocean for the first time and also got some naked baby time in the sand.
Exciting news in our world as well – Kale’s Uncle Erik, Ross’ brother, and his girlfriend Andrea, are now engaged! I’ve been calling Andrea Kale’s “aunt” for ages but now it will be official and I get another sister in law! YAY! I am SO EXCITED. Kale also gets a cousin because Andrea has a 8 year old boy, Liam.
Now that the first market is under my belt, I suspect things will get back to normal around here. PHEW!
A week ago, I made the comment to Mom that I was trying to blog three times a week. Gone are the days when I could post long diatribes on a daily basis, and quite honestly, I do miss those days. Now, I’m lucky if I can get my three entries for the week sorted out. You may have noticed my last entry was six days ago, so by the power of Math, I think we can safely say that I was unsuccessful in three entries a week. Boo hiss. Also, my friend Melanie recently posted about the idea of Mommy Blogging versus Blogging. Because, well, now that’s what I do – I’m a mom, and I blog, and my life more or less revolves around my kid, so uh.. it makes sense. I knew that I would be a Mommy Blogger when I was pregnant, and when Kale was born, we registered this new domain name and I closed and deleted my old haunts and while there are a few moments of nostalgia here and there (usually for the days when I swore freely on the old blog because I am trying to teach myself not to swear so much), I can’t say I miss those parts of my past.
I find it’s a little bit feast or famine – some days I can sit down at the computer and churn out tonnes of content for both this and the other blog I write at, so much content that I can schedule it’s posting throughout the week and then forget all about it. Other days, I’m lucky if the thought crosses my mind “ooh this would make a good blog entry.”
So what has been goin’ on here at Chez Arbo?
I guess the biggest news is that Kale is standing all by himself. When he is focussed on something (like, for example, holding as many pieces of food in his hands as possible) he forgets that he is supposed to hold onto something and can free-stand! Then he realizes he is supposed to be holding on and onto his butt he falls. But he’s standing!
Today I booked our flights to Calgary for Christmas to visit my brother Jim and his wife Loralie. It’s a good time for us to go – at 18 months, Kale will still be free to fly, and it’s a short enough flight that we deal with whatever his reaction is. Plus, the weather will be awesome – dry and cold and snowy, hopefully, instead of typical Vancouver rainy blah yucky. Jim and Loralie and I talked about booking a night at a rustic cabin (maybe Christmas Eve?) at a nearby ranch for a real “country Christmas”. I’m also going to be able to visit Melanie and meet her A. Door. A. Bull. daughter, Moira, and Ross and I can see our friends Mike and Helen, who were the couple whose wedding we all attended last month. I’d also like to try and see my friend Jennifer and her daughter Jade, as well as a visit up to Carstairs to see Pam, a friend from high school. For 7 days, we will likely be busy with many friends and lots of visiting and I am really looking forward to it.
This past May long weekend, we went to the Island for a planned surprise 60th birthday party for my stepdad, Rick. He was genuinely surprised, and it’s a testament to both my mom and my mother in law that this party happened hitch free. I started planning in back in September, people, but without the Moms, it never would have happened. They were the hostesses with the mostesses and it was all their effort that made me look good. The weather co-operated nicely, Kale was a superstar traveller (which we paid for tenfold last night when there was the TWO DANG HOURS OF SCREECHING AT 1AM – Ugh!), Mooki got a respite weekend at my folks’ place away from Kale, and I got a sunburn. Some pictures:
Mooki “guarding” the picnic table at Mom and Rick’s:
Mooki is not dead, nor is she hunting. She was asleep in the grass with no leash on – a novelty for her since we only have a paved patio for her to sleep on.
Kale’s latest obsession is grinding his teeth. This noise gives me the heebies to the point where I have found myself stuffing a piece of fabric in his mouth and asking him to chew on that instead. I can’t stand this noise. I am really hoping this obsession is over soon. Seriously. Gah. With his increased mobility, Kale has bailed a few more times than normal, and his face is now a lovely roadmap of bumps, bruises, and scabs. Awesome. I swear we are not beating our child. He does this to himself.
In any event, today is Mother’s Day. I sent “the grandmas” cards earlier this week and enclosed these photos, which I have been dying to post but haven’t been able to for fear of spoiling the surprise, but now I finally can!
This morning, the guys in my life presented me with a card and a box of the fanciest-fancy pants chocolate I have ever had. I almost don’t want to eat them. But don’t worry, I will. We’re going to go for a walk after Kale wakes up and has his lunch, and I’m looking forward to a relaxed afternoon.
I’m so grateful to have both Ross and Kale. I feel so humbled. Having a son with Ross makes everything in my life make sense. I love being a mama.
So I’ve been flattered and my professional writing diploma is actually going to come in use and I am now an occasional contributor to the team over at Tenth to the Fraser. It’s a New-West centric blog and it will come as no surprise that my first post is a copy of my slightly ranty, high-horsed dispatch about not shovelling your walk. Also, I don’t know if the neighbours I referred to read my blog, but I noticed tonight that HARK! they shovelled their sidewalk. They didn’t salt, but by gum it’s a start and I don’t care whether I had anything to do with it. They likely felt my mental daggers but if not, who cares?
Tonight I finished my Christmas shopping. Ross and I had set limits and challenges on our gifts to one another. $75 including stocking, and it needed to be handmade or made in the spirit of handcrafted (IE, not factory made in China). I thought I was done about two weeks ago but I sat down the other day and realized that I hadn’t spent all of my $75! I realized there was one last component I could buy for him, and I was excited that I could do more shopping and get out of the house for a little while.
So, tonight I bundled up and after dropping some socks off at a customer’s home, I dropped on down to Queensborough Landing and popped into a store that I thought would have what I needed. It’s been a real challenge this year – not only did I have the challenges that Ross and I set up for ourselves, but I also had the challenge I undertook of shopping locally. Although some of my items were not local, they were made by artisans and individuals without expectation of profit – IE people with a hobby and selling off the goodies.
So, lo! The store did in fact have what I wanted, with absolutely no other customers in the store (they were obviously too busy over at Best Buy or Walmart to care) and it was less than what I wanted to pay to boot. Can I get a Huzzah?
I wish I could be a personal shopper for someone. I love finding perfect gifts. I love coming up with stuff that is original and thoughtful and hits the mark dead on. I’d love to be some rich, high powered executive’s personal shopper. Man, that would be so fun. Can you imagine an unlimited budget and all sorts of time? I have so many gift ideas I’d just love to have the right person to buy for.
Anyway – I mentioned a while back that we were going to go to the Burnaby Village Museum to visit Father Christmas. We went, and I was very disappointed that Father Christmas is apparently only there on weekends. Well, at the time, anyway. Apparently as of December 15th it was every day. But of course, they don’t tell you that when you pay the $12 to get in each. So we don’t have an Arbo Family Christmas photo featuring an old man in a suit. Instead, we have a picture I took in front of our tree:
And yes, in that picture Kale is looking down (at Mooki) but in the other one, Ross thinks he looks terribly fat. So the internets only gets to see this one.
And here is a collage of photos from our outing to Burnaby Village Museum, which ended up being kinda fun all the same, except for maybe the slightly creepy museum interpreter on the tram and also the one at the general store. On second thought, they were all kinda creepy. And seriously? I am LOVING the new toys in Picasa that does things like make collages:
Also, I found this list today while scouring the internets. Its a list of a number of Easter Eggs put out by Google. Some of them are so cool it hurts. I knew about some but some? Well, let’s just say they were awesome for a laugh. Mom: Easter Eggs in this context refers to little snippets of treasure that nerdy computery type people like. Not colourful eggs. Just FYI.
One event that I really enjoyed a few years ago was the UBC Botanical Garden Apple Festival. Its fun going to plant related things with Ross because if you want to know what any given plant is, you just ask Mr. Encyclopedia and you can find out. Plus, its generally a wonderful brisk autumn day, you can stuff yourself with apples, and get out and get some exercise to boot. Plus its only $2 to get in.
Ross and I had been talking about the Apple Festival and this year invited Ross’ brother Erik, his girlfriend Andrea, and her son Liam if they wanted to join us. Erik wasn’t able to make it but Andrea and Liam were able to and so us five went this past Saturday and had an excellent time. We got there shortly after noon and the apple tasting was already sold out for the day but there was still lots to do including caramel apples, candy apples, crepes from the awesome French Crepe Trailer people that seem to be at every event lately, and hang out in the kids’ section. Kudos to the Botanical Garden for implementing a kid safe program where parents and kids are numbered with the same number so that if a kid turns up sans parent, or with another number, or with a numberless person, they can be dealt with appropriately.
Anyway, Kale was an awesome boy and we ended our afternoon with a brief nursing session (aka: holy crap its cold!) to top up Kale’s tank before stuffing ourselves back in to the car full of apples (or breastmilk, depending upon who you were) and headed home.
People Are Talkin’