Ordinary Days

 We're still at Grammie & Grandad's house, but not for long!

We closed on our house Thursday, June 28th and we take possession of it tomorrow.

Colin is getting so excited about having his own room again.  

He keeps asking if his toys are coming, if there is a park nearby, and if he can ride his bike and drive his car. He is super happy when I can answer "yes" to all of those questions.

We've got a busy next couple of weeks planned, moving our stuff from Grammie & Grandad's basement, getting some room's painted, etc.

Lots and lots of projects!!

Meanwhile...

Maggie has been working hard on the laptop, munching on her pretzels

(it's hard to find a time when she doesn't have pretzels in her hand)

 Ugh! It's so tiring working hard.

 Bam bam bam!  She's pounding the keyboard at this point.

Computers can be so frustrating!

Oh, and Colin found Grandad's headlamp (headlight?) and he thinks its the best thing ever!

He turns into "explorer Colin" and checks out lots of dark places.

Awesome!

On the move...

 It's official...

Maggie is walking!

She has been working really hard at it the last few days and while she's not perfect...she's got it going on!

Her hands still twirl and pump while she's walking, but every day she's rocking it out.

Colin is so cute too, he stands beside her (when he's not knocking her over) saying "yeah Maggie, she's walking!"  We're all about positive reinforcement at our house!

Look out world, Maggie's on the loose (she even dodges the shoe landmines!)

 Oh, and this girl can do stairs like it's nobody's business.

She has been climbing up stairs forever it seems, but now she knows how to turn around at the top of the stairs and slide down.

After dinner tonight, we headed out for some sprinkler fun time.

This is the first time I have really had Maggie in the sprinkler, with her suit on and all.

Okay, any votes on if Maggie liked it?!

 Nope.

Every time the sprinkler would come over by her, she would whine and try to move out of the way.

Very effective for about 15 seconds until it came by again...

 So Maggie and I hung out snapping some pictures without any sprinkler getting in our way.

Cheese!

 Oh, and earlier in the week I painted Maggie's toenails for the first time.

Sparkly pink...love little girls!

 Meanwhile, Colin was being total boy by swatting at the sprinkler with a hockey stick.

Watch out world...Maggie's flaunting what her mama gave her!

Showing some skin at 13 months! :)

Father's Day one day late

Since we were on a plane coming home from Canada on Father's Day (yesterday), 

we celebrated Father's Day today, instead.

We both had today off, which was very helpful when trying to get things reorganized and ready for our work week.  

The kids slept in a bit, which I was totally excited about considering they both didn't sleep a wink on the plane ride home.  They were behind on their napping, plus lost a couple of hours with the differing time zones.  

As soon as Maggie got up from her morning nap, we headed to Gladstone Bowl to bowl a couple of games. We registered Colin for the Kids Bowl Free program, and added Brian and I on there to bowl with him.  We had a really great time, and Colin did well, too.  He got a 51 and a 59 on his two games.

We headed back to eat some lunch, relaxed a bit during the kids' nap time, then headed off to a park near our new home in Parkville.  Downtown Parkville is really neat, and our family is so excited to be moving to such a family-friendly neighborhood.

After dinner, we went to Sheridans and got Brian and Grandad a special ice cream treat for Father's Day.

A fuzzy, but cute picture of Daddy with our loves.

The kids just adore him and love all of the special time he spends with them.

I swear no one can get them laughing as hard as Daddy.

Being a parent is definitely not a one-person job, and he does such a great job of being a hands-on Dad.

I picked such a great guy to be the father of my children, and he is an awesome role model for both kids.

We love you for all that you do, Daddy!

The last Canada post

 Just finishing up with some last pictures of our trip here in Canada.

We leave tomorrow from Seattle, so we will need to get up around 4 am to make our flight.

We made one more trip to see Grandma and Grandpa Dudley so we could get a few more pictures.

Maggie playing with a fire truck in the kitchen

 Grandpa Dudley at 95 years old.

He was snoozing in his chair, and we interrupted his nap for a quick picture.

 Maggie waving at Grandpa.

She just kept staring at his hands, there's a lot of memories in those hands...

 One more group shot, with Grandma Dudley in there, too!

 Just a cute picture of Maggie.

 Grandma Dudley and I.

Dus, Len, and Maggie at White Rock

After pictures, we headed to White Rock for a good Fish N Chips meal.

It was just pouring the entire time, but Colin still wanted to run along the beach with Brian.

So Uncle Len walked around with Maggie under the umbrella.  She loved it under there!

We are just going to head to church this evening and do some packing for our trip tomorrow.

It has been a great vacation and hopefully we will have some good kids on the plane ride home.

Only 2 more years til we come back again, Vancouver 2014!

Canada...part deux

We are still having a great time here in Vancouver.  

Even though the weather hasn't totally cooperated with us, we have gotten outside almost everyday to play and run around.  There is an awesome park just up the street from Dus & Len's house, and we went to it on Wednesday morning.  We were the only ones there, so Colin had free reign of all the play structures.

Colin loved the swirly slide.  

Maggie loved the swing.

She was munching on her mum-mum cracker.  That girl loves to eat.

There was also a spinny thing that Colin thought was pretty cool.  

Brian tried it once, and felt so nauseous after.

We pretty much just hung out the rest of the day on Wednesday.  

Dus & Len had an unfortunate thing happen that morning.  Their little weiner dog, Winnie, passed away unexpectedly.  She was almost 9 years old.  It has been very difficult for everyone here, as Winnie was a child to them.  Please keep them in your thoughts as their family heals.

The following day we headed to the Vancouver Aquarium.

Colin was so excited, he kept talking about sharks and dolphins and fish.  

Lucky for him, we saw them all!

One of the very first exhibits.  There was one fish that was swimming super fast around the tank.  Colin thought was really fun!

Some jelly fish (I think?!)

Colin checking out the blue fish

Maggie only got a short nap on the drive to the aquarium, so she was pretty tired while we were there.  But, she did perk up when she was able to stand at the tanks.

Colin and Mags checking out the star fish

A quick family picture, with lots of memories

Checking out more cool fish

I just thought this picture was cute

Awesome!

A friendly crocodile

The boys checking out the penguin exhibit.

There were 7 of them, 5 girls and 2 boys.  So cute!

We then went to the beluga show over lunch.  It was really neat!

We got to sit on the bleachers during the show, then went downstairs to see them up close.

Too bad it was sprinkling during the outdoor show, but we still had a great time.

Maggie and one of the belugas

A cute dolphin!

A sea otter with a frisbee on its belly.  

We kept waiting for it to throw it, but it didn't.  Just laid there with it on its belly.

The last thing we saw on the way out was the dolphin show.

They were really cool, doing all sorts of tricks and flips. 

I was amazed by how fast they can swim.  Pretty neat.

Jumping and flipping around.

We drove over the Lions Gate bridge on the way home from the aquarium. 

It is really similar to the Golden Gate bridge that we just biked over in San Francisco.

We had such a lovely time at the aquarium.

And now...

a random picture of Maggie...

she was eating spaghetti and loving it!

Canada...so far

We have had so much fun so far, and it's only been a few days.

First off, the plane ride went FANTASTIC!  The kids did great, even though both of them didn't sleep a wink!

I didn't really have any concerns about Colin.  We had a DVD player armed with Toy Story, Happy Feet, Cars, etc, so there was no problem.  But actually, we only watched about 1/2 of Toy Story the entire 4 hour plane ride.  The rest of the time Colin just entertained himself or Maggie, and he thought it was super cool that he got apple juice on the plane.  We had packed dinner for the kids so we could eat sandwiches and snacks to help pass the time.

Maggie sleeps, without hesitation, at 7 pm nightly.  But, on our trip, she did no such thing.  I was sure she would be a bear otherwise, but she wasn't.  There was only one major meltdown, and that was when I got out of my seat to use the restroom.  I know, major drama, how dare I use the restroom?!

She ended up dozing off on our car ride back to Vancover, around 11 pm our time.  I still can't believe it, but she did great.

Colin stayed awake until we got to Dus & Len's house, and that was almost 1 am our time.  He was exhausted, but was really sweet. 

I don't know if I've said it recently, but we've got some really awesome kids!

We slept in on Sunday, and headed out to Grandma and Grandpa Dudleys for lunch.

When we first got there, the ladies at the front desk let Colin feed the fish.

He thought that was about the coolest thing EVER!

We had a nice lunch, some ice cream for dessert, then headed outside to see the waterfall and birds.

GG Dudley and Maggie. 

Poor Grandma thought Maggie was going to fall, which of course she did,but only cause I was trying to have Maggie demonstrate how she can take a few steps by herself.  Ooops!

 

Colin swinging on the handrails.

He hung from these handrails when he was only 10 months old, the last time we were in Canada.  Man, time sure does fly!

 

Colin and GG Dudley lifting some weights!

 

A quick picture of me and the kids with GG Dudley.  Grandpa had already headed off for a nap, so we'll have to get some pictures of him another lunch visit.

 

Once again, we have another picture of Colin (when he was 10 months old) in GG Dudley's apartment, almost just like this, standing at the coffee table.

What a cheesy grin!

The next day we headed to White Rock beach with a family friend and their grandchildren, Nathan and Kyle.  Nathan is almost 4, and Kyle is only 5 days older than Maggie.

Colin had so much fun playing with Nathan.  They played at the Dus & Len's house, kicking around and chasing balls in the front yard.

We went to the beach after the little kids got up from their morning nap.  We even packed a lunch for a picnic.

As expeted, Colin just loved it there.  And, also as expected, Maggie was not a fan of the sand.  She just doesn't like the feel of getting messy or something (kindof like her birthday cake, right?!)

 

Colin and Nathan playing in the sand. 

Colin was in heaven, cause he just loves sand and water.  We  didn't bring bathing suits cause it was pretty chilly, but that didn't stop Colin from splashing around!

 

Hello everyone, I'm standing in the Pacific Ocean!

 

Waaaaaaa!  Mom is making me stand in the Pacific Ocean! :)

 

A family photo, with a sad Colin cause he didn't want to quit playing...

 

Kyle and Maggie.  Dus has already decided they will get married someday. 
We'll see...who knows?!

 

Getting a little more comfortable, walking around with Daddy.

We lost the pants at this point, they were a mess!

 

Building a sand castle...

 

Wait a minute...this is kindof fun!

 

Running in the water!

 

Eating our picnic lunch.

Sandwiches, pasta, grapes, cantelope, peas, chips, veggies, etc.

 

Colin and Nathan, roaring like a bear on the bear statue.

Uncle Len with Mags.

She was so tired by the end of the afternoon.  Actually, both kids were. 
There's just something about fresh air that wears everyone out.

Fun times so far!