Big Sister Verity

I can't get over how special the relationship between Verity and Elijah is. She loves that little guy so immensely it makes me teary eyed. She never loses her patience and never gets sick of him. She goes to him when he first wakes up to say Good Morning. She is always greeted with an adoring smile. He just loves her. She comes home from school and her first question is "Where is Eli?" She plays with him throughout the day. She is a in-tune with him as I am. She is certainly his second mother. They truly have a magical relationship. She feeds him, she holds him when he cries, she makes him giggle. She was actually the first one to do that. She changes his diapers (not the poopy ones). And plays games with him. It is an amazing thing to see, this special bond the two of them have. I cannot wait to see how it grows. I love you Verity.

Seb's Kindergarten Christmas Party

So I drug Eli to Seb's Christmas party this morning. We made teddy bear pastries. All I can say is WOW!! 16 boys in that class is intense! They are all little leaders too. I have to give kudos to the teachers. It was also a pyjama party. Made sure Seb wasn't wearing his rear end hanging out pyjamas. He also had to bring his biggest teddy bear. Kids get so excited when Mommy or Daddy come to school with them. Verity even poked her head in to see Eli. It is so amazing how much she loves that little boy. It was a fun day...

Eli's Tooth and Other Things

Elijah has a tooth. It's the tooth that when facing him is on the bottom and on the right. I know it seems silly but those darn baby books want all the deets. He is sitting now.... Mostly. He topples over into a face first belly flop often requiring the need for a pillow fence. He is a quiet little guy. Doesn't say to much. Strange... It's like he doesn't know he's a Fex. He does wake up at the crack of dawn so he has that figured out early. He's sleeping from 7:00 pm to 5:00 am. It's hit or miss whether I can get him back down after that... Today was success. He went back to sleep until 7:00!! Yahoo! He's quite roly poly. Cutest leg rolls and chubby cheeks. I have to squeeze him into some fashion jeans. He's scooching backwards now... Is that a term. He use his hands to push himself backwards while on his tummy. It is actually silly because he continually pushes himself away from the toys I have put in front of him. Still bald with a little whiff of hair out in front!

My Crazy Child Sebastian

I am sitting here listening to my 5 month old Eli yell (not cry) at me to just look at him. He is in the need interaction at all times phase. Love hate thing I think. Today though is not about Eli as much as it is about Sebastian. He is one dense crazy little dude. I feel like I am yelling at him all the time because he suffers from the in one ear out the other syndrome. I have resorted to taking every possible thing away from him. Toys, TV, iPad, Dino, and friends... Still I struggle. Verity was easy because she had a currency. It was the end of the world to lose an item. Well with Seb.... he really could care less. As I am packing away his toys he makes a point of helping and reminding me of where other toys are that aren't in the immediate area. "Mom don't forget to take away my hot wheels toys that are in the bath tub. I think the garbage man will really like those..." Seriously!! I was driving down the freeway with him the other day and he is reaching over dangerously trying to shove Eli's soother in his mouth. I say, "Sebastian honey, don't do that because it is dangerous. It's ok for Eli to cry." Seb, "Mom... It's too late. I'm doing it because Eli is irritating me." Couldn't believe it. Made me giggle. I have turned into the Mom that has the child 10 ft behind her while walking through the grocery store because he won't keep up. I hated parents like that when I was kidless. He is just so bloody slow and distracted by every little thing. I love that he is so inquisitive but he is impossible!! We were leaving Superstore yesterday and he asked me if it cost $1000 bucks. I said no not quite and told him it was about $300. He was like... " Oh that's cheap!" I said "No Seb that is still quite a bit of money." Very matter of factly Sebastian tells me: "Mom you should shop at Wal-Mart because it's WAAAAAYYYYY cheaper there. The TV said so" All the customers in Superstore got a good chuckle out of that one. Every day is a new adventure with him. I love him to pieces!

Momar Cumberland 2011

One crazy day about 8 months ago, a couple friends, Boris and Elise, decided it would be super fun to do this race in the mountains, down on the island. It was called Momar, and of no the 30 km Sport course wouldn't do... we definitely had to do the 50 km Enduro course.

The race included kayaking (never done before), running (right up my alley), and mountain biking (never mountain biked in the mountains). Oh yeah I was ready.

Here We Go...

I was so nervous. It was awesome as I haven't been nervous like that in a long time. We drove down to drop our bikes off at the bike drop and there were sooooo many bikes (remember this sentence). After some test rides we were off to the race start at Comox Lake.

The Kayak was the first leg. I was so jealous cause the kayak Boris and Elise got was named the Libra XT and it was neon pink. It was definitely a faster kayak than ours... Their exceptional kayaking skills had nothing to do with it, it was all about the libra...

We got our map about 45 minutes before the race and it looked not to bad.... maybe...

"OK we can do this no problem" we thought.

With 10 minutes to go we hopped into our kayaks and headed out to the start line on the lake. I smacked one of the sponsored team players in the head with my paddle by accident on the way out. I joked about it being to help my competitive advantage... He didn't find it very funny.

The horn went and we were off. For the first 5 km I felt like a snake on the water. Our 5 km was more like 7 km with Justin's stellar steering ability. It's easy to lay blame about why you are sucking until one of race marshal's at the first buoy yelled at me to flip my paddle around because it was upside down... That was embarrassing. I'm sure Justin was gloating in the back but he was nice enough to keep his mouth shut about it.

We made some ground after the paddle correction and felt like a rocket on the water... Again, we were crushed when a fellow kayaker made a comment about how well were doing considering how brutal we looked!! He must have ruined our mojo because at that moment Elise and Boris took off. Apparently Boris wanted to beat some dude up ahead and he is VERY goal orientated. Well they might as well have been reading magazines and drinking coffee waiting for us to finally glide up on shore. 9KM and Checkpoint 1 done. Who'd a thought we could kayak 9 km!

Oh yeah, as we headed out the announcer made a point of saying "Oh you're from Edmonton?!?! You're going to get your a$$es kicked!!"

The run was now on. We switched into our running shoes and were off! We ended up following a group to some new trail created for the 1st checkpoint and it was a 2 km climb up to the summit of one of the mountains. It was a lucky shot as we got the lead on a bunch of teams with this little shortcut. We followed the Kootenay Chaos team as they were bright red and hard to lose. All I was thinking while we climbed was oh my, what the cuss have we got ourselves into. We got to the top and Wuhoo!! CheckPoint 2!! On we continued. We were doing awesome!

Again, more up... and down... and up... and lots of single track trail... but again luck was on our side. We found CheckPoint 3 no problem. Still following the wonderful Kootenay Chaos team.

We were on a role! We jumped out onto a gravel road and followed it to a T where we went left.. That is what the map said... That is what the map said... Well the road ended. It was supposed to be a long road and it just ended. All we saw was a huge wide open pit of old fallen lumber. We had two choices. Run back, or push through and hopefully the road picked up further down. The race instructions did say there would be bushwhacking involved. IN WE WENT.... Along with many many other teams. That is when the race took a turn for the worst.

Well it was pretty exciting at first. It was pretty thick bush but there were lots of teams in the there to enjoy the bushwhacking experience with. There was no road, no trail, nothing that resembled anything civilized. By the time we realized that we were hopelessly lost there was no turning back. And well all those teams that went in were no where to be found. Out came the trustee compasses. Thank God we "You Tubed" How to Read a Compass Without a Map. We were so incredibly lost. We were stuck in the bushes for 3 crazy hours!! 3 Hours!! It was getting a bit desperate. I'm not going to lie. I was starting to panic a little, wondering how warm those emergency blankets would truly be late at night. The bush was so thick, all our shins were bleeding from plodding through. I started randomly plowing though bush because I wanted out SO BAD!! Elise said a prayer thank goodness because not seconds later we heard voices from heaven...

"Hello!!" said too friendly voices calling for help. (Thank you so much Lynn and Kathy!!)

It was another team just as lost as we were. And amazingly it was a local team who knew the trails in Cumberland like the back of their hands... you must be asking how they were as hopelessly lost as we were. Well we weren't on trails. And ultimately they made a mistake on the map, which led to all of us to get lost... And just as a shout out, this team won Momar Burnaby too, so they were the best help we could have asked for.

With some investigation, and emergency compassing, we quickly realized we were not at all where we thought we were. We were at least 2 km off the course. We were barely on the map! Well we headed north finally and after a tense 3 hours WE WERE OUT!! I can say with certainty I have never been so happy to see a trail. I wooped with joy and almost kissed the dirt. And with amazing luck we popped out on the trail not even 30 metres from the trail head to CheckPoint 4.

Now this is where running into our new found friends was great luck. Now that we were on the trails, they knew exactly where to go. We ran through the trails and got CheckPoint 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9. (They eliminated 8 because surprisingly, all the teams were behind due to getting lost). I managed an epic wipe out during this stage. I accomplished the face plant, feet over head, dirt eating wipe out of epic proportions. So bad that no one had the balls to even laugh at me. The only thing hurt was my pride thankfully and off we continued.

We finally made it to the bike check with seconds to spare. There were no longer lots of bikes, there were 2 bikes besides ours... That might help gain an appreciation for how long we were lost. We spent 22 km in the BC bush and trails.

We hopped on our bikes and raced to CheckPoint 11 hoping to make it before the cut-off time. We so badly did not want to miss any checkpoints. Of course it was all up hill. Of course the the checkpoint was up, up, up. Of course Justin decided to take a shortcut and head up a trail as opposed to continuing on the log road. About 5 minutes into the climb, walking my bike up, I wanted to kill him. It was so steep I could barely get my bike up. We were all dripping sweat and cursing under our breaths, except of course Boris, who's positive encouragement was spewing out to keep us all going. I wanted to throttle him... The trail was so ridiculous that even the checkpoint volunteers were laughing at us for trekking our bikes up it. They commented on the interesting choice we made to get there.

We unfortunately didn't make it and were forced to skip CheckPoint 12. It was disappointing but we didn't have time to pout because we needed to make it to 13 before we got cut-off again. The mountain biking was amazing. It was everything Justin and Elise dreamed of. I was crapping my pants. There were crazy bridges, huge logs, jumps, and we even rode through a hollowed out log. It was awesome. The only person who didn't wipe out was Justin. I wiped out over a hundred times I swear. I need to share a few epic wipe outs before I continue on.

3rd place - Of course me. I went to hop up on my bike after falling down, forgot to take my hands off the brakes and toppled over face first into the bush. That takes the super embarrassing wipe out award. Keep in mind we were all super exhausted by this point.

2nd place - I was trying to pedal through a tree, literally. and got stuck coming to an abrupt stop. I'm not sure what the heck Boris was doing but he came in from behind screaming like a school girl, rear ended me and both of us toppled over in a heap of bike medal.

1st place - Elise had a near death experience, I must say. There was this crazy descent, and I honestly think Elise must be missing some brain cells because I said to her before she attempted it,

"Please don't die...."

She starts down the huge descent and makes it about halfway down with no problems. Then all of a sudden the rear tire starts lifting and Elise, like a cheetah jumps over the front end of her handle bars lands on her feet and then proceeds to turn around preventing her bike from rolling down the hill. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. She deserves some special award for that recovery I think. I am forever in awe.

We made it to Checkpoint 13, 14, 15, and got to 16. Again, they told us we had to skip 17 and 18. By this time we were doing this on principle. We were completing this bloody race if it killed us. We raced our bikes to 17 and managed to get it. We had to skip 18 because we had 20 minutes to finish and needed to do the orienteering stage.

Orienteering Stage Details:

Got to orienteering start, received the map, looked at eachother, said Fu@k it, and crossed the finish line with 17 minutes left to spare. We had done more than our share of unplanned orienteering for the day.

We had no idea how we placed or whether we had even completed properly but we had 7 hours and 42 minutes of solid, crazy, BC adventure including a lifetime of memories and fun I will never forget.

P.S WE GOT 3RD PLACE!! Take that "We're going to get our a$$es kicked!" We rocked it.

Thanks Elise, Boris, and of course my amazing husband Justin for an amazing experience!

Verity's Adventures in Grade 1

Grade One is three months in and Verity is in full swing. She has had many adventures in her exciting new class. I thought I might share a few hair greying moments.

She has already been a visitor to the office... I picked her up from school that day and not two steps outside she looks up at me and says. "Mom, I have to tell you something and it's very bad..." I looked at her and she said "I got sent to the Principal's office Mommy, DON'T BE MAD!"

Apparently there is a 4 strikes rule in her classroom and she felt the need to test it. In reality there was no big offense, just an accumulation of little ones. Lost her toys for a week though.

We've had tp make several trips back to the school for forgotten coats, mitts, hats, shoes... The list goes on.

I had a letter from the teacher telling me this little story.

Verity has been asking the teachers during recess to go to the bathroom. Once inside Verity decides to spend the rest of the recess in there. She is disrespecting the teachers by not returning outside, having them worry about what happened to her. Please discuss with her the subject of respecting authority.

Well when I asked Verity about this I found it hard to be mad at my crafty little 6 year old. "Well Mom, it is really cold outside, and my hands were freezing. I go inside to stay warm. Why can't I do that?"

As much as I can appreciate that we took her bathroom privileges away at recess and before school. Damn parenting.

There was also the bus incident. Stacey phoned me one day asking me if Verity was on the bus. I was worried because the bus was quite late and Stacey wanted to verify that she was on the bus that day. It turns out, the bus driver, Shelley, had to stop several times because Verity wouldn't listen or stay in her seat. My god, does it end. Lost her TV privileges for that one.

And most recently was yet another note from her teacher:

Verity only received 2/5 on her latest spelling test because she looked at her agenda to spell the first 2 words.

Of course Verity's response to that one was "Mom, I didn't know we were allowed to peak..."

After a deatly look in her direction I got "What if I forgot that she said we couldn't look?" Well, we are running out of things to take away.

On the bright side, Verity is reading in front of some fellow students and parents in the library at lunch today. When I reminded her this morning, she started to cry...

"Mom I can't read very well. I am really nervous." Tears rolling her down her face.

I asked her how she was picked for this task because only 2 Grade One students were chosen, "The teacher asked us and I put up my hand." I just didn't know what she was asking because she said it in french." Oh lordy, that's my girl, act first, think later.

I love that girl with all my heart because it's this adventure that keeps me young. Let's see what the next three months brings.

Seba Beach Regatta 2010

What a whirlwind weekend the Regatta was this year, and a whole whack of fun!!

We had the luxury of starting our holiday the Tuesday before the Regatta and were good and toxic before the weekend even started. Friday was the start of the tumultuous weekend when the Grady family arrived smack dab in the middle of the Family Dance. We were a bit late attending as we were trapped in the trailer during the hail storm of 2010. I spent the rest of the weekend peeing and sleeping in the rain as the roof vents in our trailer got destroyed. A couple fence posts got mangled as they toppled over and Justin's poor toes suffered frost bite as he tried to minimize the damage. Wuwee what a start!!!

Tab and I woke up Saturday morning with our game faces on. It was a well fought battle but I got skunked in the "Red Ribbon" category. Tab schooled me again in the sprint but I held my own in the newly created 16-39 age category. I won 2nd place in all the other races. Tab actually got a trophy in the "Hammer and Nail" contest.... Going to be hard to top that... All the kids did awesome. The younger ones thought it would be more fun to run to Uncle Justin than the finish line, but the older ones all medalled. I really enjoyed candy overloading Tabs kids as revenge though. He He He.... The inaugural "Knotty Mile" was a gong show. The obstacle course consisted of running a 1/2 km in a full sprint sandwiched between teams twice our size. The team with legs as long as my entire body surprisingly beat us... Odd.

We had fun at the parade, Verity was in the parade this year proudly representing the library as a blue elephant. The kids had the exciting job of collecting as much candy thrown from the floats as possible. Justin once again embarrassed himself raising money for the fireworks. This time it wasn't with balloons, it was with a pillow, and big booties. Lucas and Ayla thought he was pretty funny looking.

The kids were lucky Saturday night as Aunty Heather fed them an entire bag of marshmallows and insisted they all sleep over in her tent. What a deal!!! They farted around and played until dark. It was entertaining for awhile but Sebastian was the first casualty moving to the trailer a couple hours in. Surprisingly the rest slept through the night and Justin and I had a nice quiet evening in the trailer.

We attended the water races on Sunday, Grandma Judy brought along as our cheering section. The inner tube races were fun and I taught Allison a lesson being that she insisted I join in the humiliation by wrapping each stumpy leg of mine around an inner tube and run through thigh deep water.... She didn't make it very far before I dunked the poor girl... She got even.

Poor Justin spent Sunday erecting a fence with Dad, Brent and Jamie. Lets just say it looks awesome and even though we can still hear the highway, we can't really see it. My poor native friend can't sit on the other side of the highway and partake in our daily life anymore unfortunately, but every action has a consequence...

I was a big let down Monday on many levels. I choked and burned in the volleyball tournament, tennis was a joke, and I wiped out my son on the back of my bike all in one day. We'll leave Monday at that. I do have to give Verity a big thank you for retrieving the tennis balls on the other side of the 15 ft tennis court fence. That should give you an idea of my skill level. We left that evening therefore wrapping up a eventful and exciting Regatta 2010 weekend.