Four Months Old!

This will be the last time I blog for a while as we are heading to Ireland today. Olivia turns 4 months tomorrow so I thought I'd give a little update. She weighs 12lbs 10 oz. and is 24.5". In other words she is growing nicely. She's a happy little girl and is quite nosey. She has worn the hair off the back of her head from looking around and loves to interact with people. She rolls from front to back easily now and has almost made it from back to front. She is drooling and chews on her fingers quite a bit. I wonder if she'll be different from the othe two and get her teeth early, like her Dad. Rather than that she's just cute and cuddly!


Yesterday the kids and I went to to Traverno Gardens to check them out, something to do. Not too far from here it is an estate with beautiful gardens, a cool park and a nature trail.... and a very cool "tea room". The kids enjoyed the park, peacock, and fountains and I enjoyed the scenerey. All in all, fun for everyone. Too bad Daddy had to work!
Here are a couple pics of the babe and some of our adventure (as Lochlan called it).

L

It's Official!

My sister phoned last night with exciting news, she's engaged! Her boyfriend Paul proposed last night. Paul is a great guy and we are all very excited. Now to just find out what sunny vacation we get to take next year. Glenda for as long as I can remember has wanted a wedding in a sunny location near the beach, so we can't wait. It's looks around March next year we'll be getting a tan, or in my case a burn! Congratulations guys!

Happy Easter

On Wednesday Lochlan participated in the "Bonnet Parade" at preschool. It's an English tradition where the children make Easter Bonnets (hats)- at home I might add - and then wear them in a parade to Easter music (if there is such a thing). It was really cute and Lochlan really enjoyed it, which surprised me a bit because he's not always into that stuff. The parents were invited to watch and they had sweets,tea and coffee and a raffle afterwards.

We had a nice Easter weekend including lots of chocolate, eggs, church, shopping and friends. The weather wasn't fantastic this weekend so we spent a lot of time indoors, hence the shopping on Sat. We had our friends Fran and John and their new baby Imogen for Easter dinner and spent quite a bit of time organizing our trip to Ireland as we leave Thurs. The kids enjoyed looking for their Easter baskets and eggs that the Easter bunny hid and did well in church considering it was a long service.

Here are some pictures of the Bonnet Parade and of Easter Weekend. Cheers! L

Flambards

Lazy Sunday, tried hard to get out of the house before 11:00 and almost succeeded... we finally went to Flambard's amusement park, which is basically across the road. A good place for the kids... although I think Lochlan is better forklift driver than me!!!

Hope this finds you all well... M

The Grass is Greener...

Howdy all...

I am not one to make fun (yeah right..!) or "take the mick" as they say here, but it has come to my attention that Ottawa (our last home of 6 years) has had a record snowfall of 4 meters! I mowed the lawn two weeks ago. :) Truth be told, I do miss the snow because winter is a season that does not really exist here. That might sound good, but trust me, snow can really brighten things up where the rain can be pretty dreary at times. We had a crazy storm here on Monday... winds around 80 Mph... I took a look at the ocean and it was so rough (I figure at least 30 ft waves) that it was literally making me nauseous.

I joined the surf club and for 20 GBP and got a surfboard and wetsuit for the year... luckily I have a neighbour who surfs a lot and should prevent my certain death (little known but true fact is the last two times I went surfing I had to be rescued, and the very last time the guy who first attempted to rescue me also had to be rescued by a guy who swam out to us with a rope tied to his car on the beach...)

So, we are enjoying the Brit weather and I bought some doo-hickey that mounts on the back of my bike so Lochlan can get dragged along with me. Pictures of that, although for some reason in those photos I look like I weight 200 pounds...



The most exciting thing for us is our upcoming trip to Ireland. On March 29th we will be driving over to the "other island". Our goal is to get around both the south and north, but as I found out here in Cornwall it can take 2 hours to drive 60 miles so we will do our best. Hopefully when we get near Dublin we will be able to scoot off to Navan which is where Theresa Gunther (family friend) grew up. For me, as long as I get to the Guiness Brewery and Bushmills Irish Whiskey Plants I will be happy...

To any of you thinking of visiting us out here... I was checking out the internet recently and it was cheaper to fly to London from Ottawa that it was to fly to Saskatoon... come on out and you will be well looked after!!!

I hope this finds you all well. We have been out of Canada for almost 8 months now, and we do miss all of you very much.

Mark

P.S. Our KD stock is getting critically low. If anyone wants to mail some out here, let me know and I will send you a cheque!!!

P.S.S. Clay and Ev... I will need to put in my duty free order soon for it to arrive for your trip out here... if you have any special requests (other than Crown obviously) let me know so I can set it up.

Olivia's Baptism

Our friends, John and Fran, just dropped off a CD with pictures from the baptism along with a lovely photo album. Very nice of them seeing as they just had their own child, their first, 3 weeks ago. She's changed so much already! She rolled over for the first time last week. So here are a few more pics of her day.
L

Happy Mothering Sunday (AKA Mother's Day)

Today was Mother's Day in the U.K. A bit earlier than Canada (strangely Father's Day is on the same day). A nice day all in all... we went down to the wardroom for Sunday Carvery (roast beef and roast pork), and they had an inflatable bouncy castle set up for the kids to play with. Needless to say both are sleeping soundly right now. We had tea (supper) at Matt and Rhonda's place, and enjoyed a mellow evening. A nice change from yesterday where I attempted to hang 2 blinds. Three hours seemed enough, but I was proven very, very wrong. Alledgedly, the blinds could be "cut to size". This was I guess technically true because anyone with a plasma cutter in their garage would have handled the task handily. This mixed with the instructions (yes I do look at the instructions, ever since the "Ikea Incident") that were obviously written by someone who's english was their 4th language at best, and also I might add applicable to a different style of blind made the activity drag on a bit longer than it should have. I have also learned that "blackout blind" actually means "moderately but still dicernibly light-reducing blind". All good fun! Anyways, happy Mother's day to all the moms out there! M