Kootenays

Anna and I have been up to the Kootenays for a few days to visit with old friends. Miranda, Kim and I met at university some 17/18 years ago (yikes! is it that long ago already?), and we've since spread out across the province. We try to meet up when we can, and though it's not nearly often enough, it's always so nice when we manage to make it happen.


Over the years our get-togethers have changed from three single birds with few responsibilities and fewer limits on where and when we can meet, to three moms and wives whose get-togethers are now centred around the kids with little bits of conversation had here and there, but much pleasure in each others company just the same.



Miranda lives in Nelson and Kim in Salmon Arm, and for this trip Anna and I flew up to Nelson and spent a night there with Miranda and Elias, and then headed up to New Denver to stay at Dome Quixote, with Kim and Lucas joining us. Lucas broke his arm within the first couple of hours, but that barely put a damper in his adventurous spirit, and we had a good time exploring the town, beaches and creek-side trails for a couple of days.






We had a great great time, but we were so happy to see Patrik at the airport when we got home. Anna's face lit up like a Christmas tree when she saw him :)

Grattis Malin!

Weekend in Nanaimo

Aaaahhhh...what a nice weekend. We headed over to Nanaimo on Friday after Patrik got off of work and spent a couple of days there with mom and dad and Josefin, Tim and Isabelle. Gorgeous walk out to Jack Point, lunch at Bocca, fika at James' (yummy banana bread!), a garden raid, and much more. And, a forced rest for Patrik (although he squeezed in a couple of hours of work on the ferry). Good times...

For Mormor

Another great day with Isabelle and Josefin... After a cozy morning at home with the girls, we headed off to the library for story time for the girls, and then took a walk over to Commercial Drive for lunch at Little Nest and some window shopping. Although Anna and I dropped them off at the ferry this afternoon, we'll be seeing them in a couple of days because we're all heading over to Nanaimo tomorrow.



And, especially for mormor, the girls wore their matching Easter dresses this morning. Cute!

A little bit of cousin love...

Isabelle is over visiting Anna for a few days, and she brought her mom with her too. Anna is such a sensitive little soul, so it took her a little while to get used to Isabelle's slightly more... um... boisterous nature. Every time Isabelle squealed, Anna cried, and this was a pattern that repeated itself over and over and over again until Anna finally got used to it. After that, they became the best of friends.

This is Anna post-cry after an Izzy-squeal...


They've shared the back seat of the car...


and here you can see that Isabelle decided that she wanted to "share" Anna's soother. Anna asked for it back pretty much right away.


We went to the park today and enjoyed the sunshine, and there they shared a swing.

With all that sharing, I think that they're both pretty happy to be sleeping in their very own beds right now, recouping for tomorrow's play.

Working Weekend

This weekend we went from having an eyesore of a chainlink fence between us and our neighbours, to having a very nice cedar fence in its place.

Patrik has been working hard, starting with some post hole digging on Friday night...


a supplies delivery on Saturday morning...


and demolition and construction on Saturday and Sunday. Patrik's friend JP helped out both days - that was a huge help and great company for Patrik too.


Anna did the final inspection and was more than satisfied.



A couple of months ago, on a weekday morning, I came downstairs to get myself breakfast. Patrik had gone to work a couple of hours earlier, and as always, he had left me a thermos of coffee to have with my breakfast. But, on that particular morning there was also a sweet little note, and folded up into that note were some surprise tickets to a Leonard Cohen concert. Well, that concert was tonight and it was fantastic (although not quite as fantastic as my husband)...

Easter dress

Anna is very happy to have a new dress that mormor knit for her and sent in time for Easter. Too cute! Thanks mom!

Easter Weekend

It's been a mixed bag of weather and activities this weekend. We were originally planning to go away over the long weekend, but we realized that we have too much to do on the house to get it ready for painting, and so we stayed close to home. And, since we stayed so close to home, we let Anna drive us around when we needed to get somewhere.


But, we managed a play day up at Cypress on Friday, the one sunny day of the weekend.



We had our usual weekend breakfast in bed on Saturday and Sunday, and worked on the house.


We took some time out on Sunday afternoon, though, to take Anna for an afternoon swim at the pool. Fun to bring daddy this time!

You can hear how much fun Anna was having in this videoclip from the changerooms after the swim...

Our budding guitar hero

A picture is worth a thousand words...

For Aunty Suzi

Aunty Suzi,

I finally got through to mom today, reminding her that you had noticed that there is very little of my upstairs life on this blog. For some reason she doesn't understand all of my coos, aahss, and ooohs. Anyway, she finally got it and took a few photos of some of my favourite upstairs things today, and she's posted them below.

Please give a big hug to Toby and Lukas, and Uncle Marcus too.

Love and hugs,
Anna

Sometimes I like to sit in my bed for a while after I've woken up from a nap. It's mellow, just like me...


Here I am after a diaper change. I love lying on this table and I often stay and play and talk for a few extra minutes after mom or dad have finished changing me.


This is another chill activity that I like alot. My daddy built me this book shelf, and I like to pull things off the shelf and play with the dog that you got me for Christmas. At first I was scared of the noises it made, but that was when I was little. I like it now...


I also love riding on my mamma's hip because it always means we're off to somewhere new...

A taste of summer

It was a sunny and beautiful 20 degrees in Vancouver today. If it was possible to close your eyes on winter one day, and wake up to summer the next, then that would be what happened today.

I took Anna for her first ever pool swim today, and after crying a little in the change room because she was scared by a very loudly screaming boy, she warmed right up to it and had a great time. We went with Linda and her daughter Clara and Edwin and his daughter Anna. We're thinking of making it a weekly outing until the summer weather opens up the outdoor pools.

Afterwards, we spent some time outside enjoying that it was warm enough to wear shorts and t-shirts.

Whistler Weekend

We headed off to Whistler this weekend with our friends Carrie, Darren and 3 year old Dylan. It was a fantastic time. On Saturday we took turns skiing on Whistler Mountain, with Patrik and Darren taking the morning, and Carrie and I taking the afternoon. It had snowed on Friday, but Saturday was sunny and mild making for perfect spring skiing conditions. So much fun! Patrik threw on his tele skis to 'slow him down', but he still skiied faster and better than most everyone on the mountain. I skiied downhill, but for some reason my legs were burning and tired after my half-day skiing while Patrik were still fresh after his half-day on tele. Not fair...



Today we drove over to the Callaghan Valley and went cross country skiing. The Callaghan is where the Olympic cross country, biathalon and ski jumping events are going to be held. It is beautiful and the skiing was great.



Now we're home and I'm a little envious of Patrik because he's headed out to another hockey game tonight! Darren had an extra ticket and invited him to keep him company. Sheesh - that's 6 games this year.