I knew it was too good to be true.

As I was coming home from picking Nick up from preschool yesterday I was thinking how nice it was that the last patch of snow in our front yard (you know, the snow from the snowstorms from LAST YEAR) just melted. We just had a few really nice sunny (but chilly) days, and I thought that we had all the white crap behind us.

Well mother nature had other ideas. Big fat huge fluffy flakes fell yesterday afternoon, well into the night. My poor poor flowers. What makes this even harder is that we are supposed to be in New Zealand right now, sunning our butts on a beach, and attending the wedding of a very close family friend. Not too sure how Renee would have made out on a 15 hour flight though!

A little snippit from each of them.

Ethan walks in the door from school and the smell of home baking just about knocks him over. He runs into the kitchen, and asked what I had baked.

"Banana bread" I told him.

Ethan: "Is it the healthy stuff?"

Me: "Yes"

Ethan: "It smells awesome, but if it is healthy, I don't want any."

(he did finish all his broccoli at dinner though)

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I was picking Nicholas up at preschool the other day and he saw a sign with a tow truck towing a car on it.

Nick: "Mom, what does that sign mean?"

Me: "If someone parks there for more than 10 minutes, the tow truck will come and tow them away."

Nick: "Do they tow you away to a better parking spot?"

Me: "No, they tow you to a special parking lot far away and then you give them money to get your car back."

Nick: "I want to be a tow truck driver when I am a big boy!"

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Renee was chomping on a piece of celery when she bit her tongue. She screamed, but was upset at the fact that her mouth was still full pulverized celery. So I put my hand under her mouth and told her to "spit it out". And she did. All over my face, all over my shirt, and all over my pants. I wonder where she learned that from.

My Flowers

Not your typical shot, but here is are a couple of the flowers from the bunch I got from Ken recently. The one below reminds me of a sea anemone. I almost expect Nemo to be coming out at any minute...

My present to myself

necklace, originally uploaded by sassyanna.

A few months ago while cruising through my friend Erin's blog, I came across a post she did about a woman on ETSY that makes personalized necklaces. Even though I am not much of a jewelery person, I fell in love with the idea of this and went ahead and had one made for myself. I got it a few months ago, but in my usual lazy posting style, just haven't mentioned it yet.

The ETSY site (birthdesigns) is closed for awhile - she is busy having baby number four and I guess the necklace making has been put to the back burner for a bit. If you want to have a look at her other stuff though, she does have a webpage here. This particular necklace is the mother's circle, front toggle version. My photo doesn't do it much justice.

Super(toilet)Bowl Weekend

I was in the other room when I heard a mad dash, a skidding stop, and a sound of a tidal wave hitting the lino in the kitchen. I ran across the house to find Nicholas dazed and a bit confused, and most of the kitchen covered in vomit. The first thing out of his mouth was:

"mommy, aren't you so proud of me for throwing up in the kitchen and not on the carpet?". Indeed I am.

We had a discussion a few months ago about good places to throw up, and not so good places. Toilet bowl? Best place. Kitchen floor? Next best place. Carpet? Terrible place. So my sweet wee middle child, while snuggled deep in the couch under a few blankets had the wherewithal to dash about 20 feet to spray my kitchen with vomit. He hit almost every surface (I am sure that had something to do with something I should be remembering from Physics 12), but at least they were non-porous, non-carpeted surfaces.

I didn't get off scott free though. About 15 minutes later I started. Thankfully I made it to the bathroom. That night was hell (compounded by the fact Ken was out with a few friends and had no idea of the mayhem he was missing out on at home).

The next day Ken spent the day looking after a sick wife and a sick kid. The two non-sick kids thought they had hit the jackpot because the tv was on ALL DAY. On Treehouse. Ken also found the time to install a brand new toilet in our bathroom. And that night, he spend the better part of the evening christening it. With puke.

So, what were you doing on January 20th?

When my kids are older, and they ask me what I was doing on Obama's inaguaration day, I can tell them that I had a pretty amazing day. Highlights:

Went to the Canada passport office to get passports for the youngest two. Fully prepared to be there all morning waiting to get them processed. I was in and out of there in half an hour. Sweet.

Spent the next couple of hours in a coffee shop reading a book. Drinking far too much coffee. No kids. Heaven.

Since I was in downtown Vancouver (and it was a beautiful day) I decided to go to the only store that sells shoes big enough to fit me. I found a pair. ON SALE.

Met Ken for lunch. We had sushi. It was awesome.

Drove home - not alot of traffic.

Booked our trip that we are going on with the kids in April. Got a great deal through a great agent who gave us a few extra perks. The kids will love it - they don't know about it yet.

So that was the goings on on the big day in these parts. I would have LOVED to be a part of the crowd in DC, but through an online friend who told me about this link (thanks Jeannie!) I could have a look at what I was missing out on. It is amazing, and a bit scary all at the same time. Just imagine being about a mile back from the action and still being able to see someone up close and clearly online. The guy who captured the shot did it as follows (this is copied from his web page):

I made a panoramic image showing the nearly two million people who watched President Obama’s inaugural address. To do so, I clamped a Gigapan Imager to the railing on the north media platform about six feet from my photo position. The Gigapan is a robotic camera mount that allows me to take multiple images and stitch them together, creating a massive image file.

My final photo is made up of 220 Canon G10 images and the file is 59,783 X 24,658 pixels or 1,474 megapixels. It took more than six and a half hours for the Gigapan software to put together all of the images on my Macbook Pro and the completed TIF file is almost 2 gigabytes.


So here is the web page where you can find this amazing photo - enjoy!

If you have some time to spare

Carrot Time
Originally uploaded by Back in the Pack

Check out this flickr site, especially her videos. I came across these as I was reading one of my favourite bloggers, Dooce.

The kids have been entertained, and now the "when are we going to get a dog" whining has started. I am so tempted to go to Youtube and download video of someone picking up dog crap (I am sure it won't be too hard to find). Maybe I should forward said dog crap video to my neigbour, who still doesn't get it.

Chocolate and sushi - what a combo.

So the amazing Mel has done it again - here is the birthday cake she did for me this year. All edible and all delicious. I just might have to eat a piece of sushi with my coffee in the morning.

So if the car makers can get it, why not the porn stars?

At first I thought this was a joke - but apparently not. As Nicholas would say "You have GOT to be kidding me".

All that white crap has to go somewhere.

So now we wait for the big melt.

We had snow, then ice, then the ice melted with that wee bit of sun we got a few days ago. Then more snow. Now rain.

So all the snow on the roof is slowly starting to slide off (this chunk hasn't fallen yet)

Last night with a big BANG a huge chunk came off the roof and it broke our outdoor metal table. I didn't like the table much, but I sure am glad that there was no-one standng near it when it happened.

The REAL cost of a Wii.

So Ken and I were chatting about getting a Wii (it sure would have come in handy while I was housebound and snowed in during 10 days over school holidays!). I am hesitant because I don't want to be playing video games all day. I am not too worried about the kids - as long as they get to play a bit every day they will be happy. Ken tells me that Wii fit will help me get into shape, and there is stuff on there that we both could do to improve our health...

As we were discussing the pros and cons (Ken is very pro, I am not quite there yet), Ken innocently says to me

"Anna, because the TV is so old, we'll need to get a new one so the Wii will work".

Hmm...anything for a new huge flat screen that we don't need (at least until the current old box craps out). And then he says

"If we spend all that money on a new TV, we'll have to get a stereo system as well".

Uh huh.

"And if we have HDTV, then we really should subscribe to HDTV through the cable company so we get full value".

"Oh, and what do you think about Blu Ray"?

So this new Wii, along with a Wii fit is really going to cost us almost $2000. Don't think we'll be getting a new Wii anytime soon.

PhotoFunia Fun

Thanks to the wonderful Erin for the link to this site!

One day I will stop blogging about all the snow...

Li in the backyard
Originally uploaded by sassyanna

Here is a video of my brother's dog who was hanging with us for a couple of days. Lionel just LOVES snowballs, but hasn't quite figured out how to retrieve them in one piece.

Oh, and pardon Ken's ass at the end - he wasn't too impressed either, and will be more unimpressed that this video is online.

On a side note - I am trying to get a nice picture of our Christmas tree and would really like to have the kids in their pj's in the photo as well. Ethan refuses because he doesn't want the world to see him in his jammies. Oh it is not like the 70's when all our pj's pics were just put in an album!

December 24th is not Christmas Eve in our house...

It is my mom's birthday. And this year, the amazing cake lady "M" did a take on my mom's New Zealand heritage with a bit of a Canadian twist. I have talked about her previous creations here.

This little kiwi bird is all decked out in Canada gear, and knitting up a storm. Oh, and the cake tasted fantastic too.

This is what we woke up to this morning.

Ah...lots of the white stuff. The stuff that makes it impossible to get up to our house without four-wheel-drive. The stuff that keeps you housebound for a bit. I don't think I have got out of my pj's for a couple of days now. If I don't have to go anywhere I love the stuff!

Nicholas-ism (Part two).

Tonight I was sitting on the couch with Renee just having a cuddle. Our coffee table is the same height as the couch, and just far enough away that if I am sitting with my legs straight out my feet rest at the edge of the table. The kids of course think this is an open invitation to stand on my legs, (much like a gymnastics beam), swing over them, crawl under them, you get the idea.

So along comes Nick, and he proceeds to lie on top of my legs, and wrap his arms around my thighs, his legs around my calves, and then hangs himself upside down.

"Mom, I am going to just hang here like a sloth"

About five minutes later he tells me:

"Mom, it is such hard work being a sloth, isn't it?"

Oh, what I wouldn't give to have to do that kind of hard work for about half an hour....

Nicholas "ism"

"Mommy, I want to go and play in the snow!"

"Ok honey, make sure that you get all your gear and I'll help you put it on"

(a few minutes later....)

"Mom, I can't find my fuvaglova"

"Your what???"

"My fuv-a-glova" (he actually said it to me as though I was deaf and didn't speak english).

"Nicholas, I have no idea what you are talking about".

"MY FUV-A-GLOV-A" (this is a four year old's way of explaining what he is talking about - just say it louder).

"Tell me what a fuvaglova is Nick".

"The thing that I put on my head and over my ears that keeps me toasty warm"

"OH....your Balaclava..."

A reminder to those in power in the Canadian Government...

Play nice in the sandbox.

AND Re-read this below, by Robert Fulghum.

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

These are the things I learned:
Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

Soy beans and Ice cream....that's why I didn't blog.

So the whole idea of the month of November in blog land is to post every day. And I did. Until the 24th. I was quite proud of myself, and I really wanted to keep going and not miss any days, but alas, the internets are not as accessible in Vegas as the slot machines (unless you are willing to pay $1.00 per minute - and now that I think about that, it is a relative bargain compared to the slots).

Ken and I had a little get away. No kids. No cold. And now, no money. But it was worth it (well, most of it - if you are in Vegas and are remotely inclined to see Criss Angel's "Believe" - run, don't walk away. Worst show EVER. Hell, you could even see people disappearing through the trap doors in the stage. Two hours of my life I will never get back).

We had cheap flights there and back. We stayed in a really nice hotel at a really cheap rate. It was heaven to nap in the afternoon. Our kids didn't miss us in the least (the grandparents were spoiling them rotten while we were away). It was nice to sit in a restaurant and not have to cut up someone else's food or tell the younger two to stop fighting. I did miss them, but it was a nice break.

We had a really nice dinner one night at a sushi place. Now we are totally spoiled here in Vancouver - cheap sushi and great prices. When we go out for sushi here I love just gorging myself on the good stuff. So for that reason, I had never tried edamame.



Why munch on soybeans when you can eat raw fish??? At this restaruant we went for the set menu and the edamame was one of the starters. OMG it was so good. I can't believe I have been passing it up all these years.

When we had worked ourselves through the other courses, we got to dessert. They brought out these small, colourful disks (I called them coloured hockey pucks eh).



They are called Mochi, and they were fantastic. I think we can get them up here at our local asian grocery store, however after my shopping experience in Vegas (I swear they have changed all the sizes of pants down there because my usual size doesn't fit) I should really stay away from the stuff!

Oh the minds of six year olds...

Tonight Ethan was asking me about one of his friends at school. His friend has dark skin, and her mom is very fair. It is obvious that she is adopted, and tonight Ethan asked me why his friend's skin colour was so different from her mom's. It totally caught me off guard - and I really stumbled to explain the whole concept of adoption (it doesn't help that I have no idea about the situation behind their adoption). How do you explain to a six year old that a mom couldn't care for her baby, whatever the reason may be, and therefore gave it up? Now that I am a mom I can appreciate what a selfless act it is, and can't imagine ever having to make that decision.

To be perfectly honest, the sex talk was MUCH easier. I think Ethan really had trouble wrapping his head around the concept of someone giving away their baby. He even referred to the birth mother as the "real mom". I think I might just have to have a talk with the girl's mom about this whole situation - maybe she could give me some good ideas.