Seattle's Sauve

Hawaii for a wedding and some sun

2012-01-04T23:36:00.001-08:00

Cheryl has been keeping everyone up to date the past few posts, but I’ll throw one in there to keep the ball rolling. Evan and Stephanie decided to get married in Hawaii, on the Big Island in early December, and Cheryl’s always wanted to go to Hawaii, so this was our chance. We even got a sweet deal when Cheryl signed us up for one of those timeshare presentations… Free rental car, cheaper lodging, seemed like all the stars were lining up!

So, we took a week off and off we went. Luckily Grandma Frey was able to come along with us, she was very helpful with Kayla, and I think she had some fun too :)

We were staying at the Hilton Waikaloa Village. Not walking distance to the beach, but much closer to the beach than Seattle, and we did have a pretty nice pool with waterslides and all within close proximity to our place.

And even when we had to venture further out it was ok because Kayla has a ton of fun just going new places anyhow. I think one of the highlights of her trip was riding the short train from the main Hilton entrance to the poolside…

Kayla, Cheryl, and Grandma Frey had a great time by the Hilton’s pool:

Watching the dolphins:

Kayla also had fun just playing around:

Kayla spent most mornings eating breakfast on the patio with Grandma and Mommy:

Evan and Stephanie had rented a plantation out south of Kona. I went over to their place to check it out. Evan, his brother, a few of his relatives, and I rented snorkeling gear, and took a 45 minute hike down to nearby Kealakekua Bay, where the snorkeling was fantastic. The highlight was when a pod of dolphins came within 50 feet of us, and started jumping around. Evan, his brother and I swam around to see if they’d come near us, but when we circled around they moved another 50 feet away, so it wasn’t meant to be. But it was still really fun to try :)

When we got back to the top of the hike I went to open the car, and realized I’d taken a swim with the car keys, so the key fob was broken… I opened the car with the physical key instead and then realized a new security feature whereby the car will not start if the fob is broken, and instead gives you a 12 second countdown, and then alarms… Great feature. I called up the rental car company, and for $120 and after Stephanie’s sister was nice enough to give me a ride to the airport to pick up the replacement key I was back in business. Most expensive snorkel I’ve been on as a result :)

Anyhow, here’s a pic of the view from the plantation that Evan and Stephanie had rented out:

Kayla also managed to make it to a few beaches… Here she is scoping out the surf:

We were also able to walk around a bit, find a ton of crabs, and even some sea turtles hanging out off the beach:

Grandma Frey offered to watch Kayla while Cheryl and I took a heli tour around the island with Blue Hawaii… It was Cheryl’s first time in a helicopter, and we really had the chance to see a lot of the island this way. Since we didn’t have time to drive up to the volcano this was the best way to go! We got the ‘eco tour’ helicopter which cost a bit more, but it has more window, and we were fortunate enough to get to sit right beside the pilot… No back seat flying for us :)

The wedding itself was really beautiful, I will refrain from posting many photos, but I’ll throw a few up here. They were right on the beach, and the attire was my style of wedding attire: No suits, no ties, no fancy shoes :)

The reception:

One of the funny things about our Hawaii trip is I think it’s where Kayla learnt about ‘miss-miss twees’… Somewhat odd to have your first introduction to Christmas trees in Hawaii, but I’ll take it :)

And to close it off, here’s a quick group shot by one of Kayla’s miss-miss twees:

Until next time!

July and August

2011-08-28T18:14:00.001-07:00

Cheryl’s been doing a great job posting about what’s been going on this summer. From Grandma/Grandpa Sauvé's visit, to SeaFair, to Trang’s Baby Shower, to our time hanging out in Whistler/Vancouver with Stacey/Steven, and Taleen/Stephen. So, in general I’ve not felt the need to come in and post all that much. But, Cheryl and Kayla are out of town in Ontario visiting family and friends, so I figured I’d throw up a few of my favorite pictures from the last month or so for the heck of it.

Kinda liked this one since it felt ‘timeless’ to me:

And here’s one of the Seattle Sauvé's, and then Kayla with Grandma/Grandpa Sauvé:

Here’s a whole set from either Whistler, Vancouver, or Seattle over the past month or two:

And finally Kayla running, and saying good bye:

Oregon Coast for July 4th Weekend

2011-07-09T14:02:00.001-07:00

Cheryl, Kayla, and I spent last weekend down on the Oregon coast near Canon Beach. We drove down Friday night, and stayed until Tuesday morning. Shawn, Megan, Henry, and Trang were all represented. Special thanks to Trang for organizing the place, and everything else.

Pretty sure Kayla had a good time:

Anyhow, once we were there we had a chance to bike on the beach with Kayla:

Kayla had her first step into the Pacific Ocean (I don’t count the Peugeot Sound).

Kayla had some fun both indoors and outdoors. Indoors she “played” in the arcade, and had a chance to go on a merry-go-round…

Outdoors Kayla spent most of her time on the beach:

While Kayla napped, Henry, Trang, and I went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory, and the Air Museum:

The sunset on the west coast was pretty spectacular. We went over to the beach to see the July 4th fireworks, but then realized the sunset was actually better than the Seaside show…

Kayla helped Cheryl bake brownies:

We brought out bikes, so on the way out we rode some trail to check out the view:

Thanks to Trang and Henry, Cheryl and I had a chance to go surfing, and boogie boarding for hours. I forgot how much fun boogie boarding is.

Our trip back was pretty uneventful, we did end up stuck in traffic near Tacoma for a while, but things eventually cleared up, and we made it home safe and sound.

Cheryl is awesome

2011-05-15T11:16:00.001-07:00

Ok, so last weekend was mother’s day, and as you can see from Cheryl’s post she got much of the usual mother’s day treatment – cake, day off to do whatever she wanted, balloons, chocolate, cards, etc… Well, in that same weekend she got me my belated birthday present… A new Demo 8ii.

That’s right, the bike that won the UCI Downhill World Championships, 5-time world champion Sam Hill’s bike. That one.

Now, a new bike like this isn’t something you just buy, it took her about a month of back-and-forth with folks in Vancouver, local shops, and riders, and a lot of preparation for the official unveiling.

On the day of, she blindfolded me while she drove to the local bike shop, where the bike was waiting with bows on, and a sign that read (among other things) “Ride it like you stole it” – one of Glade’s oft cited quotes.

I was completely surprised by this (as you might imagine) since it wasn’t my birthday. She had mentioned a couple years ago that she wanted to buy me a new DH ride because the one I had was out of commission.

Kayla came out to the shop with us as well, so here are a few pics of her:

Anyhow, needless to say, when I went out on a ride on the local trails later that afternoon it was very obvious that none of my riding compadres had gotten such a great bike as a surprise gift. Cheryl is their new hero :)

Anyhow, I just wanted to point out that Cheryl is awesome.

For the heck of it I’ll throw in another photo of Kayla from that day:

Anyhow, Cheryl and Kayla are in Ontario for the weekend, so I’m at home alone. I had a chance to do a great bike ride up at Duthie hill with Evan yesterday, but today the weather isn’t co-operating much.

Have fun!

PEPS, Alki, and the Seattle Aquarium

2011-05-02T23:54:00.001-07:00

Cheryl has been keeping everyone up to date on Kayla’s adventures in April. This included Kayla’s first Easter Egg hunt, some biking, and a Whistler trip.

This weekend we stayed in town, but managed to take in a few sights.

On Saturday morning we went to our monthly PEPS meeting. Kayla had a chance to hang out with her friends who are now all very mobile. Kayla had fun playing with other people’s toys, and we had just as much fun watching her. It was a great day, so we also had a chance to get Kayla back on the bike, and down to Seward Park.

Sunday was a beautiful day. We managed to go down to Alki Beach. Kayla had a great time playing in the sand, and soaking in the sun.

We also invited Henry and Trang over for dinner. BBQ burgers! Nice.

On Monday Cheryl took Kayla to the Seattle Aquarium. This time she could run around all over the place. Last time she was there she wasn’t quite as mobile as she is today :)

I’m told that Kayla had a lot of fun, but that people in SCUBA suits waving at her kinda scared her a bit :)

And, now for some videos!

See these higher res here, here, here, and here.

Anyhow, until next time!

Sunny Florida with Kayla and Family

2011-03-19T08:28:00.001-07:00

Note: Cheryl posted all the photos from our trip here.

Lucky for us, Jamie took his paternity leave the Month of March. He and Michelle booked a place in Ft Myers Florida big enough to also house my parents, and us, so we thought this would be a great opportunity to get out of rainy Seattle to catch some sun, and visit. Out of March Break co-incidence Amy, RJ, Lindsay and Ryan were also nearby in Clearwater, so we also planned to meet up with them.

The flight down was pretty uneventful (as you probably know by now that’s exactly how I like my flights)… Kayla behaved really well on the flight, and had a great time on the way down. There was no direct flight to Ft Myers, so we stopped for a short layover in Atlanta.

Have monkey, will travel:

The house
Our accommodations were really nice, enough room for all of us (Kayla slept in the closet, but she didn’t mind), air conditioning, a pool, a covered outdoor area, and plenty of stones for Kayla to play with. Thanks Michelle!

Front yard:

Covered area by the pool:

Kayla playing in the pool with Cheryl, Michelle, and Kenzie:

The beach

Since we were only a block from the beach we spent a lot of time there. Ft Myers is an island with a ton of beach, and we were far enough away from the crowds that we basically had the beach to ourselves. This was Kayla’s first trip to a real beach, with real sand, and salt water, so it was really fun watching her play and just run around everywhere.

Here’s a shot Cheryl took of everyone… As you can imagine it’s hard to keep Kayla in the shot for long:

Kayla with the beach to herself running everywhere:

Kayla had a great time playing in the sand with Mom:

In the water

Grandpa Sauvé and Jamie spent some time fishing just off shore. Grandpa actually caught a small Spanish Mackerel, and we saw a small shark get washed to shore while we were there too. Lots of pelicans and other birds preying on small fish around the area.

Dad and Jamie fishing just off shore (dad with a fish on the line):

Three stingrays swam right beside Grandpa Sauvé and Jamie. Here is one of them:

A visit from Amy, RJ, Lindsay, and Ryan

Since Amy and RJ were staying in Clearwater they decided to come down to visit us. Turns out they ran into some pretty rough traffic, so it took a bit longer than we had hoped to get down, but once they were here I think they had a good time. Cheryl played on the beach with Lindsay and Ryan, went swimming in the ocean, and also in the pool back at the house. Since the drive was longer than anticipated they decided not to stay for dinner, but it was really good to meet up with them, and get another chance for Kayla to play with her family.

Amy holding Kayla with her “monitor phone”:

Ryan playing with Kayla in the sand:

Lindsay and Ryan playing with Kayla in the pool:

Kayla’s first boat ride

Kayla has been on a ferry, but this was her first time in a smaller boat. Jamie, Grandpa Sauvé, and I were originally going to go fishing for tarpon, but our guide had a mechanical breakdown on his boat, so that plan was cut short. We instead booked a family trip on a dolphin watching tour. While we really only saw two dolphins, and only for about a minute or so, it was still really fun to watch Kayla get excited about everything there was on the boat, and around her.

Kayla gives the thumbs up to go after getting her life jacket on:

Kayla pointing at pretty much everything:

Grandpa Sauvé and Kayla:

Kayla poses with Mom on her first boat ride:

Inside
We weren’t outside the whole time. We had a lot of fun inside too when we needed to escape the sun for a bit. Jamie, Michelle, Cheryl and I also had a chance to go mini-putting, and also feed gators as well, but I don’t have any pictures from that, we were too busy mini-golfing.

Kayla playing with Kenzie:

Kayla playing with Grandma Sauvé:

Grandpa Sauvé reading to Kayla at dinner:

Kayla offering me her shades at dinner:

Jamie and Kenzie at dinner:

And the sunset to end our trip
On the last night of the trip we decided to swing by and check out the sunset. Which of course was beautiful.

The flight home was long, and Kayla didn’t get much sleep unfortunately, but that’s ok, it was a great trip, and we all had a great time!

Special thanks to Michelle, and Jamie for getting the great house, and planning our vacation for us :)

Cheryl posted a much larger set of photos from this trip here.

Until next time!

A year of Kayla

2011-01-30T13:31:00.001-08:00

What a year!

Looking back at the post I wrote this time last year, it’s amazing how much has changed with Kayla, and overall. I mean, in my post just a week before that we hadn’t even met Kayla.

Here are a few posts from the year to help us remember what she’s already done:

Kayla’s first days
Grandpa and Grandma Sauvé’s first Kayla visit
Kayla tours Southern Ontario for the first time for Vince’s wedding
Kayla learns how to pull up
Kayla’s first trek to Whistler
Kayla’s first trip to the Zoo
Kayla’s Frey Family visit
Kayla visits pumpkin patch with Grandma Frey
Kayla’s first Halloween
Kayla visits her cousins in Southern Ontario
Kayla’s first steps on video
Kayla’s first Christmas

There’s even been a lot since my December post… Cheryl has been keeping everyone up-to-date. Her recent adventures include our PEPS group celebrating a collective set of birthdays (including some good videos of Kayla walking), Kayla visiting her friends in Vancouver, and also our action-packed trip to Kitchener, and Sault Ste. Marie for the holidays! Click here if you missed the 420 photos she posted :) She even made a video post on our Christmas present opening in Seattle.

We managed to take a few pictures and videos of Kayla’s first birthday. Kayla is now running around all over the place, so it’s getting even harder to get a photo of her these days.

The cake: Cheryl decided to innovate on the cake with a fancy moon-theme after an incident with the cake pans left us with many more cake pieces than expected. I think it worked out pretty well. Cake tasted great to me!

We put one single candle on the cake, Kayla waited in anticipation, and Cheryl helped her blow it out:

Large here: Kayla blowing out her candle.

Not sure that Kayla really understood the whole ‘cake’ concept… But she loved the fancy plates!

We eventually decided to give her some help in getting the cake in, then she was a bit more interested in picking up the fork:

Then it was time to open presents!

And, for some video:

Large here: Kayla playing with her birthday legos

Large here: Kayla opening more birthday presents

Large here: Kayla walking, and getting excited about her green coat

Large here: Kayla sitting in a grownup chair

And, this morning we found out she has another two teeth! 8 total now… Always something new :)

Until next time!

Spaces blog migrated!

2011-01-30T11:31:00.001-08:00

Spaces shut down their blogging service, and worked with wordpress.com to help migrate current users.

So, both Cheryl and I made the switch over. None of our posts, or photos were lost in this transition – nice!

Cheryl's blog can be found here, you can subscribe to mine here. Now all we need to do is find a theme we like :)

Have fun!

Some December Pictures

2010-12-21T11:24:00.001-08:00

Cheryl has thrown up a few posts recently. But, now that we have our tree up, and the holidays are in full swing I thought I’d share a few pics we took in December as well.

Cheryl and I went to my team’s yearly holiday party. Not sure about the total, but my guess is over 2k showed up. There was food, drink, dance, live band, and even a photo booth set up.

Here’s a shot of Cheryl and I from the photo booth:

Overall it was a really fun time.

And, in other news, Kayla’s doing great :) She’s not yet walking all over the place, but she takes a few steps here and there, and I think soon it will be even harder for us to chase her around the house.

Here are a few shots of Kayla, in front of the tree, the cat, and covering herself with a fig (um… maple) leaf:

Well, this year we thought we’d send out some holiday cards again, but this time we made an attempt to take the photos ourselves. How hard could it be? Hint: Very.

Kayla is not one to sit still, so even with a large variety of props, nothing could keep her in one place :)

We did our best though:

Kayla’s definitely ready for the holidays :)

Next week we are travelling to both Northern, and Southern Ontario, we’re all really looking forward to heading home and seeing everyone!

Until next time!

Halloween, and a birthday party

2010-11-07T11:01:00.001-08:00

Well, Cheryl has been keeping everyone up to date with her Thanksgiving post and her “Kayla hits 9 months” post (where you can experience such adventures as Kayla at the Zoo, Kayla at the trampoline place, and Kayla goaltending).

Since Kayla hit the trampolines we’ve had some Halloween adventures. Halloween happens to be around the time of my birthday, so, for the past few years we’ve had a rock-costume themed Rock Band party. Like, for instance here’s a link to pics of our party from ‘08. At that time Mona had built a poster for the event as well.

Here is Kayla blissfully unaware we are going to turn her into a pumpkin, and rock star in the next few days:

For the rockin’ birthday party Cheryl had a special “My daddy is a rockstar” shirt (modeled after the “My baby’s daddy is a rockstar” shirt that Cheryl is wearing… Complete with pics from previous parties.

We also tried to get Kayla to wear a rockin’ wig, but that lasted about 2 seconds:

Here’s a shot of Cheryl, Kayla, and I before Kayla had to retire for the night:

For the most part we ended up playing a lot of Rock Band 3. Main newness there is the addition of a Keyboard (or Keytar, if you decide to play it like a guitar), and pro-mode for the various instruments. The real Fender Squier is not due out until March ‘11, so I’m going to be holding off until then to play in pro-guitar mode.

Here are a few pics of the party:

The next day was Halloween, so it was time to get Kayla dressed up:

Kayla went out trick-or-treating, but we only made it out to two houses: Our neighbour, and Henry/Trang’s.

Back home, Kayla continues to play with one of her favorite toys (other favorite toy in the background):

Anyhow, Cheryl and Kayla are now in Ontario visiting both friends and family. Kayla had a great trip down, and I’m sure she’s having a blast over there.

Until next time!

Kayla visits the pumpkin patch

2010-10-04T22:27:00.001-07:00

Well, Cheryl recently posted about the Frey Family Visit. This past weekend wasn’t quite as adventurous as our trip to Whistler the week before, but Kayla has had some time to visit with Grandma Frey who is now helping out with Kayla while Cheryl is in Scotland on her first overnight work trip since Kayla was born.

The big trip for the weekend was the pumpkin patch. This was before Cheryl took off for Edinburgh on Sunday.

Of course, Kayla got dressed up:

She enjoyed roaming around the pumpkin patch:

It wasn’t all real pumpkins:

And there were also pre-picked pumpkins for people who are less into wandering:

We ended up getting a baby pumpkin for Kayla, a small pumpkin for Cheryl, and a pumpkin to carve for me… That, as you might imagine was Cheryl’s idea :)

Here’s a few non-pumpkin related pictures from this weekend… Just because.

Grandma Frey is here all week helping out with Kayla, and I think she’s having fun! It’s great help for me, otherwise I would have to pick-up, and drop-off every day which would be almost impossible to do while getting any work done. She’s already taught Kayla a few things, now Kayla can say “mamamamama” (no “mommy” yet), and I think she’s now drilling Kayla on “dadadada” :)

Whistler and a birthday party

2010-09-15T23:23:00.001-07:00

Cheryl keeps posting more videos, so check out her latest post! My favorite video is this one…

Anyhow… A couple of weeks back we went to Vancouver and Whistler with Kayla. In Vancouver Stacey and Stephen were nice enough to let us stay at their place.

While we were there we had the chance to go to Ciara’s 5th birthday party. The venue was Munch in North Vancouver. This is a place that specializes in “social dining for parents and kids”. Basically they have a ton of toys, anyone that goes there knows there will be a lot of noise, and kids running around everywhere. During certain hours they actually have a nanny there to play with the kids.

They also can turn on the soap bubble machine when people start eating to ensure the kids have something to do:

Anyhow, Kayla, and the kids all had fun for sure:

Good times!

Saturday morning we went to Whistler. We waited until Kayla was ready for her morning nap before getting in the car. Kayla slept pretty much the whole way to Whistler, so that was great!

Here are a few pics of Kayla in Whistler:

You can probably see Kayla’s new “I <heart> Whistler” tuque.

Well, I did get to bike – both days. The first day my bike ran into some problems… I broke a spoke trying to tweak some air for the local photographer who was set up on A-line, and popped a spoke. I had my wheel re-built on site. Then I realized I was only getting 4” of suspension on my 6” fork, so, although I rode on it, I decided to bring the bike into the shop in Vancouver on my way back to Seattle…

Whistler actually has a nanny service, so we wanted to try it out in order to let Cheryl ride with me. It was a great success, so we will likely be using that service in the future. Kayla was very well behaved, and although the cost was much higher than we’d like, it was less than a ski lift ticket. Cheryl had a great time biking, and was able to hit up all the usual trails that she knows and loves. She did end up with a painful bruise on one of the wall-rides.

I spent some time in the ‘boneyard’ playing on the new bowl-shaped-wall-ride as well:

So good.

After heading out from Whistler we went back to Vancouver to visit with Kelly, and Owen:

Our ride home was for the most part uneventful, we had a short border wait, and made it home at a reasonable hour.

Whistler was so fun that we’re going back there again this weekend. We have to get our last bits of riding in before the snow starts to fall.

Until next time!

Pro pics? Ha!

2010-09-12T15:08:00.001-07:00

Cheryl printed out some pics we took of Kayla last week at the local Wallgreens, and when we went over to pick them up the clerk mentioned that they were identified as professional photographs. This meant Cheryl could not print them off without consent from the photographer.

I believe this is to avoid people scanning their Sears Portrait Studio prints (or equivalent) and getting them printed off much cheaper.

See ‘pro-pics’ below:

Now, this probably happens to anyone with a DSLR who’s taken a set up portrait, but I couldn’t stop laughing regardless. Cheryl politely said that these were our pics, and most certainly not taken by a professional photographer.

He asked who took the photo, Cheryl pointed to me, and he said: Ok, you will need to sign a release before we can let you take these.

At this point we both thought he was joking, but he went in the back room, pulled out a release form, and had me sign it. We paid for our photos, and left the shop laughing.

That was definitely a first.

Kayla gets her first tooth

2010-09-02T12:43:00.001-07:00

Well, I don’t actually have any good pictures of it because she keeps tight-lipped, but we now know why she’s been having trouble sleeping these last few days – Her first tooth was trying to surface. Good times :)

Kayla is as energetic as ever, crawling around everywhere, and climbing up on anything she can grab a hold of – the stroller, chairs, the baby gates, coffee tables, and of course the couch. She’s everywhere now, and the cats are now starting to understand what it means when she starts crawling their way, screaming at the top of her lungs.

Cheryl’s getting back in the swing of things at work, but has still had time to put up a new blog post with tons of photos!

I’ve still been playing around with the new camera, but it is very difficult to get a posed shot of Kayla without Cheryl in the room, so we took a few minutes one day this past week and sat Kayla down in our living room for a few shots.

Here they are:

Andrea came down from Vancouver and was nice enough to take a shot of Kayla, Cheryl, Boots, Charlie, and I:

Here’s one without the cats:

But we also have hundreds of other pics, like these of Kayla hanging around the house:

Kayla eating:

Kayla hanging out by the water:

And so forth….

This week is our first trial run of bringing Kayla to daycare, so she is going in for a few hours a day. Next week she will probably go for a full day a few times in anticipation of my return to work mid-September. So far she’s handling it great, and all the kids really love playing with her. They can’t quite understand why she doesn’t yet have hair, and doesn’t say much, but who knows, maybe she will soon :)

Well, until next time!

Kayla crawls, pulls up, and traverses the couch

2010-08-26T18:17:00.001-07:00

In Cheryl’s latest post she uploaded some videos of Kayla pulling herself up, and “walking” down the hallway. Kayla also learned how to crawl, pull up, and traverse the couch before her 7 month milestone, so we’re very proud of her :)

To see the larger versions of these you can go here, and here.

We’ve also had a chance to take more pics of Kayla (no shortage of those). Here are a few:

Until next time!

More time at home with Kayla

2010-08-17T23:48:00.001-07:00

So, I’ve been at home with Kayla on my own Tues->Friday for a few weeks now. It’s been great! I’ve been able to spend a ton of time with Kayla, and she’s been growing so much.

Cheryl has been doing a great job at posting photos and videos of everything that’s been going on, but I’ll throw in a few as well. Make sure to check out Cheryl’s latest post with more Kayla videos and pictures!

I wanted to re-post one of the pics Cheryl put up because I like it that much:

So, I’ve managed to figure out what Boots and Charlie do all day:

Very exciting.

Kayla has taken to chasing boots and Charlie whenever they get within a 10 foot radius:

Some pictures of Kayla just waking up:

She’s now able to sit on her own very well, and as you can tell in the videos Cheryl has posted she can also move pretty fast.

Just this past week we went to our monthly PEPS group get-together. This time it was at Mount Baker Park. Kayla was a bit late due to her nap schedule, but she did have a good time once she got there.

A couple of pics:

You can check out more photos from the event here.

Kayla had an amazing weekend too, she partied Friday, Saturday, and Sunday – all related to Shawn and Megan’s wedding. But that will be a separate post.

Until next time!

A grocery store visit, a dinner, and Kayla’s first ferry ride

2010-08-08T22:40:00.001-07:00

Well, we’ve found Kayla’s newest favorite activity – the grocery store. She absolutely loves riding in the grocery cart, and being pushed around the aisles. She takes in all the shapes and colors that fly by, and loves watching all the people running around.

Here are a few shots from our trip to the local QFC:

Not too long ago Kayla, Cheryl, Shawn and I went over to Evan and Stephanie’s for dinner. Kayla was in great form, and both Evan and Stephanie had a great time with Kayla!

As you can see, Kayla also had a great time :)

Just this past Wednesday I took Kayla down to the park to pick up our local access passes for Seafair. I decided to take a few shots in the leaves. The main challenge there is to take the pics without Kayla actually eating the leaves.

I was messing around with Paint.Net a bit in with shot above.

Before Cheryl went back to work we all went on a trip to Bainbridge Island. This was Kayla’s first ferry ride, and also her first trip on Seattle’s light rail.

We didn’t spend too long on Bainbridge Island, but we did get a chance to check out the main center, try out some funky flavored tea, and even showed Kayla her first raccoons :) Kayla delighted everyone we met on the light rail, and the ferry, and had a great time!

Also, check out Cheryl’s site for other Kayla updates.

Until next time!

Grandma and Grandpa Sauvé visit Kayla

2010-08-01T17:30:00.001-07:00

Here are all the pics from the visit. Don’t forget to keep checking out Cheryl’s blog for more Kayla updates.

It’s been almost a week since Grandma and Grandpa Sauvé left, to head back to Ontario, and I’m still sorting through all the pictures from the trip :)

Kayla was superbly behaved the entire time, and we all had a great time touring her around, and showing her off to anyone who came within squealing distance. Grandma and Grandpa arrived on Friday night, just after my last day’s work until mid September. What better way to start off a paternity leave than to have family come to visit and help out with the baby!

I think it is safe to say that Kayla took center stage the entire week:

Our Saturday was fairly laid back, mostly playing with Kayla with a trip to Fry’s on the side. I don’t know how many pictures I have of us just playing with Kayla, but here are a few…

I think dad was pretty excited to hear that we were going to be fishing salmon in the Puget Sound on Sunday. We had Cheryl’s planning and execution to thank for that one… Luckily enough the tour guide (Keith) called for us to start two hours later than normal, so instead of having to be up at Shilshole Bay Marina by 6am we were able to saunter over there by 8. Waking up at 4:45am would have been much more painful than our 6:45am wake up time.

Anyhow it was a cold day out on the sound, much colder than we had expected. We had a lot of action on the line, just not the action we wanted. I don’t even know how many sharks dad and I caught, but there were many. These were all small sand sharks, so primarily a pest for our tour guide – they ate our bait, and we lost a lot of tackle to them, so in addition to hitting our line they hit our tour guide’s bottom line. We also were plagued by a bunch of flounder.

Once I pulled up a flounder that felt heavy on the line, then much lighter… When I brought it up, all there was left on the line was a head – a sand shark had bitten the rest off!

Dad had a pretty sizeable salmon on the line for a short period of time, but it didn’t make it into the boat. He caught a small one that had to be released, and I caught a ridiculously small one that could have passed for a large minnow. Other than that we didn’t see a ton of salmon which was a bummer for our tour guide who has to wash his whole boat out with soap every time he gets skunked.

We were ‘mooching’ which is a form of drift fishing neither of us had done in the past – essentially you’re at the rod 100% of the time, letting the bait drop in a controlled manner to a desired depth, then slowly reeling up and repeating.

Here are a few photos we took:

Well, at the end of the day we didn’t have any salmon, so we went to the local seafood store and bought ourselves the nicest cut of Yukon River Alaskan Salmon we could find. Dad prepared it on the grill, and I have no doubt it was the best salmon to come off my grill ever. So good.

The next day we were off to Whistler!

This was Kayla’s first trip to Whistler, and I am pretty sure she loved it. We stayed at The Aspens, which worked out pretty well. The main idea was to travel Monday, bike Tuesday/Wednesday, and head back on Thursday. Kayla slept from Seattle, all the way to Squamish, so that was our first stop! This was an outstanding achievement - I’m very rarely able to go that far without having to stop for a bathroom break for Cheryl.

We were lucky enough to be in Whistler at the same time as our friends Alana, Ryan, and their daughter Arwen. This meant that Kayla had a few play-dates during the week.

Here are some pictures of Arwen and Kayla playing:

Grandma and Grandpa were great help, taking full care of Kayla while Cheryl and I went biking:

The mountain was so nice without all the weekend traffic. Cheryl, Ryan and I biked on Tuesday, and we were able to get out late, and still get a full day in easily. There were very few clogged runs, and the lift lines were short to non-existent. This was Ryan’s first downhill day at Whistler, and I think he really enjoyed it. Barring one minor fall it was mostly an injury free day!

A pic of Cheryl and I up at the top of Garbanzo, then one of Kayla, Grandma, Grandpa, and myself at the base:

I was renting a bike since mine had an issue with the hub that needed solid attention. The bike I rented from Summit (Rocky Mountain Flatline Park) performed really well though, so I wasn’t too bummed out about it at all.

On the second day I picked up the biking intensity a notch, and other than one top-to-bottom I sessioned A-Line, and Dirt Merchant all day. The singles line was empty, so I was able to do 15 minute round trips which meant I got a lot of value for my 4 hour rental :)

Meanwhile, back at The Aspens, Grandma, Cheryl, and Kayla were playing in the pool. I was concerned Kayla would really not like the pool since I’m signed up for weekly baby swim lessons with her, but wow, she really took to the water this time! I’m no longer concerned about my upcoming swim lessons with Kayla :)

Grandma/Kayla, and Cheryl/Kayla at the pool:

One night Grandma/Grandpa offered to babysit Kayla while Cheryl and I went out to the Keg!

Champagne and steak after a day sessioning Dirt Merchant and A-Line… Does it get any better? I think not.

Well, I could go on and on about Whistler, but here are some other random photos we took:

While in Vancouver, Cheryl was able to meet up with Kelly, and Owen, so Kayla had yet another play-date!

On the way back to Vancouver we went to Steveston to eat seafood by the seashore:

Kayla did not eat seafood.

Back in Seattle, we spent a lot more time playing with Kayla.

We went to the locks which is where the salmon ladders are. Here we were able to see a ridiculous amount of salmon try to make the journey up to spawn. We were lucky enough to show up at high-tide which is when you see a lot more salmon than at other times of the day.

Here are a few pics from the locks:

After hanging out at the locks we went over to 11th and Denny for a Polish beer tasting with Shawn. Kayla especially liked anything that came in a cold bottle…

Back at home we invited Shawn, Henry, and Trang over to celebrate Kayla’s 1/2 year milestone. She has made it 6 months now, and is in perfect health – 50% in weight, and 90% in length.

Here are a few pics from the party:

Well, we had covered a lot of ground with Kayla over the time that Grandma and Grandpa were here. Grandpa Sauvé helped fix almost everything that was broken with our house, and Grandma helped a lot with Kayla, and even ridded her of the cradle cap she had been sporting since she was only a few weeks old.

All in all I think it was a great time! Cheryl spent some time posting about one of Kayla’s newest achievements “scooching” – also prompted by Grandpa and Grandma – I believe it was Grandpa’s watch that Kayla was so excited about – she had to pull herself over to it :) Check out the videos here.

Until next time!

Hood River – Windsurfing and Post Canyon

2010-06-27T23:33:00.001-07:00

Shawn, Henry, and I all had a weekend off, with Kayla in Ontario with Cheryl we decided to go to Hood River. Hood River is a world class windsurfing destination, that also happens to be close to Mt. Hood – which is open for skiing throughout the summer. It’s a great place to bike, hike, and has some good breweries, and wineries nearby.

Usually we camp outside of the town center, but this time I decided to splurge and book a hotel room – such a good idea. We stayed at the Best Western which was minutes from windsurfing, a walk to the core town center, and the bike rental shop.

We didn’t decide we were going to go to Hood River until Thursday night, so my Friday afternoon was spent finding a place to stay, and making sure we had enough stuff to do for the weekend. The weather forecast everywhere within a 5 hour drive radius from Seattle was for rain, so we had to mentally prepare for it.

We left Saturday morning, bright and early. It rained on the way there:

Luckily it cleared up as we got into Hood River. We arrived in time to get lunch at the Full Sail brewery ahead of our windsurfing lessons that were booked for 2pm.

Shawn signed up for the more advanced lesson while Henry and I took on the beginner lesson, so after the brewery we went straight to Big Winds to get ready.

Here we were getting ready for our lesson:

Henry and I split from Shawn for the beginner lesson. The wind was strong, and we did a pretty good job, but I managed to somehow crush my baby finger between the board and the rudder, so that cut my lesson short. Henry wasn’t out much longer, but Shawn was having such a good time that we decided to go back to Full Sail, and let Shawn hang out in the water for the full length of the lesson.

Once done, we decided to take the hike across the river to the Maryhill Winery. We made it there just in time to get a good tasting in. I bought a couple of bottles of Merlot, and it was about 40 mins out of Hood River, so by the time we got back we were ready to check into our hotel.

This was the view from our room:

We then went out for dinner, and spent the night looking for live music – which wasn’t difficult since the band in town could be heard from a mile away. We sat in the local pub and watched live music all night. When we got back to the hotel room we were definitely ready to hit the sack.

In the morning we went to Mountain View Cycles to rent bikes for our ride out at Post Canyon. They had enough rentals to outfit us for our trip, soon we were packing the car and getting ready to go.

Post Canyon was much closer to Hood River than I expected. Literally a 7 minute drive from the bike shop. We could have biked it actually. It’s a network of trails that includes everything from slick XC riding to massive freeride stunts. We stuck to the cross country stuff for this trip.

Here’s Shawn up at the top end of our loop:

We rode for a good 3 hours. We even found ourselves lost at one point, but eventually found our way. The bike shop closed at 5, so we needed to get back. Instead of taking the XC run out we took a run called “Frankenstein” which was clearly to big for cross country bikes.

Anyhow, at the end of the day we packed the car back up:

After bringing back the bikes we once again ate at the Full Sail brewery. So good. I decided it was worth buying a case of their LTD02, and their Session Black.

Henry drove us back home, we packed a lot into the two days we were gone, and hopefully we organize another trip out there.

Here was the take from the weekend:

Until next time!

Kayla’s Southern Ontario tour

2010-06-05T12:25:00.001-07:00

Cheryl, Kayla, and I just got back from 11 days in Ontario. The catalyst for this vacation was my cousin Vince’s wedding in Kitchener. This, of course, was perfect for Cheryl and I because my family would be at the wedding, and Cheryl’s sister Amy lives just minutes from the Church where Amy and Vince were getting married, so this became quite the family event. This was Kayla’s first flight, so we wanted to make sure all family had a chance to meet her.

Day 1: Seattle to Kitchener

Our day started very early. We had to leave at 5am, so our alarms were set for 4:45am – the first time since Kayla was born that I actually needed an alarm to wake up. We grabbed Kayla, and… Trang (our fearless neighbor) was kind enough to offer us a ride to the airport.

The flight started pretty smooth. Cheryl fed Kayla on the way up, once the seatbelt signs were turned off she handed Kayla to me. Kayla immediately soiled her diaper in an explosive fashion that seemed like it could be heard throughout the plane. Great. So, I went over to talk to Cheryl, and without really saying much she knew what was going on. She immediately started mumbling something under her breath, something like “we can’t”… I didn’t get it, but apparently she was trying to tell me we can’t change her. That’s right, 30 mins into a 5 hour flight we have found ourselves in a crappy situation with no diapers. The leakage had already seeped through her clothes, and was immediately apparent to anyone within visual, or smelling distance. This was a problem, and our choices didn’t look good. We went into the only economy class toilet on the plane to discuss our options, and eventually decided that building a diaper out of our receiving blankets was the best step forward.

Luckily the flight attendant we had talked to found out the one other family on this plane had a 2 year old who was still in diapers (pull-ups to be more precise). The flight attendant came back to us with one of those pull-ups, which, was so much better than the option we were considering. It’s amazing how well a pull-up meant for a 2 year old still fit a 4 month old baby… We offered to buy that family anything they wanted, but they refused, so that was that.

The rest of the flight was relatively uneventful, Kayla did a great job. Cheryl was so excited that the landing didn’t bother Kayla’s ears that she forgot her recently purchased Blackberry Bold on the plane – yup it’s gone. Bummer.

Kayla and Cheryl (minus phone) in the Toronto airport:

We got through customs, rented our car, and drove Kayla to Amy and RJ’s house in Kitchener. It was so nice to see them, and ultra good of them to let us stay at their place with an infant that was destined to keep everyone up at night.

We arrived early enough for Cheryl and Kayla to go to Lindsay’s softball game – Kayla’s first! Lindsay had a hit and a run while we were there!

Cheryl went to bed early in the evening, while I decided to meet my family at the Friday night get together post-rehearsal. There I had a chance to hang out with almost all of my family, and see Vince prior to his wedding. Good times!

Day 2: Kitchener – Vince and Amy’s wedding day

Cheryl organized a brunch for my side of the family, so Saturday morning mom/dad (sometimes referred to as Grandma and Grandpa Sauvé since Kayla’s birth), my brothers, and their significant others met at Kelsey’s. I was excited that everyone made it out, and Kayla was on parade.

Kayla enjoying the attention of her family:

Then it was time to go to the wedding! The wedding was great, it went very smoothly, and although Kayla took a short break to be changed (twice) she did manage to come back in for the grand finale.

The reception was in the same hotel my parents were staying in, so we headed back there to meet up ahead of its opening. There we had the opportunity to hang out with more of the family, and relax.

Everyone gets to meet Kayla :)

The reception started shortly afterwards. It was great, well done Vince/Amy!! I won’t spend too much time talking about the wedding other than to say that it was such a fun time, and was very smooth! I will also not put any photos up of Nathan dancing. I know he would appreciate that, but let me say – it happened.

Day 3: Food and Cake in Kitchener

Not only did Amy let Cheryl, Kayla, and I stay at her place, but she also offered up her house for a family get together while they were out at their cottage on Lake Huron.

All of my brothers managed to make it out to this too which was outstanding. I don’t remember the last time we had so much time all together, it has been many years.

Dinner pics:

It was Steve’s birthday on the Monday, so we decided to celebrate with a cake. I think it has been over 15 years since we have all been at a brother’s birthday party together. I could be wrong there, but really, it’s been a long time.

Birthday pics:

And we all posed for some pics for all the brothers:

Day 4: Cottage on Lake Huron

Amy and RJ have a cottage on Lake Huron, so early Monday morning Cheryl, Kayla, and I went out there to meet up with them. Kayla had the opportunity to dip her feet in one of our great lakes for the first time.

Day 5: Kitchener to Fergus

On our way to Fergus we were fortunate enough to meet up with Jen and Ryan, our good friends from high school. They also have a new baby Edrick, so Kayla had someone to play with.

We were, of course, not going to Fergus for their world famous sauerkraut (inside joke). We were going to visit Amanda and Marcel, who also have their own bundle of joy in Marcus.

When we arrived in Fergus, Amanda had already put Marcus to bed, so we played with Kayla, and then had a great BBQ meal before Marcel made it home from a long day at the office. We stayed up and almost got their propane campfire lit in the backyard, but since that didn’t quite work we had oreo cookies instead of smores.

Day 6: Fergus to Midland

Marcel had a day off, and Joanne took an unpaid day, so there was a full house. Kayla had plenty of time to play with Joshua, and Marcus, and she even had a chance to try out the pool – though she didn’t really last very long in the pool…

We took a walk into the thriving metropolis that is Fergus and all had iced cappuccino's at the local Tim Horton’s. It was sweltering hot, so Kayla, and Joshua opted for a car ride home. Good thing there was air conditioning back at the house!

We decided to wait out the traffic before heading to Midland, so we had another BBQ dinner with Amanda and Marcel. I think this time my BBQ asparagus turned out ok for a change :)

Midland is about a 2.5 hour drive from Fergus, so we timed the departure with Kayla’s nap to be sure she had some chance of sleeping during the ride – which she did, the whole way and late into the night. We were very proud of her!

Day 7 and 8: Midland

It was great to be able to visit Grandma Frey, in the same trip as Grandma Sauvé! Kayla was on her best behavior, and since it was still very hot outside she had an opportunity to wear her summer clothes. Very exciting :) Kayla visited with Grandma’s friends and we played some football and had ice cream by the lake.

On the second day we made our trek back to Toronto where we were to meet up with Ryan and Alana, our friends from University. The trip south went smoothly, we ran into some traffic in downtown Toronto, but Kayla slept the whole way there again!

Alana and Ryan were at home when we got in, and almost ready to put Arwen to bed. We had dinner, and spent some time catching up. It had been a long time since I’d seen Ryan and Alana, but they really hadn’t changed much at all. It was great they let us stay in their place – we don’t travel light anymore…

Day 9 and 10: Toronto

Kayla woke up early both days in Toronto, but the first day Ryan and I decided to go biking in the Albion Hills Conservation Area near Don Mills. I rented a bike from CyclePath, and Ryan and I took a quick loop around the 15km stretch of trail. The technical aspect was not quite on par with the West Coast trails, but my pedaling muscles got a serious work-out since it’s the first time I’ve done a true XC ride in what seems like forever.

In the meantime, Cheryl and Alana got to hang out with Becky (another friend from High School), and they all played with Kayla and Arwen.

Afterwards we decided it would be a good idea to go for some ice cream at a “nearby” ice cream shop. The walk was a bit longer than I had anticipated, but I suppose when you eat a 2000 calorie ice cream desert ahead of dinner it’s not bad to burn off a few calories :)

When we got back in we had some very good filet mignon on the grill. Sweet!

Day 11: Toronto to Seattle

In the morning we had some more time to play with Kayla, but we also had a brunch scheduled with another friend from back in High School – Sean, his wife Jamie, and their very cute baby: Mika.

We made the most out of the all-you-can-eat buffet, and then it was time to bring the rental car back, and head back to the airport. This time we were sure to have diapers in the diaper bag!

What a trip! We were so tired when I got back to Seattle that I almost forgot Kayla in an elevator! I scrambled out with all the bags I was carrying, and heard a voice from behind me “Hey Mister, you forgot your baby!”… I slowly turned around, grabbed Kayla and we were on our way again :)

Trang (our wonderful neighbour & friend) again picked us up from the airport, and we made it home safe and sound from Kayla’s first international flight, and her Southern Ontario tour.

Until next time!

Kayla feeds herself

2010-05-19T00:25:00.001-07:00

Cheryl already pointed this out in her latest post, but I was impressed enough I thought I’d write about it too.

Just this past weekend I was feeding Kayla, and she basically grabbed the bottle away from me… I let her feed herself, and she pretty much finished the bottle on her own without me having to feed her at all. I just sat back and took pictures. That was a first. She seems to have inherited her mother’s independence.

Here’s a shot of the action:

Although she hasn’t yet rolled over, she’s getting much more comfortable on her stomach:

But she’s still not big enough for the jolly jumper:

Until next time!

When you assume…

2010-05-14T23:49:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I was rushing home from work in order to pick up Cheryl to go to a meeting with a local daycare provider. Trang, our friendly neighbour (Henry’s wife for those following at home), had graciously offered to babysit Kayla for this outing.

The traffic was bad… really bad, so although I gave myself an hour to get home, the time was tight. I was sitting at a standstill on the I-90 when I noticed a text message pop up…. My phone contacts had recently been deleted accidentally by a friend (another long story), so although the number did not register I assumed it was someone that typically called me. It read “Henry and I are on the connector right in front of you” (The connector is a Microsoft sponsored bus that helps Microsoft employees get to and from work from various neighbourhoods). Now, the connector takes a much longer time to get to my house than I would driving directly, so I assumed this was Trang messaging me to tell me that she and Henry were going to be late. Bummer!

I called Cheryl to figure out how bad it would be if we were late. Cheryl really wanted to be on time for the daycare, and was concerned that if we took Kayla we would not be able to get her to sleep easily when we returned, so I decided I was going to go the distance to try and get Henry and Trang to my place on time. The connector takes many stops between the I-90 and home, so I figured the best bet would be to follow the connector, tell Henry and Trang to get off at the first connector stop, pick them up, and drive them directly the rest of the way myself to minimize the chance we would be late.

Time was of the essence because I was skirting the bounds of timeliness as it was, so I wanted to make sure they got off at the first stop. I called Henry’s number, and there was no answer, I called again… No answer. I decided to call the “unknown” number that had texted me, and a male voice answered… “Can you guys get off at this stop?” I asked abruptly…. The bus was just slowing down to the first stop, so I did not have a lot of time for explanation… The voice seemed somewhat surprised at the request, but suggested that they would go wake up Henry to see if they could.

I was somewhat confused because the voice was male, and it wasn’t Henry… It was Max – another friend who lives near my place. All of a sudden I realized I had messed up. I had somehow assume he was Trang… And now I didn’t know what was happening. I had passed the bus just then because I assumed that Max had not been able to convince Henry to get off the bus on such short notice, but I got another call from Max 30 seconds later “Hey man, Henry’s off the bus”. I was now not sure what was going on… But now I was going to be late for sure, and I didn’t want Henry to have to walk home because I somehow forced him off the bus for no obvious reason.

I turned the car around, and had to wait at a busy intersection to get back to where the bus was, all the while frustrated that I was going to be late, and it was now my fault for assuming Max was Trang. I eventually got through the intersection, but then couldn’t see Henry anywhere. I then realized he wasn’t answering his phone earlier, he might not have his phone, and I figured it might take me a while to find him - now I was surely going to be late.

Eventually I saw Henry, but he was with Max - boy had this gotten out of control. I really didn’t want Max to have to get out at this stop, miles from his house. I also didn’t have time to drive Max home – I was late, but this was my fault again, so now what?

I pulled over and told them to get in, Henry and Max were discussing who would sit in the front seat while Trang was no doubt hanging out at my place with Cheryl, both wondering where I was. Cheryl most likely confused as to why Trang made it before me. Henry was asking me why he was hanging out at a random connector stop, and Max decided he wasn’t going to ride with me, he had no idea why he had pulled Henry off the bus, but he was walking home.

To top it off, the car I was driving was not the car that Max had originally seen when he sent me that original text message. He thought I was in my car, but I was in Cheryl’s Corolla – so not only was it a co-incidence that he messaged me the week after my phone was wiped, with Henry’s name, at a time I was heading home to meet Trang and Cheryl - causing me to believe he was Trang, but he actually hadn’t even seen me in my car to begin with, so it was just pure co-incidence I happened to be beside that exact same connector. Henry was sleeping in the connector, so he didn’t answer his phone to clear things up, and I was in a rush, so I didn’t have time to explain what was going on to Max before Henry was woken up, and thrown out into the street.

At least the daycare discussion went well – we got there with one minute to spare.

Kayla’s first trip to Canada

2010-05-09T16:14:00.001-07:00

Last weekend Cheryl, Kayla, and I went up to Vancouver to visit with friends. It was our first trip out of country with Kayla, but we already had a passport for her, so we were ready.

I was paranoid about the ride itself, worried that Kayla would wake up and not be able to stay asleep. When we realized the border line going north was about 40 mins long we were both concerned that Kayla would wake up and be crying for the border patrol. This was not the case, she slept the whole way to Vancouver, so no problems at all!

We stayed at Taleen and Stephan’s house just east of Vancouver. Their daughter, Charlotte, is almost a year old, so it was good for Kayla to meet and play with another baby for a change. While Stephan and I watched rugby Cheryl and Taleen met with Stacey and Steven. Andrea, Dana, and Kelly later joined us to hang out with the babies as well. Good times!

Sunday morning I woke up early to go to Squamish with Glade, and a few north shore friends. We decided to ride a new trail “Half Nelson”. The trail is very smooth, Lee brought his web cam, and took a video of our ride – pretty jittery, but you get the idea.

Sunday night we had dinner at Jen and Glade’s house, with Jen’s mom as well – they cooked a great lasagna, and Kayla once again stole the show.

Before too long it was time to head back, we were once again surprised that Kayla slept the whole way home. I think she likes road trips!

Here are some pics from the weekend:

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Our first hike with Kayla

2010-04-11T11:45:00.001-07:00

It has been a few weeks since the last post, but Cheryl has been keeping everyone in the loop in the meantime by posting to her blog on a fairly regular basis. Since the last post Henry and Trang babysat, we had everyone over for Cheryl’s birthday (at which point our good friends Stefan, Taleen, Charlotte, Andrea and Dana all came down from Vancouver to visit with us), we also celebrated Kayla’s first Easter! Becky and her sister-in-law Katie joined us, and we invited some friends over for some sweet sweet turkey.

But yesterday marked another first for Kayla as Cheryl and I made the trek out to Rattlesnake Lake to bring Kayla on her first hike. We brought both the stroller and the baby bjorn not knowing how far we’d get. It was a beautiful sunny day, and there were many out to celebrate it. We started with the stroller on the gravel walking path around the lake, and sat down to take a few pictures. We put Kayla into the baby bjorn, but the wind was pretty wild, so that didn’t last too long. So, instead of hiking up the Rattlesnake Ledge trail, we went for a more causal stroll around the lake. Cheryl and I hadn’t actually walked this part of the trail before, so it was new to all three of us!

Anyhow, here are a few pics from our day:

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Grandma and Grandpa Sauvé visit Kayla

2010-03-21T23:20:00.001-07:00

My parents just spent a week in Seattle to see Kayla for the first time – and to visit us as well, I suppose :) I had not seen them since last August when we went crabbing in the Puget Sound, so it has been a long time! Cheryl had an entire list of fix-it tasks all ready by the time dad arrived, and dad immediately started knocking them off one by one (the list was empty by the end of the week), mom spent the week not just cuddling Kayla, but also helping us out around the house all day, every day – we’re definitely grateful for all the help!

Here are some of the first shots of mom and dad (Grandma and Grandpa Sauvé) cuddling Kayla:

Grandma spent untold hours with Kayla lying on her knees as in the picture above. I think that might be one of Kayla’s new favorite positions!

The week was not all spent inside. Although the weather forecast called for rain all week we had sun every day, and we did make good use of it.

Here’s mom trying out the stroller she bought us, on our way to walk along the boardwalk on Lake Washington on a beautiful day:

We stopped for coffee at Cafe Vita up near the local PCC:

Grandma, Grandpa, and Kayla visiting the new Studios on the Microsoft campus:

And, for St. Patrick’s day Kayla wore green, and the grown-ups had Guinness:

We also spent some time over at the University of Washington to see the cherry blossoms:

And no visit to Seattle would be complete without eating some quality seafood! We all went to Ray’s Boathouse to savor some of Seattle’s best seafood, from salmon to halibut, we had an amazing lunch! Kayla slept the whole time! Thank you Kayla!

Here are Grandma, Grandpa, and myself at Ray’s (Kayla at my feet):

After Ray’s, it was clearly time to go to Golden Gardens. It was such a beautiful day, the Olympic ranges were out, the sun was shining, and lots of Seattleites were doing their thing (from kite surfing to building sand castles).

Here are Grandma, Grandpa, Kayla, and myself with the Olympic range in the background:

One benefit of having guests is having babysitters so that Cheryl and I can go out to dinner, or do other things that aren’t easy to do with Kayla around. Grandma and Grandpa held the fort for a few nights during the week to let Cheryl and I go out. One night we went out to La Medusa, a Sicilian restaurant in Columbia City, and another night Cheryl came to watch me play in a volleyball tournament (this is the first time Cheryl had seen this team play together). Those nights were much appreciated!

Here’s a picture Cheryl took of our volleyball team:

This week we also had a party to commemorate Henry’s final MBA exam. He’s spent the past 3 years on his MBA at UW while working full time. Clearly that takes a lot of effort, and after his final exam we wanted to do something for him. The cake you see on the right was clearly not baked/decorated by a professional :)

A few pics to on the congratulations dinner:

Well, I drove Grandma/Grandpa to the airport early Saturday morning, and they made it home safe and sound. Usually we do a lot more activities outside of the Seattle area, so this is a bit of a different visit for them. I still think they had a good time, and I’m pretty sure they were both pretty impressed with Kayla – she’s the cutest baby we’ve ever seen :)

I want to once again thank mom/dad (Grandma and Grandpa Sauvé), for coming to visit Kayla, it was a great help, and we do hope that they are able to make it again in the summer.

Before signing off I want to make sure everyone is keeping up with Kayla’s activities by regularly checking Cheryl’s blog and checking out the latest big upload to Shutterfly.

Ok, here are a few more pictures of Kayla before signing off :)

Until next time!

Pandemonium as Team Canada takes gold in men’s hockey

2010-03-02T00:44:00.001-08:00

Wow.

…

I was sitting at home in Seattle on Saturday when I casually mentioned how amazing it would be to watch the 2010 gold medal match between Team Canada and the US Olympic hockey team in Vancouver. I mean… Not only was Canada the host team, but hockey is Canada’s game - gold in hockey is seen by many Canadians as the true measurement of our success as a nation in the Olympic games. As if that weren’t enough, they were also playing the US – Canada’s longtime Olympic hockey nemesis who had already upset them once in the preliminary matches of these games. Above and beyond this, it was the final day of the Olympics with the closing ceremonies set to run just after the hockey game. If I were to have any chance to experience anything Olympic at all, this was not only my best chance, it was now my only chance.

Cheryl simply said “You should go”, but I wasn’t very comfortable leaving Cheryl by herself to take care of Kayla, and Kayla could not come with us (Kayla does not yet have a passport, and her birth certificate was sent out with our passport application, so she’s currently without enough ID to cross the border.)

As I pondered the idea Cheryl was already dialing Shawn (the only person I know who would be in for a day trip on short notice), and before I knew it we were scouring the Vancouver 2010 Olympic site working on our park-and-ride strategy for getting into downtown Vancouver and the various Olympic venues.

I set my alarm for 7:15am, but Kayla had a different plan for my morning. After keeping her downstairs for a bit to let Cheryl get a few more minutes of sleep, I headed over to pick up Shawn for our 8am departure to Vancouver.

The ride up was pretty uneventful… Just the way I like it. The border lineup was amazingly short, we basically went right on through. The border guard asked all their usual questions, but upon looking at our Washington plates also asked… “Who are you rooting for?” We said “Team Canada”, she said “Good, have a nice day”, and we were off.

We decided to park off of King Edwards St by the SkyTrain station, though it was definitely difficult to find parking nearby. We eventually settled on a spot about 6 blocks away and squeezed into an otherwise full train to bring us to the Olympic Village station.

We scoped out the grounds near BC Place, and the Molson Canadian Hockey House before walking over to Robson St. to check out the outdoor screens there.

There was no shortage of Canadian spirit on Robson:

We watched the first period on Robson, but then went back to Molson’s Hockey House because the screens were much more accessible, and the crowd was just as raucous.

The game started fast, and the pace seemed to just get faster through the second period. It was quite clear that both teams were not happy with a silver showing.

The Molson House was packed on the inside, but just as packed on the outside next to the big screens:

The game went on… 2-0, then 2-1… The feeling was electric, and the crowd got louder with every minute that went by. With a couple of minutes to go it was looking like there was nothing at all between Team Canada and the gold… With just over a minute left, the US pulled their goalie to gain the 6-5 player advantage. Everyone was bracing for victory, drums were beaten, cowbells were smashed, horns were sounding, flags were waving, people were jumping, hockey sticks were thrown into the air, and even the sky was opening up to showcase the sun as though something magical was about to happen. With 30 seconds left it looked like it was all over, time to celebrate, and then…

With 24.4 seconds on the clock Zach Parise took his stick and instantaneously ripped out the hearts of over 30 million people with one swipe. Grown men fell to their knees, flags dropped, people cried, painted faces fell into trembling hands, as some simply stared into the sky in disbelief. You could hear the sound of people’s collective jaws dropping on the cold, wet, pavement in a sorrowful harmony.

It seemed as though CTV managed to warp both time and space in order to play the replay of that goal 1000 times in the span of a minute prompting people to start yelling fruitlessly at the screen to please stop the pain.

We were in overtime, not just any overtime, but some strange Olympics 4 on 4 twilight zone overtime. From euphoria to dejection in a millisecond, it was now an entirely new game, with new rules, and nobody in this audience thought that was good news.

They say the 15mins in Team Canada’s dressing room was relaxed, but I don’t buy it. These players knew their performance in the next few minutes would be the difference between the history books, and throwing a silver medal into the corner of the first room in their house they managed to crawl into. They say winning bronze is arguably better than silver in Olympic Hockey because you always “win” the bronze in your final game. The silver medalist always ends their Olympics with a painful loss.

With Team Canada back on the ice, the crowd was braced for a full 20mins of pain and sorrow. I was convinced this was going to end in a shoot-out, but the crowd cheered as though we were always in the final seconds of the game.

7:40 into OT Sid Crosby made about 30 million new friends when a wrist shot managed to sneak past Ryan Miller to end the game, and clinch Canada’s most coveted gold medal of the Winter Games.

This sparked the biggest sea of red and white I have seen in my life. The estimates suggest over 200,000 fans (56 times the population of my home town) took the streets of Vancouver in celebration, but to me it felt like millions. I truly believe their estimates are off because I felt like I bumped into at least that many people :)

Just after Sid’s final goal:

And now, on to Robson, Granville, and anywhere else downtown!

The people dancing to the tune of “Another one bites the dust” blasting on a massive stereo were only overshadowed by a crowd of people singing the Canadian National Anthem, and the sound of horns blaring from every car within the downtown core became a familiar sound over the next few hours. Almost every vehicle driving by had at least one Canadian flag flying high, and nobody was shy in their liberal horn use. People were climbing on street cars, traffic lights, bus stops, and even playing hockey in the streets wherever there was room.

A few seconds of video does not do this justice, but here goes:

I do not know what would have happened if Team Canada lost that game. After that painful tie goal I had already mentally written my blog post title as ‘24 seconds from awesome’. An American came up to Shawn and I just after the win and said the same. She was upset the US had lost, but after seeing the massive crowd painted or draped in red and white, and the emotion on display, she almost felt like switching alliances for just one day. Almost.

I do not think I will ever have an opportunity to see a game this good, with people this crazy, in these numbers, in a place this perfect, in a time like this again. People will be talking about this one for a long time. This game now holds the record for the most watched television broadcast in Canadian history. 80% of Canadians tuned in at some point to watch this game. In the US, only one match has ever had more viewers, this was the “Miracle on Ice” when the US beat Finland after a surprise victory over the Soviet Union in 1980.

Anyhow, after Shawn and I spent some time getting crushed by crowds we decided it was time to check out the flame:

Then we started the walk back to the car, and from there - back home. Again, the border line was completely empty, and the ride was smooth. The border guard on the way back did not ask us who we were rooting for – which I saw as a very good thing :)

I clearly owe Cheryl for this one. She offered to take care of Kayla for the day, and that’s the only reason I had this opportunity. I made it to the 2010 Olympics to watch and experience the nation win an epic gold medal! Wow.

Valentine’s day and a birthday for Boots and Charlie

2010-02-18T22:18:00.001-08:00

So, it’s been just over a week since I did my last post, and since then we have added hundreds more photos to the Kayla collection. Cheryl has uploaded another 150 pictures to Shutterfly too.

Cheryl’s also been busy updating her space as well. She has since written 3 new posts on her first, second, and fourth day home alone with Kayla. Check them out! Before that we had a fun visit with Cheryl’s sister Amy. I am pretty sure she enjoyed her time with Kayla too :)

This Sunday was Valentine’s day, and it just so happens it is also Boots and Charlie’s first birthday. Yes, they are now cats, no longer kittens. Which is good because it was odd calling Charlie (a 15 lb+ animal) a kitten. People just didn’t buy it… They have grown a lot since we brought them home from Kitty Harbor last year.

For Valentine’s day we made a cake to celebrate:

Boots and Charlie are now making the transition to cat food from kitten food. Good times!

And, of course there’s Kayla who has had many guests since the last post, and has also experienced many firsts – including her first valentine’s day! She didn’t seem that interested in the cake though… Maybe next year?

Some pics since the last post:

But yes, there are way more where those came from. Check out Shutterfly for more!

Until next time!

Kayla’s first two weeks

2010-02-06T19:00:00.001-08:00

Kayla is almost two weeks old, and we’ve already got hundreds of pictures of her since the first post. She’s had her first trip to the park, her first trip to the lake, her first trip to Starbucks, her first potluck party, and tons of guests! Grandma Frey has already come to visit as well!

We’ve posted a ridiculous amount of photos… The first 74 are here, and here are 121 of the latest.

I’ve selected a few from that list to show here:

Until next time!

Welcome Kayla Ester Sauvé!

2010-01-27T23:18:00.001-08:00

Cheryl and I are proud to announce that our new baby girl Kayla has arrived! She’s in good health and we are all home from the hospital safe and sound.

Kayla came into this world at 9:54pm Sunday January 24th, at 7 lbs 15 oz, and 20.25" inches in length. She’s adorable, and very much worth the wait! Cheryl and I brought her home from the Swedish Medical Center on First Hill just yesterday and she’s been the focus of Boots, Charlie, Cheryl and I ever since.

Here’s a selection of photos that span delivery to home, click on them to see the full image:

A photographer came by to take their own photos as well (everyone delivering at Swedish gets a free photo shoot for obvious reasons). To see these photos go here, and login using 0124KaylaSauve as the password.

Anyhow, we’re now focused on making sure Kayla gets the nutrients she needs. She’s behaving very well, and we are very proud to show her to anyone who stops by! We want to thank everyone for the well wishes and strong support.

Until next time!

Waiting for baby

2010-01-27T19:10:00.001-08:00

Well, since my last post a lot has happened. Most importantly we are expecting a baby girl – This Monday actually (the due date is 2 days from now). Cheryl was 5 months pregnant on our Italy/UK trip, and right now we’re as prepared as we’re going to get, and mostly waiting to meet her.

Yes, we are very excited, and somewhat scared!

That’s not to say we haven’t been having any fun since my October post… We’ve had two trips to Whistler – some of the best pre-season skiing I’ve ever seen, hosted a perfect Thanksgiving feast, Cheryl went to Ontario, Mr. and Mrs. Hale came to visit, Cheryl threw me a rocking birthday party, we bought and decorated our first Christmas tree, and a lot more… Above and beyond that we’ve spent some time trying to learn the intricacies of having a baby through various courses offered by the Swedish Medical Center, we’ve managed to compile a small warehouse of baby gear (Thanks everyone!) and Cheryl now has a new library of baby books that have been walking us through the process.

Cheryl enjoying a stroll through Whistler Village:

Christmas 2009

This Christmas was the first I did not spend in Northern Ontario with family. Cheryl and I stayed back in Seattle in case we received an extra present over the holidays. Luckily for us baby decided to wait until she was full term. I very much missed going home for Christmas, but we organized a virtual video discussion over Instant Messenger which was really good, though certainly not a replacement for going home.

Our cats had their first Christmas as well. So of course, Cheryl bought Charlie and Boots their own stockings. I find it a bit odd that their stockings are bigger than ours, and they also have their own names printed on theirs, but I think we’re going to rectify that eventually :)

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care:

Charlie enjoying his new basket:

We were lucky that Henry and Trang invited us over for their Christmas feast. It was a great prime rib dinner with the amazing attention to detail that Trang and Henry seem to put into everything…

Christmas dinner at Trang and Henry’s:

I’ve only ever known ‘white Christmases’ as I’ve always been back in Northern Ontario in December, so things are a bit different in Seattle. Putting up a Christmas tree when there is no snow to be seen felt a bit odd. But I got over it.

Cheryl sporting her Christmas cheer and belly in the sun:

The only ones who enjoyed the Christmas tree more than Cheryl did were Boots and Charlie. We hoped they wouldn’t climb the tree since it was a fake, but they became expert climbers by the end of the holiday, and managed to bend many of the tree’s branches, and they eventually hid almost all our round ornaments under the couch… We didn’t find them until we started packing the tree back up, so when I looked under the couch to see 20 or so ornaments it was quite a sight…

Cameras

Our point and shoot (Canon SD600) is on the fritz. It often won’t turn into photo mode (gets stuck on video mode), so, with a new baby on the way we decided to start looking into a new camera.

I took this as my opportunity to play with a few different types of cameras. I wanted to get a sense if it was worth buying a digital SLR, or if the new point and shoot cameras would do it for me.

I took the following with Henry’s digital SLR:

I also spent some time playing comparing the Canon S90 with my Canon SD600 to see how much better it was. Short answer: Night and day. The Canon S90 is Canon’s compact in the prosumer line. For those of you that understand these things (one day I will), this point-and-shoot shoots at F/2 wide open which apparently lets in about twice as much light as most other point and shoots at F/2.8. The difference when taking a photo in a restaurant, or at home without daylight is clear.

Anyhow, after taking a few shots and video with the S90 I decided to buy it instead of the SD980IS which would have the benefit of HD video, but essentially the same lens as the SD600. I still might end up getting an SLR with a good zoom lens, but at least I have a very solid point and shoot for when baby arrives.

What now?

They say most first babies are late, though I’ve had multiple friends this year go 3 weeks early on their first, so who knows when she’ll decide to come into this world. The main concern we have now is for a healthy baby and mom. Timing isn’t so much of a concern for us at this point :)

Maybe she’ll read this one day and know how excited we were to meet her!

Stay tuned!

Fall vacation: The UK and Italy

2009-10-04T16:57:00.001-07:00

Cheryl travelled to the UK for work. We decided that it would be a good idea for me to join her in Edinburgh near the end of the trip, and extend the visit with a European fall vacation. We originally planned to head out to Istanbul but the town’s weather forecast was for much more rain following the worst floods in 80 years, so at the last minute we decided to head to Italy instead (not a bad second choice).

Wednesday afternoon (Sept 23) I took the red-eye out of Seattle direct to London. From there my connection didn’t quite work out (after standing by on 4 flights British Air finally swapped me airlines on the last flight out), so I didn’t make it to the Gleneagles Hotel in time for Scotch tasting. Bummer.

My bags didn’t turn up either, so I had to attend the relatively formal conference lunch with my sneakers: I stuck out a bit...

At the end of the conference we played a round of golf at the famous PGA quality Gleneagles golf courses. I was scheduled to play the King’s Course, while Cheryl opted for the par-3 Wee Course. I played with a couple of low-to-scratch golfers, and for the most part hacked the course apart. Highlights for me include getting to within 15 feet of the pin on a 250 yard par 4 with a 4-iron from the tee (then three-putting for par), a lone birdie, and the loss of over 9 balls :) Cheryl got a par by sinking a shot from the sand!

Here is Cheryl right after chipping in from the sand for par:

London
From there we started our trip over to Italy. We had a long layover in London, and had to transfer between London City Airport and Stansted which required us going into town anyhow, so we checked our bags at the Liverpool Street Station, and headed down to visit some of the sights of downtown London.

We went to Westminster Abby, saw the church (The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster – Westminster Abby for short), Big Ben, the London Eye, and had lunch downtown.

Here’s Cheryl and I in London with Big Ben in the background:

After catching the train to Stansted Airport it was time to head to Rome. We flew to Rome on a budget airline (RyanAir), which would not allow checked bags over 15kg (which really isn’t that much weight for a week’s long trip), so after a lot of luggage-swapping, and pocket-packing, we were able to get my bag down to 14.9kg, and Cheryl’s to 15.0kg even. So, there’s a good reason we didn’t bring back many souvenirs :)

Rome
Our first night in Rome was pretty uneventful. We got in late enough that we essentially hit the sack immediately after a crazy taxi ride.

The next morning we decided to tour around to some sights near our hotel to get a general sense of the city. We immediately walked to the train station (Termini) and bought ourselves Roma passes (which gives you free transit around the city for 3 days, discounts at many major attractions, and free entry into the first 2 attractions you see).

From there we walked towards the Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri church. A pretty impressive first site, made more so by the sounds of the spectacular organ ringing throughout.

The most impressive organ I’ve ever seen someone play:

Just around the corner from there is the National Museum of Rome – Palazzo Massimo. I am not a huge museum buff, so to me this was primarily a good way to escape the noon-2pm heat prior to walking down to the more interesting sights in the old city.

After escaping the museum and participating in the famous Italian siesta, we started our walk down to the iconic Colosseum, a truly impressive sight. The Colosseum construction began in 70AD (ish), and its opening in 80AD was marked with an 100 day opening ceremony where 9,000 animals, and 2,000 humans were killed. That’s 90 animals, and 20 people per day on average: Lots of ‘entertainment’… Over the course of its existence it is estimated that 500,000 people, and over a million animals died to entertain the people of Rome.

From the inside:

From the outside:

After spending a few hours marveling at the Colosseum we walked over towards the Pantheon, and to start a night walk through the city.

No shortage of scenery:

We then went over to the Pantheon, and ate some dinner nearby. The night walk took us through the Trevi Fountain (where Cheryl and I threw money over our left shoulders for apparent good luck – approximately 3,000 euros are thrown into the fountain each day and given to charity), and then we walked on to the Spanish Steps (and up them). This was a lot of walking in one day for Cheryl, so we took the metro back to the hotel to get some sleep for our next big day - the Vatican.

Vatican City
Technically the smallest country in the world, Vatican City houses St. Peter’s Basilica, and the Vatican Museum which gives access to the famous Sistine Chapel painted by Michelangelo.

The Vatican Museum line is famously long, often hours, so Cheryl and I decided to start there to be sure we could make it in before it closed - it closes earlier than other museums in the city. When we got there, the line we saw seemed to stretch for a kilometer… But it was moving very fast, so we held out hope. In the end I believe it was under a 45 minute wait for us, so I was pretty happy for that – we had psyched ourselves up for an hour and a half wait, and it’s all about expectations.

The line for the museum:

I do not have an art degree, so I am very sure that I didn’t come near full appreciation for the art held within the museum, but the Sistine Chapel was impressive even to someone who doesn’t typically appreciate art.

From there we took a trick from Rick Steves, and snuck into St. Peter’s Basilica by closely following a tour group through a side entrance rather than walking out and around for 30 minutes into the main entrance (having to once again go through security). This worked really well. We came out of the Sistine Chapel right by the main entrance to the Basilica.

St. Peter’s Basilica was the most impressive building I have ever seen, and I had just been to the Colosseum. It blew me away, and I really wasn’t expecting it to. The size of everything in there was absolutely incredible, even though the construction was actually made to make the building look smaller than it is.

St. Peter’s Basilica (photos do not do this one justice):

We then went up the dome of the basilica (elevator + 320 stairs), which offered a stunning view of Vatican City, and a 360 degree view of Rome.

View from the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica:

We then went down to the shop at the base of the dome (still on the roof) to buy a few post cards (and Vatican stamps), wrote the post cards and sent them off.

At this point we went back to the old city again to continue our tour, we went to Palatine Hill, and the Roman Forum to learn more about ancient Rome prior to heading back on another night walk via the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and Spanish Steps.

The next morning Cheryl and I visited the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore since it was a block from our hotel. Then we were off to Sorrento which required taking a train from Termini to Naples, and then swapping to another train to Sorrento.

Sorrento
Sorrento is a pretty small town compared to Rome and Naples, famous for Limoncello, lemon trees seem to be all over the place here. Now that we’ve got our fill of museums, and churches, it was time to relax.

This was the view from our hotel terrace:

We arrived early enough to get a look at the town in the daylight, we found a good pizza place, and walked around to get a lay of the land. Cheryl also had the chance to dip her feet in the Mediterranean for the first time too.

In the morning we decided to head to Positano on the Amalfi Coast. Our bus actually got stuck trying to go below a bridge it didn’t fit under. It took the bus driver a few minutes to wrench the bus out of there, and we were a bit worried we’d have to figure out another way to get there (or back to the hotel). The views on the way to Positano were stunning, the highway is perilously perched at least a hundred feet over the water below, and it winds its way with many tight (and stomach wrenching) turns.

The highway winding its way around the mountain:

Positano is a pretty small town, and the houses are constructed seemingly one on top of the other on a relatively steep set of hills…

Hopefully people here have erosion insurance:

Cheryl took a swim in the Mediterranean and we both sat down for more pizza prior to grabbing the ferry back to Sorrento. From the boat we were able to watch the beautiful coastline, along with that same long and windy road much of the way back. The water was calm, and the weather was great for a boat ride.

Cheryl on the boat as we leave Positano:

The next day, we decided to go to Pompeii, an ancient town destroyed (and completely buried) by the local Mt. Vesuvius eruption in 79AD. At this time somewhere between 10 and 25 thousand people died in the area. One of the more interesting exhibits in the area are the plaster casts made from the holes left in the ash by the decomposed bodies that once laid there. These casts show people frozen in time as they were… attempting to protect themselves from the inevitable.

Here are some of the plaster casts of people who were trapped in the eruption:

Much of the city has been excavated (starting in the 1700’s), so you can essentially walk through the streets of ancient Pompeii, and see cart paths, pottery, frescoes, and murals.

Another interesting sight is the amphitheatre – one of the oldest and best preserved in existence:

Walking through the ancient village:

On our way back from Pompeii we found out that it was too late to take the bus to Mt. Vesuvius, so we decided to do that on our way out of Sorrento the next day.

Our hotel recommended a fish restaurant on the water, so we decided to eat there. The wine was great, and I ordered the local fish – which came with a full fish, mini-lobster, shrimp and squid. The waiter de-boned the fish at the table, but didn’t touch the full shrimp and mini-lobster. I didn’t really do a good job of picking the lobster meat off, but I did my best.

Here was the meal – note mini-lobster on the far end of my plate:

Anyhow, the morning came fast, and it was time to head out to Mt. Vesuvius. Mt. Vesuvius is considered the world’s most dangerous volcano mostly due to the 3,000,000 people that live within it’s eruption base (the most densely populated volcanic region in the world). The last eruption was in 1944, but none have been as destructive as the one in 79AD that obliterated Pompeii and neighboring towns.

Here is Cheryl on her way up to the crater rim:

Here’s a postcard of the rim with actual rim in the background:

In order to get to Mt. Vesuvius we originally stopped and left our bags at the Pompeii station, since we were on our way back to Rome. We found out the bus we paid for would not get us back before the bag storage stop closed, so we decided to hire a taxi to take us to the rim. The taxi ended up being a much better idea since it took us an hour and a half less time which really made the rest of our day go a lot smother.

After finishing the crater walk we got our bags, and took the train back to Naples:

From Naples we found our way back to Rome, and we spent some time in the Rome Termini station trying to find a small souvenir for our trip. At Termini we found a taxi to get us to our hotel, and had a pretty good dinner there. This was our last night in Rome, but with a 6:35AM international departure, the morning would come soon enough.

Our wakeup call for 4:30AM was a real shock to my system. For the past 3 days we had been waking up at 9:30 or later, so 4:30 was rough. We arrived back in Seattle by about 6pm Seattle time, and were able to get a few things organized prior to crashing. That was almost 24 hours of travel – wish I could sleep on planes.

Looking back on the trip, we saw a good variety of things. From golfing on one of Scotland’s great courses, to Ancient Rome, the Vatican, Sorrento, Positano, Pompeii, and climbing Mt. Vesuvius I think we covered some good ground. I would totally recommend Italy since it was easy to get around, relatively safe, most people speak some English, and there is a ridiculous amount of stuff to see.

Until next time!

Mom and Dad visit Seattle

2009-09-02T20:13:00.001-07:00

My parents came to Seattle to visit for a week starting on August 4th. Every year I try my best to coax them to come down during the summer when the Pacific Northwest is one of the best places on earth to be (in my opinion of course). Luckily enough, we had a pretty good excuse to get them down this summer :)

This time around we decided to tour some of the local sites rather than do larger trips as we had in the past. Instead of going to Rainier, or Vancouver Island, we stayed local to see some of the sites nearby.

Here is a link to more photos.

Snoqualmie Falls

Our first stop was Snoqualmie Falls. For some reason I had never shown them this very accessible view, just over a half hour drive from Seattle, this is a great place to go.

Here are mom and dad at the top of the falls:

There is a hiking trail down to the bottom of the falls, and we decided that we had the energy to make the trek down.

This is mom climbing a tree on the way down to the base:

View from the bottom:

Rattlesnake Ledge

At this point we decided we still had enough energy to try out another local Seattle hike – Rattlesnake Ledge. Rattlesnake is a great hike because it’s relatively short, and it has an amazing view at the top.

Here we are up at the top of the climb:

Dad and I at the end of our hike:

After our hike, we went over to the Columbia Crest Winery to cap the day off properly.

Crabbing

Now for something that I’ve never done before… Crabbing. Our good friends Henry and Trang went crabbing last year, and they bought crab traps, and bait. They expressed interest in helping show us the ropes of crabbing, so after buying a crabbing pass we were able to take the ferry over to Bremerton to find out what this crabbing thing was all about.

Waking up before 6am on a Saturday seems a bit nuts, but apparently you need to catch the early ferry in order to get a good spot on the dock.

Here we are waiting for the ferry after grabbing some well needed caffeine:

When we got to the dock, Henry and Trang were already there:

There are two types of crabs to catch here – Red Rock, and Dungeness. Each of which has their own size limits. You cannot catch any females, so part of our crabbing education was how to measure, and determine the sex of a crab – very interesting.

Ok, so we caught some crabs… Now what:

Here I’m throwing a trap in for another slew of crab:

The whole crabbing crew:

It’s amazing how many crabs we’d pull up every minute or two. 99% of these did not fit the size restrictions, so had to be thrown back. At the end of the day we had caught 6 total that were larger than 6” across.

So, we invited a few folks over for dinner and then Henry taught us how to clean and cook crab. Which was another experience all in itself.

Cleaning crab:

Eating crab:

I’d definitely say that overall crabbing was a lot more exciting, and interesting than I thought it would be. It was actually pretty fun!

Little Si

My parents somehow still had hiking energy left at the end of our week. We decided to go to another well known local hike – Little Si. Little Si has about half the elevation gain of it’s bigger brother next door, but the hike itself is very pleasant, and you can see a pretty good panoramic from the top including Mt. Si’s Haystack.

And…

In addition to all this hiking, dad helped me do a lot of very useful things around the house. We rewired some of our light switches, added a lock to our bathroom door, installed a cat door to the basement, and fixed the garage door… I’m sure he did a lot more too, but that’s the stuff I can remember off the top of my head.

Anyhow, mom/dad, thank you so much for coming out, and I do hope you’re able to come sometime soon in the new year!

July 4th on the Oregon Coast

2009-07-12T13:07:00.001-07:00

This past weekend Cheryl and I joined a good group of friends in renting a house on the Oregon coast near Lincoln City (about a 5.5 hour drive from Seattle). This was primarily organized by Trang and Henry – Thanks guys!

The full list of photos is here.

We decided to leave after the initial holiday traffic died off, so didn’t actually arrive in Lincoln City until well after midnight Thursday night. We were not the last ones in, I believe Shawn and Megan didn’t make it in until well after 1am – Henry and I stayed up to greet them.

The morning came quickly, and we were greeted to a warm day. The sun was having a hard time breaking through the ocean mist near the coastline, but 100 yards off the shore it was clear blue sky. We had each signed up for a meal (breakfast or dinner), and Cheryl and I decided take Friday night dinner. Our first breakfast was an amazing combination of crepes, and quiche – something both Cheryl and I appreciated.

After breakfast we spent some time hanging out on the beach playing with a soccer ball, football, disc, etc…) then headed south to go body boarding at a local beach… We headed down to Devil’s Punchbowl.

We also rented wetsuits because the water on the Oregon coast is freezing cold:

The wetsuits really helped, but we regretted not getting gloves. As soon as my hands hit the water I could feel the pain brought on by the cold water. After a few minutes my hands were numb. Regardless, we bodysurfed for over an hour, and had a great time. Every 5 minutes or so on the way back that night Cheryl would comment on how much fun she had in the waves. There were a bunch of surfers out there hanging out, but I think we caught way more waves, and had more fun :)

Since it was our turn to cook, on the way home we stopped in and bought the ingredients for Cheryl’s famous lasagna, and a bunch of Rainier cherries which were on a great sale – Rainier cherries are so good! We made dinner, and sat back to watch the sun set.

Here was the view from the house:

The next morning, Shawn, Megan, Cheryl and I drove further south with Trang and Henry to go sandboarding in the Oregon Dunes just south of Florence. On our way there we went to the ‘worlds largest sea cave’ to check out the local sea lions.

The view – even without the sea lions was spectacular:

After hanging out with the sea lions it was time to go sandboarding. We rented sand boards from a local place at Sand Master Park, and went south to Honeyman State Park. Sand boards seem like a cross between a wakeboard and a skateboard with a construction similar to the 7ply skateboards I used to ride, wakeboard-ish bindings, and a laminated bottom that has to be waxed prior to every single run. I had set my expectations very very low for sandboarding, it definitely exceeded my expectations though I don’t think it will catch on to be mainstream for a wide variety of (relatively obvious) reasons – until the climate changes a ton at least :)

Here’s Henry getting ready for his first run:

Cheryl surfing the sand:

Shawn and Aaron doing figure 8’s at the end of the day:

Cheryl also took some video. This one is a bit funny because a dune buggy in the background is revving up making it sound like the sand board has an engine. It does not :)

After finishing up on the dunes we headed back north to the house. It was Eric and Oliver’s turn to cook dinner, and they prepared an outstanding salmon dinner - with more Rainier cherries :)

Here’s Cheryl and I hanging out on the deck of the house:

We then sat back and watched a pretty impressive fireworks presentation – given it was not an organized event, just a bunch of random people launching fireworks from the beach. We didn’t bring any, but we had fun watching.

After the fireworks died down, Shawn broke out his guitar, and we massacred a bunch of popular tunes :)

The next day we decided to head out early. Cheryl really wanted to rescue Boots and Charlie from the kennel, so we wanted to beat the holiday traffic rush. We didn’t quite beat the rush, but we did make it back just in the nick of time. Boots and Charlie were very glad to see us.

Until next time!

Some biking, Some Wakeboarding

2009-06-22T20:04:00.001-07:00

Well, the last time I posted I didn’t have a bike, but luckily I found one on Craigslist for a reasonable price. Last year, I took a bit of a spill on my bike, and that bike is still out of commission with a broken rear frame piece, shock that needs serious servicing, and a broken pedal.

So, my new bike is a Transition Bottle Rocket, it’s more of a slopestyle bike than a downhill bike – which is what I’m used to, but so far it’s taken a pretty good amount of terrain.

Here it is:

I’ve had the chance to do a lot of rides on it so far. Some longer cross country rides, some local freeriding, Whistler, and the North Shore. It’s proven to be very versatile.

Here’s a shot from Whistler last weekend (Crabapple Hits):

This is Glade contemplating a steep double roll on the North Shore:

Other than biking, I was invited out with a friend from work to go wakeboarding before work – which requires waking up at an unholy hour. Apparently people who know something about wakeboarding/waterskiing will find the following picture pretty impressive… It’s a flat lake with no boaters… I am not actually a wakeboarder (I’ve only gone a few times), nor do I play one on TV, so the awesome conditions are no doubt lost on me.

Here is Lake Sammamish:

Well, I did manage to clear the wake a few times, but it was not always pretty.

As an example…

Of course, I was shown up by my friend who was pulling backflips, and other crazy things you only usually see on TV. So my wimpy wipeouts were nothing compared to his.

Here’s my buddy with some serious hangtime:

He landed the one before this, but it’s better to have the wipeout on camera :)

I had a few hard landings, one gave me whiplash a bit, and I actually had to go home and rest during the afternoon. The water is a lot harder than it looks.

Anyhow, until next time!

Boots and Charlie

2009-05-17T21:22:00.001-07:00

As many of you know, Cheryl is a big fan of most things furry with four legs. If we lived somewhere out in the country, or worked 9-5, we would definitely consider having a couple dogs – a few retrievers perhaps? Anyhow, with our work/travel schedule, we’ve determined that we do not have the time to properly take care of a dog. To fill the fuzziness void, for Cheryl’s birthday, I gave her the go-ahead to get cats.

Not long afterwards we found ourselves in the ASHA Kitty Harbor shelter, where about 20 kittens were roaming around on the floor, and in various cages. Kitty Harbor is a no-kill shelter that takes kittens in from other shelters that do not have the room to keep them. When we sat down to play with the various kittens I took a liking to “Tom” and “Jerry” as they were called. Cheryl seemed to take a liking to almost any kitten in the place, so apparently it was up to me to determine which ones we should grab. We were looking for 2 since we hoped they could keep themselves busy during the day while we were out.

To make a longer story short we brought home Tom and Jerry:

Who were almost immediately renamed to Boots and Charlie. Boots – because he has four white feet that look a bit like boots, and Charlie – because it popped into Cheryl’s head. The name seemed to fit, so we went with it.

Here’s Charlie in his first few minutes at our house:

Cheryl was pretty excited:

So far they’ve been very good together. Every night they sleep together, and most of the time they aren’t playing around they can be found lying around together somewhere. They are rarely apart.

Here’s them sleeping in a gift basket we got a while back:

Cheryl has already taken them on multiple walks outside:

So, now we have two scratching posts, a feather on a stick, a ball that makes noise when it rolls, and even a laser pointer… But, their favorite toy so far is the brown paper bag that Shawn and Megan brought over for a dinner party.

Here are Boots and Charlie playing in the paper bag:

Here they are on the paper bag:

I think I have about 20 photos of them and the bag.

Anyhow, we’re now on week two with these guys. They were 11 weeks when we got them, and have an easy-to-remember birthday: Valentines day. So far they’re doing great, we took them to the vet for their initial check up today, and they charmed the entire staff – who were all surprised they were so well behaved.

Anyhow, until next time!

Ontario for Sean’s Wedding

2009-04-18T11:18:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago Cheryl and I headed to Toronto for Sean’s wedding.

Here are the pics from the wedding.

Here are the pics from Kitchener/Waterloo.

We took the red-eye from Seattle-Toronto, and were lucky enough to stay with Amy and RJ in Kitchener. Since Steve is currently at UWaterloo I was able to go visit with him on campus. He toured me around the new buildings that have gone up since I was last there a few years ago, and I was surprised at how much the campus has changed. While we were in Waterloo I also had a chance to hang out with my cousin Bryan who I haven’t seen in a long time.

Amy and RJ invited Steve over for dinner Friday night, so Steve had a chance to show off his drum skillz on Guitar Hero World Tour with Ryan, Cheryl, and I…

Saturday morning Cheryl and I had to get dressed for the wedding:

We had rented a car, so we drove to downtown Toronto for the wedding, and were glad to meet up with Chris/Pat/Sean at the wedding. The hall was spectacular, it was clear that Sean and Jamie had pulled out all the stops.

Later on we headed north to pick up Cheryl’s mom at Yorkdale, check-in to our hotel, and head over to the reception.

It was great to see the Kirby’s again, but also great to hang out with Jamie and Michelle. I hadn’t seen them since their wedding in the Dominican.

Anyhow, the reception was fantastic, and Sean/Jamie showed off some of their mad ballroom dancing skillz. Not an act I’m likely to want to follow anytime soon.

On Sunday, Cheryl, and I went back to Kitchener to play with Lindsay/Ryan, and Sam.

Here’s Sam as we sat in the sun in the park near Amy and RJ’s house:

I went back to Waterloo while Cheryl played with the kids to save Steve from his Physics studying and take him out for a coffee. We didn’t stay too long because Cheryl and I were planning to take the 2.5 hour trek up North to Midland to meet Cheryl’s mom’s new cats.

Playing with the cats was fun, but all we could hear on the radio was storm weather warnings for the morning, so we cut our morning plans to make sure we would have plenty of time to get to the airport in the afternoon.

As expected, when we woke up we were greeted with 20cm of new snow – a much different sight than the previous day when we were playing with Sam in the sunny park…

So, we began our trip back to the airport early Monday morning:

Luckily the snow turned to wet snow, and finally rain by the time we hit Toronto. The flight back to Seattle was uneventful – just the way I like flights.

One thing I forgot to mention is it was Cheryl’s birthday the week prior to our Ontario trip. We celebrated with the usual crew, but also with Andrea, Stacy, and Steven from Vancouver, and Chloe and Jason.

Cheryl put up a bunch of photos from her birthday here.

Until next time!

Whistler, Vanc, Dallas, and San Jose

2009-03-28T15:56:00.001-07:00

Last week was filled with travel for Cheryl and I.

Friday night we headed up to stay with Jen and Glade on our way to Whistler.

We woke up early to make the day trip out to Whistler, and by the time we made it to Creekside the line-up for the lift was somewhere between 45mins to an hour long. We were worried that we’d be sitting an hour at every lift line, but, although it did take us a long time to get up to the top of the hill, the rest of the day was a bit better. It was definitely the busiest I’d seen it in a long time, but the snow made it worth it.

It had snowed a ton the two days prior, and they had not opened the high alpine up until Saturday morning, so there was more than a bit of snow to be had. We were still able to get fresh tracks when we hiked up to Flute at the end of the day. Glade and I dropped a few ledges, and a 12 foot drop was feeling like 3 feet. So nice… You can imagine there was some pretty huge cliff hucking going on around the mountain.

After heading back to Vancouver, Cheryl and I hung out in North Vancouver – I’m looking to buy a bike, so we toured all the typical North Shore shops, and we ended up hanging out with Kelly at a North Vancouver beach.

Sunday was Jerry’s birthday, so we were invited over to Andrea and Jerry’s for some birthday dinner in downtown Vancouver. Good times.

As soon as we got back to Seattle, Cheryl had to pack for her Monday flight to Dallas. She would be there Monday to Tuesday night. The timing of her trip was bad since I had a 6:50am flight to San Jose on Wednesday morn.

California was sunny, and warm, a stark contrast from the cold pouring rain that greeted me as I drove to the airport Wed morn. And as expected I was greeted with cold pouring rain when I got back late Thursday – ah Seattle.

This weekend is Cheryl’s birthday, so we’re sticking in town, and have friends coming down from Vancouver.

Should be fun!

Marley and Cheryl (and me)

2009-03-19T21:04:00.001-07:00

Evan’s roommate was out of the country, and owns a dog. This combination presented a challenge to Evan, but an opportunity for Cheryl. Cheryl – as you probably know – loves animals, and wishes we had a cat/dog, or something fuzzy with four feet. Anyhow, at some point Evan realized that Cheryl would gladly sign up to walk Paddington without much convincing.

Now, Paddington is a labradoodle… Which sounds like a combination of the work of an insane mad scientist, biogenetics, and bad marketing, but, I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for the result. Knowing nothing of labradoodles except that they are dogs, have four legs, and are furry is enough for Cheryl to agree to take care of it for an indeterminate length of time.

To make a long story short, we somehow managed to get the dog to our neck of the woods, where we have a really nice off-leash area.

Here’s Cheryl getting ready to start our journey:

The dog park is really just over a block from our place, so we don’t have to walk far. It’s once we got to the park that the shenanigans began…

Now, I’ve never been to a dog park before. Back home every area is an off-leash area, so we didn’t have designated spots for walking pets, but I’m pretty sure dog owners don’t like their dogs being terrorized, which is exactly what began as soon as we took off Paddington’s leash.

As soon as Paddington’s leash was unhooked he ran to the nearest dog, and started ‘terrorizing’ it… That’s the only word I can use to describe it. Now, Paddington is not a mean dog, just a playful dog, but it seems like Paddington’s MO is to annoy a dog until it snaps at him, and then it’s time to move on to another friend or… victim. So here we were, watching Paddington move from dog to dog annoying each to the brink of their sanity before moving to the next. It was methodical, and almost genius in its simplicity and predictability. I’m sure if Newton were watching he would find an F=ma equivalent equation that would dictate his behavior. Now, if we called out “PADDINGTON” you’d expect some form of response… You would be wrong.

So, we now had the attention of every dog owner in the park (and there were many.)

At this point Paddington stole another dog’s ball and ran to the other end of the park. I was happy he was terrorizing a ball, and not another dog. Just as I thought he was preoccupied he ran back from the other end of the park to a group of three dogs peacefully drinking water from a bowl in the middle of the park. Paddington stepped directly into the middle of the bowl, and the three dogs slowly stepped back, in what I can only imagine was disbelief. Paddington proceeded to flip the bowl over, and when satisfied, he ran to the other end of the park… Cheryl re-filled the bowl, in time for Paddington to come back, and flip it back over. At this point he started running towards the big St. Bernard in the middle of the park and began attempting to terrorize it.

This did not work so well, and at this point I openly started calling him Marley.

I’m not even going to go into that, but afterwards he decided to run directly towards the biggest mud pit in the park. He did a superman slide into the mud at top speed, then just laid there. Looking around as all dog owners continued laughing at him. He of course took this as a challenge to somehow find a way to get more muddy, then he rolled… Oh yes. What was mixed in with this mud I will not spend time contemplating, but I’m sure it was not just mud. Regardless, Paddington was rolling in it, and everyone was laughing – until Paddington started terrorizing their dogs in his new mud-monster state… Then somehow it seemed less funny to them.

Here’s a shot of Paddington after his first mud encounter:

At some point we managed to get the leash back on Paddington… Then we left the park. I believe this whole thing took about 5 minutes, but we went straight to Lake Washington and made Paddington take a bit of a swim before drying him off.

Here’s Cheryl drying off Paddington back at home:

And from here we somehow managed to get Paddington back to Evan’s house…

Good times :)

Assorted pics from the last couple of months

2009-03-09T18:19:00.001-07:00

After my trip to the Dominican, and subsequent (painful) flight back. I spent some time in Sault Ste. Marie for Christmas. SSM is not quite the Dominican…. At least the weather sure wasn’t.

As an example…

My dad had to shovel off over a foot of snow before being able to BBQ dinner:

This year was the first year not all of my brothers were home for Christmas. Jamie and Michelle continued their Honeymoon in the Dominican Republic over the holidays. The good thing was that I spent the entire previous week with Jamie and Michelle, so I was still able to touch base with all my brothers regardless.

Here, we’re opening presents on Christmas morning. Michael is not in this shot unfortunately, this is mom, Steve, Adam, Nathan, Missy, and Dad.

I flew out on boxing day to head to Kitchener to visit with Cheryl’s family. We had a great time playing with Ryan’s new copy of Guitar Hero World Tour, and tubing in the local tube park just five mins from Amy and RJ’s house. In this shot Ryan, Lindsay, and Cheryl are just getting ready to head down for another run.

Back in Seattle, we’ve been having a wacky winter. Lots more snow this year than I’ve seen in the past 7 years I’ve lived in Seattle. This is a shot of my driveway that Cheryl took after one particularly big dump of snow. Nowhere near what you see in Northern Ontario, but more than usual for Seattle. The strange thing is that Jan and Feb were bad in terms of ski conditions. It’s almost as if it snowed more in Seattle than on the slopes…

Just after getting back from Ontario we found out that both Cheryl and I received our Green Cards. This was a process I’ve been in for a long time, so when Henry and Trang found out they decided to surprise us with red, white, and blue cupcakes. Cheryl and I decided to celebrate with some filet mignon, and sparkling wine (not real Champagne - that stuff is too expensive for our tastes.)

Cheryl’s dad took a job just outside of Vancouver, so he’s now within a short bus drive of visiting us. He came down to spend the day with Cheryl and I, and we went on a tour of the neighborhood.

I brought home massive paintings from both Africa, and the Dominican Republic. They go for $30 or $40 there, so when I found out it was going to cost me over $150 to frame each painting I decided I’d take matters into my own hands. Here’s Cheryl getting ready to stretch my Dominican painting over the frame I built. Much cheaper than getting it done professionally, but we didn’t get all the crimps out of it, so we didn’t do as good a job as we would have gotten if we shelled out the cash. If I ever buy an expensive painting I’ll definitely get it framed professionally.

Cheryl’s mom came up to visit for a week shortly after we got the painting up and running. We ate at our favorite breakfast spot (B&O Espresso), they went to the Northwest Flower and Garden show, and also to the Lion King musical. Here they are on their way over to Bainbridge Island on a ferry. It was still pretty cool to be up on the top deck, but again, not quite as cool as Northern Ontario.

I’ve been snowboarding a few times in the last month, but also had a chance to help out the DirtCorps. They are now working on a legit trail just outside of Issaquah. It’s called the Duthie Hill Bike Park. The next week I went out to another trail to race, but since my bike is out of commission I decided to take photos instead of trying my luck on Cheryl’s bike.

Here’s one of the local riders sucking it up to maintain speed (not height) through a jump:

Anyhow, that was Christmas/Jan/Feb. Hope all is well!

Dominican to Northern Ontario - Bad flight

2009-02-08T13:48:00.001-08:00

So, after spending most of November in East Africa, and then spending a week in the Dominican for Jamie and Michelle's wedding it was time to head back to Northern Ontario for Christmas - where I was sure to find the weather less desirable.

Anyhow, my travel to "the Sault" was worse than any flight I had been on. We didn't end up in the Hudson river, and nobody was injured, so it certainly could have been much, much worse, but I felt it was a bad enough experience to lay it out here... I flew Delta to Toronto, and Air Canada to the Sault.

Apologies in advance for the length of this post. Grab a coffee or some tea :)

First of all, no reasonably priced flights from Seattle flew into Samana, so I flew into Santo Domingo which was a 3.5 hour taxi ride to where I would then take a ferry to get to Cayo Levantado - our resort. Now, I would need to do that trip in reverse to get back to the airport for my 5:45am flight - which meant I needed to leave at midnight (i.e. not bother go to sleep) in order to be there 2 hours ahead of time - short ferry, 3.5 hour drive, then check-in.

Getting to Santo Domingo (Saturday/Sunday)

At about 10pm Saturday night I was drinking Caipirinhas with my parents at the hotel, and checking my flight status - which showed it delayed out of Santo Domingo by 2 hours. I tried in vain to have my taxi postponed so I could get some sleep, but they were not able to push it off any later than 12:30am - meaning I needed to leave the island by midnight. Bummed about this I went up to my room about 10:30pm, and started packing. I decided I'd try and sleep from 11:00 to 11:50pm - which didn't really result in a great amount of rest.

I caught the ferry on time, and the taxi driver was waiting for me when I landed on the main island. I said hi, he said 'no hablo englais', so, looking on the bright side I thought I might get some sleep over the next 3.5 hours... I had forgotten how potholed the road was for the first two hours of that ride. At some point the road turns from potholed mud ridden bumpfest to actual pavement. At this point we were able to get up to speed. Just about the time I started to nod off the van came screeching to a halt from 50mph, coming within inches of hitting a set of cows crossing the highway. With a renewed paranoia of the road, and the three ridiculously well lit toll booths we had to cross in the last hour of the drive I was sure to get no sleep.

We got to the airport at about 3:45am. Faster than I had expected. I walked to the front desk where the attendant spoke very little English again (I was very sorry I hadn't continued to press on with my Spanish books-on-tape I had started a while back.) Anyhow, he was able to communicate that my flight was actually 4 hours delayed, that I would not make my connection in New York, and that he could not find a flight to move me to since New York had a huge snowstorm which delayed 500 flights, so I would have to figure out how I was getting to Ontario once I got to New York. I felt this was fine anyhow because I was having a very difficult time communicating with him, and I knew I'd be talking English to someone in New York.

So, I went to go through security - but security was closed since there were no flights heading out for a long time as a result of my flight getting delayed. Furthermore there were no seats anywhere nearby that weren't taken up by people sleeping on them... I decided to go sit against the wall to wait until security opened. Although the person working security told me it would only be another 5 mins, I waited about 45 mins before they would let me through.

It's now about 5am, and after going through security I found my way to my gate. It showed my flight boarding time as 9:45am, which is a long time to wait (almost 5 hours)... I noticed the gate was completely empty, just me there, so I laid down across 3 chairs, put my safari hat over my head, laid my arm on my carry-on, and tried to sleep. To no avail unfortunately. To make a long story short, the flight eventually left to NY a bit later than expected, but at least I was on my way...

New York (Sunday)

Immediately upon landing I rushed to the nearest Delta agent I could find to check the status of my flight. She told me that it was currently boarding, and there was no chance I could make it. My flight was originally scheduled to board at 12:15pm, and it was already past this time, so she told me she could get me onto the 8:30pm flight, but that my ticket was already gone for the 12:15.

I picked up my bags, and brought them through customs as fast as I could. Although I was almost sure my flight was gone I decided to make a run for it anyhow. When I got to Delta's gate 25 it was pandemonium. They were perpetually boarding 3 flights at the same time, and one of those flights that was boarding was my 12:15 flight even though we were now north of 2pm... The Delta agents at the desk were trying to deal with the mass delays, but were not staffed for it. I tried to get in line to see if I could somehow get my ticket back for the original flight I was on so that I could appropriately connect to my Toronto->SSM flight, but the receptionist was so flustered with just trying to keep people from rioting that she would not talk with me, and directed me to a line I needed to stand in that was 60 or so people long... Given my flight was "boarding" I knew standing in this line wasn't really going to help me... So, I first walked around to see if there was another gate anywhere nearby that was free where I could talk with a Delta agent, I didn't find one... I asked around, was pointed to the direct dial customer assistance phones. 3 of the 6 sitting by gate 25 were free, so I picked up the first. The person at the phone beside me indicated that the phone I was using was broken. I asked if the other two were as well, they said "yup"... I found out the one in the corner had a lose connection, so if I could hold the connection long enough I might be able to get pushed through in time to make my flight. The connection seemed to drop every minute or so, so I knew this wasn't going to work. I asked the folks on the phones that worked how long they had been on hold, and it seemed like nobody was getting through anyhow.

So, I went in the 60 person line. Waited for 10 mins, then was directed to another line which they were using to split up the larger line. I waited at this new line for 10 mins. After 10 mins the attendant left, and we were all directed back to the end of the original line we were waiting in... It was a mess. I knew I was going to miss my flight - I actually called Cheryl to see if she could get through online to see what was going on. To make this part of the story shorter, I didn't manage to get on the flight I was scheduled for, but I did buy 1984 to read, and that was basically what I planned to read until my 8:30pm flight.

Turns out that gate 25 was always perpetually boarding 3 flights. As I sat down I watched flight after flight get delayed 15 minutes at a time, for hours on end, flights went in and out of "boarding" status, people couldn't leave to go to the bathroom because they were paranoid and did not want to miss the call for their flight. Given the static in the announcement lines it was really hard to tell what was going on, so all three flights worth of people were crowding around the displays at the front desk, and it was just a disaster.

Eventually my flight time came up, and went... I thought maybe I missed an announcement, so now I too was going to start mulling around along with 3 other flights filled with upset passengers who had been delayed for hours... My flight changed from 8:30 to 8:45, to 9:15, to 9:45, to 10, to 10:45, to 11... I was giving up, but we eventually got on the flight just after 11... The good news is I had really gotten far into my 1984 book which was starting to get interesting.

Once on the flight the flight attendant notified us that she would be handing out drinks (water) in advance given we were expected to be in heavy turbulence for the entire length of the flight to Toronto. This was not good, and anyone who's talked to me about flying knows I'm more sensitive to turbulence than I probably should be... At this time she also determined that there were three open seats, and called in to have them filled.

Meanwhile I was thinking I would try and get some sleep. I was seated in row 13B, which is the far back row, right next to the toilets. First of all, the seats do not recline, and I really have a hard time sleeping on planes to begin with. Second of all, since our flight was perpetually boarding for over 3 hours, everyone on the flight had to go to the bathroom - every time the door opened it hit me in the shoulder, and there was a perpetual stream of people both large and small jabbing me as they tried to get through to the toilet.

I already thought this was comical, but it got better.

One of the three people that came on was given my seat number... They said "excuse me, but I think you're in my seat"... I double checked my ticket which was clearly printed 13B, theirs was written in hand writing, and at this point it was going to take a fork lift to get me out of my seat anyhow, I'd say printed beats handwriting like rock beats scissors. After a lot of hubbub, the attendants realized they had made a mistake, and let one extra person on. The problem was, his wife actually had one of the other seats, so they sat and argued about whether or not one of them should fly, or if they should both wait out the next plane (which, at this point was likely to be tomorrow morning given the captains latest comments).

This back-and-forth went on for a while, but eventually we were on our way. The captain announced "Message from the flight deck, we are 5th in line for take-off", he announced when we were 3rd, 2nd, 1st... At this point I was starting to relax, and thinking I would get a bit of sleep before we hit turbulence. But then "Message from the flight deck. We have just been informed that our flight attendant has timed out, so we have to go back to the terminal"... Needless to say, this didn't go over well with anyone on-board. I mean... Really, in the last 10 seconds before flying she timed out? Couldn't we have saved 10 seconds of time somewhere in the past 4 hours of delay?

The captain had made '8 calls' into the terminal to try to find another flight attendant at midnight... In about 30 mins they had managed to find someone whose flight to Dallas was canceled, he boarded, and we started the process again. "Message from the flight deck. Sorry to have to tell you this, but it appears the grounds crew has gone in for the night, and legally we need someone to be outside before we can turn the engines back on"... Ok, this was starting to get silly. After the captain made a few calls to the terminal they were able to find a person to get us out - but, by that time we had idled long enough that we needed gas "Message from the flight deck. We are looking to find a fuel truck, but they seem to be all out for the night, I'm sorry, but if we can't get out of the gate soon we will have to unload and try again tomorrow"...

Eventually they found the gas truck, filled up, we had an attendant, and we also had a grounds crew person to lead us out... "Message from the flight deck, not sure if you guys have ever watched the twilight zone, but dooo dee dooo doo.... We are 5th in line for takeoff..." Ah, here we go again.

The good thing was that magically our flight took one hour instead of two somehow - big tail wind I suppose. So we left around 1am, and got into Toronto just after 2...

Toronto (Monday)

In Toronto I also had to go through customs again. The problem was, the carousel where you put your bags after going through customs was now shut down. I asked the attendants what I needed to do, and they said I had to exit and after going to terminal 1 I would need to go back through security... I asked them if there was someone over there at this time of night, and they said "I don't see why not, you should be able to get in"... So I was off.

After getting the bus to terminal 1 I found that I was the only one on the 'connections' level except for some of the cleaning staff. It was now 2:30 or 3, and I called Cheryl to see if she'd ever heard of this before... It was only midnight Seattle time, so she was still awake luckily. The only thing I could do was go up to "Departures", and see if anyone could help me up there.

Departures was a disaster as well. Apparently Toronto had canceled 400 flights the day before, so it was in a similar state to the NY airport. When I got to departures there was a line about 500 people long, some sleeping, some playing guitar, uno, solitare, etc... most looking pretty upset. I couldn't possibly imagine that would be the line I should be in... I mean, I was just in security already, so I should probably just have to drop my bags and go back in - right? I noticed this line started at the ticket purchase line - which didn't seem logical to me. The check-in departures line seemed a lot shorter. After talking with the 10 or so people in that line I decided they were all in the same boat as me (got in too late for the carousel, and were transferring to a domestic flight), so I got in that line, kept reading some of 1984, and even laid down on the floor to try and catch a few zzz's before the flight attendants opened shop (which we were told would be at 4am - it was now about 3:15, so that's not too long to wait). Almost immediately an argument broke out as some folks from the larger line were in a heated exchange with the first few folks in my line - "Hey, we were told we had to go wait in this long line, we've been there for hours, and you shouldn't be there" vs. "Ok, we'll wait for this line to open up and see what happens"... I decided I would just lay on the floor rather than become a part of this argument.

At 4am a flight attendant came to the desk, so everyone got up and started getting their things together. "Sorry, I'm just grabbing some stuff, we open at 4:30"... Ah crap, another 30 mins on this floor.

At 4:30am 3 flight attendants came up to the desks, huddled for about 5 mins - talking about their strategy for dealing with this many people one can only assume. Then they came back and told everybody, the short line, and the long line, that they were in the wrong line, and in reality they needed to go downstairs.

This was where things got nasty. The end of the 500+ person line was in a particularly good spot to become the front of the downstairs line - you can imagine how civil the next few minutes were. Everyone was racing at once to lead this new line. I was a zombie by this time, so I just followed the crowd while everyone ran downstairs and eventually passionate walking and running turned into passionate looking, and confusion. There was no obvious line to form here... Some kept looking, others went upstairs for clarification - I was one of those later folks. Apparently by "Downstairs" they meant "two floors down"... Great - A+ all around Air Canada. Blah.

By the time myself (and hundreds of others around me) found the line it was massive - at the front there was an empty desk unlike the now empty line upstairs, this line does not open until 5am, then a set of the typical switchbacks that define about how far the line should really never surpass, then a line of hundreds of upset people about 3 or 4 across stretching half a kilometer.

It was now about 4:45am. From this line I could clearly see the rental cars. The line I was in was well over a 3 hour line, and the flight I was trying to get on was leaving at about 8am, so the physics of the situation were not in my favor. To make things worse, the lines to customer assistance were blocked and essentially useless.

At this point I decided that the rental car was a better alternative to waiting in this crap line, and that I would go explore other options rather than wait like a sheep in this line. Now, at this point I would like to say that the rental car would most definitely NOT have been a better option - it's about a 7 or 8 hour drive from the Toronto airport to Sault Ste. Marie, and the roads are often not good this time of year - since I hadn't really slept since Friday night... taking a rental car would have been a death wish. But, I was not thinking straight.

So, I stormed out of line, and went upstairs where the 3 attendants were tending to an empty line - they had successfully told everyone they had to have a numbered seat on their card to be in this line - which nobody waiting all night had of course. I walk right up to the desk since there was nobody in line, and a lady stops me just before I get to the desk .."Do you have a numbered ticket?" - To which I say "yes"... She looks at me a bit surprised and says "Ok"... I walk up to the attendant, who asks me for my boarding pass - She says "You have a numbered seat correct?" This is where I start making stuff up. "Yes, I do, the delta agent insisted I had one, but couldn't print off the card. Can you tell me what my seat is?" - "Certainly".. She takes my info, and looks up on the computer - Ah, you've been put on the Tuesday flight... Great.. more than another day of sitting around in the airport.

I asked if they would put me up in a hotel, the answer was no. I told them that it was unacceptable, and that I would then cancel my flight, take a rental car, and bill Air Canada for it. At which point she said "Well, I think I can get you on the 10:30pm tonight" - Keep in mind it's 5am, and this is over 17 hours away at this point... I agreed to it, and asked if I could check my bags. "No, it is our policy that you cannot check your bags if you're not within 4 hours of your departure time". This seemed odd to me. I mentioned that the only reason my bags weren't checked already was because I got in so late last night the carousel at customs was closed - but that didn't help. She said I had to pay to have my bags stored if I didn't want to drag them around for the next 15 hours - so I did.

At this point I didn't want to pay for a hotel for two reasons. One was on principal, and the other was because I thought I could get on an earlier flight if I kept trying. Since I didn't want to sleep on the floor I decided it would be a good idea to go into downtown Toronto.

Downtown Toronto

I found out the TTC now has a bus line that reaches from Kipling station to the airport which is awesome. That means it's only a couple of dollars to go from downtown to the airport.

I got on the bus after paying to have my bags stowed. Unfortunately I left my mitts and toque in my bags, and it was freezing cold at 5:30 in the morning. I got to Kipling, and then tried to determine where to go downtown Toronto. As you can tell I wasn't thinking that straight at this point in time. I soon realized that there probably wouldn't be many consumer oriented stores open at 6am. I was pretty confident there would at least be shelter at the Yorkdale Mall, so that is where I decided to head. I was in the subway with the early commuters, and I was very excited to find out that Tim Horton's was open at the Yorkdale Mall.

I went to the Tim Horton's desk, and asked for a large coffee. I sat down, drank the coffee while continuing to read my 1984 book which was really starting to get interesting. In the background, the local radio was playing. I heard something like "Wow, we're here at Yorkdale Mall where Sears, and The Bay are having their crazy 24 hour sale!!" - Which essentially meant there were shops open for me to peruse in my daze. I went through Yorkdale to find those shops. Everything else was closed, but I did manage to get some Christmas shopping done at Sears. By the time other shops had started to open I sent a few text messages to Steve (my brother) who told me mom was on the 4:10 flight to SSM. I forgot to mention this, but mom/dad were leaving the Dominican a day later than myself, so to see they were going to get in ahead of me felt wrong. I also felt that I might be able to convince a flight attendant to let me on the same flight as my parents - sob story etc... So, at about noon I decided to head back to the airport.

Pearson's International (again)

I came back into the airport, and decided to see how the line was doing downstairs. The people who were in front of me before I stormed out of line were now not even to the switchbacks denoting what usually would be a long line there. They looked pretty upset too.

I walked back upstairs where there were 3 tellers, and a line about two people long. Got back in that line to the same harsh question "Do you have a numbered seat?" Which I did at this point. I went to the desk to plead my case to get on my parent's flight. They said there was a 22 person waiting list (it's only a 50 person flight, so this was not good). I was bummed out. I asked if I could check in my bags - to which they said "sure"... I wasn't sure why now the "4 hour policy" was not in place, but I went back to bag storage, paid them, and then re-checked my bag. It is absolutely dumb I had to pay for storage to begin with, but I'm too tired to argue at this point.

I get through security, and head directly to the Air Canada desk where I plead my case again. The lady there was really nice. She found out that my parents were actually on the 6:10pm flight, and she thought she could get me on it. Now, why couldn't I have gotten on that one rather than the 10:30pm? Nobody knows, and again, I was too tired to really argue that at this point. She said that she would go look for my bag, re-tag it, and that she would call me back when she had a confirmation I was on the earlier flight.

I went to grab a drink, and in 20 mins got the call to go back to the front desk. The guy behind me in line was openly complaining about what a mess his flight was, that he was three hours late, and that he couldn't believe what a pain this was. After I told him I had been traveling without sleep since essentially Friday night he stopped.

So, I was on the 6:10 flight. Sweet, now I decided I would try and find out what gate my parents were coming in on, and when. This... is where I started to both see and hear things.

Yup, I was starting to hallucinate.

Suddenly I started recognizing a bunch of folks that were in the Dominican with us. I heard Jamie right behind me - it was someone else, I saw Chris and Pat Kirby, though when I walked up to "them" they looked nothing like them. Then I heard mom calling my name, looked back and saw/heard nothing. Eventually I saw who I thought were my parents coming down the escalator, I got my stuff together to go meet them, and when I got about 20 feet away noticed they looked nothing like my parents (this happened multiple times). I even started seeing folks who I hadn't seen since High School. It didn't take long before I just stopped trusting what I was seeing. At this point I hadn't slept Saturday or Sunday night, I'd been racing around airport after airport, and it was pretty late Monday already.

It got bad enough that I saw someone that I swore was my dad. He had the same mannerisms, wore similar clothes, had a similar watch, and the same glasses. The one thing strange about it was his hair was a big longer than I would have expected. I thought - well, we've been swimming the past week, so maybe the fact that his hair was almost always wet when he didn't have his hat on hid its length... So, I walked right up to this person. I didn't introduce myself - because again, I didn't trust what I was seeing - but I stood there with the logic that if it was my dad he would recognize me. I was less than 10 feet away at this point - probably more like 5 feet. That's when I saw this person pull out a philosophy book - at which point I was certain it was not dad.

Not too long after that dad/mom/pat started coming down the escalator. I walked slowly towards them, they recognized me, and all was well. They thought I would have been in the Sault for a whole day, so were very surprised to see me. "Aaron! What are you doing here? Shouldn't you have been home a day and a half ago??"... "Ask me about my flight" I said.

Mom/Dad bought me a drink, and we reminisced on the week after I sat them through this tour de force you're now undoubtedly sick of :)

When it came time for our flight to board, a delay was posted - Here we go again! Luckily the delay was only a half hour, and we actually did end up boarding. Better news was the aircraft was swapped to a jet from the prop plane it was supposed to be originally, so the flight took under an hour. The bad thing about that was there was really no time to sleep since we essentially started descending as soon as we hit elevation.

Sault Ste. Marie (Monday)

We got in shortly after 8pm, and went home. I didn't immediately go to sleep, I sat around talking to Nathan, Michael, Steve, Adam, dad/mom etc... I went to sleep at around 11pm. Not having slept Sat/Sun, I thought I would crash as soon as my head hit the pillow, but, my eyes were so sore, and my eyelids kept fluttering violently. This made sleep difficult. Eventually I did nod off, and woke up about 8 hours later.

Things were much better after that :)

Dominican Republic - Cayo Levantado

2009-01-24T18:16:00.001-08:00

After a bit of a break from the Tanzania/Amsterdam trip it was time to head to the Dominican for Jamie and Michelle's wedding. Jamie and Michelle organized a package that had us all staying at the Gran Bahia Principe Cayo Levantado, an all-inclusive, for about a week. Unfortunately Cheryl couldn't make it due to the timing, but I was lucky enough to go.

This resort is actually on a small island off the Dominican. The majority of the island is resort property, but there is a public beach to one side of the island where cruise ships can come by, dropping off people for a bit of off-the-boat relaxation.

I had never been to an all-inclusive before, and wasn't really sure how I'd enjoy it, but it really turned out to be a great time. I definitely got the most enjoyment from hanging around with the family and friends that were able to make it. This was the first time I had a chance to meet Michelle's family, and it was very good to get a whole week worth of interaction in. I think this is probably the most time I spent with my dad, mom, and Jamie since I left for university back in '96... Many moons ago. It's amazing how time flies.

Well, how about a few pics...

This is a view of the "lower pool" of the resort from above. There are two main beaches that are separated by a rock cut, those palm umbrellas at the top of the picture line one of those two beaches...

The one below is Jamie after just buying a thatch hat from the market:

Here's a good portion of the wedding having some dinner at the resort:

This is mom and dad at one of the drink huts. I believe we were drinking Caipirinha's as the drink of choice that week:

The most fun we had all week was probably playing in the waves. I do have some pics of those but I'll keep them off the web since some folks don't like having pics of themselves in bathing suits online :)

This is where the wedding ceremony took place. A great gazebo at the intersection of the two beaches on the resort:

This is myself, dad, Jamie, and mom. It's great to go to weddings where the dress attire is more casual:

I met Jamie for breakfast that morning, and he mentioned that he was re-writing the ceremony... I said it's today at 3 right? Yup, he started from scratch because they had determined the night before that the current one needed more than minor refractoring. Him and Chris did a great job and pulled it together at the last minute!

It was a sand ceremony, and Chris Kirby (the best man) got a bit entrepreneurial when the resort couldn't find him any containers for the sand... He ended up taking two massive conch shells and using those instead... It turned out to be a good touch:

A post wedding picture of the groom's side:

After the wedding we went on a sunset cruise. We had appetizers and drinks from our mini-bars during the ride:

After the boat ride we all came back for some great food... I think it was halibut wrapped in bacon... Mmmm.

Certainly a great day. Congratulations to Jamie and Michelle!!

The rest of the week went off very smoothly too. Mom, Dad, and I went shopping in the market, found all sorts of wildlife while snorkeling, and played in the waves some more. The bartenders continuously mixed very solid drinks, and the scenery continued to please. It did rain a lot while we were there, but the rain came in short bursts and wasn't a problem at all.

So, I would like to thank Jamie and Michelle for such a wonderful week, I am very glad to have met Michelle's family and friends, and it was so good spending quality time with my parents and Jamie as well. You can find all of the wedding pics here.

Until next time!