Whew!

I am starting to feel a bit more relaxed and a little less crazy from all the traveling. Mom's house is very busy with lots of animals and lots of animal noise, yet somehow it is a very relaxing place to be. I am unwinding slow but sure.

I still have not downloaded any pics, but I will eventually. I also have not knitted one stitch. By the time I get the kids to bed I am to pooped out to even knit.

Today I am going to get the horses adjusted and then get mom adjusted, after that I plan to pack up the kids and get ready to head to Shannon's house. I will try to post a little more this evening but we will see how things go. I am off to take a shower and get ready for another fun filled busy day.

What Day is it?

It is all a blur right now.

The kids have been wonderful. They were very good on both flights. I had help through the Seattle airport and that saved my life. Would you like to know what it takes to transfer flights in Seattle?

• A trip to Baggage claim
• A visit with an immigration officer (by the way, the kids passports: Expired in Feb)
• A rummage through said baggage at customs
• 3 different train rides
• 2 flights of stairs (one up and then one down, WTF?)

I picked up the rental car without to much hassle, but damn I had a lot of crap to carry. I got to Dad's place around 6:00 on Wednesday evening. The kids were hungry and tired. Dad had a nice meal all ready for us and then the kids had a bath and were off to bed.

Poor PJ tried to sleep, but she had an earache from the plane rides and she cried for almost 2 hours. Dad offered to go to the store to pick something up for her, I have never given my kids medication but I asked him to go for some children's Tylanol. I gave her that and she was asleep within minutes.

The kids slept until about 7:30 Thursday morning and then we were off and running. We spent part of the morning with Dad and Corinne, went for a visit with Diana and then drove out to Mom's house. I was pretty worn out by the time we made it here. We played with the kids and the animals and the kids were late getting to bed, but they slept well.

Today I went to see Pop while mom watched the kids. It was nice to have a couple of hours to myself and I was relieved to see Pop doing so well. I was back at Mom's around 2:30 and we spent the afternoon playing with animals. The kids are in bed now, PJ just fell asleep and Sebastian is still awake, I can hear him trying to settle down. Another late night for them.

I did get some work done today, I adjusted 2 horses, 4 dogs and one grandfather.

The kids have been having a great time and they have been really good. Company is coming tomorrow, I get to see Shannon, Will and Taylor and Morgan. I think Gran is coming out and maybe Diana and Roy, I am not sure but I can tell you it will be fun and busy.

I have a few pictures for all of you back home, I am to tired to post them now for you, it means I would have to get up and go get the camera. I am going to get up, but only to go crawl into bed. I have not had a good nights sleep in ages, I am hoping tonight is my night. I need sleep and I need a run. I will try to have a bit more energy for you all next post.

Just Do It

I have everything packed for the kids, I am just about ready to go. I am running out of steam as far as the packing goes.

I see my half filled suitcase and I just don't have the energy to fill it anymore. I keep telling myself "Just do it." Just open that baby up and finish packing. Then I tell myself, "It's just the last minute stuff that needs to go in, I can do that later."

Hello! It is last minute.

I have a softball game tonight and a fire ceremony. I will skip the softball game, but I still have to get the kids to the game so Paul can watch them while I do the fire thing. My mind is zinging in 900 directions as I try to keep track of all the little last minute things that need to get done in the next few hours.

I have a pad of paper with me constantly and I just write the next thing down as cross the last thing off. No worries, it will all come together by 9:00 tonight and then I will sit and knit work on Wrongo for a while.

Today was observation day at school. I got to go to school for an hour and have the kids show me what they are learning and what they love to do at school. Here are some photos for you:







Quentin is very excited to start school next year. He is right in there with PJ and Sebastian.



I arrive in CA tomorrow at 5:00 in the evening. I will spend the first night at Dads and I guess the plan is to drive out to moms on Thursday. I will spend a few days at moms and then I will spend Sunday and Monday at Shannons, I think that those are her days off. I will then spend the rest of the trip at dads house. APL, what is your schedule like? I don't even know if I have phone number for you? Do you want to come out to mom's for a night? I would like to see everyone as much as I can while we are there. Diana, I am looking forward to a couple of visits with you. I hope I can see Gran and Pop too. Okay I need to put some of this energy back into packing. See you all soon!

The anatomy of a Monkey

The Wildlife Park here in the Loops puts on a nice Easter egg hunt and pancake breakfast for the Easter weekend. We usually take the kids for a couple of hours and then we walk around and check out all the animals that are just waking up after a long winter.

There were signs posted every where "Watch the Wolves eat at 11:00" The kids thought it would be great to stay and watch. We time everything we do at the park around the feeding time of the wolves. 11:00 rolls around and we are there in time for a front row seat.

Over a hundred people are lined up around wolves habitat. Lots of cute little kids with their cheeks stuffed with chocolate, faces painted with Easter bunnies and baby chicks. We all watch eagerly as a man comes out with a bucket full of food and locks the wolves up in a separate enclosure he comes right to fence in front of us and without saying a word, or even looking up at the crowd he empties his bucket into four piles of food for the wolves.

Finally a little kid in the crowd yells out "What do you feed them?"



The reply: "Horse meat, a synthetic meat product, and baby chicks."
I will never look at a peep the same again



He wasn't done: "And once a week, for a treat we feed them each one large rabbit" Then he just turned and walked away to turn the wolves loose for breakfast. Will there be an Easter Bunny next year???



Monkey Business:

I learned from Chongo. Chongo was a bit of a pain to knit, the yarn was terrible to knit with and every piece knitted had to be hand seamed. I got wise with Wrongo. I have knitted the arms, legs and head in the round...tada! No Seams!!!



The hands and feet: you have to knit 8 of the little suckers, seam them together and then connect them to Wrongos legs and arms. I got smart here too. I picked up and knit the hands and feet. They still have to be seamed and stuffed around the hands, but WAY better than the other way. Zamboni added for scale.



There are 21 pieces to Wrongo. I have yet to knit the body, 3 hands, the tail and the ears which are made up of 2 pieces each (which I will also pick up and knit to the head to save yet more finishing work). I would like to have Wrongo done so that I can work on Shannon's socks as my traveling project.



Knitting Wrongo has been more fun than Chongo was. I am surprised at how much I have learned in a year and how confident I am in making changes in the pattern to make Wrongo an easier knit for me. Do you think I will get him done in time.

Do you think Wrongo should have a tail? Chongo does, but curious George doesn't. I know monkeys have tails and Apes don't, Wrongo is definitely a monkey. Anyone have a thought on the tail thing??

Play Ball!

Yup, you guessed it, softball season started today. I played my first game tonight, 2nd base, had lots of fun and the Barking Cows lost.

Paul had hockey tonight so he did not come out to the ball field. This means I had the kids and all the gear. I have to say the kids were really good and it was easier than I thought it would it be to handle it all myself. In the past I have made a dinner I could pack with us so the kids could eat at the field.

Today I fed them an early dinner before ball and that eliminated some of the work. By the time we got home at 8:30 the kids were ready for second dinner. I fed them dinner number two, got them all into their pajamas, brushed everyone's teeth and they are all settled into bed now.

The rest of the week will be a busy one for me. I will try to keep you posted as I work my way through it.

I am trying to stay organized so I can get some lots of things done before the trip. I would love to finish Wrongo before we go so I don't have to pack his stuffing with me. I will post some pictures of Wrongo's progress for you tomorrow.

I am done in for today, I am going to try to use my last waking hour to relax a little before I go to bed.

Belated Post

I meant to post this last weekend. I tend to procrastinate posts that I know I want to put lots of pictures in. Blogger is hit and miss on the photos sometimes. These went up very quickly but there are some days that it seems to take 5 minutes to post one picture, I get frustrated when it takes to long for them to post.

This post contains part I of our Easter adventure. I love the dying of the Easter eggs. It is right up there with pumpkin carving. Anyway here are some pictures of the adventure for you:



Quentin enjoyed it more that anyone, each of his eggs got dipped in each color dye. All of his eggs were that weird brown color, you know the one you get when you mix all your playdough together? That's what colour all his eggs were.



Sebass had an eye for detail and did something he rarely does, he took his time! He usually races through fun stuff out of pure excitement. He was the last one done and had the most brilliantly cloured eggs I have ever seen.



Blurred and stained hands, Quentin was upset that the colour would not wash off. I showed him that mine were stained as well and he seemed to be okay with it after that.



I posted this picture so you could see how much Easter weather sucks in The Loops. Yes that is snow on the ground. No snow for three weeks, but lets have a skiff on Easter morning. What you can't see in this photo is the wind howling. Cold, wet and windy now that's stuff of an Easter in The Loops. (Yes, I am bitter, I have spring fever what can I say?) Don't be fooled by Quentin's sunglasses, he wears them ALL the time.






The finished product: Happy kids with baskets full of Eggs.

Snorkeling Tips

This post is for all my loved one in California that are tired of the rain and are worried that they will grow webbed feet. Just a few Jamaica pictures to make you smile. There are perks to lots of water.

Some of these pictures are from scuba diving and some are snorkeling. Here is Phil enjoying zero gravity in the Caribbean Ocean:


I don't know what kind of ship this was I only know that it sunk on it's own, meaning that it was not sunk for a tourist dive site.



In this picture we are standing in water that is only up to my waist. As soon as you put your hands in the water the fish swim up to you to see if you brought them any bread to eat.


A little bit of sun for you. That's Paul and myself way down there in the water. I have my hands held above my head so the fish would leave me alone for a while.



This next picture is just neat:



This one needs no explanation, butt it might make you smile, even with all that rain.

Knitting is....

Better than smoking. There is, as usual, a reason for my crazy musings. See the picture below? I took that a few days ago to post for all of you to have a look at my California knitting. I am trying to get a couple of small projects done, or almost done to gift when I get there.

You all remember Sebastian monkey? Do you also remember my promise to make one Angie? Well in this photo, Chongo is meeting Wrongo for the first time. He tried to say hello and tell Wrongo how jealous he was that Wrongo had a hat (Shannon's birthday sock). Sadly Wrongo can't here a thing Chongo has to say, Wrongo has no ears.



The point here has nothing to do with Wrongo's ears. There have been a couple of times in my life when I have been very nervous and worried, Monday night one of those times. During those few moments, I have thought to myself, "I wish for just one moment that I was smoker, then I would have something to do with my hands, with my energy." Of course I am a runner so smoking is out of the question for me. There is the fact that I think it gross too.

Monday night, or early Tuesday morning, Sebastian woke up with a nasty, choking, gagging cough. He was a bit panicky and his breathing was pretty laboured. We tried some Nin Jom, a homeopathic cough syrup and it did not touch it. I took Sebastian into the bathroom, because I thought he was going to get sick. I noticed that his hand was clutched tight like he was holding something in it. I pried open his hand and found a bead in it. I wondered if in his sleep he had put one in his mouth and it was stuck in his airway.

We tried a steamy bathroom and I talked to him a bit to try to calm him down. He seemed to settle a bit and took him into bed and laid sown with him. He was breathing was very weezy and he was still labouring a bit with it.

Paul and I talked about what we should do and decided unanimously that airway was nothing to play with and we (that meaning me) should take him to the hospital. I took him down there around one in the morning. On my way out the door I grabbed my wallet and my knitting. The wait to get into the ER here can be as long as 8 hours. I did not think I would be that long with a child having difficulty breathing, but you never know.

The cough and choking seemed to settle down once I got Sebastian outside. I relaxed some after this and began to think along the lines of croup rather than an obstructed airway, but better safe than sorry.



As you can see by the xray taken, there was no bead obstructing his airway and the Dr. Did figure it was a case of croup. He gave Sebastian something to decrease the swelling in is airway and sent us home. We were back in bed around 3:30 a.m. but Sebastian did not settle down to sleep until about 5:00.

Sebastian charmed everyone in the hospital, he asked the nurse her name and said please and thank you to everyone. He asked the Dr. When he got to have to have a sleep and if he slept in the hospital. He asked the xray tech. If he could have his pictures to take to school for show and tell. He was very sweet, he had his Pooh bear and favorite blanket with him and was working the wheeze and the cough for all the nurses.

Shannon's sock served me well to help with the worry jitters, and was much better for me than smoking would be. I think the normalcy of me knitting away helped Sebastian relax too. Here is one more picture for you to see how much I got done in the hospital.



therapeutic and pretty. If I was the same shoe size as Shannon, I would keep these for my own, the yarn is so pretty. The colours are so Shannon.

Randomness

Shannon's random photo posts are some of my favorite, so I am posting some random photos from this week. Quentin is quite the character, I am quite sure he gets all his weird traits from his father. :)



If one finger is good, two must be better.



This weekend Paul is out of town. He is off to Vancouver to visit with a friend of his and to attend a chiropractic seminar, two birds with one stone. I have the kids for the weekend and we have lots of fun planned. They were with a baby sitter today while I worked. On my way home I stopped and picked up a couple of movies. Two for the kids and one for me to watch tonight.

Tonight we are going to order a pizza and watch Chronicles of Narnia. It sounds like great fun to all of us, we have our pajamas on already.



Quentin took this picture of me. I find on everyone's blog we get see lots of photos but enough pictures of the faces behind the blogs. I am the picture taker in the family so there aren't that many photos of me and when there are pictures taken of me I often don't like them this one is not bad.

Splish Splash

What do you do on a grey day in Kamloops? You take the kids out puddle jumping.


It took them about three puddles to figure out that it was about getting wet, dirty and creating as much splash they could.

These next two pictures are my favorite, I just love the water flying everywhere. PJ is making quite a splash.



And Sebastian fills his boots with water on this one:



Every one is getting wet in this one.



Quentin was not happy about being in Sebastian's splash zone.


I love the pure joy on Layne's face in this next one, Sebastian looks like he is having a good time too.



What's down there anyway?

Foot Fetish

Remember the yarn purchase I told you I was going to share with you? Well today I remembered to take some photos for you. Above you see two of the three balls of sock yarn I bought in Vernon. The blue yarn I bought for Shannon for her upcoming birthday. I was not sure if she wanted to try knitting a pair of socks or not, but the colour was so perfect for her that I could not pass it up. I don't' think she is feeling the sock knitting bug, so I am thinking I might knit them up for her. What do you think Shannon?

The sock yarn you see below is the third ball of sock yarn that I bought. I don't know why but I have really been feeling the pink lately, the cooler of the yarn makes me smile.



Below are the little socks I am dropping in the mail to Logan and the pair I finished for PJ. She would not model them for me today:

"Mom. I am already wearing some socks and I don't want to take them off right now." Okay then. PJ is full of it lately. This morning she told me to leave her alone because I was being rude to her. She spent some quality time in her room following that comment.



I added the money to the picture so you could get some idea about the size of these wee socks. You could knit up a pair in an evening. I plan on knitting a few more, I know a lot of babies and it was a great way to use up the ends of sock yarn.



I also bought these:



They are both Fleece Artist yarns, the blue one is gorgeous, the photo does not do it justice in the least, there is enough there for a sweater 500m, it is 70% Kid Mohair and 30% silk. I love it, I am thinking of a wrap cardigan. The red yarn and the roving is a Thrum Mitten kit, also fleece artist yarn. They had a pair on display there at the store and they were so sweet I wanted to make a pair for myself. I am looking forward to learning something new and I am thinking of starting these in the fall for next winter.