Monkey House

First off,

Since I came so dangerously close to missing saying “Happy Birthday” to my mom (I actually DID miss it by 5 minutes; called and woke her up at about 12:05am, which was a dubious choice (she may have valued her sleep more than a call from me!)) I figured I’d take a minute to do that here. So, Happy Birthday Mom!

My mom is pretty much the greatest mom anyone ever had. I would back that up with Scientific research, but anyone who meets her would realize there’s no real need. And as awesome a mom as she is, she’s an even awesomer grandmother (sorry, “grammy”). Which creates this feedback loop in which her awesomeness as a grammy reinforces her awesomeness to me as a mom, which reinforces her awesomeness as a grammy, which reinforces…

So thanks mom, we love you!

The Tree

There is a Christmas tree unfurling in our living room right now (no, not a sad one like the picture to the left; a real 6.5-foot bushy tree… more about the sad tree in just a moment). It will get decorated tomorrow. This might be a bit close to Christmas for some people, but for me Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight was a good sleep night, which is why I have a moment to write a blog post. But the past couple nights have been slightly less than ideal.

There’s not a parent alive who doesn’t ask new parents, “How is your sleep?” or “How is your child sleeping?” and there’s a reason for this. Sleep is a roller-coaster. You think you have an angel when it comes to nighttime routines and one day he proves you wrong. Then he does it for a few nights in a row and you think you’re going to go slightly loopy from exhaustion…and he gives you a good night to reset you.

Without going into too much detail, let’s just say that he didn’t follow established routines. We’ve been fairly successful with our new routine in which he gets lots of independent sleep time starting at 6:30. But new routines take a while to stick, babies are constantly changing (teething time is setting in or has set in!), and apparently at this age it’s not uncommon for him to have out-of-whackness in his sleep schedule. Well that’s Cole in a nutshell… we took a video of his overtired goofiness, which I’ll try to post here in an update.

The rest of this is more about me.
Read the rest of this entry »

Cole experienced his first halloween this past weekend. We had our very own little Buzz Lightyear who was exceptionally cute if I do say so myself. In the morning we attened a halloween party hosted by our good friends Natalie and Stephen where a great time was had by all, the ’sort the candy’ game was a hit . Later in the evening Nana and Grampa came by to see Buzz and he helped answer the door for trick or treaters. All in all a very exciting first halloween for out 4.5 month old little guy who fit perfectly in his 12-18 month sized costume (really who comes up with this sizing?). Here are few pics from the party -

Our very own little Buzz Lightyear

Buzzs favorite game 'eat the balloon'

The bigger kids playing 'sort the candy'

Buzz and Natalie

I have teamed up with a good friend to form a 2-man team for Movember. Our team name, chosen by David (who originally wanted “Movember Reign” which was taken) is “The Movemberists”. Movember is basically a moustache-growing contest. And since I am powerful with facial hair, I am a pretty safe horse to bet on for growing a 4-star+ ’stache.

As you can tell by following the above link, there is a fundraising component. I would appreciate anything you guys have to give, as it helps to raise money for fighting prostate cancer.

My personal donation page is found here: http://ca.movember.com/mospace/168763

..which is probably the easiest way to make a donation. As far as I know (I haven’t gone through the process myself), tax receipts are issued automatically if you make an online payment. For anybody wishing to do the traditional donation thing, I have all the required forms to make a request on your behalf.

If you would also like to join the team (I know, kinda last-minute, but it only takes a moment to sign up!), either to raise some funds or just for the heck of squaring off against me or David in a moustache race, just go to the main site, hit the “Register” button, and select the “Join as a Team Member” option. Our team is “The Movemberists”; there are a few with similar names, so pick the one captained by David Hicks.

If nothing else, please visit my page after the 15th to vote my stache. I’ll pop a reminder into the blog as well.

So, my sister and her husband are avid travellers. They’ve been to tonnes of great places around the world already, and show no signs of ever slowing down. It’s awesome for them, and they always have tonnes of great pictures to show for their trips.

As it turns out, internet is sporadic enough and webmail is dodgy enough that the easiest way to say “hello” to everyone from the road is with comments on this blog! Two of the comments have appeared in our most recent article, but I thought it made sense to give her a new topic to post comments to. So here it is!

The first two comments are duplicated here for anyone who missed them. So Na, feel free to comment here so everyone can see! And if anyone else has messages back for them, add those to the comment area as well. Have fun and safe travels!

October 19

Hi Greg & Alie,

I didn’t have access to my email, so thought I’d post a comment instead. We’ve had a good time on our trip so far. Ho Chi Minh is chaotic, to say the least. Today, we’re off on the train to Nha Trang (about 7 hours). We’ll be working our way North towards Hanoi. Hello to Mom & Dad & love to all. We’ll see you in a couple weeks.

Na

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October 21

Just waiting for our pickup for our overnight train to Danang. Had a fab day in Nha Trang – beach is stunning – 7 miles long and turquoise waters & we had a good time on our little cruise. Internet is free here at the hotels!

Luv,
Na