Favorites

I'm enjoying my new camera and so glad I had it to take on holidays with us. We left last Tuesday and drove to Abbotsford in pretty good time- 13 1/2 hours which I'd say is pretty good with a 20 month old! But I have to admit...a DVD player sure helps!! I think it would have taken us a lot longer without one! We spent Wednesday in Vancouver showing Jose's parents around town. We drove up to Mt. Seymour to view the city skyline. We had planned on doing Grouse Mountain but didn't realize how expensive it was! Last time we went, Jose and I did the Grouse Grind in just over an hour (we thought that was pretty good time!) so we got the free ride down. Well, I wasn't hiking that at 5 months pregnant this time, nor were Jose's parents going to climb it at 60+ years, but we weren't willing to pay the $32.95 per person either! So, Mt. Seymour did just fine! We spent the afternoon in Stanley Park and it was a beautiful day which made it even better! We ran out of time to do the Vancouver Aquarium so we'll catch it next time! The following day on Thursday we drove out to Squamish and spend the afternoon up at Shannon Falls, visiting my aunt's chocolate store (and of course sampling a few to make sure they turned out all right! Ok, more than a few!) and then having dinner and a campfire at their house.

Friday we visited a few more relatives out at the coast before heading out to Kelowna. We got into town about 6:30 pm and I didn't even think that I should've reserved something earlier in the week that everything might be booked up on a Friday night! We had stopped at about 7 hotels that all had no rooms left. Jose was about ready to keep on driving straight home but by this time it was already 8:00 pm and I was not willing to do that. I was willing to drive to Vernon and stop there because I knew we could at least find something there. But we kept driving along the main drag stopping at just about every little hotel when we stopped at the Westway Motor Inn...the first place that had rooms! And no wonder why they had rooms! The place was a dive for $150 a night! But we were all tired, Katie was tired and cranky..hungry and needing a bath. So, we sucked it up and stayed at the dump. The place was so dusty it made your eyes water, it had no alarm clock or clock whatsoever for that matter, the bathub had a hole in it and had cracks...and, did I mention the rust in it? Needless to say, we all took a quick rinse in the morning but no one washed their hair, shaved legs...we weren't spending any more time in that tub than we needed! Anyways, it was a place to sleep and it is the joke of our holiday that we all laugh about but I can say I won't be staying there again and I wouldn't recommend the same to anyone else!

Saturday morning we had a nice breakfast/brunch with my aunt and uncle and cousins before visiting another aunt and uncle in Kelowna. We stayed much longer than we though- my uncle Arnie has a huge garden up on the hill overlooking the lake and Jose's mom spent about 2 hours in the garden. My uncle grows everything- all kinds of vegetables, grapes, watermelons, plum trees, apple trees, nectarine, apricot and peach trees! We ate so much fruit- even Katie! Let's just say it was quite a smelly ride home that night! So, we left Kelowna about 4 pm after stopping to get some peaches & cream corn to take back home. Katelyn did really good again on the drive home until about midnight when we hit Cochrane and all the grapes started to kick in- my goodness that girl was so bloated from the bowl of grapes she ate. She had such a tummy ache, bloated belly and farting away! We were all pooped and went straight to bed on Sunday when we got home at 3 a.m.!

And that was our holiday in a nutshell...but like i mentioned at the beginning, I was so glad I had my camera and I'm having fun with it. I have so much to learn yet and hopefully my pics will get even better. I still want to play around with my adobe photo editing program with them but I just haven't had time. But here are a few of my favorites from the trip: Enjoy!

Back at home

We are back from our road trip and had a good time with Jose's parents and visiting some of my extended relatives. I took lots of pics with my new camera so I'll post them as soon as Jose finishes wiping out the computer. It's such a mess that I don't even want to download the pics yet. He's doing that tonight so hopefully tomorrow I'll have them up for you all to enjoy.

Vacation bound

I'm just finishing packing the final things (other than all those last minute things!!) for our trip tomorrow. We are leaving bright and early at either 3 or 4 a.m. tomorrow to Vancouver...hopefully leaving that early will allow us to get to Jasper before Katelyn wakes up! I'm not looking forward to the driving but I'm looking forward to getting away for a little break. Originally we had planned to go, then we weren't sure if we should or not or just stay here for our two weeks and relax at home and do little projects around the house, picnics, etc. But I said let's go! Otherwise, it'll be just like any other week- cleaning the house, laundry, cooking! So, we decided we'll drive out there and show Jose's parents some more countryside. We've just taken them to Banff and Jasper on their last visits. So, now they'll get to see the drive out to Vancouver, we'll spend a day up in Squamish at my aunt's and then spend the day around Abbotsford visiting a few more relatives before driving home. If Katelyn does well in the car, we are hoping to come through the Okanagan on our way home! It's too beautiful there not to go visit and who can forget the fruit!!! Well, I should get back to packing! See you all early next week (but I will have our laptop so I can keep checking in on my favorite sites!)

Fantastico!

Last night I took my mom to the Josh Groban concert here in town. All I have to say is: Great. Fantastic. Loved It!!! I haven't been to too many concerts over the years but this one ranked right up there! U2 was awesome, fantastic, and great too...but this was just as good but in a totally different way because it's a completely different type of music. The tickets weren't exactly cheap but it was worth every penny and a real treat!

Back by popular demand!

Ok, maybe not really but for lack of a better title that's what I came up with! I don't know if anyone even reads or stops in anymore since I've gotten so infrequent with my blogging! Life just doesn't seem to have slown down much these past few weeks or I should say month or two really! But for those of you who still do stop and check in lots has happened in our busy lives.

I'm slowly starting to feel better which is allowing me to actually enjoy the summer. I am still a bit nauseous in the evenings or when I go too long without eating a snack but at least the throwing up has ceased. Man, when you are in the throngs of your head hanging over the toilet bowl, it seems like it will never end! But now there is light at the end of the tunnel! Little bugaroo is kicking lots these days- it was quite the mover while I was wide awake and couldn't sleep from 2-4 a.m. last night! We had our 20 week ultrasound last week and the baby was moving lots but unfortunately wouldn't cooperate to give us a nice profile pic. The technician got all the pics she needed barely and she showed us in detail and said that everything looks really good from what she can tell. She made me stand up, pee, move a bit from side to side but Bugaroo would not roll over (his/her face was towards my back and his/her spine was facing the front of my stomach). Only when she dug really far in could we see the face. We could see the face but the only picture we could get was this one that is front-on his/her face... and it definitely is not a nice side profile! Jose said he wouldn't have gotten the picture but since everything looks good, unless something changes with my pregnancy, I probably wont' get another ultrasound so I needed something for the baby book. It totally looks like an alien!

(if you tilt your head to the side then you see the picture really the way it should be...the baby looking directly at you! [like this below]....see it really is a horrible profile pic but better than nothing!)

As for other events happening in our life, Jose's parents arrived from Panama a week and a half ago on the long weekend. We went down to Calgary to pick them up because with them not speaking English it was a less stressful way to fly with only one stop in Houston (where tons of people speak spanish at the airport) than to fly to Edmonton, which would mean about 2 or 3 layovers. We are enjoying our time with them and they are definitely enjoying the cooler weather here and most of all spending time with Katie. They are doing great with her and she is picking up more spanish- she isn't saying more spanish words really other than 1 or 2 but she is definitely understanding more. And they are learning some words in English as well spending so much time with Katie. They know all her english vocabulary already! My Spanish is slowly improving but I must admit it's still rusty. They are here until October 4th so we still have lots of time with them. It's not really more work having them here but it's more work with Katie since they came. When I go to work they are really great with her and she does really well with them but the minute I come home from work or running errands, she is SO. CLINGY.! Being 4 1/2 months pregnant means it's gettting more tiring carrying her up and down stairs and everywhere it seems when before she was so independent. We had also planned to start potty-training because she was showing she was starting to be ready but we've taken steps back in that department too but I'll save that for another post!

Anyways, other than that, we celebrated our 5 year anniversary last month too on the 26th! Our original plans a few years back, well, even up until last year meant we would have done a carribean cruise for that but with Jose's parents coming, there went our cruise fund! But, we celebrated the evening by dinner out and a movie and I even got a bouquet of beautiful red roses from Jose! (and trust me, they don't come that often!)

We have a gift certificate for the Banff Springs Hotel so we will probably go in the fall for a weekend by ourselves to enjoy and before the baby comes! But I did go out today and splurge as a "happy anniversary to me" present! Well, not really....Jose told me to go and finally buy it because I've been talking about it for over 6 months- so here's my new toy!:

I'm surprised I've been home over 2 hours and I've just taken it out of the box but that's it!!! But Katie is sleeping and I figured I won't get to catch up on a blog this long when she's awake so the camera is still sitting on my dresser! I really can't wait to play with it though! My computer time seems infrequent these days between Katie being so clingy, still just doing projects around the house (that's a post for another day too!...see, way too much as gone on in the past few weeks!) and with the computer being in the guest room, I can't always use it if Jose's dad is taking a nap or they've gone to bed early (the same times that I would be able to have free time when katie is asleep!).

So, I guess I'll wrap it up there for today. I should have more coming soon so it shouldn't take me so long next time. I'll leave you with some pics later on of our days of summer here.