William Robert

I've been a little slow on the announcement here, but better late than never.
On June 8th, William Robert was born to Chris and I.
It was a long road as the little guy did not want to join us on the outside. We tried everything to get him to come out the old fashioned way to no avail so he was born by C-section at 11:49 am. What a reasonable time of day.
Here are some pictures of the little guy. We think he's just the cutest ever, but we're really biased.

Here is Chris waiting to go into the OR.

A healthy 8 lb 2 oz

Our first visitors, Dan and Carlynne.



Chris and I had a week and a half at home on our own and then my parents arrived to offer their assistance in all things baby related.

My Mom and Dad made a cradle for William and here is Chris and my Dad putting it together.


Chris and William watched a lot of world cup soccer (as did I)




This is an outfit that my brother wore back in the '70's. Underneath is the quilt I made for William.

A very happy Grandma!

not long now. and some recent happenings.

our friends threw us a baby shower. The theme was favourite children's books, and so we got all these wonderful kid's books to read with our child. So awesome.




We also had a wonderful time attending Tim and Meg's wedding over the May long weekend. I was really happy when I didn't go into labour in Southern Ontario.


THey had a gathering at the local museum after the ceremony which had an old classroom. We ate ice cream, drank lemonade, and played the ball and cup game.


THe next day Chris and I visited Niagara Falls and went on a tour of Inniskillin, a local winery.




An interesting tidbit from the tour... they graft North American rootstock with European grape vine because the North American root is resistant to a virus, but they want the grapes from European varieties of grapevine. Grafting is amazing. You can see on this picture the bump at the bottom where they have grafted.

cuba

Chris and I decided it would be a good idea to take a trip. So we went to Cuba.

It was amazing and fascinating to get a glimpse into life under Fidel's rule. ( I guess now it's Raul's rule)

We stayed at great hotel and made many trips out of the compound to try to get a taste for the country. We weren't staying in a super touristy area so we were able to visit some rural towns and Havana a couple of times.

This is an interesting tree found whilst climbing up a steep incline to the "mountain" outside our hotel.


The view from the top. That's the hotel we were staying at. You can see there's a nice coral reef right off the beach. We went snorkeling a few times and it was awesome. The jellyfish made it so we couldn't go quite as often as we'd like. Stupid jellyfish.


Some coconut carving done by the local farmer so we could drink the milk inside. Delicious.



Another scene from the farm.



In Havana...




Rum for the baby... I mean, for after the baby comes.


Scooter tour to Cuba's highest bridge. Opened by Fidel himself in 1959 (I think)





Some time spent on the beach. Look, Chris isn't burnt. We went through a lot of sunscreen while we were there.


We took the scooter out a second time on our own to go and visit the nearest town, Santa Cruz del Norte. Apparently it's a happy town because the Havana Club factory is there so everyone has a job.


We also visited the Hershey Gardens. Before the revolution Hershey had owned the nearby sugar factory and made these nice gardens to visit.



Chris playing with the poisonous Portuguese Man-of-war. Luckily we didn't get stung by its tentacles.

We have a friend from Ottawa who is with the foreign service and is posted in Havana. Unfortunately she was away in Columbia on a temporary posting, but her husband was happy to meet up with us and show us around. We arrived on the day that the Terry Fox run was happening. IT was fantastic because a lot of streets were closed and there were all sorts of people all around.


We went into the Capitolio for a tour. It was a spectacular building that completely takes your breath away when you walk in.

We took a walk around old Havana. This was my favourite square, Plaza Vieja. They have done a lot of work to restore these squares and are working out radially to fix up some buildings that have fallen into disrepair.

After a fantastic bbq at Andy's we headed over to an artist's home named Jose Fuster. He has done up his house in mosaic as a gift to his neighbourhood. It's incredible and overwhelming all at the same time as you try to take in all that is in front of you.
Here are some attempts at capturing the scale of this project.






Here's a link that has a great video about him.
I took a video of him making a ceramic sculpture, but I forgot about how when I take video it needs to be horizontal because I haven't figured out how to flip it 90 degrees.
Oops.

All in all, a great trip. I highly recommend it.

what they say is true

Okay, I'm going online with my impending change in family status. No longer will we be two, but soon, three. 

Here's proof.

Turns out, I'm good at being pregnant (so far). If only I had started sooner, we could have had ten.

This is the first picture I took and then realized, you can't actually tell its me. I'll include it though because it's a pretty sweet belly shot. 

 Here is one with my head attached.

On another note, I've watched so much curling in the last week that it's sometimes all I can think about. Those Canadian teams are rockin' it. (get it?) I love puns.
 

oh Alberta

Two beautiful weeks spent in sunny Alberta is making me hate the slushy, dreary winter of Ottawa right now. Though, I must say, Ottawa kicks Lethbridge's ass when it comes to cross country skiing. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. (I'm such a polite Canadian)

Chris and I were really pleased to be going home for Christmas as we hadn't been home for a year and a half and haven't been home for Christmas for three years!

We had such a fantastic time visiting with friends, family and sharing our news of our forthcoming bundle of joy.

We spent the first week down in Lethbridge. An impromptu gathering happened at Marc's parent's house (see his blog for pictures, I forgot my camera)
Lots of nice visits followed with family. Some pictures to document said visits.\







We headed to Cochrane on boxing day to have some time with my family. We were the family of fun activities this holiday season. We went bowling at the local 5 pin. Joel was really mad that he wasn't as good as everyone else at bowling. My dad had a really mean left slice.


Then the next day we went to the Calgary Zoo. It's awesome! We saw all sorts of wonderful animals. My favourites were the hippos and the baby giraffe. IT was great to spend such a large amount of time with my whole family. Its been years. I think my Mom liked it too:)


We went back to Lethbridge really quickly to spend some time with Laura and Greg for New Year's. It was nice and quiet. The boys totally beat us at Trivial Pursuit. Perhaps the best part was the steaks that Laura made us for breakfast. It was epic, and so Alberta.


We drove back in our Dodge Avenger courtesy of Enterprise, just in time to spend some quality time watching Dr. No with my Mom and Dad.
A great visit indeed.