tennis anyone?

We went to Montreal to take in the Rogers cup and see some world class tennis.
It was awesome. We went along with Tim and Meg and had such a fantastic time.


Here is William in his happy and content phase at the beginning of the match.
The only thing that we forgot was that a tennis match is a quiet place where people don't like crying babies.

At one point William was really upset and I was running up the stairs with him while Safina was serving. You're not supposed to do that in tennis.

After that we got to sit in some box seats that weren't being used that were close to the exit so we could dart out if needed. They were fantastic seats and I got to watch the whole match. We were watching Petrova and Safina.


Safina is in the red, Petrova in white. We totally got our money's worth as it went to three sets. We went to the Jean-Talon market after for some lunch where Chris took this awesome picture of William and Megan. I think its my favourite of William so far.



On Saturday we went for a walk up in Gatineau Park with Chris' cousin Darren who is in town for training and with Jen and Brendan. We had a fantastic picnic lunch at Keogan shelter, which we forgot to take pictures of. Here are some pictures at the Champlain lookout.


On our hike, we saw a doe. A deer. A female deer.

like a weed

William is growing like a weed, that is.
We've had a wonderful first two months with him.
We have been lucky enough to have lots of visits with family. My parents came shortly after William was born and were here for a few weeks. Then Chris' mom came for a little over a week and then my parents returned for another week before driving back to Alberta. Here's the morning before they departed.
Notice Chris' shirt in this photo. I got that from the Repeat Boutique in Whitecourt when I was 16. Actually, I believe that Kristy got it for me from there and brought it for me when I was working at the IGA. I've had it all these years and have passed it onto Chris.


Chris and I had our five year anniversary this past month. To celebrate we went out for dinner at Banc Sushi while my parents babysat. I really missed going for sushi during my pregnancy. We've gone twice since having William. He came home with these for me. I love flowers. I never thought I would, but it turns out I'm a total sucker for them.


And now for a photo montage of William.



This is an homage to his Alberta cowboy roots.


A hat from Auntie Kirstie. His nickname when he wears this is chunky monkey. Do you think that will scar him?

happy Canada day

Things are fun and exciting around here.
Here's Meg and Tim, meeting the new roommate.


We had a lovely visit from my parents for the last few weeks and then welcomed Chris' Mom on Canada Day. So far we've had a very busy schedule.
On Canada Day we took in the fireworks beside the RIdeau River. According to an older gentleman the bridge we were standing on was the bridge the Governor General used to take to Parliament back in the day.


A special thanks to my friend Meredith for giving me this Canada Day 2002 t-shirt. It was a bit big but I think William did it proud.

A family photo



We visited the Metcalfe Farmer's market on Saturday in search of some honey. We got some and some nice photos to boot.



To celebrate Independence Day we went to Meech Lake. Its been ridiculously hot here and the beach seemed like the most reasonable way to beat the heat.



Chris and I swam out to beyond the buoys. There was a lady there that was policing the swimmers to keep them inside. She said if we wanted to swim past them we had to go back to the shore and start swimming outside the buoys from there and then we could go past them. A little strange.
TOday its 38 degrees in the shade, without the humidex. Booo. Wish us luck.

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.