My Top Ten Condo Moments

ONE WEEK UNTIL HOUSE POSSESSION!

Thought of moving into our house has left me nostalgic about leaving our condo. So I have compiled some of the most memorable moments that occurred during our 8.5 years living here.

10) The time a creature (a squirrel?!) made a giant nest in our BBQ!

9) The time we bought our first Christmas tree, and had to use the world's shittiest tree stand.

I was so excited the first time we bought a Christmas tree. I had never had a live tree (we had an artificial tree growing up), and it was the first Christmas that Tom and I celebrated together. What we didn't realize, was that we had a terrible tree stand. I don't remember where it came from, but it was meant for a tree with a thick trunk, and we had purchased a cheap (and skinny) tree. Tom ended up having to walk down to the river and bring back a bunch of stones that we piled into the water basin of the tree stand so that the trunk could not move back and forth. The adjustable pins in the stand did not adjust to a thin enough setting to keep the skinny tree trunk steady. All in all, it was an anticlimactic experience for our first Christmas tree (but memorable).

8) The time Tom ordered NFL jerseys for his Groomsmen, Purolator left the package in the lobby and someone stole them.

Yes. Let's leave a package clearly labelled with NFL.com logos, and leave it in a common lobby where dozens of people are passing by all day. That package definitely won't get stolen. *Eye roll* Thanks, Purolator.

7) The time we painted the walls and slept in the living room.

A few years ago, Tom and I spent the weekend painting. We had all the furniture moved into the center of every room, and everything was draped in drop sheets. It would have been a pain to get everything moved to sleep in our bed, so we set up makeshift beds on our couch (that was jammed into the center of the room with all of our bookshelves). It was silly, and a bit ridiculous, but it felt like we were kids sleeping in a makeshift fort-- it was fun! 

6) The time I cut my finger making dinner and passed out.

After this incident, I knew I never would have made it as a doctor (not that I ever wanted to be a doctor!). I cut my finger while transferring vegetables into a soup, and at the sight of my own blood, I promptly passed out, and wacked my head on the floor. 

5) The time we found out we were pregnant!

Pure excitement. Clearly! I took a photo of it!

4) The time I went to get Lacey from her crib, and she called me Mama.

Lacey has been developing quickly the last few months. She says mamama and dadada all the time. I don't think she has made any connections with the words yet, they are just sounds to her. But I'll never forget the morning I went into her room when she'd woken up for the day. I knelt down and said, "Good morning, Lacey!" And she looked at me and said, "Mama."

3) The time I killed a huge spider, and it exploded into dozens of baby spiders.

This particular afternoon is ingrained in my memory. I was sitting at the computer, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw some movement. It was a spider. A LARGE SPIDER. It was VERY large. I could not ignore it, so I grabbed a shoe, and bashed it. And from that spider, sprung dozens and dozens of baby spiders that crawled off in every direction. I have never been more horrified in my life. That afternoon I vacuumed the computer room over and over again.

Later googling has lead me to believe I killed a wolf spider that was carrying its babies with it, much like this picture below.

2) The time Calgary flooded, and water was pouring into our condo complex.

A lot of people were affected by flooding in 2013, but we spent six weeks out of our condo, and then lived through another two months of repairs and remediation. It was an experience I don't care to repeat. It was stressful and inconvenient. All in all, we were lucky that nothing was seriously damaged in our home, and that insurance covered the cost of bringing our building back to how it was before.

1) The time the guy fell off the 5th floor balcony and landed outside our bedroom window.

It was the middle of the night around 3am, and I woke up to a loud bang. I was disoriented from sleep, and initially thought someone was trying to steal our BBQ off our balcony. But minutes later we heard a panicked voice yelling someone's name, and when we looked out the window, there was the body of a young man laying just outside our bedroom window. He and a friend had been partying in a unit on the fifth floor. They were both drunk, and he had fallen off the balcony, and hit the metal awning over our ground floor balcony on the way down. He DID survive (at least, we think he did, Tom saw a guy in a neck brace in our lobby a few days later), but he was definitely injured. For over an hour, there were paramedics and police outside our bedroom yelling back and forth to each other. It was a sight that Tom and I will never forget!

Yes, we've had a lot of good memories in this condo. It has been a home to us for many years. We're looking forward to the memories we'll make in our new house too!

First We Drink the Coffee, Then We Do the Baking - V7.0

There's something very comforting about tradition, isn't there? When Mallary, Jasmine, Jill, Paige and I got together in December 2010 to decorate Christmas cookies, I don't think any of us envisioned ourselves in 2016, baking up a storm on a blustery day. These baking days are something I look forward to every year. There's nothing better than catching up with old friends, and baking tasty treats!

This year we started our annual bake-athon with coffee, thanks to Mallary. We drank all the coffee, and immediately launched into action. After seven years, we have become a well oiled machine. We all bring our two cookie recipes and ingredients, as well as most of the utensils and equipment we need to bake them. We each have a separate little work station, and we get to work. The main problem is that we end up with a backlog of cookies waiting to go in the oven, but that just gives us more time to chat and catch up.

There were a few repeat favourites this year, including salted caramel and dark chocolate chip squares, and lemon ricotta cookies, but most recipes were new. There were:

Ginger snaps

Skor shortbread

Double chocolate peppermint

London Fog sugar cookies

Vanilla chai shortbread

Nutella cookies

Pecan dark chocolate cookies

Hot chocolate cookies

Double chocolate peppermint cookies.

Hot chocolate cookies.

Salted caramel and dark chocolate chip squares.

It's fun to think about how much has changed over the last seven years. Most notably, three of us are now moms! With four kids in the mix, the kids will soon be outnumbering the ladies! I'm looking forward to the day when Lacey is old enough to come with me and help out. But today I was happy to leave Lacey at home with dad, and spend some time on my own.

This year had sped by. It will be Christmas in no time!

Keep warm! I hear it's supposed to be a blustery week.

Flood Refugees... Again

Many of you will remember the flood of 2013. Our condo building suffered severe flooding, and Tom and I had to move out for about six weeks while the cleaning and remediation took place. It wasn't a great experience, but it was character buidling!

This past week, Tom and I became flood refugees again!

On Tuesday night, Tom and I were getting ready to make dinner, when I heard the sound of water falling. It sounded like the shower was dripping, except neither of us were anywhere near the shower! When I went to the washroom to check, water started pouring in through the ceiling vent. Tom rushed into the laundry room to grab a bucket, only to realize there was water coming in through the laundry room wall!

I grabbed our laptop and put it on the kitchen counter so we could look up the emergency contact number for the condo manager. No one answered when I called, so I grabbed Lacey (to keep her out of the water), and headed upstairs to knock on our neighbours door. When I got upstairs to the second floor, there were already several neighbours in the hall, and a lake pooling in the hallway.

The people in the unit above us turned on their washing machine, and then took their dog for a walk. The washing machine malfunctioned, and it filled with water until it overflowed. Water was flowing freely into our unit, and into the parkade below us. After the neighbours turned the water off, I headed back downstairs, only to find that there was water pouring into the kitchen, and leaking into our master bathroom. The kitchen leak started after I'd left, and unfortunately it occurred directly over the laptop-- where I had left it on the counter after looking up our emergency contact number. Tom tried to clear everything out of the way, but it still got wet.

After about a half hour after the water was turned off, the water slowed from a trickle to a drip, and finally stopped.

All in all, it was a pretty crappy night.

The next day I talked to an insurance adjuster, and he got a contractor over at our place within an hour. The contractors set up fans and dehumidifier units. Because our laundry room, master bathroom, kitchen and second bathroom were affected, there was equipment in each room, and it sounded like an airplane hangar. So we found ourselves being flood refugees once again. We've been staying with my in-laws for the last few days. We're hoping to head back home on Sunday.

Lacey is loving staying with grandpa and grandma! She has a whole new set of toys to play with, and one-on-one attention her hearts content!

We should be able to go on Sunday. The condo should be dried out, and then we'll need to wait to hear from insurance to find out when things will be repaired.

We Bought a HOUSE!

When Tom and I bought our condo 8.5 years ago, we only intended to stay there for five years. But the time kept creeping by, and suddenly, nearly 10 years had passed!

Our family of two grew to a family of three, and we managed not too badly in the condo. It has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and with a thorough purging of stuff we made room for the baby.

But now Lacey is mobile and she's all over the place, into everything. She's a noisy little girl, and we can hear each other from every room in the condo. She needs space to roam, and we need more space!

We take possession on December 16, and we are both SO looking forward to moving in before Christmas. So now we're working on selling the condo, and keeping things clean for showings.

32 days to possession!

Joshua Tree National Park - Palm Desert Edition 2.0

Joshua Tree National Park.

Travelling with a baby is definitely a different experience. Lacey is so young right now, she doesn't really care what we do, but our life basically revolves around when she naps. So when you're on holidays, you always have to try to account for baby napping and feeding.

Tom and I decided that we wanted to make a short day trip out to Joshua Tree National Park. Specifically, we wanted to check out Skull Rock, and do a short hike (1.7 mi or about 3km) on the Skull Rock Trail. It was a 1.5 hour drive to the trailhead, and we timed our departure at Lacey's nap time so that she would sleep for at least 40 minutes of the drive out. She did indeed for forty minutes, was okay by herself in the back seat for about 30 minutes. And then started losing her mind for the last 20 minutes, so I sat in the back seat with her and attempted to entertain her. She was not having it. She wanted OUT of her carseat!

Skull Rock Trail.

The landscape in Joshua Tree National Park is pretty interesting! We wound our way through outcropping boulders of granite, cacti, and prickly Joshua trees (featured prominently on the left of the photo above). There were small lizards darting around, and a few birds, but otherwise it was fairly quiet.

Granite hardrock.

Joshua Tree close-up.

Joshua trees are native to California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. According to Wikipedia, they were named by Mormon settlers who felt that the bizarre shapes of the trees reminded them of the Biblical story of Joshua, praying up to the sky. Apparently the trees flower creamy white blossoms from February to April (we were much too late for that). Once they flower, the yuccca moth has a hayday laying eggs and help to spread pollen from the trees.

Tom and Lacey on the trail.

Lacey seemed fairly content in her carrier. She was happy to be with mom and dad, and was quietly taking in the new surroundings. Most importantly, she was happy to be out of her car seat. There was not a cloud in the sky, but because we were at a higher elevation than Palm Desert, it wasn't actually that hot-- maybe around 20 degrees. It was a bit warmer when we finished our walk, but it was a pleasant temperature for a short hike.

Some prickly looking cacti.

Some of the vegetation in the park very unique looking. I'm not sure what the plant featured in the photo above is called, but it looked like it should be growing under the sea, rather than in a desert!

Lacey isn't great at selfies. It probably only took us twelve tries to get the photo above... Most of our previous attempts featured the top of her hat.

And at the very end of the trail, we finally got a look at Skull Rock. It looks pretty skull-like to me! Skull Rock was formed by rainwater accumulated in holes and depressions in the granite. The rainwater eroded the depressions, which allowed more rainwater to accumulate, and the cycle continued until the large eye-socket-like depressions were formed.

It took us about an hour to finish the hike, and when we got back to the car, it was about time for Lacey to have a nap again. She was content to sleep for the first forty minutes of the drive, and was losing her mind by the last twenty minutes.

Tom and I had intended to do a second day trip out to the coast. However, the drive to the coast was about two hours, and given Lacey's displeasure at being in the car seat for 1.5 hours, we decided it would be good if we left that for another time!

But all in all, I call our road trip to Joshua Tree a success!

Adventures in Parenting - Palm Desert Edition 1.0

It's hard to imagine that seven months have gone by since Lacey arrived. Sometimes it still feels surreal that I'm a parent of a seven month old. At what point does it stop feeling new to be a parent, and become second nature?

Tom and I left for Palm Desert on October 2, Lacey's seven month birthday. This was our second flight with Lacey, and I felt just as nervous for this one as I did for the first one. Our first flight with Lacey was only about an hour long, and this one was three hours. A lot can go wrong in three hours!

Thankfully, Lacey handled this flight just as well as the first. Tom managed to get her to fall asleep on him for about an hour.

When she woke up, she went about charming everyone in the seats around us. Everyone was telling us how cute she was, and how she was such a good baby. When she wasn't making friends with our seat neighbours, she was playing with a plastic cup that a flight attendant gave her.

The flight went really well. All of our bags arrived, we picked up our rental car, and headed to the car. And here is where things started to fall apart... We arrived at our hotel before official check-in time, and there were no rooms available early. We had been counting on being able to put Lacey down for a nap immediately, but that wasn't possible. So we decided to drive around to kill some time, and we hoped that driving would lull Lacey to sleep. Instead she had a full-fledged meltdown, and we ended up having to pull over so we could take her out of her car seat and rock her. She eventually fell asleep, but it was a long afternoon!

The following day, we went to the Living Desert, which is a zoo. We stuck to the African exhibit, and wandered around, pointing out sleeping animals (bat-eared foxes, hyenas, warthogs) to Lacey. We're not really sure if she knew what she was looking at (or saw all of them), but she seemed to be having a good time looking around, regardless.

We saw a tortoise. Has anyone else noticed that tortoises are sort of menacing looking? Also, their scaly legs look very dinosaur-esque.

We saw some pretty birds. Possibly some sort of crane? I can't remember.

We tracked down some meerkats. Although there was only one. I guess the other ones were inside sleeping. But the one meerkat was more than happy to pose for me.

But the best part was that I fed a giraffe! We donated five dollars and got some carrot sticks from some volunteers. The giraffes come up and take the carrots right out of your hands! They use their big, long blue tongues to wrap around the carrots and grasp them. It felt sort of sandpapery, like a cat tongue.

Lacey was DEFINITELY very interested in the giraffe!

The giraffe was also an opportunist. Once the carrots were gone, there was no reason to hang around. I took a little too long taking pictures, and it started to wander off, until the volunteers coaxed it back with more carrots.

Here's a shot with the big blue tongue hanging out!

By the time we left the zoo, it was pretty hot, so we grabbed some lunch, got Lacey down for a nap, and  when she woke up, we headed to the pool! I make it sound like this was a breezy event. And in the past when it was just Tom and I, it would have been. But when I say we "headed to the pool", I mean we spent 45 minutes applying sunscreen, diapering Lacey in disposable waterproof diapers, layering her into a reusable swim diaper, struggling to squeeze her into a bathing suit, trying to find her hat, and packing all her crap into a backpack, while she attempted to crawl away, and put up a major fight about getting diapered. So once we "breezed" through that process, we headed to the pool.

This was Lacey's first time in the water, and she was very interested in all the comings and goings of people on the pool deck, as well as splashing around in the water. She has her serious face on, but she enjoyed her first dip in the pool! She had a bit of a reaction to either the chlorine or the sunscreen, so we didn't stay long.

 We knew we'd definitely be back for more pool time!

Insane Inflatable 5k

A few months ago, Jeff, Gwen, Ashley, Jill and I signed up for the Insane Inflatable 5k. It's one of many novelty fun-runs that have been making their way from city to city in North America. Lacey was only a few months old when we signed up, and through my fog of new-baby brain, I vaguely thought that signing up for the race in the fall would give me some motivation to get back in shape again. That didn't exactly happen, but it was still a fun way to spend the morning.

We ran in one of the last start waves of the day, starting at 11:00am. I'm glad we picked this start wave, because it was hella cold and windy, and I hate waking up early. Of course, Lacey chose to wake up extra early anyway, so it wouldn't really have mattered!

Can you tell we're cold?! Jill, Ashley, Gwen, Jeff and I waiting at the start line.

The Inflatable 5k is pretty self-explanatory. Over a 5 kilometer course set out at Spruce Meadows, there were a series of inflatable obstacles that could be navigated. They could be anything. Walls to be scaled, objects to be crawled over or under, giant slides, bouncing balls, swinging inflatable pendulums, giant ladders-- it had it all.

Here's me scaling one of  the first obstacles!

Jill and Jeff taking a jumping approach to scaling the same obstacle (with a random racer in the between them).

Ashley, Gwen and Jeff at the bottom of an inflatable slide.

Guest appearance from work-pal, Ryan! He ran the race with his wife and kids.

A random photo op with a merman along the course (because we're obviously very serious racers!)

Jill bouncing from obstacle to obstacle, gladiator style.

I guess the race wasn't fun and games for everyone. The second last obstacle that Jill was tackling in the photo above was closed for a while as EMT's helped someone who was injured.

But we survived, injury free. Here are Gwen and Ashley scaling the final obstacle to the finish line.

And.... Done!

 Woo-hoo!

Eight

This past week, my nephew turned eight years old.  It's hard to imagine he's almost into the double digits... Grade 3!

Dylan is a consummate Lego fan, so I decided earn auntie points by making him Lego themed cupcakes.

This year we went with vanilla cake, and vanilla buttercream, as per the birthday boy's request.

And I topped the Dylan's cupcake with a Lego character from one of the mystery packages. We got a mariachi man!

I think they were a hit. He looks pretty pleased! I love his missing-tooth grin!

Happy birthday, to my favourite nephew!

Tofino Time

At the beginning of the month, Tom and I embarked on our first holiday since November 2015. You may recall we travelled to Kaui last year. After our tropical holiday, I was too pregnant to travel, after Lacey arrived, I was too frazzled to travel. But six months in, we're (knock on wood) starting to figure things out. So we headed off to the west coast.

Some might say we were crashing Andrew and Ashley's anniversary trip. After their honeymoon in Tofino three years ago, they have returned every year on their anniversary. Was this trip on their anniversary? Well, yes! But in our defense they invited us to come along! And they invited their parents. So it was a good ol' family holiday!

Let's start from the top.

Our first flight with Lacey.

Tom and I pretty much had things down when we travelled pre-baby. If we went somewhere for a short trip, we crammed both of our stuff into our largest suitcase, and both carried backpacks for carry-on luggage. If we went on a long trip, we travelled the same way, but with an extra suitcase. Travelling with a baby isn't nearly as simple. And it's funny, because I didn't think travelling the two of us was simple. But now I realize, it was pretty simple. When you're travelling with a baby, you have diapers, sleep sacks, onesies, pack 'n plays, bottles, milk, toys, books, blankets, wash clothes, wet wipes, baby food, waterproof sheets, and 15 gajillion other things. You cram them all into a suitcase, and then you try to get them all in the car. Then once you get them in the car, you have to try to get them into the airport. I've never had to use an airport cart before. It was a necessity this time around!

The flight out was only an hour and fifteen minutes. So no matter how much of a disaster it could have been, I told myself, "It will only be an hour and fifteen minutes of hell". But it wasn't bad. We timed a feeding with our takeoff, which seemed to help Lacey with the pressure change. And Tom managed to get her to fall asleep for 25 minutes. We spent most of the flight in terror that Lacey would have a poop explosion. At the time of the flight, she hadn't pooped in about 40 hours. Every time she tooted (and seriously, babies pass a lot of gas), we suffered palpitations. But there was no pooping, and we were able to entertain her by passing her back and forth and waving her stuffed moose, Mortimer, in her face.

Next came the three hour drive to Tofino. Remember that poop explosion we were afraid of? Well, it happened. Luckily, it didn't happen until we were close to the hotel. But it was so bad that we had to strip Lacey down, and bath her. And we had to strip out her car seat and wash the lining. All I can say is-- thank God it didn't happen on the plane.

Did I mention how much more complicated it is, travelling with a baby?

But Tofino is just such a lovely place. We stayed in units 13 - 15 at the Cox Bay Resort, just a short walk from the beach. It poured on our drive in, but the remaining four days weren't too bad. A mix of sun and cloud, some rain, perhaps a little on the cool side. But nothing unexpected for the west coast.

Ashley and Andrew did some surfing.

Lacey did some eating. She sampled banana, avocado, yogurt and blueberries while we were on the trip. Below is a photo of her eating avocado. She's making such a weird facial expression-- it doesn't exactly scream "I love food". You'll just have to trust me when I say, she loves food. She can't get enough of it!

We explored the beach, and showed Lacey some rocks!

We eventually got a pretty good selfie with fives of us!

Lacey sat in a big chair with grandma, and LOVED it. I love this photo, because they both look so happy, and Lacey looks like the ultimate tourist in her little hat and hoodie.

Tom and I (unfortunately) missed a pretty epic sunset-- we stayed behind while Lacey was sleeping. But we've lived it through photos, and you can too!

Lacey and I did some early morning snuggling on the patio in the fog.

We hiked a short rainforest trail with Barb and Dave.

We took in the views on a 2.5km loop on the Wild Pacific Trail in Ucluelet.

Lacey got some use of her rain jacket on our Wild Pacific walk.

And we got in some quality family time. That's a good lookin' family!

Who knows, maybe this will be a recurring family trip?

After Tofino, Tom, Lacey and I continued on to Victoria and Vancouver. More on that to follow!