Halloween 2007

So another Halloween has come and gone, For Halloween this year Aaron and Kyle were characters from Thomas and friends. Aaron was Gordon and Kyle was James. Shelby made their costumes and did a good job. Aaron was a bit sick today, but he was still able to go trick or treating for a while. This was Kyle's first time trick or treating and he really enjoyed it. Here are a few pictures from the evening.

Pumpkin Patch Take 1 - Hazelmere Pumpkin Patch

Part I included Kyle laying in a mucky pumpkin field having a temper tantrum (more than once), 2 pumpkins and not enough hands to carry them and the 44 lb 2 year old. It also included a handful of well meaning parents telling me they had been there with their kids too. However I was in no mood to hear that.
What that trip did not include was Eric (who happened to be at a marriage conference by himself)...so I vowed to never go to the pumpkin patch without him again. It included a lecture to the kids in the car which meant nothing to them but made me feel better...sort of. We ended up coming home with one little over priced pumpkin that Aaron had to carry himself to the hay wagon (which truly was a bit of a feat). Needless to say part II was much better.

*Eric was doing sound at the marriage conference, I was supposed to go but because I didn't make up my mind soon enough our babysitters were busy. So while Eric was at this marriage conference I thought I would do something fun with the kids. Unfortunately it didn't happen that way.

Here are the pictures I got before the meltdowns began.

The Pumpkin Patch Take 2

Well you might be thinking you missed Take 1 of the pumpkin patch story. You haven't missed it, because it hasn't been written yet by Shelby. Last weekend Shelby took the kids to another Pumpkin Patch, but things didn't go so well, perhaps she will tell the story sometime.
So with the weather getting better these past few days, we went out again with the kids to Aldor Acres, where we seem to go every Fall since we have had kids. My parents also came along.
It was a nice day to visit the farm weather-wise and we went in the later afternoon which wasn't too busy there. We toured the farm, pet the animals and went on a hay ride to the pumpkin patch.
Things went better this time and here are a few pictures from our outing.

To Whistler and beyond

With all the weekends we were away for weddings we thought we would go away as a family. We booked a weekend in Whistler at Intrawest, but getting to Whistler was a bit more of a challenge than we anticipated. As we were heading to Whistler on Friday afternoon, there was a major accident on the Port Mann bridge and shut down the west bound lanes. As a result the Patullo bridge was bottlenecked as well. We ventured over to the Alex Fraser which was also backed up a bit. It took us 1.5 hours to get back to the Brunette exit of Hwy 1 and they ironically also announced they were reopening of the Port Mann as we got back on the freeway. Fortunately the kids were fairly well behaved at this point. After dinner in Squamish, we finally made it to Whistler 4 hours later. Before bed we took the kids down to the pool and hot tub. Aaron considered the pool a hot tub since there was steam coming off that as well.
We were staying in a 1 bedroom place and had the kids sleep on the floor in the bedroom until we went to bed. We took Aaron out into the living room and left Kyle in the bedroom on the floor. Seems Kyle didn't want to sleep much at that point and kept moving around and kept Shelby awake. Finally after a few hours we put Kyle in our bed. This didn't prove all that much more successful. Eventually he did fall asleep and left me about a foot of space on my side of the bed. I wasn't about to wake him up to move him,so I dealt with it. Meanwhile Aaron is coughing in the living room. Needless to say none of us got a great night sleep that night.
On Saturday we ventured to the village to look around, shop, and the kids got to check out the playground, the bobsled and the various rocks around to climb. During the day the kids were generally 'at' each other other a lot. If Aaron teases Kyle a lot, Kyle has started fighting back by biting Aaron. Meanwhile Aaron was wondering/whining when we can go back to the hotel to the pool.
Later in the afternoon we went back to the hotel for another swim, which is probably the highlight of the trip for the kids. After Shelby made spaghetti dinner, which is not Aaron's favorite, so another battle ensued. In some ways a 7:30 bedtime couldn't come soon enough.
This time we put the kids in the bedroom and when we went to bed we took both kids out into the living room and we all had a much better night sleep.
The next morning after breakfast I took Aaron to the pool again. He seems to be progressing in his swimming as he was able to swim across the pool width-wise and was able to jump in the pool without a lifejacket on and start swimming after.
After we went to the village again. On our walk from the Upper village to Whistler there was a bear and a cub crossing the parking lot and ended up hiding the bushes. Some people were a bit scared of the bears, but I wanted to get a bit closer to get the award winning photograph:-)
I waited for a while to see if the bear would come out of the bushes but it seemed to be content to be in hiding. I think Shelby said seeing the bears was the highlight of her trip.
In the village, the kids got to go on the playground again and check out the 'Thomas store'. After a bit more shopping and lunch we headed home.
The weather on the weekend was great as it didn't rain. Friday was sunny and warm, Saturday was a bit cold as it was overcast and Sunday was nice and warm again, once the sun came out. Seeing the fall colours on a sunny day in Whistler was very nice as well as on the drive home.
In the car Kyle immediately fell asleep and Aaron faded in and out of sleep as well which made the ride home fairly peaceful, till we were back on Hwy 1. When Kyle awoke he was quite cranky and had manged to bite his lip somehow and was bleeding a bit. Aaron was complaining about a sore throat. We were telling Aaron there was not much we could do. Eventually Aaron was getting worse and I figured out that he was getting sick and was going to throw up. Luckily there was a bag from our shopping that I grabbed quickly and I was able to give it to him just in time.
After that he seemed to be fine and Kyle had settled down as well.
Even though the kids were not always on their best behaviour they did seem to want to pose for pictures, so here are a few from our trip.

Here is the bear hanging out in the bushes.

Shelby's parents had taken Keisha while we were up in Whistler. We weren't sure when we would get her back. Since the weather was nice that day, I phoned my brother to see if he was doing any flying that day anyway. I turned out my dad and my brother were going to be flying in the late afternoon and dropping the plane off in Abbotsford for servicing. So I asked if they could fly to Courtenay to get Keisha. So I went along with them. We met Shelby's parents at the Courtenay airpark and Keisha came back with us. On the way there it was still light out and on the way back was dark as the sun had set. Seeing all the city lights at night was pretty cool, if only you could photograph that from a moving plane.
We have been fortunate to have done some travelling around our beautiful province lately. We don't have any immediate plans to go anywhere, so we'll have to see what adventures we can find around here.