The fun...er...Craziness, continues

Hello again, all. No Jon, I haven't forgotten about you. We're back from our weekend away, not really refreshed or renewed, but hey, we got away from home, so that's good. Memory refresher: we took a trip up to the Shuswap for a weekend of houseboating fun and excitement (Mara Lake, actually, just south of Shuswap Lake). The trip was good in and of itself, it's just a little bit of a gong-show when you take an infant on vacation. Usually Theo's a pretty noisy sleeper, sometimes waking up in the middle of the night just to whine and then go back to sleep. But when you're on a boat with a bunch of people who maybe don't appreciate being woken up at 3:30 in the morning (which seems totally unreasonable to me), it's tough. Plus there was the fact that there was no room for his playpen in our cabin, so he had to sleep in our bed again. Yikes. Now I remember why we stopped doing that. Let's just say that not much sleep was had over the course of the three nights, and it took several days to recover from our vacation when we got home. This was added to the fact that I managed to wound myself the day before we left in a skydiving accident. Okay, no, it wasn't that glamorous (but I had you going, didn't I? No wait, you know me too well to think that I'd actually jump out of a perfectly good airplane)--just a kitchen knife accident. Note to self: when you're opening a new set of knives that say "WARNING: SHARP" it probably is, and it's best to keep your fingers out of the way. I ended up with stitches in my middle and ring fingers of my left hand, but at least I didn't do any permanent damage that would preclude me from playing guitar. Even the doctor commented on what a good, sharp set of knives we had.

If this all sounds like a bunch of belly-aching to you all, my apologies. It really was a fun trip. Saw some amazing sights, including an up-close-and-personal encounter with a huge bald eagle (no, he didn't try to carry Theo away as dinner, which was good), and a really interesting nature channel-style look at a mother duck and her chicks, swimming through the water with the babies on her back. They'd fall off at various times and scramble to get back on. Cute, but you sort of had to be there. Theo had a weekend of firsts as well, including his first trip outside the Lower Mainland, his first ride on a speedboat, and his first night away from home with mommy and daddy (no, I don't count the nursery in that category). And yes, I do have a couple of pictures to show you...

Here's our accommodations for the week, seen from the beach that we, well, beached at. The boat may look small in this shot, but it slept 11 of us quite comfortably and had a full kitchen, fireplace, and living room-type area:

And the aforementioned bald eagle. Not as impressive in photos, but really cool in real life:

Yes, we did get some great shots of Theo as well. Here are some of my favourites...

First off, this one reminds me of Sunday School pageants when I was a kid. You know how all the shepherds dress up in bathrobes and stuff? Here's Theo's version:

He also particularly liked rides in the ski boat, although the look on his face in this one may indicate otherwise:

And of course, what's a vacation without a good nap now and then (especially if you're not sleeping through the night)?

The place we beached the houseboat had some train tracks running alongside it (no trains the whole time, though. For those of you who are familiar with my childhood, I was a train fanatic, and still am, and I was hoping to school Theo in the art of flattening pennies, but alas, no luck). Train tracks are particularly good places for photos; even I look decent in this one:

You know, for not getting much sleep, Theo sure was at his photogenic best. Here are my three favourite shots from the weekend.

Whoever came up with putting little fabric ears on sleepers is a genius:

And a couple in the Snugli:

And finally, no trip back from the interior would be complete without a stop at the travel plaza at Whatcom Road in Abbotsford, am I right? We went to the Tim Horton's there, and I figured that since I'd given Starbucks a shout out in one of these postings I might as well give Timmy's a chance. I think he likes the Tim's better for some reason:

That's all for now, folks. I promise I'll make up for lost time and give you another post sometime soon--I've got stories to tell! And hey, keep up the comments, would you? It still makes me happy to know that you're out there reading this blog. See you all soon.

A Bonus Posting!

Lucky you! I have some spare time this morning, so I figured I'd put up the photos I was going to put up yesterday. So here they are. But make sure you read the last post before this one. Right.

So the other day we were over at Steph's mom's place for dinner, and we figured we'd get a shot of Theo sitting with Nana, like so:

When we looked at the photo, we realized that Theo was too busy looking at the mug of tea in front of him and had absolutely no regard for anything going on around him. He was totally transfixed on this thing. So of course we had to document it.

I love this one--use the tablecloth to pull the mug closer. "Yes, come to me, my pretty..."

"Almost...got...it....Just...a...little...bit...more..."

"Aha! Now to see what's inside!"

"What the....I can't drink that! Mug, I am very upset with you!"

"Oh, hi Mommy. Nothing going on here."

What a cutie.

The Natives Are Getting Restless

Hello again, blog fans! Glad to be back in my regular chair, typing away at yet another blog posting. Actually, it's not my regular chair. My regular chair is from that Swedish furniture store. It's on a wheeled base with five casters, but sadly two have fallen off (that's because you are crazy). Not such a stable situation, if you ask me. I worked on it for a while when it was only missing one. It wasn't as difficult, but it was still a thrilling ride every time I sat down. Will I get thrown off? Will I tip over? Who knows! Oh, the excitement!

Yes, I am the parent of an infant, and this is the most excitement I can handle in my day. Anyway, I'm on a rather boring black fold-out chair for now, waiting for some seating solution to come to me out of the blue (hey idiot, how about just buying a new chair?!). I will prevail!

So, what else is happening in our exciting lives? Several different Theo-related milestones to tell you about, so let's get right to it.

1. Rolling over, but alas, only the front-to-back kind, not both ways. It's actually pretty entertaining because he tries oh so hard to get from back to front, but it's the darned arm getting in the way. I'll describe it, but you're going to have to imagine how this works along with me. Better yet, get someone to read this out to you and follow along on the floor. Hours of entertainment! Anyway, he gets almost all the way over from his back onto his stomach, after overcoming the part about how both the legs and torso have to move in the same direction, but doesn't realize that he has to move his other arm out of the way first. For those of you following along, laying on your back with your arms to your side, roll over onto your right side, but don't move your right arm. See how when you get all the way over, your arm is still trapped under you? Well, imagine being a baby and not knowing how to move that arm. Like a coiled spring, he wings himself back onto his, um, back (too many "backs"), and shouts in frustration. He'll get it one day, and I'm not entirely sure why we're thinking this is a good thing.

2. Propping up his head. Theo can now sit propped up and hold his head up without it falling over or rolling around Linda Blair style. Okay, I guess he never got the full Linda Blair thing; that would be a little bit weird. But he'd really fling his head around, you know? Anyway, we have head stability now, so that's one less thing to worry about.

As far as the rest of it goes, more of the same. Sleeping is so-so; some nights are good, others are bad, but that's the way it goes. When he's awake, he's still quite the character. He smiles more often now (although they're still very difficult to catch on film--okay, digital media), and is starting to ask for kisses. That's a really funny one, but one that will never come across on, er, digital media, so tough luck. Come by the house if you want an in-person demonstration. I'm sure that'll be the day he refuses to do it.

Not much else happening. Went to the beach last week for the first time with Tanya and Mark (but you can call him Pat), which was fun for all. This weekend we went into Vancouver where mommy got her hair cut (Pure Studio on Spruce and 7th--it's run by a long-time family friend's son--he's really good) while daddy and Theo walked around town. I was going to go to Long & McQuade to indoctrinate the boy on rock and roll guitars, but it moved and didn't tell me, so that was out. Thanks a lot. If my boy likes soft rock or *shudder* country, I'm going to send them the therapy bill. Didn't take as many pictures this week, but we got a few good ones, and those are the ones I'm going to share with you today. Oh, and some others from last week's massive haul, just to beef it up a little bit. Here we go.

First off, I promised Tanya I'd put a picture of her up here, even though it's a decidedly Theo-less picture.

And here's the family...

A couple more from the self-photography session of last week. I love his expression. And, of course, my beautiful wife. I probably have the best-looking family in Canada, nay, North America, nay, the world! Without me in the photos, of course.

And here are his two favourite things to do now. First off, being bashful is his newest thing. If you look at him a little bit too closely sometimes he decides that's enough, and buries his face in whatever's convenient. Usually it's the shoulder of the person carrying him, but in this case it was the bed...

Here's the second favourite thing: chewing on his fist. Just wait til those teeth come through...

Like I said before, keeping the head upright is no problem now, the mechanics of which are demonstrated in this picture. This looks like something out of a textbook, I think, but I can't place why. To me it looks like one of those line drawings, but coloured in. Whatever.

I think he's cheering on the Oilers here.

"Who, me?" I have a feeling I'll be seeing a lot more of this look as time goes on.

I had one more story to share, but alas, my luck with uploading pictures has run out. It's probably for the best, considering it's 11:00 now. Church business meeting tonight--took up quite a bit of productive blogging time. But it was good to go and keep up with what's happening. Anyway, I'll sign off because hey, it's still Sunday (*cough* Jane *cough*) and that means I'm on time.

Oh, one more quick thing. No post next weekend, sadly. We're heading up to the lovely Mara Lake for a few days of houseboating fun with the family. And by that I mean Steph's dad's side of the family. Which is really Steph's step-mom's kids and their kids. Follow? Don't worry, I'll draw you a chart. But hey, going away means several good photos (hopefully), so I'll likely be posting on Monday or Tuesday just to get them up here. So ciao for now, all. See you again sometime next week.