Our summer holiday

We headed up north to a place called Whanarua Bay, in the East Cape of New Zealand for our holiday this year - with our good friends Mark, Rachel and their daughter Holly. It was a great week filled with good food, lots of beach time, games, laughs and amazement watching the girls play together and learn from each other. It was fantastic because Emily and Holly synchronized their nap times and that made it really easy for us parents to get good workouts and bike rides done while the girls slept in the morning. Then we would all go have lunch on the beach and play in the sand and waves and then the afternoon nap would allow some book reading or just chillin out. The Mojitos usually made an appearance sometime after that. Pretty tough schedule really!

The view from the deck of our bach (aka cottage)

Mark, Rachel and Holly - our fellow vacationers

A game of BLOW FOOTBALL between Bryce and I - harder than it looks

The boys doing the morning shift, letting the mommies have a sleep-in

The open plan lounge/kitchen/puzzle center/dance floor at the cottage

Interesting picture below. You may have to zoom in on the hind region of this specimen to get the full appreciation of the picture. I found some car keys sitting beside me on the beach and just about to get swept up in the waves. As we left the beach, we were contemplating what to do with these keys when this woman came running up to check the spot we had just been at. We asked her if she was looking for keys and she was surprised and then immediately relieved when she saw us holding them (must have fallen out of her bakcpack). Anyway, she skipped off happily and we all went on with our day, until....we looked a little closer at her backside. Turns out her keys weren't the only thing she forgot that day.

Bryce and Emily on his shoulder - he likes carrying her around but recently she has taken to sticking her fingers deep into his ears when on his shoulders, so it is not the most comfortable position for him. You'd think she would just take hold of his 'fro instead.

This is the dairy (convenience store) that was in the movie "Boy". With Bryce's encouragement, I admit I did re-enact some of the scenes by doing my own Michael Jackson moves in front of the store. I am sure Emily is glad she doesn't know yet how to be embarrassed of her parents.

Dinner and wine on the deck at the cottage. A beautiful view!

Emily and Holly - great friends and fellow connoiseurs of the '70's mix tape we found in the tape recorder. Both girls got their groove on all week, to the same 'wonderful' songs.

Holly and Emily in their beach attire

This is Emily trying endlessly to get on this shelf. She would climb onto it and then get upset because she was then stuck and couldn't sit up or turn; but then when we rescued her, she would go right back to climbing onto it again. She was simply drawn to the shelf....

A tired girl after all the excitement of the holiday

This is the 9 month picture (only about 2 weeks late though). George the bear is sure getting smaller with every month picture we take

Our little girl

Emily and her friends Cara and Sophie


Emily is on the move - we now have crawling races, and chases, and lots and lots of "house-al defence" - as in constantly protecting the rest of the house from Emily the crawling conqueror.

Fun times in 2011

Emily and Daddy playing on the 'rocking elephant'

Mommy got bored and decided that Emily's hair was now long enough to play with

This is what she looked like after we took the pigtails out

Emily in our bean bag

This one is for Nana, the outfit she got Em for Christmas - so cute

Christmas Day

Christmas Day at Trish and Craig's farm is always a fun and exciting time, and this year was no exception. Besides Emily and I trying to conquer a cold, we
enjoyed Christms weekend with John, Cushla, Trish, Craig and the kids Sammy and Henry, and Craig's mother Gladys. Christmas morning was fun; especially watching Emily soak in all the chaos of present opening. She managed very well, and although had no real idea of what was going on, absorbed enough of the excitement to nap really well all day.

On Boxing Day, we helped draft sheep with Craig and Trish. Drafting is the process of getting all the ewes and lambs into sheep pens and then pushing them through bunch by bunch until you have separated all the lambs from their moms. It is a bit sad to hear all the sheep crying out for their babies or moms but it's the "way of the farm". All of the sheep were being shorn ("sheared?") the next day so the wool needed to be separated between new lambs wool and old ewe wool. I enjoyed helping to move the sheep all around and trying to use my best imitation "dog bark" to assist my canine co-workers, we got the job done pretty smoothly! Emily joined us in her stroller and liked watching all the sheep moving around, but soon was over it and wanted a quiet place to nap. So I decided to take her back to the house for a nap. Craig asked me to go to the 4 wheeler and get the "rattle". I told him not to worry, as Emily didn't need it because she was gonna go back to the house. He looked at me weird, and said again "but if you just grab it, its on the steering wheel". I figured he hadn't heard me so said, "that's alright, I will just take Emily home for a nap". As I moved Emily's stroller out of the yards, Bryce came to help carry Em's stroller over a fence. He then walked over to the 4-wheeler and grabbed a rattle-like thing and I said,"whats that?". He said, "its a sheep rattle to use to move the sheep around the pen!". Oh, so Craig wanted the rattle for the sheep, not Emily......duh.

December plods on...

We have entered a new stage with our lil girl. One where she no longer stays in the same place you leave her in. In her crib/cot, she is put to bed with her feet touching the end of the cot nicely tucked under her covers; in the morning, she is usually squished up on her side or tummy against the crib bars on the other side of the bed. What she must get up to in the middle of the night would be interesting to watch!
Here is a picture we took of a cute outfit we bought to give to a friend's newborn. Unfortunately, it is even too big for Emily so a newborn would be swimming in it. Good halloween costume, I guess.


This is our 8 1/2 month old daughter playing with matches. We don't see any problem with this.

(just kidding)

Bryce had his big bad birthday (they seem to feel bigger and badder for him as the years keep accumulating) last weekend. Kim and John brought over yummy sangrias to enjoy and make him feel like a young man! Great company and a great night!

8 months old

Emily is 8 months old and has two little buds for teeth on the bottom. They have been buds for about 2 weeks now and we are awaiting the tooth breakthrough where she begins to look like a old bag woman. She is mastering the backwards commando crawl, and can spin 360 degrees on her tummy to get at the toys in her vicinity. Anything outside of that and she just looks at the toy and then looks at you and then looks at the toy, until you can't bear to keep it away from that cute face any longer. She is definitely getting stronger on her legs and just loves standing whenever we hold her.

This is Emily with her friend Mia. Emily really enjoys spending time in the water, whether it is the bath, the pool or the ocean. Anything she can splash in is fine for Em. She is getting more adventurous as well and is keen to move forward onto her tummy to get at things in the water, not realising the implications of going face first into the water. This is still a lesson she has yet to learn. We have had many face first episodes in the water so far, but it's all gonna help her get used to it, I guess. Lots of swallowing water then gasping and choking for a few seconds afterwards.

This pic is of a diaper box we got that has pieces you can punch out to make a car. She likes sitting in it and getting pushed around the lounge. Emily just puts her hands in her lap, like a civilised living room commuter, and just sits back and checks out the scene. No squeals of excitement, no flapping of arms or reaching out for things. It's like she imposes her own "seatbelt rule" and does what every roller coaster operator at Canada's Wonderland implanted into my young teenaged brain - "Keep your head, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times....and enjoooooy the riiiiiide!"

Daddy-Daughter time

Em and Bryce chilling out

Emily and her friend Mia (right after Mia stopped trying to eat Emily's hair and Emily stopped trying to hit Mia in the head with a tambourine)

Holly and Emily

Holly's Daddy Mark and Holly enjoying the rocking 'elephant'

Clare and Emily after a fun afternoon sampling the food and wine at the local Food Fair

Emily especially enjoyed the white bread pieces that are used for taste testing dips. At least we thought she enjoyed them. About 10 minutes later, she sneezed and several small pieces she ate flew out of her mouth that I thought had been swallowed. Kind of gross, but I seem to be getting over my grossness of fluids that come from my child!

Emily and Bryce cooling off in the river near our house. It has been so hot here lately and just overall beautiful summer weather! A big change from the December's I am used to in Toronto!


And finally, a sequence of photos from Daddy/Emily cuddle time.



I love this shot!

When finger painting goes bad

The sun is shining!

We are really enjoying the spring and it is feeling more like summer is closer every day. It is our first summer as parents and when you are experiencing a first summer with your infant, everything is just a bit more exciting! Emily had a visit to the beach with her friend Mia yesterday (and Mia's parents, Guy and Cheryl), and enjoyed sitting in the water and avoiding the waves with Daddy. Mind you, Bryce didn't really try to avoid any; he was more interested in showing Emily how to body surf the waves.


I think she just enjoyed being along for the ride in Daddy's arms! Bryce is sporting a great cycle tan, courtesy of the ride he took in the morning (although Bryce tends to have a cycle tan most of the year anyway). Bryce and Em had the morning to themselves, and I went out for a ride myself up one of our local hills. So tough, but nice to feel intense muscle work again! Walking with the buggy just doesn't quite get the lactic acid burn we so enjoy!

On Saturday, we visited John and Cushla for the day, along with catching the tail-end of Henry's cricket game. It was nice to see Rob, Rachel, Henry and Charlotte; and Henry and Charlotte really enjoyed playing with Emily. They made her smile all afternoon and sang songs to her if she got a little grumpy which changed her mood around quickly.



Bryce and I have been competing for crazy dreams lately. I seem to be almost over by nightly-nightmare of Em being squished under Bryce in our bed (only have it about 1x a week now!). Bryce, however, had a dream the other night that there was a cashier stand at the bottom of our driveway and he tried to take a pinecone from the yard, but the cashier wouldn't let him go anywhere without paying $2 for it; despite his protests that the pinecone was from HIS yard. I think the lawn is doing his head in, at the moment. Now that we have SUN on our grass and the moss that had overtaken our back yard is dying away, Bryce is now quite aware that he wants his beautiful velvety green lawn back that he had a few years ago.

This picture is of Emily in a gown we found in Bryce's baby stuff, and the plastic teddy bear is his old one as well. They sure made things that last, back then! It is some hardy plastic.

Before and after

We had a stand of 9 pine trees on our neighbours property cut down last month. The trees basically stood between us and the sun for half of the day, and fully blocked the sun from our house during winter.

The view from the deck. The before image doesn't convey the full height of the trees, they were HUGE.



From the back lawn the height of the trees is a bit more apparent. The lawn was full of moss due to being semi-permanently in the shade, a couple of weeks of sun and the moss is dying off fast.



From the side of the house the full height of the trees can be seen, dwarfing the house.


And now all we have is blue sky!

The "shadow" becomes firewood

The past month has seen great change at home. Full details on the before and after shots will come at some point however it's worth noting the work in progress. We've had a stand of 9 huge pine trees cut down on our neighbours property, trees that lay between our house and the sun for most of the year.

The trees were dropped and cut into firewood length rounds by a tree contractor, and the neighbour and Bryce have been doing the hard yards splitting the rounds into firewood using a hydraulic splitter. Two full workdays done and we are about three quarters of the way through the pile.

Then there is the fun task of stacking, well supervised by the house chief.