I’m heading to Sault Ste Marie in 10 minutes along with Holly who will be driving her own car. We’re meeting in Deep River at the Tim Horton’s.
Holly: Do you have a cell phone still?
Ryan: No.
Holly: (obviously distressed) Uh…uhh…
Ryan: Holly, no worries. We’ll just travel like cavemen used to and actually arrange a meeting spot ahead of time!
Holly: (laughter ensues)
Here’s to a great trip on the weekend. Take care all.
Not a month has gone by after I started playing around with the Travelr software to tag my photos with a geographic location, that Flickr themselves release basically the same thing.
It looks prety snazzy so far after looking at it for 5 minutes and it’s a heck of a lot easier to tag photos.
I think I’ll wait a few weeks until everything settles down and I see if they provide any cooler features to think about.
I know the ladies reading this want the details up front so here it is:
6 pounds, 11 ounces. A baby boy!
That’s all you need to know anyhow, right?
So, after the wedding was done, we got home and called the hospital once again and it sounded like nothing would happen for awhile so we crashed for the night and headed to the hospital in the morning.
Got there around 10:30 and was able to see Annie for a bit and then I left again to pick up Mike who was at a brunch. Turns out that wherever he was at (perhaps a relative of some sorts) was the same place where Alanis Morissette grew up in Ottawa. Coolness! Coupled with this amazing brunch, I was glad to have dropped by to pick him up. I said goodbye to his family as they headed for Kapuskasing and then Mike and I drove back to the hospital. Luckily the torrential downpour had stopped by this time as it was hell to drive in on the way over. I would also like to take this time to thank the moron who splashed me in a tidal wave of murky water while walking to my car.
When we got back to the hospital around 1:00 we headed for their room but were asked to wait outside. Then we heard someone counting up to 10 and then we realized that the child must be coming around sooner than we thought!
The nurse asked us to wait down the hall in the waiting area which is essentially some chairs near the elevators. Two hours passed and nothing much happened so we were bored stiff. Plus, the elevator had this annoying bell that would ring even if no one came off.
I took a snooze to awake to the most surreal experience of my life. Let’s backtrack for a moment – I don’t care for hospitals. I’ve never really been in them and the closest I’ve been to actual emergencies is when my sister slammed my fingers in a door (OUCH!) and watching ER or Grey’s Anatomy.
So when Mike awoke me and I was kind of in daze, a slew of doctors/nurses whatever and Eric were hightailing Annie to the operating rooms and then they were gone. This threw me for a loop and I thought I may have been still dreaming. But no, it turns out that this was the real deal and it shook me up. Mike and I were bewildered and didn’t know what the heck was going on. This was at 2:30. It felt like this weird dream that I had not awoken from.
10 minutes later we see a group of doctors/nurses/Eric run back across the floor and there’s this little thing with a whole lot of hair being carted back the other way. Eric was a mess so we didn’t know what the heck was going on as we don’t want to interrupt them in doing their job.
I think an hour went by and Mike and I were just wondering what could have happened and hoping that everything was alright.
In the end, everything was alright! Eric came out to tell us that a baby boy had been born and Annie was resting! Life was good, we laughed, I paid Mike the $2 I lost on a bet (I was pretty sure a girl was coming this way!). Vero and Annie’s cousin Simon showed up a couple of hours later and we hung out in the waiting room for awhile until we ended up going to see the new mother and her child. It’s a beautiful son they have and he’s been born to the best parents that ever could be (except for my own).
I’ll give you more updates as they come in, but all I can say now that the miracle of childbirth is pretty crazy. I can only imagine how it was in the actual room. But they all perservered and everyone is doing fine.
Welcome to the world Baby Desgroseilliers.
SOMEONE told us the wedding started at 2:30. Always keep your invitations so you don’t show up there an hour ahead of time.
Jason and Monique’s wedding was spectacular. Mike, Vero and I arrived not knowing what to expect, but once you enter Bean Town Ranch it’s like you’ve entered a movie set. It’s an entire ranch with lakes, and barns and overall goodness.
They had a horse and carriage bring us over to the spot where the ceremony was going to be. Pretty cool!
The ceremony was beautiful, outside and sunny. Jason is the biggest crier (cryer?) in the world and proceeded to bawl when he thought he would see Monique. I don’t mind when a dude cries during his own wedding but there’s no excuse for further crying when you’re delivering a speech to thank everyone for coming. Step up to the plate man! Show them what you’re made of! 😉
The pastor was amazing as he reminded me of a cross between Guy Smiley and some game show host. I felt like I was at a movie and this was some badly scripted dialogue. There were some parts where Vero and I could not stop laughing our asses off.
After the ceremony, we walked over to another barn where they had cocktails and numerous snacks. Annie saw us and whisked us over to a table (she was part of the bridal party, much like her husband Eric who was the best man) and we hung out for awhile, meeting a few good gents in the form of Joseph and Darcy. These guys were good times. Coupled with the fact that they had a pianist and a flute player playing for us, the atmosphere was fantastic.
If there’s any indication on how cool geeks can be, it’s when you discover that everyone loves Star Wars (no, I did not bring it up). We actually wanted to request the Mos Eisley Cantina song from Star Wars. I proceeded to leave a napkin with our request when they musicians had a break but no dice. We were pretty bummed.
With a ring of a church bell, that was our indication that supper was on so we moseyed on over to the hall, and realized that our new friends were actually sitting at the same table as us. BONUS! After loading our glasses with wine, we noticed that the nametags at the table were from UNICEF and indicated that our gifts were made in the form of a donation. The funny thing about this is that they first sentence on the name tag said “The Gift of Health has been given to the needy from Tables 12-14”. But mine was off-center so it read “The Gift of Health has BEER given to the needy from Tables 12-14.”. Here I thought we hit the goldmine and were getting free drinks for the rest of the night, but alas, only myself and Christina had these magical Willy Wonka tickets in our hands and someone had to ruin our night by proclaiming they were off-center.
Salad was served and someone was mentioning how someone at the head table had gone into labour. WHAT THE HECK? Mike, Vero I start freaking out as we know this can only be our good friend Annie and we look frantically around to see where the heck she is. We end up getting Vero to go talk to the bride and it turns out that they have left the wedding to head for the hospital. Holy mackerel…this was a sobering thought. You know, I’ve seen people have kids before, but I haven’t been entirely close to them, so for my friends Eric and Annie to have a kid on the way…it just shook me up and make me realize “Whoa, Annie isn’t just getting big all of a sudden for no reason.”
Considering the drive to the hospital would have been an hour long, we figured we would call the hospital later considering no water had been broken; only contractions that were 5 minutes apart.
The rest of the wedding party stepped up to the plate to read Eric’s speech as he had to rush off with Annie. It was an excellent speech and it was interesting to hear Eric’s words being read by others.
The highlight of the night came from the first dance. The sun had gone down, there was a campfire outside and we all stood on the edge of this pond. In the middle of this pond was an island where the bride and groom danced the night (or 3 minutes) away with spotlights on them and fireworks going off in the distance. Pretty slick I must admit. I’ve never seen a first dance this crazy before. Afterwards, we entered the hall again where the pianist and flute player had been joined by a drummer/singer and they played some old school music where Jason and Monique showed off their ballroom dance lessons.
After watching some dances, we called the hospital and found out that they didn’t know what was really going on as the doctor had to do an evaluation. So we figured we would call back later to find something more concrete.
The dance was decent. The trio played for a good hour and then they brought in a DJ for the rest of the night to spin some tunes. Overall, not many people were up dancing but I would have to note the following:
In fact, when we were leaving the wedding later that night, I kind of said “Man, the wedding was awesome, but the DJ sucked.” and Mike proceeded to say “Yeah. Sucked donkeyballs!” and then I noticed that sitting alone by the campfire was the DJ who definitely heard us. Do I feel bad? Maybe a little. But come on! It’s your job to be in there DJing buddy!
Highlights of the dance floor include me doing a running leap into a guitar rocker stance on my knees in front of some woman I didn’t even know. I slid at least a good four feet onto my knees and was very impressed with the slick floors. I didn’t bother looking up but I heard this woman was a little bewildered at why I was playing the guitar solo to “You Shook Me All Night Long” on my knees but then she gave into the the rock gods and realized she should be honoured. Please note that after the wedding in the car I realized I had split my pants to the point where an entire fist could reach in down below. I can only imagine that this is the event which ripped those pants. 😉
Also, Vero and I decided to have a dance-off since there was no one on the floor dancing. I must admit that she kicked my ass bigtime because I proceeded to have a very lame move in which I was pretending to golf. However, I redeemed myself later where I was pretending to bowl and then I woudl run to the opposite end and pretend I was the bowling pin and get knocked down. Definitely should have been the winning move but Vero beat me with her re-enactment of the shopping cart.
Two thumbs up for the wedding and two thumbs up for Bean Town Ranch. We were very impressed and we’re pretty sure that everyone had an amazing time. Jason and Monique, you were beautiful. I hope you have a good time in Vancouver and that last Alaskan cruise!
***To rewind a night, Mike and I hung out with his family who were up for another wedding this weekend. It was good times and we jammed a bit and came up with an impromptu song called The Wedding Day Jitter Blues. I cringe to listen to this tune sober so the next time I’ve had a few glasses of wine, I’ll play it back to see how it was. Thanks to the Losiers for showing us a good time!***
Now, I suppose I should write an entry about whatever happened to the best man and his wife that night…
Last night after MaryAnn’s farewell (let’s be honest, she’s going to NFLD for three weeks and coming back part time…it’s not a REAL farewell), Krista and I ventured over to the Ottawa side of the river to check out the Parliament Pub. She had told me wonderful things about this pub but I had never heard of it.
After grabbing some street meat we entered the establishment – right across from the Parliament Buildings. It was a neat setup. Not a pub that I’m used to as we ended up in some cushy lounge chairs where I felt I needed a pipe along with my drink, but it was pretty cool. They had pictures of all the Prime Ministers, and they also had some good caricatures of the cool ones. Also, you can tell that this pub must have been built in the hay-day (hey-day?) of the Grits as they had an entire half of the pub sectioned for them, whereas the other half had to share the Torys, NDP, Bloc and the Pink Elephant party (I’m joking). It was interesting to think of the many battles fought in this pub depending on who sat on what side.
All in all, an enjoyable experience with good company. I even found a sweet Mountie cardboard cut-out in the mall below the pub which I know Krista wants for her place. It reminds her of Due South.
Jay, here’s to ya, and I hope you enjoyed your stay in Canada!
Anyhow, what can I say about my parents? I must admit that they are probably the coolest ones out there, and I’m not saying this because they are my parents. I have many friends who also claim that this statement is true. You’ve always been good to Maureen and I, and to each other, and to everyone who enters your home. I can only assume that when children grow older and start their own families, they look upon their parents to see what they would change in terms of parenting. I’m happy to say that I want to be exactly like the two of you, no changes needed!
Happy Anniversary to the both of you and I hope you didn’t forget it (and if you both did, I hope Dad reads this first so he can rush out and get Mom something.)
All Hail the Spudtrooper!
To join the ranks of Darth Tater in my office, I stumbled upon this gem at the grocery store for $10. Sweet! It even has its own masher of a weapon!
I was telling Jennie that if I wanted to show off that I’m a true geek, then I would be getting legitimate statues of the sorts and putting them on display at work…but the Mr. Potato Head series is just a fun item that hides my true geekdom.
This reminds me of how Vero’s family dropped by my place to check it out and her dad made some comments on my Matrix and Star Wars figures on top of my book shelf. 10 years ago, I would have been quite embarassed, but now, I thrive on these comments as Vero herself contributed to the collection.
Does anyone have my copy of Shaun of The Dead?
Mike wants to watch it and I can’t seem to find it.
*update* Although I appreciate the help from my friends in lending their own copies of the movie to me, I have revised my statement above to put more emphasis on an important word in the sentence, as opposed to what you must have thought you had read. 😉
Well I just realized what is wrong with my right hand side nav bar. A freakin’ gremlin must have chomped out half the code to my website! *groan*
I’m pretty sure I have the HTML code I was working with at home during the weekend still on my computer so I can probably salvage it there.
Although, I am hoping that I get a Blogger beta account soon to see their new features. But with my luck, there will be a slew of cool new templates to pick from after I scoured the Net for this one.