A little gift from Troy and I.
You can find it by clicking on the music section on the top right corner, or just click here.
Enjoy!
Categories
Month: December 2016
Categories
Soon
Friday offered up some fun times all around in the form of a brutally cold day, coupled with the annual work party AND a Wintersleep concert at Bronson Center!
The morning started off with a (final?) visit to see Marie-Eve who managed to get a job back in the place she calls home…les Iles-de-Madeleine. While we were thinking flowers would have been a nice going away gift, we realized that a pretzel really shows a person how much you love them. We wish you well Marie-Eve!
Best going away gift ever? Perhaps.
Dana was nice enough to hook us up with a parking spot at her apartment building next to the Bronson Center so we dropped the wheels off there after getting a bite to eat at Mucho Burrito. On the way back we were laughing maniacally at the thought of offering up a burrito as a gift in the gift exchange. Imagine! Then we decided upon a smoked meat platter and while everyone was joking in the car, I realized that I could not pass this opportunity up to pull such a great prank.
But then Etienne dropped the hammer with the greatest idea of a gift.
That’s right, I walked over to St. Hubert in -30 degree weather and picked up a quarter chicken meal and wrapped that up for the gift exchange!
Etienne and I were giggling all the way back to the office. Imagine receiving that as a gift! Ha!
Andrée was the lucky recipient of the gift!
I don’t know who brought these sunglasses to the ‘Christmas in July’ party, but they provided hours of entertainment for Clive and I.
Party.
After some rocking good times as the Christmas party, Nat, Etienne (who magically grew hair) and I headed to the Bronson Center to catch the Wintersleep concert!
Now, for everyone who has been to a Bronson Center concert, let me ask this question…when did they change it so there is a large floor area with beer being served? That is awesome! We ended up getting there super early because I have fallen victim to showing up late to the Bronson Center and getting really bad seats in the past, but that wasn’t the case tonight with the giant floor area with Beau’s beer on tap!
As always, Wintersleep put on a fantastic show. Their new album is killer and you need to pick it up.
Damn, we were pretty close to the action that night. Unfortunately, the sound in the Bronson Center sucks large. I never remembered it being that bad before. Etienne even walked around the entire theatre trying to find a better sounding spot and it was impossible to find. Bronson Center, you are great in some ways, but kind of horrible in other ways.
It was fantastic night out with friends and Wintersleep brought their best to Ottawa!
Meanwhile back home, Vero and Sierra were nice enough to let me go out while they had loads of fun that night!
Setlist
Santa Fe
Spirit
Drunk on Aluminium
Archaeologists
Caliber
Jaws of Life
Weighty Ghost
Freak Out
Metropolis
Oblivion
Laser Beams
Amerika
Smoke
Orca
Nerves Normal, Breath Normal
Categories
Photos of Sierra (Mid-December)
She sure loves eating solid food! She scarfs that down faster than a ninja turtle and pizza!
Hungrrryyyyy!
Sometimes the only way to sleep is on someone.
Somehow Sierra had tons of energy the morning after the Christmas party. Luckily I had the circle of neglect to amuse her.
Clearly she is ok with avocado.
I don’t generally make a fire upstairs but I thought that Sierra might be entertained by it.
Sierra clearly loves catching snowflakes on her tongue!
Mom had a photoshoot with Sierra in the backyard on a nice day.
Sierra definitely is starting to love the bath and understands that water is meant to be splashed. This is probably the last time we bathed her on the kitchen table.
She is also a fan of the carrots! So far, she has not been a fussy eater.
Categories
Christmas Party 2016
The women won the trivia cup this year. Let’s get that bit of information out of the way, shall we?
This year’s party was going to be tricky to organize with Max’s 1st birthday party in the afternoon on the same day. We managed to get 90% of the party set up on the Friday night before and then lo and behold, it turns out that people were sick at Max’s party so we decided not to attend with Sierra. Ah well, we shall catch him on his second birthday party!
The party was a great success this year and of course my plan to not stay up too late failed miserably and I believe I went to bed around 3am and woke up around 7am with Sierra. That’s what I get for having a few more drinks with Rob! Highlights of the night included chatting about Raspberry Pi’s downstairs with the boys, playing some vintage Nintendo and realizing that Alan is a master at Super Smash TV, and the card blowing activity went over well I believe. With any trivia challenge, it gets a little heated at times and there was one instance where I miscounted the number of correct items that the boys had provided for an activity and that unleashed Hell on Earth. No matter, we all emerged unscathed!
I can’t tell if Sierra was more interested in Mina’s glasses or his beard.
James showing me the ropes on proper baby holding.
Holly demonstrating proper blowing technique. The goal of the game was to blow the card to the edge of the table so it would hang over and not fall to the floor.
Shannon helping Maureen out with the task at hand.
This year there was no gift exchange so the losers of the trivia cup ended up with a snowman plate…
…and the Jesus clock! Turns out that Mina’s mom who was visiting from Egypt found this clock and hung it up in his kitchen for the month of July!
Rob was very enthused to receive the snowman plate again.
As always, we generally forget to get a group shot so we managed to remember to sneak one in when a bunch of people were on their way out around midnight.
Merry Christmas to all!
Categories
That’s an interesting rear end
Seen at my office building, I have to say that this is the perfect piece of wood for this work of art!
Categories
Christmas card photo shoot
The family needed to take some photos of our amazing Christmas sweaters for our annual Christmas card. Lo and behold, Jean-Michel magically appeared on our doorstep to offer up some gifts (thanks for the beer glasses and beer!) and he manged to snap a few great shots!
This was a test shot to see how much of the tree we would get in the background.
Close but not perfect.
Bam! Three photos later, we have our Christmas card photo. Sierra is quite the happy baby. I also love how Vero snuck her stocking into the photo.
Categories
Mad Dog Vachon?
Etienne and I swapped our faces for a social committee activity at work and everyone said I looked like Mad Dog Vachon and Etienne looked like our buddy Clive!
Categories
Enter: Santa Claus!
Before I forget, I have to post my all time favourite photo of Vero and Sierra!
On Sunday we headed over to the Vars elementary school where they were hosting a Christmas event put on by the Vars Optimist Club. I have to say I’m pretty impressed by the club and their events so far. They even managed to get Santa to visit the event!
We stood around with a hundred other kids waiting to get to meet Santa. After 30 minutes they called Sierra’s name over the microphone and we headed over to see Santa and he gave Sierra a nice little gift. She was quite happy about it all.
A new toy!
Sierra was actually more interested in chewing the wrapping paper that the pig came in.
We met a friend of a friend at the event and she was nice enough to snap a few shots of us together.
Later on that night, we set up the Christmas decorations and I phoned Nanny to tell her how Tom was haunting us from above with this Christmas tree that we inherited. I can’t seem to figure out how the lights work on this darn thing every year! Vero said “You’ve only had it two years so far.” and I said “Exactly! We have problems EVERY YEAR!” Ha ha. Vero managed to figure it out though and the house looks quite Christmassy. Sierra was intrigued by the lights!
Categories
What have we been up to?
Doing some dishes with Joel.
Horsing around with Silas and Jayce (Jayse? Jace?)
Navigating the sloped parking lot at Ikea.
Testing out the brew pot.
Hanging out with family.
So, I had a father moment in the Toys R’ Us the other day. Sierra was fussing and not really enjoying the trip to the toy store so I figured there was something in the store that might have made her happy. I came across the coolest Christmas toys ever…Yoda and Chewbacca in Santa outfits! As soon as I put them next to the cart, her mood changed completely and she was laughing at these two characters staring at her. I choked up a little thinking “My girl likes Star Wars!” Needless to say, the look on my face changed our mind of not picking up something for Sierra for Christmas and we walked back home with Yoda in tow.
Mom and Sierra hanging out with the other kids in the nursery.
Not all moments are fun! This was the first time we were trying formula with Sierra. She was NOT a happy camper. I can’t blame her. She has allergies to cow’s milk protein and soy so we had to get some formula which I’m pretty sure is boiled down aluminum. Luckily, the next time we gave her the formula, we smartened up and mixed it with some breast milk. Over the next week, she has been getting used to it.
Sierra watching A Charlie Brown’s Christmas
Chowing down at the Vars chili supper.
Hanging with Uncle Mike.
Trying out solid food (well, if you can call runny cereal ‘solid’) for the first time. She quite enjoyed it!