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Sierra seems to be talking in sentences these days.  She is becoming a fully functioning human being!  So exciting considering I didn’t know if we could do it.  Maybe the daycare is responsible for it?

Sierra was very excited to get an invitation to a superhero themed birthday party!

When I first thought about bringing Sierra to school on a sled during snow days, I just imagined that it would happen a few times this winter.  We somehow managed to have a very harsh winter which led to many days where I worked from home.  No matter, it allowed us to take the sled to school!  Sierra was very excited to tow it a few steps along the way and she especially liked waving to her friends at the daycare when she was leaving on the sled.

Mina’s car was stuck for an entire week in his parking spot.  After many days of hearing this tale of woe we figured a bunch of human beings pushing his car out may work.  It was out in eight seconds.  Mina was quite content.  He then proceeded to get stuck the next week while trying to enter the parking area after the plow had driven by.

I had a good laugh at this one.

Hawaiian day at daycare!  This skirt was about three times too long so I had to trim it back.  She wasn’t happy with it at first but then didn’t want to take it off.

It’s February and there are still a few gifts that Sierra hasn’t opened for Christmas.  Here’s a great gift from les grandparents.

It’s not often these two gentlemen get together but when they do, the heads are hurting the next day.

Heading out to the Vars winter carnival.

I need someone to tell me the story about this thing.  Is this the Vars winter carnival mascot?  This is amazing.

This year the activities for the carnival were moved inside in case the weather was too cold.  They had a great setup there including this craft table!

Zoom zoom

Another dump of snow results in fun scoop rides!

Aunt Maureen bought a really need penguin mold that we could use when the snow was the proper conditions.  One morning before getting in the car to daycare we quickly made one.  Unfortunately this was the one and only penguin that was made.  The penguin mold met his demise when there was two feet of snow in the driveway and the snowblower didn’t see him until it was too late.  I’m pretty sure I’ll be picking up little blue bits of plastic from the lawn for a few years.

Twas an exciting day at the office when I pulled out this apple from my bag and it looked like a butt!

Sierra enjoying her Babar sticker book that comes every couple of months thanks to Nat.

I hope Sierra doesn’t make this a habit.  Quite hard to carry someone on top of your head!

I can’t remember what was going on here but I’m pretty sure we were practicing 1950s nuclear safety drills.

Buds!

Buds!

I stole this photo of Danny from Facebook but it needs to be preserved here forever.  Look at the 12 pounder he caught!

We played out in the neighour’s driveway for a bit during a snow day.  There was this massive hill that we climbed up and slid down.

The bottom of the hill was just a pile of snow.

This photo will be a good reference point of how high the snow was this year!

This prank never gets old.

Big race!

Hanging out in the lawn looking at the moon in the daytime.

Grandpapa was nice enough to share his dessert.

While we have gone to Winterlude every year, we have never ventured over to the kid’s park on the Hull side of the river.  It was quite a great time there but I have to say that I am not looking forward to the day where Sierra wants me to wait an hour in line to go down a giant sliding hill!

Gaetan made this the night before.

I feel we have a hundred of these types of photos.  We need to switch up Sierra’s jacket!

We got to see a dragon!

We decided to trek out and find other dragons in the area.

Beavertail!

There’s nothing more fun than popping bubbles with Grandpapa.

Spider-Man and her trusty drill!

It was Super Mario’s fifth birthday party

It’s official.  It’s impossible to get the perfect picture of kids.  But isn’t that what makes these photos perfect?

Much like the province of Ontario in the year 2019, this slide is open for business!

I have to remember to start giving bubble wrap out as a gift for kids.

We went out to Abigail’s birthday at Alegria restaurant.  It was decent and I would definitely return again.

Clearly someone was excited to win the card game.

Spider-Man joined us for supper one night.

Uncle Brent managed to get Nanny’s birthday announced on the news out in Victoria!  I love how I recorded 5 minutes of this video and then I ran out of space but Vero managed to find her phone just in time to get this video!

Sierra was introducing Poppa to Angela’s Christmas, a special on Netflix about a girl who steals the baby Jesus statue to keep him warm on a cold Christmas Eve night.

Sierra got some one on one time with a baby in the house.  I’m already scared for August when a new one arrives.  

While the trek through Larose Forest started out with a snag as Dad and I were helping a guy whose truck got stuck in a snowbank, we did manage to have a fantastic walk through the woods on a beautiful day.  I’m claiming that this was my favourite adventure in the winter of 2019.

Taking a granola bar break.

Sierra showing Grandma how to do a puzzle.  Sierra is a whiz kid at puzzles.

If you start seeing garlic stuff olives at Costco, you can thank Mom for filling out this form on Dad’s behalf!

Sierra checking out Grandma making her some new curtains.  Mom and Dad were an amazing help for the week they were up.  They painted Sierra’s new room, hung up a bunch of blinds and finished off the basement bathroom!  That was a long project but it’s finally done.

It’s always sad to see family leave but clearly Sierra is quite happy.  Or oblivious that they are about to leave.

 

 

 

This blog somehow got larger and will probably take double my efforts to update!  In August we will have a new child to take care of.  As I type this I’m trying to figure out how to keep a pregnant woman happy in a house without a lot of air conditioning!  Vero and Sierra are doing quite well.

Vero: “Sierra, there is a baby in Mommy’s tummy.”

Sierra points at her belly.  “Baby?”

Vero: “Yes!”

Sierra points at her own belly.  “Baby?”

Vero: “Uhm no.”

Sierra points at Dad’s belly.  “Baby?”

Me: “Beer.”

I don’t think the kid will understand until the baby arrives.

Is it odd that I’m writing this on January 28th and Sierra still has three gifts she hasn’t opened?  They just sit there on her table waiting to be opened.  Something tells me next year she doesn’t need a lot of gifts?

We had the week of Christmas off with Sierra so it was full of fun activities (aka things to tire her out in the morning so she sleeps all afternoon!).

She has also been getting the hang of potty training this past month.  I didn’t realize potty training translates directly to ‘the ultimate test of patience of a parent’.  Some days I’m thinking she’s getting the hang of it and then other days I’m looking at how many times she has peed in her pants and thinking “Maybe I should try when she’s five years old?”  She does know her routine though…pee, wipe, put everything in the toilet, flush, wash hands, collect a sticker and put it on your sticker board.  I love how she generally picks the smallest sticker and then proceeds to put the sticker on top (or quite close) to the sticker she put on earlier.

Can I say that Sierra is much like her Grandmother and really loves puzzles?  This is our go-to activity these days and it’s quite fun to watch her brain in operation.  Every time we approach the same puzzle, it’s a different way of going about it.  I’ve been trying to teach her the concept of making the border first but I feel that she’s finding it easier to just start with an object (let’s say a dragon’s face) and find another piece with a dragon’s face to connect it to.  A few days ago I brought out a huge 36 piece monster of a puzzle which blew her mind but she’s really enjoying it and it’s an adventure each time she does it.  I think the interesting thing about puzzles is that they get progressively harder no matter what age you are.  1,000 piece puzzle?  No problem!

I figure I should write a little about her routine so it doesn’t get lost in the history books.  I’ll write about a day in the weekend.

Typically on a weekend, one of us wakes up with her and she turns off her dehumidifier, grabs her water bottle and heads for the fridge to get the hummus and crackers.  Then we go downstairs and eat.  Lately I have been hopping on the elliptical and we watch Star Trek Deep Space Nine together.  She’s pretty good with the show…she generally likes it until about 30 minutes into it and then says “Pas ca.” and I have to explain that I’m still going to watch it until the end.  She gets a little fussy but hey, that’s life kid!

We generally hang out downstairs for a few hours until Maman wakes up and then we will go have some breakfast (generally crepes and fruit).  I would say that if we don’t have any major plans made, we are ready and dressed by 10am and then we figure out what we are going to do with the rest of the morning…go to the park, go sledding, go snowshoeing, etc.  Anything to tire Sierra out.

We come home for lunch and then Sierra has a nap around 1-2PM and generally will sleep until 4-5PM.  Then it’s supper time which Sierra really likes helping with.  After supper it’s bath time which is generally a struggle to get her into but as soon as she’s in, she doesn’t want to leave!  Afterwards we get dressed in the PJs and settle down with a tv show.  Lately she really likes Moana, 1967 Spider-Man, Paw Patrol and She-Ra.

I feel like we were in the novel Dune, but the complete opposite.

Vero did some research and found one of the best hills in town for a little kid.  It was located in North Gloucester so one morning we headed out.  I wasn’t overly confident that it would be in any shape to slide on considering the day before was an ice storm.  When we arrived we saw a family try and scale up the hill and they gave up.  The entire thing was coated in thick ice.  At one point we were considering leaving and thought “No way.  This might be the ULTIMATE sliding experience and we need to go down at least once.”

Guys, I’m not kidding here when I say this was a nearly impossible feat.  It took everything we had to scale up this hill.  Once we got to to the top I had to hold the slide in place while Sierra and Vero got onto the slide and even at that, I couldn’t hold it and they went flying down the hill!  This was Chevy Chase Christmas Vacation speeds!  I went down on my arse with the video camera in hand and you can see how fast they were going.  IT WAS AWESOME!  So much fun!  Imagine having your own hill and it’s just a sheet of ice.  In hindsight if we would have brought those grip things for the bottom of our shoes, we would have stayed there all day.  In the end, we went three times.  The second time I managed to go down with them (I almost fell off!).  So much fun.  While I went in there with trepidation, I came out thinking this may be THE event of 2018.

Ski Hill Park!  Quite the appropriate name.

Over the holidays we had a homework assignment.  We needed to take photos of what Sierra was doing over the break so her teachers would talk to her about her activities.  Of course this one made the cut.

Felix and Sierra got to hang out one night as we had an excellent supper over at Melissa and Jeff’s place.  I love how the TV was definitely on their minds as they posed for this picture.

Look who moved out of the crib onto her crib mattress!  We decided we may as well give it a shot and I have to say that other than her crying the first night and me having to sleep next to her on the floor, she has adapted quite well!  In fact, we’re not even sure if she was crying because of the mattress or because we had her out late a few nights that week.  Either way, it’s quite amazing that she pretty well sticks to her mattress and doesn’t roam around her room at night.  I just assumed that would be an issue but she never really strays too far.  If she falls out of the mattress she manages to get back in there eventually.  I’m also liking story time a lot more now since I can just hang out on her mattress and read instead of trying to share the rocking chair with her.  She insists that we squeeze together on the rocking chair built for one person!

Sierra quite enjoyed receiving an activity book in the mail from Nat.

Marie-Claude and Jean-Francois hosted a dinner for all of us over the holidays.  The kids were loving the food!

The kids generally love putting on a play for us.  1) It gives them something to do. 2) It’s hilarious.  In this particular play, Jona was tasked with kissing the princess.

I have to say a sight like this warms my heart.  Sierra still is a little overwhelmed in the first few hours of hanging out with her friends.  It’s only later in the night that she settles in and doesn’t want to hug our leg.

Sierra’s first time playing a Nintendo Switch!  We were over at Oncle Yves place for a great January 1st brunch.

Yum yum!

Maman and Sierra testing out the new silicone muffin trays.  They are fantastic.

It might be cold out but I can’t deny a walk down near the river where I can see Parliament Hill!

Having breakfast with Yoda before he gets packed up for another year.

Oh look, Sierra is being nice and letting Maman have a nap.

Yeah…nope.

This is in the washroom at one of my favourite spots to eat.  So weird!  So funny!

We got to go over to the Hill’s place for breakfast one morning which was fun times.  

While it wasn’t Ski Hill Park, the Vars park had great sliding conditions!  Sometimes an ice storm isn’t a bad thing.

I love how strong Sierra thinks she is.

Look at the beauty I picked up in the park!

Having fun on the swings.

Sierra imitating Dad.  Look, she even brought out my guitar pedal!

I’m assuming we were watching Spider-Man before bed time.

Someone trying to steal Dad’s beer!

I love how Mina bought this new parka and said “It looked really good on the models on the website.  Does it look good on me?”

It’s been a LONG time since Etienne and I could walk down by the river.  It had flooded over a year ago and they were rebuilding the path.  

Ellie’s birthday party!

I love how Ellie is sneaking some cake before it’s cut.

Sierra quite loved receiving a piece of cake the size of her face.

Batman decided to photobomb us.

Max and Sierra playing some cards over at Andre and Karilee’s place where they hosted an excellent brunch!

Did someone sneak chocolate into their plates?

Karilee has this book that her parents gave her when she was a kid with diabetes.  I especially enjoy how the kids look like they all shooting up heroin.

What are those…vultures?  Wild turkeys?  Pretty rare sight for me!

The next day we saw a couple more and they were out on the ice!

Hanging out at Rob and Janice’s place listening to Jenna play piano.  She’s been learning on my old keyboard and it’s still sounding great!

Yes, we love Star Trek in this house.  I’m starting to watch Deep Space Nine again.  The first time through I got through the first three seasons when it was on TV for the first time.  This time, I’m finishing it all!

Sierra is really loving puzzles these days.

This year Vero’s family decided to give some money to get a new CT scan machine at the Hearst hospital instead of exchanging gifts at the annual Christmas gathering.

Big snowfall on the weekend!

Sierra pushing the snow monster!

Mia came over for a visit.  I specifically remember that we didn’t manage to get a fire started this day.

Dance party!

Waiting for some Kraft Dinner.

Making some music!

Super proud Sierra with her new painting! She would show everyone who walked by her.

Tandréane came up for a visit.  Sierra introduced her to the path in the backyard.

We were thinking of bringing Sierra to the Rideau Canal but the weather had whiteout conditions on the roads so we decided to drive down the road to Larose Forest.  We decided to try out a new snowshoeing path which would bring us near a cemetery.  I have to say that I preferred this path compared to the northern path near the parking lot.

No lie, going for a snowshoe trip with Sierra is a slow process.  She doesn’t stay in this sled too long!  But as long as she’s having fun, that’s what counts!

Tandréane was nice enough to carry Sierra for awhile.  All I could think about was “Oh man, now Sierra knows this is a thing and we’ll have to do it all the time!”  Ha ha.

This day may go down in the history books as the best snowshoeing day ever.  The pine trees were swaying in the wind the entire trip and it was dead quiet in the forest.  Beautiful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’ve all been there.  You have a good run..nothing major is turning your life upside down.  You feel you have a lot more free time to read or write music because life is working out pretty good!

Then you shovel the back deck for a few hours because the heavens have dumped about two feet of snow in the past week and then you decide to open up the hot tub after a month of leaving it on its own.

To find this.

Aww yeah baby!

Say goodbye to your afternoon nap folks, it’s time to get to work!

I honestly had to sit and think for an hour before tackling this project.  I wasn’t sure where to start.  After reading a few websites I decided I should see how thick the ice was.  If it was a giant block, I may as well shut that breaker off and wait until the spring.

Turns out that it was about an inch thick so after I broke through it with a hammer I thought it opened up some options.

Second up…let’s check the pumps!

That’s not the definition of a good sign.

I had a space heater running on the spa pack while I sat and thought about what my next steps were.  Honestly, my options were limited.  There’s water definitely coming out of the spa pack pipe.  Even if I ran the space heater for a day, what would it accomplish?

I can’t tell if there’s water coming from this pump or not.  I think the water from the spa pack may have just seeped under the pump and froze.  Actually, the pump sounded like it was running fine.

Then you encounter something like this and think “Well, that isn’t too good either.”

Time to pump the thing out and deal with it in the spring.

I’m not entirely sure I did the right thing by pumping out the water.  In my head I was thinking “The spa pack pack has water coming out of it, there’s water dripping out of various pipes, what can I really do while working in sub-zero temperatures?”  I was thinking that I may as well drain as much as I can so it doesn’t become a block of ice and potentially crack something else.

But Etienne sent me an article and it says I should have been filling the tub up with hot water and see if it would just melt everything.  Take a look for leaks and so on.  If there’s a steady leak, drain the thing and wait until the spring to replace the parts.  Maybe I should have done that?

At this point I’m sitting here thinking it’s already too late in the day to attempt another rescue attempt but I wonder if I’ve made things worse…there’s going to definitely be still water sitting in those pipes now.

Hey, in terms of perspective, no one died and I may have to repair a luxury item.  It’s not the end of the world.  Of course, I’m saying that with some hot apple cider after spending a few hours out in the cold.  My favourite moment was when the sump pump was pumping out the water and I was uncoiling the hose and at one point the hose had a split in it and started spraying my face with ice cold water.  Fantastic!  i looked and felt like a drowned rat.  I’m sure if the neighbours saw me they would have been rolling on the floor with laughter!

Update: Well, I figured I was a glutton for punishment so I decided to throw away all my plans I had on Sunday and sit outside in the freezing cold with the hot tub to try and breathe some life into it.

First up…fill it up with hot water!  To accomplish this I always run a hose from my basement sink up through the window and into the tub.  An ingenious method I devised a few years ago.

Hanging out with the tub on a Sunday afternoon.

Remember the agonizing amount of time I spent contemplating whether to block the bathroom window with the new deck and ultimately deciding against it since it would be a good emergency exit?  Yeah, those plans definitely collapsed as the deck rose an inch with the frost and now you can’t open the window all that much.  COME ON!!

I managed to squeeze the hose through the tiniest crack and then bring it to the hot tub.

The rest of my three hours outside (thanks the maker that is only -5 degrees outside and not -50 like up in Kapuskasing!) was spent watching the water go in, setting up a space heater near the pumps and generally just praying to the hot tub gods.

I was sitting outside all this time because I had this fear of the space heater somehow catching fire which is probably improbable and besides the point, maybe it’s due time the hot tub goes up in flames?

Around 4pm I realized that if I’m going to freeze my ass off, I may as well freeze it off with a beer in hand.  It’s a telltale sign that it’s cold outside when my porter froze into slush within five minutes.

Space heater doing its work!

As I type this, the tub is full of warm water.  It’s not piping hot because there was a lot of ice that was in the tub beforehand so that’s bringing the temperature down.  I also noticed that there was an inch of ice at the bottom of the tub so I’m not sure what to think of that.

Andreane thought it was amusing that I was coming in once in awhile and warming up.

What’s my best case scenario here?  The water defrosts the pipes and all works again.

Mid case scenario…nothing changes, I get the water out of the system and I just have to replace a few pipes in the spring.

Worst case scenario?  Star Trek style hull breach in the hot tub shell and we look for a new hot tub.

Like I said before, it’s a luxury item so it’s not the end of the world, but it still sucks nonetheless!  My bones are quite cold right now!  I warmed my toes near the exhaust of the gas furnace a few times today.

Will my next update have great success or great failure?

I guess I shouldn’t have tried to get that puck dispenser out of the block of ice.

Update!  Monday after work I went into the backyard to check on things.  Along the walk I encountered an ice patch on the path I have in the backyard.  That’s strange, I didn’t remember freezing rain that day.

I opened up the hot tub cover and there was no water in the tub.  Maybe an inch of water near the bottom.

So that’s that.  I now have a new skating rink in my backyard and a hot tub which will sit until the spring so I can take a closer look at it.  I can only assume that the hot water I put in thawed out some ice somewhere which was plugging a leak.  I still don’t know if the leak is in the shell of the tub or in the piping somewhere but let’s be honest…it’s on its last legs.  I drowned my sorrows last night by checking out new hot tubs online.

In honour of the good life that the hot tub has given me, here are some great photos of its life.

When Vero and I picked up the keys to our house on June 30, 2010, we jumped right into the hot tub!  I don’t even think I walked around the house yet.

First visitors to the hot tub.

I guess we have a seven person hot tub?

I still remember this night was ridiculously cold.

I love how this was for a bachelorette party for Melissa and I’m pretty sure the hostess (aka Vero) didn’t even have enough room to go in!

I have to admit that I don’t mind losing the hot tub, but I really mind losing the cool tub for the summer months.  The kids love it!  Have fun in hot tub heaven, we will miss you.

For historical reference.

Put a 1kg roast into the instant pot for 60 minutes and about 15 minutes depressurize time.  It wasn’t enough.

Put it in for another 20 minutes and zero depressurize time.  It was like shoe leather.  Maybe put it in for 70 minutes total next time?

New veggie rack worked out great with some potatoes and carrots.  Actually, the carrots were a little hard after the 60 minute mark as well but were fine after the 20 minutes.

One of the benefits of living where we live is that we are quite close to the daycare.  A snowfall last night brought forth perfect conditions to take the sled to daycare instead of strapping into the car.

Sierra’s snow pants were already at the daycare so I decided to load up a few blankets for the ride over so she wouldn’t get too wet and cold.  It was hovering around zero degrees so I didn’t think it would be an issue.

The first half of the trip was quite a peaceful trek through the snow.  There’s something to be said for walking on an untouched snowfall, seeing the glow of the street lamps while it’s still dark and forging your own path.  Sierra was having a great time dragging her hands behind the sled for awhile.  The second half of the trek consisted of Sierra wanting to haul the sled herself.

We arrived to the daycare in one piece and I got to walk back enjoying what winter has to offer while Sierra had fun with her friends.

 

It’s been a long while that I have played a computer game but after a Kickstarted project from 2012 finally was released this past year I figured I kickstarted it for a reason and should play it!  The real challenge is finding the time to do so!

Hero-U  is an adventure game with role playing game elements within it, much like the Quest for Glory series.  Corey and Lori Cole were the creators of the beloved QFG series and have come back into the adventure game world for this new game which is in the same universe, but in a different area of the world where QFG inhabits.

If I had to describe the game, it would be like you are a character going to a Hogwarts type university as a rogue.  A rogue is quite like a thief but one with a conscience.

The game is time based so you have 24 hour days and 50 days in total in your semester.  It definitely was hard to figure out how to make the best of my time during a day as you have a limited supply.  Practising lock picking eats up an hour of your day.  Chatting with people also takes up time.  I had to find some general strategy guides on the internet to figure out the best way to use my time.  Sidenote: it’s definitely a different world with the Internet available.  Gone are the days of spending literal weeks trying to open up a trapdoor in Mordack’s library…all I have to do is type in what puzzle I’m having trouble with and BAM, problem solved.  Being a parent, my time is quite limited and I don’t have more than ten minutes to be stuck on an element of the game.  I get enjoyment out of seeing the entire story unfold, not how long it took me to figure out a puzzle.

The story is quite a good one…you are a young lad named Sean O’Connor who wants to become a thief but is caught in the act and given a chance to redeem himself and join the Hero University.  There he takes classes with other classmates who he befriends over his semester and also fights monsters in the basement and solves problems that arise over time.

Personally, I really enjoyed the connection to the Quest for Glory series…there are frequent mentions of other events from other games in the series which I remember fondly.  But the game just makes little mentions of them and doesn’t dwell on them.  It almost feels like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them based inside the Harry Potter universe that we’ve grown to love.

33 hours later, I finished the game on New Year’s Even with 30 minutes to spare before midnight.  I have to say that I hope to see more games in this series and I am glad that I helped Kickstart this one.