It’s been an interesting month here in Ottawa. Many houses were flooded on the Gatineau and Ottawa side. It’s quite crazy to think of how powerful water can be when it wants to be. Here’s a picture of the walking path near the river. To give it some context, I generally sit on the rocks near the river and let my legs hang over. To give some further context, a week after this photo was taken, the water had risen so much that I had to blaze a trail through the woods because it was impossible to walk on the path. Weeks later, my office building was closed for a few days so I helped out with filling sandbags in Rockland. My body ached for days afterwards!
Sierra getting ready to rock out!
Sierra having fun outside after a long winter.
THIS is why we had a child!
Sierra is SUPER happy that Danny and Mike came for a visit.
Speaking about visitors, Abbey, Maureen and John dropped for a few days as well!
Hanging out down at the playground.
I’m pretty sure they were creating some device to snatch cookies from the cupboard.
Oh Google Photo collage, how I love thee.
Fun times with times with Uncle Ryan.
Abbey and Sierra playing!
Sierra has seen more tunnel action than the Ninja Turtles!
As the Spring arrives, the goatee tends to leave the building. I wanted Sierra to see what was going on so she wouldn’t be too freaked out with a clean shaven Dad.
Man, those fish and chips from the Blackburn Arms sound amazing.
I was trying to see if I had already written a blog post about my introduction to Star Wars, but it doesn’t look like it!
This is still my greatest pumpkin accomplishment!
I have memories of sitting in the guest room in the basement and there was a television set up there. I remember watching MCTV and there was a movie on. I had no idea what this movie was but it involved a giant snow planet and some dudes riding on some kind of creatures. I remember watching the entire thing and not really understanding a whole lot of what was going on, but hey, as a kid, how much do you REALLY understand of a movie? Not much. You just understand awesome visuals and action sequences and good guys kicking ass. The Empire Strikes Back has all of that and more! Of course, I wouldn’t even know the title of that movie until later.
I always love how Mike dressed up as George Lucas for Halloween!
Fast forward to an evening over at my parents friends place…Ernie and Gloria (I believe?). What are you going to do when you bring your kids to an evening of fun? Set them up in front of the television with some movies of course! This was a big deal. I remember us renting a VCR from time to time, but these folks actually owned one. “I can watch movies on demand?” “You sure can kid, why don’t you watch these films called Star Wars.”
Star Wars brothers in arms.
I remember being mesmerized by Star Wars and then we popped the other movie in and it turned out to be the same movie that I had seen on that Sunday afternoon in my basement! I have no idea what time frame elapsed between the two events…it could have been a week, it could have been years. Either way, I finally knew the name of the film I had seen and it was time to watch it again.
A new fan in the making!
That’s my introduction to Star Wars. The Empire Strikes Back still has a spot in my heart as the best Star Wars film, although I have to say Rogue One is pretty darn close to it. Benoit and I always debate which is better (his favourite is A New Hope) and I’ve realized that maybe everyone’s favourite is always their first. Because your first experience of something you love will always leave an impressionable mark on a young boy.
Strong with the smiles, this one is!
It’s an exciting time to be a Star Wars fan, let alone be a geek. Sierra is already becoming a fan through osmosis. I can’t wait to see what the next forty years brings in the land we call a galaxy far, far away.
I can’t stop laughing at this one of Sierra!
This was from the Star Wars in Concert event in Ottawa. They had some cool props.
Dropping Sierra off at daycare for the first (Vero did a few times last week but this was my first) is an interesting experience.
When I leave her in the arms of a stranger and she looks at me and starts crying, my brain says “Hey, this is what we all signed up for. Just leave the kid and walk out the door.” but my heart goes “WHAT AM I DOING?! MY BABY IS CRYING AND I JUST HANDED HER TO A STRANGER AND AM LEAVING HER THERE! I NEED TO QUIT MY JOB!”
So…it was an interesting experience. I’m sure it gets better for everyone eventually!
I could have either went with a speech or a song. I chose the latter.
On Friday we headed out to this amazing spot called Golden Lake for Mike and Melanie’s wedding! It was grand event and I have to say that I loved, loved, LOVED the hotel we stayed at. We had a balcony room with a view of the lake. I felt like I was at a resort down south with a view like that!
It was great spending time amongst the Losier and Millette clan. I have to say when Sunday arrived and I felt like dying, I also realized that this was a bittersweet event for me as I’m not sure when I’ll see the Losier extended clan in my future. It’s great to get to know a family over the span of three weddings of brothers and sisters!
Here’s my top events at the wedding:
Playing guitar for a few hours at this great campfire across the road. I also got around to ending the set with Free Bird, much to the satisfaction of Aunt Linda who gave me the idea at Danny’s wedding to learn that song.
Best man duties include putting my hair gel in Max’s hair. Let’s just say I botched the job up pretty good as evident in Mike’s mom’s face when she saw his hair.
Hanging out with the Millette clan after the wedding. They are quite the partiers! I couldn’t keep up and actually was filling up my empty beer can with water from the sink. The secret is out! Hey, when you know your kid is waking up at 6am, you have to keep things in check!
Speaking of waking up at 6am, the Saturday morning was one of my favourite moments of the weekend. Sierra woke up, I gave her a bottle and then we headed out for a car ride for a few hours to give Mom a break. We listened to nearly the entire Forrest Gump soundtrack on some empty highways and the sun coming up. That’s a moment that’ll stay with me.
Having an amazing wife who let me do my best man duties while taking care of Sierra.6.
When entering the wedding reception, I was introduced as Mike’s best man AND best friend! I finally make the cut! Best friend status, woo!
At one point I go to the bar and I say “Hmm…do you have anything on tap?”. They tell me that it’s upstairs but because I’m the best man, they’ll go out of their way to get me some. WELL! I never knew being best man gets some premium status! I strutted around the dance hall with beer in hand like a king. I told Mike about it and he said he got the same service because he was a groom! Nothing wrong with that! It wasn’t until later on that I noticed a lot of people had the same beer in hand. Clearly I was NOT receiving premium service! Ha ha, oh well, it was fun to feel like a king for an hour.
It was a freaking beautiful day out on the day of the wedding. Not hot enough to sweat, not cold enough to freeze. Perfect day.
Seeing Andre and Vero dance up a storm to Gloria Estefan. See video below.
Partaking in the event of the year…the marriage of my friends Mike and Melanie. Their preparation over the past year paid off and it was a killer wedding. Hopefully they can get back to normal life now! Congratulations guys!
Hanging out with the kids. I think they liked the comics I brought them (alright, alright, they loved Sierra more than me)
Carol snapped our all time favourite picture of us. A week later, it’s now in the large frame above our fireplace at home! Thanks Carol!
I rarely (maybe never?) post anything to Facebook as I have this site to update. So I surprised the hell out of Mike when I said “Well Mike, I’m going to break tradition and post this picture to Facebook.” I loved his reaction of “WOW, REALLY?” He was quite blown away with this gift from God.
I loved how the hotel put up this sign!
Hanging out before the wedding.
Grooms troop!
View from our balcony.
Sierra loves being carried around like this. Mike’s Dad told me he once had Mike on his shoulders like this and completely forgot about a doorway that Mike smashed his face into!
I love how this shot makes it look like Mike is standing for a national anthem.
Best man duty #1: Carry the rings. Best man duty #2: Carry the back of ring-pop ring.
Hanging out with my cutie!
Best view in the house!
Hanging out before the reception.
Getting a good photo of kids who don’t stand still is kind of futile.
So is trying to get a shot of all of us! Just isn’t going to happen.
Classic kid photo! Carol and Danny had a good laugh at this one after seeing it.
Stole this one off of Facebook. Quite an amazing photo…I wonder how she gets the colour in that shot like that?
Move over Mick Jagger.
I love how I have a fake wooden leg in this photo!
Danny making sure Vero had a great time on the dance floor.
The next morning, Vero was walking around the yard and found this little wagon for Sierra to sit in!
My life with Chris Cornell has been an abnormal one. While most people grew up with him during the Soundgarden era, I can’t say that I was ever a big Soundgarden fan back in the day. Sure, I knew their hits and I could recognize his voice instantly on the radio (who couldn’t?), but they weren’t on my radar.
Until Audioslave came around and I really started understanding why this guy, this rock god was worthy of respect. This gentleman can SING. To the heavens and beyond. Name me the Top 10 singers out there and he’s on that list every time.
I did manage to see Soundgarden a few years back at Bluesfest and it was a great show, but like I said before, they were still off of my radar.
It wasn’t until a few years ago that I popped in the Soundgarden Superunknown album into the cd player and something finally clicked for me and I instantly fell in love with it. Soundgarden has become my world in the past few years. I find it really odd sometimes how it takes a long time to get into a band/album but when it does, it’s like your brain rewards you for the effort you put into trying to like it. You have a stronger bond to the things you work harder for.
It’s a very sad day in the music world with Chris now gone. A force to be reckoned with, his voice will forever be ringing inside our head.
I read the following passage on the Pearl Jam message board and it pretty well nails how I feel.
For people who don’t understand why others mourn the death of artists, you need to understand that these people have been a shoulder to cry on. Our rock. They’ve been family, leaders, teachers and role models. Many have taught us what we need to know and what to do when times get rough.
They’ve helped us move on. They’ve pushed us out of bed. They’ve helped us live when nobody else had the time to.
Artists have inspired us in endless ways and have been with us through stages in our lives.
We’ve made memories with them. So when they die, part of us dies.
We got the driveway sealed from a company called Canark Aphalt Sealing and Repairs. Jumped on the opportunity as we saw practically the entire street getting it done. While Vero and I don’t generally jump into things without a lot of research, we decided that if the entire neighbourhood is getting screwed over, well, so be it.
Financial reference: It cost $450 + tax and should last a couple of years.
So every year I get a few ants roaming around the house. When I first moved in, I would find them under the kitchen sink. So I applied caulk to the holes where I saw them come up.
Then for the past few years I would see this trail of ants outside coming into the house through cracks in the brick. It was a long battle against these unruly beasts and I’m pretty sure I never really won the battle.
I had confirmation of that two nights ago. I was starting to see a few ants here and there in the basement bathroom. Let’s keep in mind that I had just renovated the thing and now the drywall ceiling had been ripped out and all I can see are the joists now. I figured that I must have opened the floodgates.
I’m not thinking too much about it…I have laid a few traps and that will sort them out. Then my brother in law John looks up and says “OH RYAN CHECK THIS OUT.”
Above the bathroom window in between the joists are hundreds of ants. Hundreds. It’s like…horror movie bad. OH MAN.
We figure the only thing to do without Raid in the house is to vacuum those suckers up. So that’s what I do. I go to town on them and Vero finds some ant control powder but because the powder isn’t exactly easy to apply when you are trying to dump it out upwards into the ceiling, she had to make a paste out of it.
I have to say, the paste seemed to have worked! After dumping the ants from the shopvac into a garbage bag with poison outside the house, I spied a few lethargic ants hanging around that paste. They were under control until I could get some Raid the next day.
Fast forward to the next evening, I picked up some Ant insecticide (rated good for indoors, but not safe for children of course) and I sprayed a bunch of times into this crack of wood above the bathroom window. A few came out and I swear I heard some kind of sizzling noise from the area but it was hard to tell since the window was open and I thought “Huh, is that sound just coming from outside?”. I go outside, nothing is there and then I get distracted by the hot tub and go have one with John.
A few hours later Maureen decides to go down to bed and then comes up and says “Uh guys, there’s like…a lot of ants on the floor.” John and I look at each other and think “Oh yeah, we’ve seen a few. Let’s go check it out.”
I take back my previous comment about last night’s scene being a horror movie. THIS HAS NOW BECOME A FULL BLOWN HORROR MOVIE.
There are a thousand ants crawling outside the bathroom door. They were starting to invade the bedroom where my niece is sleeping. We open the bathroom door and the floor is just littered with ants that have taken the poison and are writing in pain, lethargically crawling around. Some guys are faster than others and are on the run from whatever hell has been unleashed on them. It was ridiculous.
Those ants just kept coming and coming and coming out of this crack above the bathroom window. As far as I can tell, I think they have built a nest in between the outside brick and the exterior wall. I’m really not sure at this point. Hours of vacuuming and poison finally got them under control. I was worried to go to bed and all I could think about is how many ants would be there after sleeping for six hours. Luckily this morning, there were only a hundred or so.
My only fear now is that I did some research AFTER THE FACT and it says that if they are carpenter ants (which I’m pretty sure they are), do not use insecticide on them because they will just try and escape their nest and build satellite nests all over your house. So I may have just screwed us over. But at least I have tens of thousands dead ants in a garbage bag and Lord knows what kind of empty nest up in the wall.
The neighbours dropped off with some Easter treats for Sierra.
We are fortunate enough to have acquired (thanks Kelly!) a fort/tunnel system for Sierra. Gaetan told me he saw her do ten laps one morning!
A full car heading to Saint Jacques de Leeds for Easter weekend.
It was a wet weekend down at Oncle Normand et Tante Sylvie’s place, but Sierra had fun meeting some new friends.
Check out the sweet helmets for dirtbiking!
I didn’t play a marathon session but we played a few tunes to entertain the masses.
Grandmaman stole my hat and Sierra thought it was funny.
View of a dreary day.
Sierra and Roxanne having fun crawling around.
While I hate motion blur for the most part, sometimes I find it is hilarious because you can see how excited Sierra was to hang out with Valérie.
Vincent being an awesome dad.
Vincent being an awesome dad.
Gabriel and Roxanne helped me change the strings on Oncle Normand’s guitar. It was literally 40 years since the strings had been changed. It sounded quite nice after the new strings were on. I think Gabriel had an interest of the instrument. I hope he pursues it!
Grandpapa and Sierra watching the hockey game.
Overall, it was a fantastic trip to Saint Jacques de Leeds. Even though it was pouring rain, I got to see the maple syrup shack come into full force and it was interesting to see the operation. I swear I can use this contraption to make beer somehow. Perhaps one day I’ll have the chance. From what I was told, it wasn’t the greatest season for making syrup which is unfortunate. But it’s fun while it lasts.
As I type this a month later, she still hasn’t mastered pushing herself forward. But she sure loves riding on the cars.
Quite a nice shot of Ottawa if I say so myself. This was taken from on top of the Museum of History.
Sierra loves music and she dances around like this to whatever is playing.
She also has come to LOVE Fredo the monkey. I joked to Sierra the other day that Fredo may very well become her security blanket and we will have to carry him around everywhere we go. Uh oh!
We went to see Grace, Lily and Harlin and they were ecstatic to see us. We were ecstatic to see them as well!
Hanging out.
We had a few folks from Hearst show up for lunch. It was also time to celebrate Melissa and Felix’s birthday!
This was taken about 30 seconds before she vomited all over the place. At least we were outside! Sierra unfortunately has some foods she is allergic to (milk protein, soy products) and sometimes we try new things on her and it doesn’t end well. The good news is that a few weeks after this photo was taken, we tried eggs again and she didn’t have a reaction! I guess that digestive system is strengthening up. As Vero put it one night “Try and find a birthday cake that doesn’t have milk protein, eggs or soy!” Difficult, indeed!
Sierra is pretty good at the supper table. There are some days where she just throws her food everywhere, but we find that if we put it into a bowl, she tends to stick to that. Here she is after stealing my hat.
Sierra LOVES bath time and weighing herself.
With the weather getting warmer, it’s time to start bringing her outside. At the beginning we kept a close eye on her when she was trying to eat debris outside but as the month has gone by, we’ve realized that there’s really nothing like the taste of grass and pinecones to make you appreciate the gruel we give her at the supper table.
We dropped by St-Albert’s for a poutine with Sierra. We are happy to report that even though we heard they changed their gravy, it still passes the test! The gentleman behind me in this photo told us (as we were leaving) that we were great parents. What a compliment!
Trying out the outfit that cousin Rick picked up awhile back! Fits like a glove!
My life with Chris Cornell has been an abnormal one. While most people grew up with him during the Soundgarden era, I can’t say that I was ever a big Soundgarden fan back in the day. Sure, I knew their hits and I could recognize his voice instantly on the radio (who couldn’t?), but they weren’t on my radar.
