january 2012

january 23

bit of radio silence there - sorry about that. it's been a very chilly start to the year with lots of snow to play in. we didn't manage to persuade zoe to go sledding (which tradgically meant that I didn't get to go sledding!), but she had fun making snowballs and snowmen. anyway, the big news is that sasch has a new job with disney as director of production operations for disney's interactive media group and is travelling between studios which unfortunagtely means that i'm a single parent during the week. we will look at moving near to the studio he's based out of after the end of the school year this year. it's going to be weird adjusting to him being away during the week but my family has taken to babysitting me and the first babsitter (my dad) arrives this thursday. unfortunately, he won't be here in time to take out the trash on garbage day which i've been having to do MYSELF [gasp!]

doing the school run

making footprints in the snow

i will need to leave my job at richmond family place after 7 years which will be very sad but it's a fantastic non-profit which was my first real home in canada and will always be close to my heart. hopefully i can continue to do a little contract work for them.

january 2

the bc legislature - just around the corner from toryn's apartment where we celebrated new year.

welcome to 2012. 2011 was not without its problems but we have high hopes for 2012. it's looking like it might be a year of change. my new year's resolution is to celebrate 10 years of blogging by overhauling this site to make it a little easier to update.

christmas was great, with dani and toryn coming over to spend a few days with us. we all got some great gifts for christmas. zoe's favourite presents are her dora umbrella which she proudly tells everyone about and wants to bring everywhere she goes and a t-shirt which has a photo of her favourite cuddly toy on it. sascha and i are pretty happy about aly's kinect disneyland adventures game and aly is very excited about her very own sewing machine. so far she's made 2 pairs of pj pants, a tinkerbell blanket and pillow for zoe and a couple of other bits and pieces - not bad for 2 days. it's just a pity i have a sewing machine phobia. let's hope she knows what she's doing!

toby in a tie - gasp! might never be seen again

toryn, dani and aly at christmas dinner

dani and toryn playing dance central

for new year's we went over to victoria to do another christmas with nikki and colin. toryn very kindly moved out of his new apartment for a couple of days so we could spend new year with his 2 ferrets on the 16th floor overlooking downtown victoria - thanks toryn :-) before we went to victoria we just had time to squeeze in a giants hockey game:

december 2011

december 22

trimming the tree with a little help from dad

aly REALLY likes the tree

my Richmond Family Place buddies and i painting the Windows of Hope at the automall

december 10

zoe had a great time at her rainbow birthday party. she tends to get overwhelmed with a lot of noise and a lot of people around her, so we just invited 4 close friends who we spend a lot of time with. they're all older and fortunately getting calmer the older they get! i managed to find some activities which everyone enjoyed [although all zoe really wanted to do in pass the parcel was stop and start the music which meant the distribution of gifts wasn't quite as even as it usually is when i fix it!]

i was quite proud of my rainbow cake.

zoe and justin

rainbow drinks

so sad that everyone had to go home!

december 1

wow it's a frenzy of christmasness. we counted almost 50 houses with lights up last night on the drive home from the work christmas party which made me feel better because we put up ours last weekend which i'm not keen on doing in november. in north america, it seems the minute US thanksgiving is done, it's open season. i was a bit worried about how many people would decorate this year because there was a bit of a pathetic lack of halloween decorations and nobody seemed to do anything about halloween until the day before halloween itself.

we live in an incredibly diverse neighbourhood which means a large portion of people do not officially celebrate christmas but there are still a lot of people who put up lights [and lots of other religious celebrations in december]. in the 6 houses either side of us, there are probably 2 buddhist families, 2 muslim families and 2 hindu families. our street also has a lot of sikh and christian families. it must be a dilemma for people who actively participate in a religion other than christianity when they are surrounded by talk of christmas and are under peer pressure from children. i love to hear the traditions and compromises families have come up with - particularly where people who celebrate christmas have married someone with a strong religion that does not. i love my neighbourhood - it's such a great example of how people can get along if the desire to is there, and it's great to learn about everyone's different traditions.

this year aly is snoopy in their school play [charlie brown's christmas]. it's the perfect role for her because she loves performing but hates learning lines! now she just has to learn to juggle a dog bowl! i'll let you know how it goes.

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