Just back from a week off with the family! Gotta admit, it felt kind of good to sit at my desk, sip at my coffee, and review my emails with no interruptions. In hindsight, it was a great week off - three awesome days at the cottage for our annual Absolut Canada Day weekend (great group this year, lots of laughs, kids were great - I don't think there was one "time-out", though a crayfish was dismembered....) Once home, we had lots of outings to keep everyone occupied, the best, by far, was the trip to Mt. Cascades Water Park - Grace and I joined friends there and I felt like I was four years old again...I was racing Grace up and down the slides and giggling and not wanting to go home - I sort of know how she feels now when we have to peel her away from something super-fun. We also signed Grace up at Douvris School of martial Arts (I can almost hear the collective "gulp" of people reading this). Sensei Dave assured me that while yes, they do train people to kill, they also teach them to not ever have a situation go that far. If I don't show up at work one day, chances are I've denied Grace some gummy bears or something and she's tossed me like a rag doll. Anyhoooo, I think it will be a great experience for her, and I'm going to take some kick-boxing at the same time to spice up my workout routine.

Edie, Edie, Edie.....why did you have to pick the week that I was off to become a cranky, miserable, hold me don't hold me feed me but don't feed me that give me that toy NO THAT TOY baby? Jonas and I determined the following: at sixteen months and having only four teeth, the others must be doing the Hustle above her little gumline and are going to all break through at once and b) it has been two weeks since her MMR shot, and the doctor said if she was going to react (c'mon, this is Edie, OF COURSE she is going to react!) it would be in two weeks time. So, Edie wasn't super-fun this past week, but she made up for it with moments of super-cuteness.

WE SWAM IN OUR POOL YESTERDAY! It's not perfect yet, but the whole fan-damily took the plunge and we swam. Grace is doing great, can swim without her life-jacket now (though we do insist on a life-jacket when we are with Edie or not focused on her 110%). Edie floats around in this little floating raft, not really knowing what is going on, but seems to enjoy it. Jonas has been working very hard on the pool, and while sometimes I can see the rage boiling beneath his calm surface, his determination to get this pool going has become his goal in life.

To end our vacation, we pic-nikked with friends with kids last night at Mooney's Bay. It was a beautiful night, great food, kids had a ton of fun. The only drawback was the psycho mom whose daughter latched on to our kids, which was fine, but she latched for two hours, ate our food, bossed our kids around, taught them naughty things and followed us everywhere. When Grace had to go pee, she asked if she could come to, I said sure. Our friend thought maybe the mother (who was nowhere to be seen for these two hours) should know, so he went and told her that her daughter was with me off to the washroom. He got "fuck-you mind your own business" as a reply. Huh? Then, the woman came to washrooms, grabbed her daughter, and proceeded to drop f-bombs left, right and centre, in front of the kids! I'm no prude, and I do occasionally swear, but never, in anger, in front of my kids. No wonder this kid latched on to us, I wouldn't want to be with her mother either. Sad.

Whew! I'm spent. I'm sure there is more to write, but my coffee is getting cold.

Website of the day:
http://www.montcascades.ca/
Seriously, it rocks. Go to Costco and buy your passes there - it's less expensive that way (it's not a cheap outing).