Babysitting

Harrison loves little kids and babies. Here he is with 8 week old Amy - he couldn't get enough of holding her, and LOVED being able to give her a bottle. He's equally keen on playing big brother to Amy's brother Ryan - loves to hold his hand and make sure he keeps out of trouble. And Evie doesn't miss out either - he feeds her, keeps her out of mischief, teaches her things like blowing raspberries, and is most fond of pushing her head back out of awkward positions when she's fallen asleep in the car. Pity this last trick often results in her waking up.

Junior Chef

Eva loves dressing up!

Evie at the Show

Eva had her first ride on a merry-go-round at the Perth Royal Show a couple of weeks ago. She ended up standing on the horse!

Things I miss

It’s summer in Canada now, and while Perth is enjoying balmy weather at the moment, I am missing the organic blueberries that used to turn up in our Share Organics fruit and veg box every Thursday morning.  We got fantastic service from Share Organics.  There’s nothing like that available here yet.  I loved getting an email telling me what was in my box (and where it was from), AND being able to log on and change the quantities and contents to suit our preferences.  I loved the icepacks in the box, the news about local organic farmers, and the recipes for using unfamiliar ingredients.

I also miss the Natures Path gluten free organic waffles available in virtually every supermarket freezer.  Such a treat for Harrison!  I miss Island Farms icecream.  I miss the fact that virtually all “soft serve” on Vancouver Island was actually just frozen Island Farms cream – with no nasties, and gluten free.

I miss the range of gluten free cereals readily available everywhere, especially Natures Path.  We’re just starting to see the odd Nature’s Path product in IGAs here.  I miss Glutino and Kinnikinnik brands.  And I was totally in love with Whole Foods stores, including Capers Whole Foods, just a block or so from our favourite place to stay in Vancouver (Times Square Apartments).  And speaking of Vancouver, I miss Stanley Park and the Granville Island markets.

GOD I miss places being open late and 7 days a week.  Even our teeny little enclave of Oak Bay had a supermarket open til 10 every night, and our local cafe was open early and late.  Bring on extended trading, Perth!!!!

I would love for the 4 of us to stroll down to the marina, buy a bag of frozen herring to feed the resident seals, and have coffee and scones, with a strawberry milk for Harrison for under $10. Maybe we’d come across a couple of iced tea or lemonade stands on the way back.  Magic!

It would be lovely to be able to look out the window to see Noelle sitting on her front steps waiting for Harrison to make an appearance.

Happy birthday Science Library

Today we celebrated 1 year since we (not me, actually - I was juggling a new born with a strange and a new medical diagnosis, an expedited passport application for her, and an impending plane trip half way round the world) moved into the Science Library. Took some bubbles in to work and Amina baked a gigantic chocolate cake. Eva had a great time toddling around the staff room. She then visited the Law Library and charmed some of the staff. The Science Library is still an absolutely stunning space to walk into, and it's a real pleasure to see it teaming with students using all the spaces in all the ways we thought they would when the library was just lines on a page. I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to help plan something so wonderful and then to work in it once it was all finished.

Toddler!

Eva started walking just before her first birthday, and is now a very proud full time toddler with her first pair of walking shoes. So cute!!! And she loves her 3 days a week at daycare. As soon as we pull up in the carpark she's kicking her legs and giggling. She just can't wait to get in there.

Warehouse

We're staying temporarily in Richard's guest warehouse in Fremantle until we move into our new house. It's a gorgeous place to stay - convict built, with a wool lift glassed in, oodles of space, a full sized trampoline inside, metres from the sea, 2 minutes walk from fishing boat harbour, High St and all Freo's delights. Harrison is yet again living with another boy's fabulous toys - this time Jim's lego and Thomas train set. He'll have a hard time adjusting to moving into our new house with just his own toys, me thinks!
PS - no idea why this photo is round the wrong way!

New Years Resolutions

This year there are just 2 resolutions - and neither of them involves getting fit or any variation on that theme ;-)
1. Live simply
2. Be organised

Thoreau said that he had 3 chairs in his hut on Walden Pond - 1 for solitude, 2 for company, 3 for society. Since all our possessions are in a storage shed in Perth now, and we are likely to buy a tiny dump of a house this year, I plan to vet every item that crosses the threshold for usefulness or beauty. Having spent so much time in other people's houses and apartments as we travelled this last 6 months, I am pretty keen on having just the essentials for my kind of living and entertaining in my kitchen. Kind of like what we had the first time we moved to Perth (and didn't have the benefit of a corporate relocation company packing up our entire house for us).
I also plan to try to rid my life of unnecessary plastic and paper. Harrison's school lunches will be an opportunity to try to provide simple good food without plastic wrap, additives and processing as far as possible. The Bento laptop lunch box is my inspiration. I'm going to make 2 dozen cloth napkins to use instead of hundreds of paper serviettes this year (a la Crate and Barrel's).
And I plan to make sure my work and home spaces are organised (a place for everything), uncluttered, and peaceful. The label maker is going to go into overdrive!

Going home

In order to get home from BC we, very logically travelled across to the other side of Canada, down to Boston, before making a U turn and going to San Francisco. In Vancouver we saw our first snow fall - and Harrison made his first snowballs. In Montreal there was HEAPS of snow, and Harrison made his first snow man. Then in Quebec there was still more snow, and we left magic reindeer food out in the snow outside our condo to help Rudolph and co find their way to our place on Christmas Eve. We went toboganning (seriously fun and seriously fast), Harrison and Simon both had a day of skiing at Mont St Anne, and they also went outdoor iceskating. We found out what cold really is walking around in minus 28 degrees.
Boston got snow while we were there too... including on our day trip to Walden Pond where Simon proposed 12 years ago. A little different with 2 kids this time! Marg and I chose Boston's coldest morning for our walking culinary tour of Little Italy (which was just fantastic).
San Francisco is positively warm (20 degrees), with exciting things like flowering plants instead of snow covered pine trees. It's a good way for us to gradually acclimatise on our way to the heat and humidity that awaits us in a few days. We've all got buns of steel from walking up and down San Francisco's multitude of steep, steep hills. We spent the day riding cable cars yesterday, in between walking up Telegraph Hill and down the Filbert steps. Cable cars must be the most inefficient and noisy form of public transport possible, but they are still pretty cute, and they are a good way to beat a few of those hills. Marg and I splurged on dinner at Greens vegetarian restaurant (very famous). The food was just exquisite. These guys know their way around vegies!

Farewell to the west coast

We've now left the west coast and are in Quebec city. We exchanged gifts with Pamela (Harrison's nanny) last week. Harrison made her a book with his drawings and collage detailing a "crazy" day they spent together (various buses taking them to the wrong places, ending up going back in time, getting lunch pinched by a dinosaur, and finally walking home in the snow). Pamela gave us a collection of photos she'd taken of Harrison (and one I love of me feeding Evie). This one of Harrison being a totem pole was her favourite.

Wigglstim

Harrison went to my laptop today and managed to do a Google search for wigglstim (his spelling for Wiggles Time). This reading and writing thing has gone too far!

Halloween

We've loved our first real Halloween here in Canada. Started yesterday with a celebration at one of the shopping malls near us - bouncy castle, clowns, facepainting etc. This afternoon there was trick or treating in all the shops along Oak Bay Avenue. The village was awash with costumed kids.


Back home for a short time, and then off again with some friends to a huge (and I mean REALLY huge) bonfire up at the fire station a few blocks away. The kids got to use the fire hoses to help the firemen control the blaze, and there were free hot dogs, pop corn etc.


We did our trick or treating as we walked back home. The jack-o-lantern carving was truly amazing to see (ours was very basic!).


Everyone gets so into the spirit of it. The costumes are fabulous, and the decorations unbelievable. Harrison went as Zoro,

and we had a very cute lady bird outfit for Eva.

Only downside was that at 9:30 or so, thinking most of the trick or treaters had gone home, I blew out the candle in our jack-o-lantern and left the rest of the candy on the front porch - the very next group of trick or treaters took the lot! I guess there are a lot of teenagers who would do the same.

The age of contemplation

Stanley Park Playground, originally uploaded by CarmelandSimon.

Actually, it's a rare still moment for our very active 5 year old! Harrison was hamming it up for the camera at the Stanley Park playground when we spent the Thanksgiving Day weekend in Vancouver.

The age of the giggle

Laughing Eva 4 months, originally uploaded by CarmelandSimon.

Simon snapped the gorgeous Eva laughing away in her stroller the other day. She's such a happy girl - always quick with a flirty smile for anyone who looks her way. Today her loud giggles almost got her thrown out of the baby rhyme session at the local public library!

High Tea outfit

High Tea outfit, originally uploaded by CarmelandSimon.

Eva looking groovy in her new outfit from Grandmum.

High tea

Marg and VJ shouted me high tea today at the Fairmont Empress. It was just gorgeous. Spent the morning at the museum, and a couple of hours being waited on over high tea. Both Eva and Harrison slept for 12 hours last night, so we were all in very good moods!

Marg and VJ

Marg and Veronica arrived today - bearing Cherry Ripes (yay!). Victoria put on a spectacular day for them. We walked over to the marina in perfect mid-20s weather, not a cloud in the sky. Two seals obligingly came to the jetty and we fed them some herring. We had wild salmon and a salad of organic local vegies for dinner. Harrison warmed to both of them instantly. Tomorrow we're off to explore the inner harbour, and next week we're booked in to high tea at the Empress Hotel. Looking forward to spending a week with them.

The Library Song

Song by Sarah Whyte about the new science library... Love it!

Rockies

Just back from our huge road trip. Started by driving the length of the Island to Port Hardy, and got on the ferry for the Inside Passage trip. It was absolutely beautiful and well worth it. 15 hours of stunning scenery. Harrison made friends with an Austrian (Victoria) who was about 9 and spoke virtually no English. Didn't stop them playing together for hours. Victoria was besotted with Eva as well, and would manage to get cuddles etc without speaking a word. We then drove across the top of British Columbia to the Rockies and Alberta. Eva was not a great car traveller. Simon's style of travel just doesn't agree with a 2 month old, I'm afraid. After Jasper and Banff we decided that Eva and I would stay in a motel in Canmore (a much nicer place to stay than Banff which is way too crowded these days) while Harrison and Simon went out to Drumheller on their dinosaur expedition. 4 nights in one place! Heaven! Eva and I sampled all the cafes in Canmore and got heaps of exercise and sleep. Harrison did a kids dinosaur activity at the museum - even among a group of dinosaur obsessed kids at the museum he was apparently the most obsessed. When the teacher was getting them ready for their mock hike to find fossils she said - "Is everyone ready? We know Harrison was born ready!"

We came back along the bottom of BC and Simon found his absolute perfect place to live - the Kootenays. It is a large fresh water lake surrounded by mountains. We had a gluten incident one day. Bought what was labelled as a home made gluten free slice, but it obviously wasn't and Harrison paid the price a few hours later. We were stuck in a park for several hours waiting for him to stop being sick. We had an offer from a lady in the park of a night in her cabin by the lake, but unfortunately a) it was back the way we'd already come and b) at that stage we couldn't get Harrison to stop vomitting long enough to get him in the car.

Eva is delightful now - it's miraculous how babies just become all bonny and contented all of a sudden. Apart from long car trips, of course! She's very giggly and interactive and thankfully is a great sleeper at night now. Had a check up with the paediatrician on Monday and he's very happy with her development. Such a relief to know she's well.

Science Library is cool

Just found out there's a Facebook group called "I heart science library" - has 190 members already (I am one now), and is full of student comments about how groovy the new library is! So gratifying to see people loving the glass topped tables you can write on, the big screens in the group study rooms, the beautiful comfy chairs (I particularly like the replica Eames plywood chairs and the luxurious arm chairs on the top floor), the whiteboards you can copy the content from onto USB sticks, the power points for laptops at every seat... the list goes on. All that work and the incredibly detailed thought and planning was worth it. Jill says that every PC is in use and the group study rooms are fully booked. Can't wait to get back to see it all in person.