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.

Eva at 6 weeks

We've had the BC definition of a heat wave over here - 5 days of temps over a massive 30 degrees celcius (I kid you not)! Joined the crowds at Elk Lake on Monday, and while the boys were swimming I took this pic of Eva - not quite capturing her engaging smile. She is very smiley now, and has started "coo-ing" which is very cute.

Science Library open

The new UWA Science Library opened on Monday (or stage one anyway). Wish I was there to enjoy it.

Eva healthy

Had a good report from the paediatrician today on Eva's health. Her medication appears to be doing the right thing, and she's developing as expected. Her next blood test is in 4 weeks time (previously it was fortnightly tests). We also don't need to make trips to Vancouver to see the paediatric endocrinologists at the children's hospital. She can have all her tests and checkups here on the island. That makes life a bit easier, as we know the hospital here quite well now!

Eva was a model baby for about 24 hours - sleeping beautifully, settling quickly, feeding at exactly the right times, but then she decided to punish us for thinking we'd perhaps done something right. The last 24 hours has been hellish. Such is the vaguaries of parenthood, I guess. I discussed her colic with the paediatrician, and apart from a new remedy which has some good results in clinical trials (a probiotic drop), he said that I should listen to my mother as he'd never argue with a grandmother, especially one who had 11 children.

Eva and Harrison

The (not so) wild west of Canada

Well, we've been here for 2 weeks and are getting pretty settled. Simon is shopping for camping supplies as I type - he and Harrison are planning to check out a provincial park quite close to Victoria as their first camping trip. I'm hoping Eva sleeps heaps, and am planning to check out the local antique stores and cafes while they're away! We bought a new stroller with baby car seat attached, which is making life very easy. The stroller Helga had left was quite big and unwieldy (I hate those ones with fixed front wheels), so we got a Graco on special which folds up super small. Best thing is that the baby attachment also goes in the car and can be used as a rocker in the house. So she gets to stay asleep as we move her in and out of the car and stroller. Weather is stunning again. Eva has baby acne pretty badly, so no photos just now! Her colic is settling down a bit, and she's able to sleep a 7 hour stretch most days. Hopefully we haven't introduced too many bad habits from the hours of walking/rocking/strollering that we've been doing the last few weeks.

Mosman Park

We've been in our temporary home for a week now - the City Beach house is empty (and very very clean thanks to Simon's hard work), our storage shed is full, and we're living out of our Canada suitcases in a furnished house in Mosman Park. We celebrated our last night with the keys of the City Beach house on Thursday with fish and chips at Floreat Beach (very cold - not a soul around), and our 10th wedding anniversary last night at an Italian restaurant (Maretti)around the corner. Harrison got a guernsey to this dinner and the chef was really good with his gluten free requirements. They make their own desserts there - and Harrison has decided that creme brulee is his favourite dessert of all time (though he did manage to con Simon into also sharing the chocolate mousse with him).

Hopefully we get a few days R&R after the frantic pace of the packing etc over the last couple of weeks. We managed to combine having a baby with moving to Canada, and selling our Brisbane house (not yet unconditional, but the contract has been signed). One positive is that the house Simon wanted to buy over here is off the market, so we can't add buying a house to the list of things we have on our plate!

Looks like the new Science Library will be handed over on or around the day I give birth... If I'm not otherwise engaged I'll drop in late this week to have a last glance. Sounds like the plans for the Charles Darwin exhibition in the foyer of the new library when it opens are going amazingly well - wish I was going to be here in July to see it.

R & R

Well, it's taken 4 days, but today I've been able to have a relatively relaxed day - just baking and icing some cup cakes for Harrison's last day at day care, making a few calls, and catching up on emails. I'm about to go and have my first afternoon nap in about 3 months! Gotta love this maternity leave.

Last day

Today is my last day at work until May 2010.  Nearly finished all the things on my to do list.  Kind of wish I was starting work again on Monday now that everything is tidied and squared away!  I have a week to myself next week, so hope to do lots of exercise, resting, and a bit of packing for Canada. 

2 days to go

Only 2 more days of work to go.  The to do list is still looking impossibly long, I am getting increasingly exhausted, and there may be no way I can walk away from this job with a clear conscience....

 

New plans

I’m 30 weeks now, and still feeling good.  We’ve had a change of plans for the birth – we’re now staying in Perth and having the baby at St John of God hospital instead of in Toowoomba.  My GP will deliver the baby, which I’m really looking forward to.  We’ll extend our lease a bit in the City Beach house, and move into a house in Mosman Park for the last month we’re in Perth.  It takes a lot of the pressure off us in terms of the time frame for packing, though it does make for a few horrendous flying days with a 5 year old and a 2 week old baby.  We’ll go to Brisbane, stay for a day to recover from the first flight, then go to Vancouver, stay for another day, then go to Victoria.  It will be tiring, but once we’re there we are all on leave, with no places to be or things to do, so hopefully we can just concentrate on getting into the new time zone and getting ourselves settled.

 

New Science Library

We had a tour of the unfinished UWA Science Library on Friday. It's looking good, though there's a fair bit of work to do. Seems so BIG at the moment. The furniture selection is fabulous. Very high end and stylish - but of course it's not in the building yet. I spent a fair bit of time on the weekend working on the 5000 metres of fixed book shelving - how wide each bay is, how many shelves are in each bay, where the reference collection, quartos and folios go, how much room there is if we shelve at 80% full ... We don't have all 900 mm shelves, but some are 600mm, 1050mm or 1200mm. A bit unusual, but it's so our shelves fit around pillars and look like they're of a uniform length. We also don't have all bays with 7 tiers of shelving. Most are 7, but we have some 6 tiers, and quartos are 5 tiers. Makes the calculations nice and complex!

Next job is to get my staff to fill in how many mm of space each call number from each of the 5 collections we're merging takes up so that we can tell the removalists where to put all the books. And this is before we even look at the 8000 metres or so of shelving for journals!

Above is a photo of Friday's tour group. I'm in the red shirt - can you tell I'm 7 months pregnant? Jill is next to me in black . She's doing my job while I'm on maternity leave.

Daylight savings

Our third year of trial daylight savings ends on Saturday night/Sunday morning (Simon’s birthday) in WA.  We won’t be here for the referendum to decide whether to make daylight savings permanent in WA.  I’ve found it great for evening walks after Harrison’s in bed (it’s too difficult for us to get ready for work and day care AND fit in a walk in the mornings, but pretty easy for me to leave Simon doing the bedtime story while I hit the pavement in the evenings).  It was lovely over Christmas when we could have friends over and have the kids running around the backyard while the adults relaxed.  We haven’t had a problem getting H to bed in daylight.  Many millions of people are putting kids to bed in countries where the sun sets at 10pm or later in summer without any difficulty.

Back to normal?

After 4 and a half weeks of incredibly high stress, this morning we passed the baton to the rest of Simon’s family to deal with the crisis.  I’m sure Simon will continue to be involved by phone, but the family in Qld will be able to bear most of the burden from today onwards.  Simon is absolutely exhausted – and has to give a 2 hour lecture to Masters students today.  Once that’s over, he could well sleep for a week!

On hold

We’ve had a few weeks of family crisis over here (not our own little family, thankfully), but it has meant lots of guests from Qld, and weeks of late nights and worry.  Not sure when it will be over, but things are a gradually settling down and we’re trying to get back into something resembling a normal life.  There is still heaps to organise for Canada, and lots more to catch up on at work after having both had several weeks of either no work or very broken episodes of work.  We’ve got 7 weeks to go in Perth, I’m now 6 months pregnant, and our own lives have been put on hold for a while, but we’ll get there.  Simon had borne the brunt of it, and is emotionally and physically exhausted. 

Apology Day

It’s one year today since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to Australia’s indigenous people.

More adventures in the west

We can keep calling this blog our adventures in the wild west - it will just be the west of Canada for a while. Our plans for Simon's long service leave and sabbatical are coming together. We have a lease on a house in Oak Bay, Victoria (Vancouver Island) from the end of June, and have tentatively booked our flights. My leave is approved too, so there's nothing stopping us now. Just a lot of packing up and organising to do before we leave Perth in late April. We'll spend 8 weeks in Toowoomba on route to Canada, and while we're there, acquire a new baby - hopefully on time and trouble free so that I'm fit to fly 2 weeks after the due date.

Babies galore

Rose and Andrew had a little boy (Harrison Luke) on November 14. He was 10 pounds 5 oz, so not so little! That makes 4 boys for them. Rose got Harry into a good sleep routine very quickly, and seems to be doing very well.

Greg and Barb had a baby girl (Zara - just under 9 pounds) on Tuesday, which makes them a family of 5. Both families did renovations prior to the births - seems like we're hard wired to want to do these things when we're pregnant. After being quite happy renting here, and keeping our Brisbane house rented out, Simon and I are suddenly talking about buying a "renovator's delight" in Perth, even though it would be very stressful at this stage in our lives, and we're leaving for Canada in a few months. We seem compelled to put down roots.

We're looking forward to catching up with both families and their new babies when we're back in Qld on the Australia Day long weekend for Mum and Dad's 50th wedding anniversary celebrations. It will also be the first time we see Denis and Tracey's little one.

Stella and John had their second baby - Annabel (6lb 4 oz) on 29 December also.