2008: a year in review

I saw this on the blog of a VERY dear friend and thought it was a fun was to sum up the last 12 months.

Enjoy!
PS - I don't know what happened to #21. It wasn't there when I looked for it. Oh well!
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2008: It's Over Now

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?

Took my kids to Florida for our first big family vacation. It was totally new for the four of us!!

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

We still have them on the fridge and mine was to make more time with my family. I think I need to work on that again. Not as successful as I would like to be.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Funny. MANY people gave birth but one of those that I am especially close to is my business partner. She gave birth to her second son in November. It was AWESOME!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Yes, my dad's eldest sister. That broke my heart in ways I didn't anticipate.

5. What countries did you visit?

The US. Oh, and Canada

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

A more substantial income to allow for more emotional freedom. Not a LOT of money, but enough would be nice.

7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

August 16, 2009. My sister and Chris tied the knot.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Getting the boys to Florida before they knew what their big Yule gift was. That included crossing the border.

9. What was your biggest failure?

I don't know that I would say that there were any "big failures." Certainly there were times that I wished things were different but nothing truly bad.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Nope.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

a MacBook

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Both of my children, at various times, as they are constantly amazing me.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Stephen Harper and George Bush

14. Where did most of your money go?

That is the $64,000. question, isn't it?

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Our trip and Noni's wedding

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?

So What by P!nk


17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. happier or sadder? Happier. I guess. Encouraged in a better way to say it

ii. thinner or fatter? about the same.

iii. richer or poorer? About the same.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Made time for my family

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Worrying and complaining

20. How will you be spending the Winter?

Reading, blogging (http://blog.babyREADY.ca), hanging with my kids, and trying to stay warm

22. Did you fall in love in 2008?

No, but I stayed in love!

23. What was your favorite month of 2008?

December - for the trip. July for other family time

24. What was your favorite TV program?

Brothers and Sisters I guess. Don't watch a tonne of TV though

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

No, I don't really hate anyone (well, there are a couple of people but those have been with me for a LONG time)

26. What was the best book you read?

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

I spent too much time in iTunes looking for old stuff to discover new

28. What did you want and get?

A CHI!! Doug truly loves me!!

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

Planet Earth on BlueRay

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

After picking my SIL up at the airport I got the kids ready to Trick or Treat and then I went to a birth. Spent an hour or so visiting with friends too.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

To have seen the TV show idea come to fruition (looks like it isn't moving forward very swiftly at this time) and to have babyREADY really take off

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

Comfortable and organic

33. What kept you sane?

Doug and the boys as well as my VERY, VERY, VERY amazing womyn friends.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I have to steal from Suna on this: Barack Obama, for whom my respect grew through the year, as I observed how he treated other people.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?

Whether or not Elizabeth May would be allowed a place to sit at the table for the Leader's Debate in October

36. Who did you miss?

My SIL, everyday I miss her!! She is only a phone call or email away but I miss her. She is not just a SIL to me but an incredible friend too

37. Who was the best new person you met?

I meet SO many new people in my line of work that I can't pick just one. Steven maybe? Or Paul Jr.? Or Bennett? Or Brady? Can't say for sure.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008: it's an oldie but goodie, not to take anything for granted.

Our last holiday gathering of the season

We met with friends, E & P (the couple whose house we went to for the boys to go dirt biking and ATVing), at the Ancaster Old Mill in, amazingly enough, Ancaster, ON. This is a renovated old mill, thus the name, from the early 1800's and it is gorgeous. The main building houses an inn of a half dozen rooms. They connect that building with another, over the river, where the restaurant is.

All of the holiday decorations were still up and the place looked like a set out of a movie. Even with the snow covering the grounds you can see why many, many people choose to get married and take their wedding pictures at this location. And the food . . .



The Sunday Brunch was out of this world. Unbelievable. Quinn barely got past the chocolate fountain. Fergus wasn't sure if the fresh, chocolate and berry-filled crepes were better or if the Belgian waffles won. Doug dug on all the fresh meat. I wanted some of everything. The seafood spread was pretty good. So were the antipasta selections. TOO MUCH FOOD!!! Too much GOOD food too! How can a person decide???



The boys were gifted with some cash from these friends, as a holiday present, and they combined that money with the money they got from Grandma G and Aunt Jen as well as gift cards from AD & UD and managed to have enough $$$ to buy themselves the coveted PS3 system. Yikes!! Too many electronic things in this house. Jeepers. They are in their GLORY!!!



We were blessed with a HUGE gift basket. I tell you this thing was almost as tall as Quinn. There was more sweet stuff in the basket than I will ever be able to eat. I might even have to share the contents with friends and family members.

All in all it has been an extremely wonderful holiday season. That said, I can't wait for the normal of the coming week to set in and for status quo to return.



I hope your holidays were as blessed with the company of good friends and lovely family members as ours were. Happy 2009 to you all!!

A quick post about my Yule gift

As all of you know I am not a Christian and I prefer the traditions associated with the celebration of the wheel of the year. A group of my friends share in my desire to honour the planet and her changes and in so doing we annually celebrate one of the oldest holidays in the world. Yule. Or the Winter Solstice. We exchange gifts in an international gift exchange and one (or two) nights a year we gather together on-line and take turns opening our treasures. We photograph our bounty and share it with one another.



While the postal service wasn't as rapid as my friend would have liked and my gift didn't arrive for the 21st, it did arrive today and I took some time alone to open it this evening. I was blessed to receive a handmade gift of jewelry. Those who know me IRL know that I LOVE my jewelry. Necklaces and earrings especially. Knowing these beads were carefully strung together with love by a womyn I love like a sister and that they were done especially for me means more than I can say.



I wanted all of you to be able to see what they look like and what they look like on me.

Now it has turned to the early hours of New Year's Eve. Tonight (many, many hours from now) we will head over to the home our my VERY dear friend, K, and her husband, L. We see them and our other friends every year for New Years. This year there is a chance that it will be a small group of only 5 families. That's okay. It hasn't been that intimate in a very long time. I love this group of people too.



What I know that I can honestly say, as we pass from one Gregorian year into another, is that I am more blessed in love of friends and family than I ever dreamed of being. My hope for all of you this coming year is that you know at least a fraction of the love that I know. Life is truly GREAT!!!

OH YEAH, and my most amazing dh in the WORLD got my the one thing that I really wanted. A CHI!! I now have a ceramic flat iron. YAY!!

Yule pictures

While the boys watch "Rugrats Chanukah" and leftovers heat for tonight's dinner, I thought I would post the pictures from yesterday. Quinn shopped for Fergus while we were away. As I mentioned in a previous post, he REALLY wanted to get the gift for Fergus at Toys 'r Us in the US. Funny. Ferg wanted the same thing but when he realised that the gift he wanted to buy was $19.99 US and in Canada was $19.99 here, he decided to wait and save a few pennies. That meant that yesterday morning he and I braved the arctic chill in the air and went out shopping.



He barely got Quinn's gift wrapped when they were both begging to exchange gifts. They knew that this year they wouldn't be receiving anything further from mommy and daddy as the trip was their gift, so they wanted to get whatever they could for the holiday. How could we resist? Sure!!





Doug went out later in the afternoon and bought a Yule tree. The boys spent a long time after our Yule feast decorating the tree with birds, deer, fruit and other significant ornaments. This year we had a bird to add that Christena (MIL) received from her sister. What a special addition.





Now, I should go and check the food. Have a great night and if you celebrate Hanukkah, blessings of the season to you and yours!!

Thursday and Friday

This cold that I have been enjoying through our whole trip did not give up after WDW. In fact, it took hold even better. I needed to spend as much time resting on Thursday as I could. Doug left the boys with me while he hit the local Best Buy (prices were the same and so with the exchange it is better to shop here - he had to check it out though and I don't blame him).

When he got back the three of them decided to go over to Pool #13 (where the owner BBQs were and where the bar was open) for a swim. I spent an hour or so listening to my iPod and sleeping by the pool outside of our unit. Then I missed them too much and realised that I would have plenty of time to sleep when we got home. I loaded my system up with some more cold meds and headed off to find them at Pool #13.



We swam, played, and hung out. Then we went to play mini golf at the resort golf course. Doug won, as usual. It was SO much fun though. Quinn enjoyed it enough that he and I went back for another game on Friday afternoon.

We finished Thursday off by dining, as per Fergus' request, at Red Lobster. It is his favourite restaurant.



When we got up on Friday morning we were reading emails and messages from friends and family members letting up know that there was a big snow storm headed for and hitting southern Ontario. The forecast was for large amounts of snow to arrive Friday and Sunday. Saturday was to be sunny and clear. We took these messages as a sign. As much fun as we were having it was time to pack our stuff up and get the car loaded to head home.



Check out time for the resort is 10:00 am so leaving at 9:00 the night before wasn't doing much more than cutting into our sleep time. We made the most of our last day and I napped in the afternoon, hoping to have some stamina for the drive through the night.



After Quinn and I played our last game of mini golf, Doug took the boys to watch a movie at the theatre in the main building.

We drove all night and again all day and made the 2156 km drive (according to our trusty GPS) in just over 24 hours, including stops for pee, coffee, meals and duty free shopping.

Pictures from Walt Disney World

Well, here we are; back in the land of ice and snow. Looks as though we got back at the perfect time. When we were within 40 minutes of home the snow started (first flakes we encountered in the air -- and first snow on the ground was almost Erie, PA) and by the time we got home it was coming down in a steady flow. There was quite a lot in the yard (about a foot compared to the skiff we had when we left) and this morning we got up to another 3-4 inches. Doug was out shovelling when I got up.





I don't think I have posted since Wednesday night after returning from WDW. It goes without much saying that the boys had the time of their lives and, by extension, so did we. It was incredible to see the looks on their faces as we rode rides, toured exhibits and sat through Mickey's Philharmagic.





I will post a series of images we shot that day. Everything from rides the boys were on, tours the Magic Kingdom on the train, the castle (during the day and after dark), etc.





I will post about Thursday and Friday, as well as our decision to head home early, in another message.

The word of the day????

****AWESOME!!!!**** (according to Ferg and Quinn)

We spent the day at the Magic Kingdom and had a wonderful time. I will post info about our day and some pictures tomorrow. For now, sleep is the only thing I can think about.

'Nite all

Went to Daytona Beach today

And the boys experienced playing in the ocean for the first time. Doug and the boys played in the waves while I took some pictures (it's not as though the Atlantic Ocean is warm now or any time of year).

The boys have been asking and asking for a trip to Toys 'r Us and so we stopped there on the way home. Quinn was especially worried that he wouldn't have a chance to buy Fergus' Yule present before Sunday. So sweet. Fergus has decided to wait to get Quinn's gift.



The pictures here are simply some of the ones we shot today. I love the shot of the boys putting their toes into the ocean for the first time. And of Quinn playing in the sand. And of Fergus and I looking for shells. And of my husband playing with our kids. Okay, I love them all!!!

The view from our unit

I am just putting a couple of pictures of the view from our unit to the pool out our back door. There is also a shot of the unit from the pool (second lower unit from the left) and then a closer up shot of the screened in patio.

Day two in Florida - three since leaving home

Funny how fast time can pass when you aren't doing much of anything but being happy and enjoying time with your family. Doug was up with the sun this morning (or just before actually) and had had several cups of coffee and a shower before I managed to crawl out of bed. (Have I mentioned that I have a crappy head cold??) The boys and I were up around 9:00 and learned, from Doug-the-Explorer, where to find the "Owner's BBQ" and the "Games Room."



By the time we were all showered and functional it was 11:15 and was time for us to head to Pool 13 for the BBQ lunch and a little swimming. The boys were given stickers with Mickey on them and we just hung out. By one o'clock we were finished and Fergus couldn't wait to ride the train around our little resort.



We managed to find one of the Whole Foods stores in the area and grabbed food for dinner. We are lucky enough to have a full kitchen with full sized appliances so I could make dinner for us and we could spend time around the table recapping the day and then have a quiet evening. That was the plan. Things changed though. While I was making dinner my husband and boys were in the pool in our back yard. Actually, they were in the hot tub. Doug stuck up a conversation (or was pulled in kicking and screaming - this is my chatty husband we are talking about) with a couple who currently reside in the Boston area. They used to live in Stewarttown (Stewart's Mills in actual fact). They commuted from G'town to North York daily. Isn't that wild??



Anyway, this couple told Doug, within hearing distance of the boys, about the Legoland store in Downtown Disney. Now Teresa had already told me about this but Doug and I had not said anything to the boys. We were taking a "wait and see" approach. We waited and what we saw were two boys barely able to eat their dinner before bounding out the door and into the car. Legoland was AWESOME!! They are in their room right now and are putting together cars that they picked out parts for tonight.



Tomorrow the plan is to head to the beach. The boys have never been to or in the ocean before. This will be amazing. I guess I should go and check the weather forecast, huh?