Chelsea and Rob's wedding.

Well chalk up another family wedding, Chelsea and Rob tied the knot this past weekend. It was a very nice ceremony at Bear Creek Park with family and friends in attendance. It was a very low-key casual event. Here are some pictures from the wedding and the reception at their house afterwards. Congratulations to both of them.

Palm Springs 2014

Well, it's been a super long while since my last blog entry. Whew a lot to report! Sad news is that Papa is still in the hospital. Apparently, it looks like a few more weeks to deal with all the residual issues. Suffice to say he's considerably weaker so they need to get his strength up before any immediate homecoming. We've all been vigilantly visiting him every day, it's especially hard on Grandma.

The family is back from Palm Springs, such a relief. From the sounds of things the trip was a great success. Carol, Gomo, Uncle Glen and Grandma took good care of me though.

The trip down to California did apparently start with a bit rocky ride with a 2 hour delay in San Francisco, but for the most part the kids did pretty well dealing with all the running around. The house the family rented was beautiful and having a pool certainly allowed the kids to be perpetually entertained. The one downside is the safety issue, small children + pool requires constant monitoring. Some basic house rules were set up and for the most part everyone complied. As always the vacation was filled with good food, good times and lots of great memories. A great way to spend spring break. The next trip is planned for August, this time I get to go too! Whoo hoo! Here's a slideshow of the images Roger took during the trip.

Skating continues.

The opportunities that the kids have today are limitless. Although they don't realize it yet, they are exposed to so much more than Roger and Tracey were at the same age and even more than Roger and Tracey's parents when they were young (whoa we're going back a few generations now). Teaching children that they are lucky to have what they have is a difficult thing to do. Roger and Tracey try their very best to instil a sense of appreciation and gratitude with the kids, but I have to say that it's difficult. How do you teach a child that an activity, and outing, a toy, clothes, a meal out are treats and privileges.  These same opportunities aren't the equal for children everywhere. Recently, the skating has been met with some resistance by both Malcolm and Melody, more so Melody. You can chalk it up to being young, you can attribute it to stubbornness or immaturity, but again how do you make them realize that they should be thankful. I guess you don't realize what you have until it's gone or the other side of that is, if you've always had it, what other reality would you really know?

Recently Roger bought a photo book called, "I Was Always Beautfiul". It's a photography essay on India, mostly pictures about kids with Aids living in an orphanage. The photographer, Rocky Braat documents some pretty great images in Chennai, India. Anyway, Roger showed Malcolm one of the pictures from the book and it was of a girl playing with a old hoop she found from the dump. He explained to Malcolm that some kids in the world are too poor to buy toys and can't afford to even eat most days. I think this image did strike a chord with Malcolm. So Roger finds himself reminding Malcolm of the image when he's being especially ungrateful, it seems to work somewhat at least temporarily. As parents, Roger and Tracey will continue to encourage, promote and even push the kids into trying different things. They just hope that it gets easier as they get older. Here are some pictures from a skate Malcolm did with Uncle Albert, Jayme, Ally and Rowan last night. Just in case you're wondering Jayme and Malcolm are the same age. Maybe he's just a late bloomer.

Tobogganing at Seymour.

Roger and Tracey said that it was a fantastic day on the hill today. As they cut through the fog, they were greeted with glorious sunshine and a temperature inversion at Seymour. Their initial thought was to have the whole family up for the ride, too bad Melody wasn't being compliant. She's certainly difficult to convince once she's made up her mind. In fact, yesterday she missed her skating lesson cause she outright fought to stay home. Roger and Tracey thought it would be okay since she has been fighting a cold, but today was really no different. Luckily, Gomo came over to watch her while Roger, Tracey and Malcolm headed up to play in the snow.

Malcolm really had a stellar weekend. His behaviour has been much better over the last several days. He even got back all of the toys that were temporarily confiscated during the holidays. Now the question is whether he can keep it up. Yesterday, despite his initial reservations about going to skating, he did very well. We know it can't be easy being the smallest and youngest kid in the class, but he really did put a great effort forward. Today, he spent over three hours tumbling, sliding and rolling around in the snow. Let's just say that he was asleep in 10 minutes and has been sawing lumber since 8:30pm. He loves playing in the snow. I think that's pretty clear in the images below:

Jump

I think the investment in a trampoline can really pay dividends. Man, the kids can jump for hours on that thing and most importantly it burns off all that excess energy. Malcolm has had more exposure to the trampoline, but Melody is certainly catching on fast. We got it last Wednesday and they have been jumping on that thing every day. I'm not sure what's going to happen in the wet and cold, but you can be sure that as long as it's dry they'll jump. Don't you just love Melody's flying hair!

Hello Grade 1.

What a difference a year makes. It's hard to see the kids grow up right in front of your eyes, cause I see them everyday, but comparing the pictures to last year there's definitely a difference. He's a little taller, his face is changing and fingers crossed he's maturing. We all wish Malcolm the very best this year as a first grader. He'll definitely make that leap with his three "R"s. Our boy is growing up.