Happy New Year!

Happy/ Healthy/ Joyful 2008 to everyone near and far :: Love, us


Craig, Tiki, Fergus, Effie :: December 31, 2007 :: Aylard Farm, East Sooke Park, BC, Canada

Grey, brown and wet

Our awesome indoor/Nintendo/movies holiday season was BRIEFLY interupted by a strange shining orb in the sky today:

Xmas Scenes

Boxing Day... turkey and tiny cakes




Bjorn Borg Aqua-Spider-Man

Merry Christmas!

The day before Christmas means...

Singing carols on the Goose:


Playing pooh sticks on the bridge:


Brining the bird:


Secret spaces:


Mmmmmm Cocktails!


???

Santa came to our house

Kinda misjudged the distance of the sirens so we waited down by the road for ONE HOUR in the POURING rain. We very nearly gave up on the old guy but at least he wore his beard this year!



Fire Truck Santa

Gearing up for the season

In order to try to shift to a more christmasy schedule we're trying to get the kiddos tired out earlier than normal... so we held some indoor running races at quarter to 11 last night (with moderate success). Here's the team awaiting a starting countdown:


Prior to our track meet, our friendly local Swede and her family (and good friends of course), Margaretha, hosted the first annual Furrowed Brow Smile “All Sweden, All The Time” party. The party, and glögg -drinking contest, was held in honour of my unwavering, weak-kneed love affair with modern-day Svedish music.

Of course she disguised the get-together as a “solstice party” and the uninformed revellers kept talking about the return of the sun and singing Christmas carols… but good times were had by all nonetheless.

Effie and Murray playing some fine Swedish ukulele tunes tinkling away at some xmas carols and selections from Grease:

Oui Oui

The family doesn’t get a pass to leave the forest too often and here is what we chose to do with our “urban time” the other evening: spending three full hours (minus the half hour of fast-food diversion) at the mall participating in all things Wii. Ferg, who hardly blinked the entire time we were there, really dug the new Super Mario Galaxy and even tried his hand at the 100 yard dash (13 .84 seconds!), ping-pong (no balls to the head!) and rowing (didn’t drown!).

Although I did enjoy firing deadly toilet plungers at “raving rabbids”, I was openly thankful that there are currently no Wii’s available on the island until February or something. The rest of my family scowled at me for thinking such thoughts while the Ninetendo people scowled at all of us rural-hicks for hogging the equipment.

Modern Reference Mash-up

"I'm going to kick the ball into the internet using my speed-up mushrooms... yeah, I won three coins!"

Big tree/ Non-big house

We don't care about convention! This year's tree came from the top of a doug fir - it was the best specimen Eff and I could find on our scouting mission a few weeks back. Not factored into the plan was that it would take close to THREE QUARTERS of an hour to tame the beast with the slightly dull long handled saw and at such an awkward angle.



Voila...

happy holidays!

we're sooooo proud...

Nostril Music


...and Grandma made this cool video of Eff and Ferg dancin' - thanks Grandma!

The girl in the mirror and her sidekick

Effie's been doing some more clothes modelling around the house lately. As usual, its primarily driven by her desire to recreate scenes from movies.



She freaked me out and I had no idea what she was doing when I saw her in what turned out to be her spot-on “Eloise in disguise” costume.




Ferg was very happy to model his gloved hand for the camera. Effie spotted him petting her new stockings with his singular glove. “Oooh, you like stockings do you?” said she. Ferg abruptly replied, “No. I just like touching them”.

Xmas at Butchart Gardens

Apart from two quick spins around the 12 days of christmas light displays, watching the skating and throwing snowballs at Adrian, Effie joined Woody and a few friends and strangers on stage for some jingle bells.

He got an "A"!

The closest he'll get to standardized testing...

Passions

This past weekend, Effie watched Pa, Ma, Laura and the rest of the crazy-haired Walnut Grove gang in a self-imposed, 48 hour “Little House on the Prairie Season 2” marathon. Now when I say to her, “have you done your chores yet half-pint?”, she replies, “yes, sir”. kidding.


Ferg has seen non-stop Ninetendo action lately. From the moment he wakes up in the morning he’s looking to feel the warm, radiant glow of his “tendo”.


In addition to managing to erase all my well-earned activity in Mario Kart, he plays Miss Spider in Spanish. What a clever boy eh!?!!?


While on the topic of passions and erasing things… consider this formal notice that the much anticipated (by one person… who resides in a tenement enclave… in East Timor) 2007 Live and Learn movie that had been sitting, mocking me, on my computer at 95% complete for the past month and a half, was recently, accidentally and without sabotage, deleted (and emptied from trash). Insert the sounds of me swearing, en español, at the top of my lungs HERE.

Loss

When we were down in Corvallis, Oregon playing with friends at the non-con the beginning of November, very newly pregnant and more than a little freaked out, darling Ronnie gave me the sweet gift of a stone egg polished and painted with what I have come to think of as "Sunnyside Up swirls". It is one of the most lovely things I have ever owned. It is just the size to fit in my hand and hold and fiddle with, and it stays the temperature of my body, so it almost feels alive. I have been keeping it in the pocket of my black hoody (and for those of you who know me any, you know I am almost never not wearing my black hoody!) where I can reach in and touch it reassuringly, or get it out and hold it. I roll it round and round in my fingers so it is almost spinning. It is always warm and feels the perfect weight in my hand. I have even been known to sleep the whole night in my hoody to keep it there near me. And once when showing it to some friends who wanted to hold it themselves, I had a hard time letting it out of my grasp to share it around.

Ronnie's egg is now all I have left of this pregnancy.

One day I expect I will find a sacred spot to place it, a special place I can think of it and remember about it, but not have to carry it with me always. Till then you will find it in my pocket still, keeping me company, and occasionally helping me cry.

Sunday Stuff

Crafty xmas decorating.




Making/ destroying gingerbread houses with Grandma.



















Grandma and Grandpa had snow so we denuded their yard (just so we could say "denude").


New middle-aged-man hairdo? No. The shower didn't take and the gel tube was empty. Ugh.

Le grande weekend

Effie spent le grande weekend downtown with the visiting Grannie, Auntie and cousins. Highlights included Grannie escorting Mini and Eff to The Nutcracker and the gang "taking tea" at The Empress.

I ran into the girls downtown and promptly dimineshed their street cred. "Go away please Dad".


Getting ready to go to The Nutcracker.


"good lord and lady byng!"... a meet up with the two dimensional Lady Byng herself!


The girls and some other grande dame (deceased).


Like all true socialites, the girls arrived back from their Nutcracker evening carrying their shoes ("ooh, our feet!")