Road Trip

Road Trip up to Fort St John, BC Canada




deer. hundreds of deer.

one bear.

one happy kid!

Fort St John, BC Canada

Road to Cecil Lake, what a beautiful valley.

Crayon Box Design & Promotions Ltd. - my office!

One side of the showroom.

Embroidery machine at work



Dwan and mom and some people from work decide to go out for dinner after work.


And Adam learns to 2-step!


Chaplin playing with Jaydon and Donovan

Tavis is such a big boy now, but in my mind he's still the little boy who came to visit me in Vancouver.


My dad's brothers are up for the Allan Cup (hockey) being held in Fort St. John.
Adam is going to a game tonight with the guys and myself and my sales girls will be there handing out Crayon Box sponsored hats to all the Alumnis as they walk onto the ice. We get to stand on the red carpet! oohhh big time hey!

Home Sweet Home

Chaplin, Resse, Adam, Fran and myself went for a walk on our last day in Pirton. Rod was not being lazy, he had run 23 miles earlier in the day and decided to skip the walk and stayed home... to prepair our turkey dinner while we walked over to Pirton Pool and Pirton Castle. Thank you!

Pirton Pool, a man made pond use to be owned by the Croome family and is now part of the Croome Park Estate. It was a medieval fishing pond... and in 2010 there paddling around this pond were Canada Geese.


View of Pirton Court (Fran & Rod's house) from the top of the hill next to Pirton Pond. They own the manor house of Pirton, unfortunately I don't know how old it is. The house is nestled between the Croome Estate grounds and Pirton Pool both owned by the National Trust.


As always, a good walk requires a good sturdy walking stick.


I got such a giggle out of the field full of frisky lambs. They would hop a little ways over towards us and then mom sheep would call them back. BUT i think if i had apples or some lamb treat with me I could have had a few of them come up close.


Pirton Castle! hey wait a second, this isn't a castle but a folly!
and what a weird position i am sitting in.



Plane ride home to Canada

We arrived home to Vancouver safely, and true to form Chaplin had airplane insomnia. He was up from London time 7:00am, until Vancouver time 7:00pm - that adds up to 19 hours doesn't it. The day we arrived home my super duper best friend Anita stopped by with two bags of groceries for us, Grandpa Boyd and Nana & Papa all called to check on us, and we also snuck in a short visit with Waltham's.

So how does it feel to be home?

Adam: relaxed

Chaplin: happy

Lori: been gone so long it felt strange crawling into my own bed.

I'm looking out my living room windows at Vancouver and it looks like a paint pallet, bright spring green leaves, pink cherry blossoms, clean clear blue sky, white tipped mountains, silver building of downtown. I did not forget what a view we have, my eyes are glad to see it again.

Today Adam and I decided to give Chaplin an allowance. We were talking to him about how he will earn his allowance by doing chores - such as cleaning the windows, and he can earn extra money by choosing to help with adult chores. Chaplin asked what type of adult chores? We said stuff like recycling or helping wash the car could earn him an extra dollar if he choose to help instead of play. Chaplin had been sitting on the floor paying close attention to our conversation, at this point he got up and broke out into a musical that went something like this:
(he was dancing and using finger pointing as he sang this made-up tune)

"with your money you can goooo to the car wash. The car wash, the car wash, at the car wash with water you can spend your money, if your lucky. Attttt theeeeee CAAAAAAAR WASH."

Second Song:

Earlier in the day Chaplin was playing with a soft bouncy ball, he wasn't really paying attention to what he was doing and without thinking he threw it at Adam... Adam was eating and not prepared for a ball to be launched at his head! Well Adam took the ball away from chaplin and put it up on top of the fridge. Chaplin was upset and cried a few tears over it, he really wanted his ball back but Adam was firm. THEN about five hours later Adam was at the kitchen table working on income tax and in comes Chaplin with his little guitar in hand and starts singing

"I want my ball. I can see my ball. It's on the fridge. Oh how to get my ball. I'm sorry daddy. I want my ball, i'll be good." this was all sung to Adam like a lament! Of course daddy got up and got the ball for him! So would i have.

New helmet for Chaplin because his whopping 50 cm head circumfrance is now too big for his dorky yellow bike helmet.

Easter Egg Hunt

Happy Easter friends and Family.

Today we plan on going for a walk - before dinner because after turkey who really wants to do anything other than sit on the couch! Really!

What we did yesterday: Saturday April 6th.

Always fun to colour Easter Eggs no matter what age.

Grandma Easter bunny got up early Saturday morning and hid 58 eggs out in her garden.

Grandma Fran invited Harry, who is also 4 over to hunt for Easter eggs with Chaplin.

Well it was a very enjoyable afternoon watching the kids run around the garden finding eggs.

The Days Before we Left

Monday Night, 25 people from Bizzare took us out for curry at Spice Lounge.

After the spice.

Tuesday March 30th

We rode the amphibious Yellowduck Marine.

"It's a duck. It's a bus. It's a duckbus" said Jan.

Also known as the WACKER QUACKER!

Can you tell Chaplin LOVED this ride!

Wednesday:

We took this day to show Adam the Walker Art Gallery and the Museum that has Plasticplants in it.

This puzzle is a replica of a piece of art hanging in the gallery.

Chaplin found the original.

The Old Man & Death, 1734 (Joseph Wright)

Chaplin saw this picture and said to me

"Why is that guy saying wohhh wohhh to that bones guy?"

Thursday April 1st

Went to the Beatles Museum.

favorite part - Yellow Submarine!

We went out for dinner with Mike and Helen (from Activision).

On our way home from dinner we walked through Mathews Street, and it was packed at 10:00pm. Liverpool is the biggest party town we have ever been to!

Leaving LIverpool

Woke up to the sun pouring in our windows.

What a nice way to leave the city.

Waiting for train with our luggage.

Good bye Liverpool, we will miss you.

No Visitors

Monday: Adam's last day at work!!!!!

A big group of people from his work have arranged a good-bye dinner party tonight...and the wives are invite too.

The White Lambanana. I love how Chaplin is holding his ears.

This was Adam's last Saturday at work, and this studio is very strict in their NO VISTOR policy.

But last Saturday one of the people Adam has been working with brought in his son and Adam asked "are we allowed to do that?" the person said "well if they want me to come in Saturday's I have to bring in my child as my wife is working..." so Adam decided that this Saturday I would go shopping and he would take Chaplin in... and I can't say anything more about where or who he works for in a blog because his contract actually has a line in it about no blogging.

I became one of the thousands to be shopping in Liverpool One. The roller girls were out in full force, and I felt a bit sad that this was my last Saturday in the bigger than life Liverpool. Saturday night we went out to another very fancy club called Palm Sugar. We meet Jan and Dave, and Tim and Karen for drinks. The best part of the whole evening was talking with Karen about our children. Tim and Karen have two girls, the oldest is 6 and she is the youngest published author in the UK at the moment - The Dancing Dinosaur - and Karen was not bragging about her daughter, she was just proud, the same way that i am proud of Chaplin for drawing pictures or writing his name.

SUNDAY - MARCH 28th

Happy Birthday Auntie Courtney!

We sent you an email with a video song and we tried to call you - but you were out celebrating (I hope). We love you lots!

Pontypandy

Over Christmas break Chaplin discovered a TV program called Fireman Sam. All the characters have a lovely Welsh accent as the show takes place in a Welsh community Pontypandy. Chaplin is enamoured with the show and now promotes fire saftey to me daily. "mommy it's dangerous to leave items around the stove top. Mommy don't leave your curling iron on. Mommy only adults can turn on irons..."

Today we got to see real Fireman in action...

Our friend Jan works for the Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service and she invited us out for a very special day. She picked us up and had a surprise for Chaplin : a fireman costume and a fireman Sam back-pack!

When we got to the Fire Station training centre Chaplin put his suit on and we were in for a real treat. The Merseyside Fire & Rescue runs a youth program called The BEACON Project. These kids learn all about team work, community spirit, and of course learning what it takes to be a Fireman. The program runs for 12 weeks and today was their graduation where they got to show the public what they've learned and receive their certificates. It was loads of fun to watch.

The kids perform like true firemen.

Chaplin is watching a fire truck approaching.


The leader asked if Chaplin wanted his picture taken with the grads.
So Jan took him into the middle and I could see about 100 other cameras taking pictures!

Chaplin got to sit inside a real fire-truck and turn on the siren!


He got to hold the hose and pull the lever back to release the water.
you should have seen the smile on his face.

This is a real fireman helmet, and it's heavy!
(You should have seen my face)


Fireman Lambanana.
Inside the station we had tea, then watched the award presentations and then had lunch. As you can tell from some of the photos - it really started to rain during the program. But I didn't hear one complaint out of Chaplin, he was a really good boy the whole day.


Jan even took us over to her mom Marg's house for another cup of tea and a visit. Chaplin got a kick of this dog, who unlike our dog, actually plays with a ball.

His name is Hector, and he's scary large, but really really kind.