36 weeks

It's almost November... !! A good friend of mine Anne-Marie just had her baby three weeks (ish) early, so that gave us both a bit of a wake-up call - step on it and get ready already. I had two doctor's appointments this week, one of which was an ultrasound, and I love seeing baby up there on the screen, even though much of it is unrecognizable to me. I was asking questions what's that and that and that, and the only comment that the technician offered on her own was this: in her thick Indian accent she said, "this baby's legs are very, very long." Hm, go figure. As far as measurements, I'm not so sure; the results weren't in for my appointment the following day :( I know they're most estimations anyways, but I'm curious about how big he is and how long he is and oooh I'm so excited to meet him. There's no rush though! Little babe, come out when you're ready.

As of le moment, we have no plans for Halloween. I've been mega tempted to buy a bag of Halloween candy, but I hadn't found one with all of the necessary goodies until I was in Costco the other day. I stopped, and picked it up and then asked myself, do I really need a $15 Costco-sized bag of candy? The pregnant foodie in me says "yes! yes! this is the perfect opportunity to play the pregnant card! buy it eat it!" and the rational person in me says "no. pig pig piggery." The chances that we'll get any trick or treaters are slim to none, so it would be all for us, and I'm sure I'd be sick of it and want it out of the house pretty quickly. So instead I just came home and ate the M&Ms out of the trail mix... awoops. I'll have to go to Bulk Barn to restock (otherwise the trail mix is just boring - only raisins and peanuts and cashews and almonds), and we'll see if I can resist temptation - giant bins of mini-chocobars? We'll see.

a car for the car seat!

Big news -- we have wheels! What was it, seven or eight weeks ago now (or more?) that the engine blew on our 2005 Ford Expedition (just 7 months after the warranty expired, DOH!)... and since then we have been driving a borrowed car. Until Saturday! After the bad news about our truck (which now I realize I liked more than I thought I did - so much space!), Steve was all over the net and all over town looking for a car that would fit, and I even remember posting a blog one day about the fact that Asian cars were just not going to work for us. Well, I'm not sure if we were influenced at all by our experience in Japan on this car decision but we decided to go with a NEW Toyota 4Runner... new! (Made in Japan!) We looked at some used ones (not so easy to find) but with the deal we got at Villa Toyota in Gatineau, we decided to go for the nouveau voiture. I'm still in shock a little bit - it's so nice! And it's ours. Ours! So finally, we have a car to put the car seat in. Not that we've done that yet, but one thing at a time here. We took the borrowed car (merci Freddy) out to a barn in boondocks Orleans yesterday afternoon, and Steve was able to maneuver the Chrysler into its parking spot for the winter in one shot. It was definitely a tight squeeze (think Austin Powers parking job) to get it turned 90 degrees, but now there it rests in lane #2, sans snow tires - for the winter.

In other news, we had the BEST pancakes for breakfast yesterday morning! Yes, I'm aware that almost any homemade pancake might be the best to me, but these were goooooood. The recipe also made a whole pile of 'em, so we've got an extra little stash in the freezer, yum yum. La recette, from the back of a bag of milk:

Hearty Oat Pancakes
1 1/2 cups quick oats
2 cups milk
3 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup flour
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Mix oats and milk and let sit for 5 minutes; add eggs and oil, then the dry ingredients... DELISH!


And I'm in week 36 of this pregnancy - eek! As you can see from this photo of the non-cleaned up room, we are not overly ready yet. If he came 30-something days early I'm sure we'd be fine BUT it would be nice to get things put away and have everything just a little more set up. Plus, that car seat does need to be in the car... right. I'm still feeling fine, but the belly is definitely getting bigger bigger bigger. And as a result, I'm feeling bigger bigger too - some days good big (I'm pregnant!) and other days not-as-good big (ugh, I need to work out). The clothes too, make a difference. I've only bought a few maternity things, but with the colder weather setting in, I'm not sure my clothes are really going to cut it. I may just end up wearing the same thing every day, or living in lulus and Steve's old sweatshirts (or my flannel pyjamas). I don't have a winter jacket, but after a trip to MEC yesterday, realize that it is completely unrealistic to even think about buying a new one until after the babe is born. I'll borrow from my hubby... I hope it's okay with him. :)


Just over 35 weeks

from west to east

34 1/2 weeks!

38 days until I'm due! EEK! Is this the home stretch? I don't feel overly huge - not like I thought I'd feel at 35 weeks, but the weeks are passing and the days getting thinner and thinner. Sleep is also getting thinner, and for both of us. There are nights when I'll sleep like the dead, and then wake up to find that Steve was up for a few hours in the middle of the night; then, there are other nights where the roles are reversed, and Steve will sleep well and I'll be up. Could it be that both of our bodies are getting ready for bebe? I don't think I'm woken up by the jumping bean moving about in there, but hmmm... it's possible. And as far as Steve goes, I'm just hoping that he's subconsciously training himself to get up in the early hours for feedings and diaper changes. We shall see.

I started a blog on Monday and never finished it. Recap: Vancouver was amazing, and the only real mentionables are that ooh! I bought maternity jeans, we had some great dinners with my parents, a great evening with Rod and Colleen and family, saw friends, and went for some good walks, including one around the Lynn Canyon Suspension bridge and another at the Capilano fish hatchery. The trip to the hatchery was initiated by Steve, and my mom and I happily went along. The whole phenomenon of the trip these salmon make to their spawning grounds - the incredible journey - is so amazing; would we, as humans, survive as a race if we suddenly had to make an epic, self-powered voyage in order to propagate? It would definitely be a survival of the fittest, as it is for so many species. Maybe (or surely) people would train for the event, and run and cycle and row and go to the gym not with a regatta or marathon (or bathing suit) in mind but with the journey to the top of Mt Delivery in their sights. It's amazing what some species do: the penguins? Amazing. Turtles? Also amazing.

At the hatchery last Wednesday


What a journey... and they find their way back home! Incredible...

And moving on. We've been back since Friday, and had a great weekend with my 20 year-old cousin Duncan. He stayed with us on Saturday night, and we got out and about to a few places, including Sears, twice. (Woops. Another woops? He got to witness me buy a breast pump... thrilling! It was 50% off, so I couldn't say no.) On Saturday we did errands, cruised the Byward market, made pizzas for dinner, and watched hockey. Sunday, we made the most of a super beautiful day and checked out the Mackenzie King Estate in Gatineau Park. The grounds were beautiful - lots of golden leaves and fall colours - and we spent a few hours walking around and exploring the property. And then... Monday rolled around and Steve went back to work! The full-time training centre started, and he is one sore dude. The knee seems better, but he's taking things slowly SO... so far so good. I started volunteering at the Coaches Association of Canada on Tuesday, and will do that a few times a week until either a. I have the baby or b. the Petro-Canada Sport Leadership Conference comes and goes. The conference looks amazing - totally my cup 'o tea, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to volunteer and check out some of the goings-ons. I suppose that the chances that I'll go past my due date are pretty good, so, with week of leeway in between conference and due date, I may be fine.





We are getting closer and more set up as the weeks fly by. We have a change pad and a crib, a bassinet stand, and I made my first diaper purchase yesterday - ! There I was in the diaper aisle at a massive Loblaw's, probably looking completely overwhelmed by the number/variety of diapers stuffed into the shelves when a super sweet woman (about my age maybe) made some very helpful recommendations. Honestly, why do there have to be so many different kinds! Ugh! We are thinking we'll start with disposables, and might try a service run by a store out in Kanata that lets you try out a few different kinds of cloth diapers before making any purchases. Again, we shall see. We've been trying to be economical shoppers (we've had some luck with kijiji, and the same goes for some consignment stores) BUT... in my quest to find some cool art for room #2, I came across this amazing French company e-glue that makes the most creative wall decals... and I want! They are amazing. Some links, some pictures, and then I'm out of here...

Above and below from e-glue; there are so many other super cool decals... love!


On Etsy: Artwallproject, Simple Shapes; walnutz and design with a z have some neat ones too...

the doodle says it all...

There's the school year, the fiscal year, the calendar year, and for me, in my world, the book year. Well, it's not really a year, but for some reason, when I started keeping track of tomes read, October made the mark. So, since somehow we find ourselves just two weeks away from November, I thought I'd share what I've read over the course of the last year. I've tried to organize/keep these lists online (sort of) with halfhearted efforts on shelfari and goodreads, but it is my mini elephant embossed book that gets regular attention and input. In the front go lists of books read, and in the back go the lists of books in line. I make little marks behind some entries - a star (or two or three = I loved!), a check mark (I liked), a squiggle (decent) or an arrow down (boo) - in an effort to separate my favourites from the rest of 'em. No mark = no comment (I suppose). And so, here you go:

The Origin of Species (Nino Ricci)
Dogs and Demons (Alex Kerr)
The Somnambulist (Jonathan Barnes)
The Island of Lost Maps: The True Story of Cartographic Crime (Harvey) ~
The Book Thief (Marcus Zusak) **
Snow Country (Yusunari Kawabata)
The Children's Book (A.S. Byatt) *
Eat, Pray, Love (Elizabeth Gilbert) ~~
The Old Capital (Kawabata) check
The Road (Cormac McCarthy)
The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing (Melissa Bank) arrow down
Wolf Hall (Hillary Mantel) **
Snow Falling on Cedars (David Guterson) arrow down
The BFG (Roald Dahl)**!!
Blink (Malcolm Gladwell)
The Dogs and The Wolves (Nemirovsky) check check check
When You Reach Me (Rebecca Stead)
La's Orchestra Saves the World (Alexander McCall Smith) *
Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures (Vincent Lam) check
The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (Smith) *
Portuguese Irregular Verbs (Smith) arrow down
Tears of the Giraffe (Smith) check check
Morality for Beautiful Girls (Smith) *
Beatrice and Virgil (Yann Martel) arrow down double
The Kalahari Typing School for Men (Smith)
The Secret Scripture (Sebastian Barry) **
1491 (Charles Mann)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Larson) arrow down
The Full Cupboard of Life (Smith) check


Is it obvious that I'm on an Alexander McCall Smith kick? I love Mme Ramotswe and I love that the library just down the block has the remaining six books in the series... yum.



Lighthouse Park, on Thursday...

In Sargeant Bay Provincial Park on Sunday morning



And it's already Wednesday? Say what? The beautiful west coast has given us more than a few memories in the past week, and many were made this weekend - at the Sharmellini wedding extravaganza on the Sunshine Coast. It wasn't looking so much like a sunshine coast when we arrived on Saturday to rain and drizzle and greyness, but somehow, miraculously, blue skies welcomed Sunday, and we were showered with sunshine from morning to night. We made it over to our bed and breakfast in Halfmoon Bay on Saturday afternoon, and had time for a quick nap before driving up to the wedding venue in Secret Cove for dinner. Our bed and breakfast was amazing - the space was great, there was homemade baking waiting for us and ? the people were super nice and not at all intrusive. Dinner was great - the scheduled barbeque was moved indoors because of the blustery weather, but most (or many?) guests made it down to the waterfront bonfire for hot chocolate, beer and marshmallows before the elements (mostly wind, then rain) convinced us to make for home. Sunday was gorgeous, and we made it out to Sargeant Bay Provincial Park in the morning for some beach time and a short hike. We walked around Halfmoon Bay little bit, had some friends over for a beverage, ate lunch and then back up to Rockwater Secret Cove Resort we went... just in time for the nuptials! The bride - Miss Barb Bellini - looked stunning, as did the groom - Mr Jeff Sharma - and the rest of the wedding par-tay. It was a super fun event, and it was great to see so many former teammates - there were more than a few of us that played together on provincial teams when we were 15/16 (Barb, Mel, Mackenzie, me), and a the same goes for national team as well. PLUS a friend of mine that is also pregnant (and only 10 days ahead of me...) was there, so it was fun sharing stories and gabbing about our giant bellies and the preparation (and unknown) that lies ahead. We ate we danced they drank, and it was a blast... I love weddings! Love love love. It made me think about our wedding, and how amazing that was too.

Barb and Jeff ... beautiful!

Me, Griff and Leah

Down by the bay... and an artistic shot by Steve


The girls! Such a fun group...

Monday brought us back to the mainland AND back home to a big bird roasting in the oven! My mom and dad had planned a dinner, and the kitchen was on the go - yams, bird, veggies, salad... the whole meal-deal was there, and it was DELICIOUS! Yum, turkey dinner gobble gobble. The combination of turkey smell and being here in my parent's house made me think and feel Christmas; we're never here for Thanksgiving, and 20-odd years of this combo almost time warped me to December. And today is another beautiful, sunny October day, so I'm a bit more inclined to be outside than on the computer up here in my old room. I feel like I have more and more to write about, but our time here is short, and sunshine is calling...

Turkey DINS!


ps - 33 weeks!

family, friends and cake = love!

I have been having the best time here! My days have been fabulously full of catching up with friends that I haven't seen since May OR since I was here last fall... eeee! It makes me wish I had a machine that would just zoom me here, so that I could visit and see my friends and family whenever I wanted. I arrived super early on Tuesday and spent the whole day with my sister Sarah, which was aaaaawesome... even though we ran errands and were kind of all over the place. Wednesday was more catch up time with friends (I love my friends I have the best friends) as was Thursday, and today has been ... yup! a bit more of that. I had time yesterday to bake a cake - to bring over to Hanno and Tally's house for dessert - and I'm finding time right now to make pumpkin loaf with the leftover puree from recipe #1. This is the only thing I've taken pictures of (woops), and it tastes even better than it looks. From the cover of Fine Cooking, here comes Brown Butter Pumpkin Layer Cake.... it was amazing! The cake was so good that I'm not sure that the cream cheese icing was completely necessary, so hence the loaf-with-topping trial today.



Steve arrives early tomorrow morning, and then we're heading over to the Sunshine Coast on an early afternoon ferry for a weekend of wedding festivities. A good friend of mine that I played volleyball with when I was 15 (Team BC) and then in my early 20s (Team Canada and Portugal) is getting married, and I'm so excited! I love love love weddings, and it will be so good to see her and her husband-to-be tie the knot AND to spend a solid weekend with a great crew of friends. Again, the zooming - zoom machine where are you? SO... that's all I've got for now. Besides the recipe of course...

Brown Butter Pumpkin Layer Cake (slightly adapted!)

3/4 cup butter - melted and cooled just a bit
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup buttermilk

Topping:
1 1/2 tbs butter
2/3 cup pecans
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
2 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tbs chopped crystallized ginger

For the cake: combine wet and dry ingredients separately (minus the butter) - mix the two together, adding the melted butter as you go. Bake at 350 in two 9 inch round cake pans for approx 28 minutes... or until tester comes out clean. For the topping: melt butter, add nuts, sugar and salt, and remove from heat once pumpkin seeds start popping a little. Add ginger and let cool! ICE the cake with your favourite cream cheese icing (I used this one), top with the topping and then... ENJOY!

cross it off the list

One of the things on today's list (and yesterday's) was - BLOG in big capital letters (and underlined) and here I am finally getting around to doing it. Not that the day was sooooo jam packed with activity but, well, maybe it was? It was productive to say the least, and the more things I can cross off of my list(s) the better. We bought and set up a crib, bought a few things for baby, we cleaned, we went swimming, we picked up and installed roll-down blinds, did laundry, cooked, baked (two different zuchini bread/muffin recipes), I went for a walk with Diane, and I put away some summer and unpacked some fall/winter clothes. And with leaves changing (/changed) and flying all over the place, I'm okay with the onset of the new season - it's been beautiful around here! On Friday we went for a drive up into the Gatineaus; we had lunch in Wakefield and continued east on the 366 to do a little loop around some lakes and through some small towns. As far as the baking goes, my only explanation is this: with two zuchinis, three eggs, and two people leaving for 10 days... uh ummm what am I trying to say here... yup, you get it. Maybe any excuse for baking will do - I think that's about right.







Other happenings over the course of these past few days: I volunteered at a consignment sale for baby stuff on Saturday morning and bought a few clothes and shoes for the little mister - there were such good deals! As a volunteer, I was allowed to pre-shop before the ahem, general public arrived, and I picked out a few things - maybe four or five - before I took my spot at cash. And then the people started flowing through and the stuff - the good stuff that I was ringing in made me want to take a second, more aggressive look. And so finally during the lunch lull I went back and found more and then a bit more. There was everything - toys, books, clothing, cribs, bouncers... diapers, buckets - you name it and people were selling and buying it. In retrospect I could have purchased more BUT... I feel good about the fact that at least I bought a few things; we've both been a bit tentative because there is SO MUCH stuff out there - it's overwheeeelming. But it was fun talking to other moms and pregnant women as they came through about baby, buying for baby and what works for them. Yesterday I made a massive lasagna that we took over to my aunt Zella's for a bit of a potluck family dinner, and it was goooooooood. It also almost killed Steve - it sat on his lap just-out-of-the-oven-warm and wafting deliciousness all the way ALL THE WAY from Gatineau to Ottawa.... good thing the man wasn't toting a fork. And tomorrow I head to Vancouver for 10 days - YAY! I'm super excited to see my sister and mom and dad, and my friends! Steve will join me on Saturday and then we'll head to the Sunshine Coast for a weekend wedding - yay again. I haven't been in Vancouver since we were on our way back here from Japan in May, and it will be so good to see people and catch up and hang out... can't wait. SO! On that note I should pack and probably go to bed, since we're waking up in oohhhh about six hours.....