life. is. good.

What a day! It was cold and felt colder colder than the temp gauge told me, and busy and full of goodness: I took the kids out to meet volleyball friends for brunch at Art Is In (it was awesome! I can't wait to go back), then on to check out a double jogging stroller (the cheapest I could find on kijiji was $100, no tires!) but it was frozen solid and I couldn't get it in the car (COLD); next, to Ikea for lunch and playtime (I bought this for the kids - can't wait to set it up! - tomorrow, when I'm not so tired). Apres, it was back here to Skype with Steve and then a nap for Alana and jobs for me, followed by dinner (non-dinner dinners are the only good thing about Steve being gone - I don't have to cook!), a splashy bath, football (I throw the ball to Hendrik, he catches it and runs the length of the apartment to score a touchdown in his room - love it!), stories and sleep. Please please please let both of these kids sleep all night! They're taking turns with multiple (FOUR last night for H) wake-ups, and I just want to go to bed, go to sleep, and wake up in the morning. Oh so much to ask, I know.

And how are things flying sola? Fine. Good. Hendrik has been such a good boy, and Alana knows how to go with the flow. I'm lucky, to have these two beings in my life - and lucky to be making some friends and finding time to eat a croissant with new teammates, to talk to my sisters, to stay in touch with faraway (but close!) friends. I'll say it again, life is good!

quotes of the day: with Alana saying dada dada a bit more (now that he's gone - !), Hendrik has commented that he thinks Alana misses daddy and, "I think Alana wants daddy to come back." Me: "Do you want daddy to come back? Do you miss him?" Hendrik: "No. I don't miss him, I just love him." CUTE! Also, when I asked him what his favourite part of the day was (mine was Art Is In) he said, "skype with daddy." Love it.

news....

this, right before we left for the airport: Hendrik was singing, Alana bawling, and Steve: "I'm going to Greece!"

I'll just go ahead and blurt it out: Steve is in Greece! Patras, Greece, and he left yesterday after we decided the day before yesterday that we could make it all work and that his answer should be would be yes. There had been a few jobs in the works, but you never know if things will pan out until an offer is made and a contract offered up, and let me just say that it wasn't an easy decision; he leaves, I stay here with the kids on my own, and then pack it all up for a month or two after having (sort of) settled into a bit of a routine (Hendrik has preschool, I'm coaching and playing). However, a few months in Greece? Sure! And the plan is this (I think - we didn't have much time to make one): Steve leaves yesterday (check) while I hold on to my sanity (so far, check) and follow through on my Ontario Winter Games coaching duties. When those are all wrapped up (beginning of March), we get on a plane and make for warmer climes in western Greece. Hendrik was ready to pack his bags today, and to tell you the truth, I was too; it was -24 this morning - which is downright frigid... I mean, really really really cold. Too cold, in fact, for our stroller. It snapped. A plastic (I think it's plastic) hinge thing (I think that's what it was - it was too cold!)) actually snapped, and now we have a bit of a dangly footrest for our chiles. I'll pick up some superglue and see what I can do - and I'll keep the thing inside from here on out, though hauling it in along with two kiddies and whatever other paraphernalia we happen to have along (groceries, purse, backpack etc) might be challenging.

Anyways, Patras! We lived here when Steve played for EAP in 2006-2007, and even though this job is with a different team, I can still look forward to the food, to spending time with our good friend Nick, to enjoying warmer weather, the beaches... it's the place where these photos were taken (in 2005):

Yeah, right? I mean, why are we not on our way to the airport!?

And here's a fun fact: it's where my blog was born! The first few posts were pretty paltry if I do say so myself, but it was the start of something great for me - I know I'll look back at this log and be so thankful that I kept a record of some of our overseas stints.

one of her signature moves: food in the milk

And I'll be thankful that I'm keeping a record of Miss Supereater (see video: she's fully charged!) and our resident artiste and scallywag, Hendrik. I called Alana a scallywag (what a word!) and Hendrik said, "I am 150 tons more scallywag than Alana is. I am WAY more scallywag, 150 tons more." Yes you are Hendrik, yes you are. Though you wouldn't be able to tell from any of these pictures, would you?

art from preschool plus "alana" at the far right

"moooooose!" and alana's attempt at antlers :)

highlights of the week!

meet Lennon Margaret Marianne, our new niece!

congrats!!

It's late and I'm tired and I need to shower, but I also need to get a big congrats out to Steve's sister Erin and her husband Freddie and their new baby! Baby Lennon, born this morning... amazing! No matter how horrible the previous hours of labour and delivery may have been, those first moments are so magical and powerful; welcoming a new life - a little person!, so dependent and attached already - man oh man I remember. And then the little person gets bigger. And bigger.... Here are a few shots of ours; growing, growing, growing! Really, it's all magical - how much we love our little ones!

happy birthday steve!

Oh, and I must add that the chocolate cake that is on the cover of this month's  Canadian Living magazine is delicious; I made it for Steve's birthday (happy belated!), but opted for vanilla icing - and a big merci goes out to Mrs Martha Stewart for this recipe... it was ah-mazing! Also, as of today Alana is calling Hendrik "hekky" instead of "Hek" and it is adorbs: (and then that's it that's all!)

photos: christmas catch-up + family update

helping clean off the car | xmas hat! | frozen toyota chunk that fell off the car  | morning stories by the tree

a rare moment of sibling serenity | slippers! | dad and his girl | looking looking!

alana is on the map! | on new years day, with oliebollen and appelflappen (YUM!) | post winter classic nap | originally $130, this kidkraft dollhouse was tagged for $15 at target - supposed to be on sale for $75! (mispriced, awoops!)

And here come the family updates; I'll start with myself!

Big news for me big news for me - I finished my photobook last night! I bought a groupon a looooong time ago, thinking I could quickly and creatively assemble all photos from our time in Trento/Vela, and that I'd have the book done and ordered, you know, a few months later, at max. Oh boy oh boy was I mistaken! I spent way too many hours on this thing, but it's finally finished and when it arrives I will be one happy camper. The proofs looked good and I'll be happy to have all of the pictures from our incredible year in northern Italy in one place - as opposed to the eight folders they live in in iphoto. Anyways, it was fun to do and great that the book is on its way yadda yadda, but I really feel relieved - like I can get on with my life! It's something I've been wanting to cross off of the to-do list for months - literally, months... and now it's done, woopwoop!!

In other news, I'm back into coaching action after a very nice calm, nothing pressing no-commitments break. It looks like I might be taking on a 15U team and I'm excited about it! That plus the Ontario Winter Games thing might keep me pretty busy - hopefully not too busy; and hopefully not too busy for Steve, who will be taking care of the kiddies while I'm dans le gym. As long as we can get more sleep than we did last night and avoid some of the three-year old meltdowns that have been ruffling all of our feathers, I'm sure it's all doable. Ummmmm... what else... I bought a panettone at Shoppers yesterday - a real Italian panettone - and I am excited to eat it. One day. It will sit in our pantry until some time later this month, and then I'll attack. First, I have to make a birthday cake (I'm thinking this one) and eat that. Does it come as a surprise that my new recipe box has more cake entries than anything else? It's true. Cake and cookies - these folders hold the most goods. No news there!

A few other things, in short: I'm going to a library conference at the end of the month (I'm thinking networking, career exploration etc) which will be awesome; I watched - with Bob and Marg and Steve - the Leafs/Red Wings 24/7 thing, and loved it. I love sport and it made me want to be an athlete again, to work hard and train and sweat and play a game I love for a living. It was a bit inspirational in that way, thought I found myself thinking that it's a bit of a shame that young female athletes can't turn on the TV and see women playing the game they love in front of tens of thousands of fans. With the exception of big Games (Olympics, Pan-Ams), female athletes don't get TV time; there are no big leagues here - for many reasons. This isn't an easy change - here. In Indonesia, we played in front of a full, crowded house, and in Europe, young athletes have role models that get their pictures in the paper on a regular basis (as opposed to sidebar mini-paragraphs here). Money is spent more locally, and teams receive municipal and provincial funding; there are no big league sports, though some pursuits are more popular than others. Sport pages are full of (mostly) soccer, but finding write-ups and pictures of men and women playing water polo, volleyball, basketball, handball and more, isn't an unusual thing. It all comes down to money, no? Anyways, I loved the 24/7 shows and love sport and love that more girls are involved in sport now than ever before; may that trend continue to grow!

Steve
Has a birthday coming up! The cake is for him, and I bought him a small birthday present this morning, hurray. He's back in the gym and trying to figure out if anything will come up contract-wise this year, and it looks like there are a few possibilities floating around, but still nothing concrete. At this very moment he's asleep on the couch with Hendrik (I just took a pic - above) - both boys are tired from full mornings of work and play. There must be more - but for now I'm drawing a blank; time to move on!

drinking tea and "reading papers" - I love it! great time spent with my boy :)

Hendrik 3
Terrible two - what? Terrible three is more like it. Okay okay, most of the time the kid is good as gold but he's had a few tantrums and flip-out freak-outs in the last few weeks, and it has seriously tested our patience and our eyeballs - popping out of our heads at the wild and crazy antics of a flailing boy. He loved being in Bowmanville and loved sneaking down the stairs every morning to join Grandma and Gramps in bed, where (I think?) they'd read stories and talk. And watch the clock. Now that we're back home, he's had a tantrum or two more, and gets up and walks around in the morning on his own while we reluctantly think about getting out of bed. He started back at preschool on Tuesday with his mom on as the duty parent; it was a good way to ease back into things (for both of us) after a three-week hiatus. This morning he was a bit quivery at drop-off (heart-string-TUG), but apparently was just fine as soon as we parted ways. I just read him The Colour Kittens and Pussy Willow twice (each), though his favourite book might be a Tonka Truck book (or bird books), and dinosaurs, trucks, sea friends (ocean puppets), writing (with a pen) and play food - and tools - count as favourites. We still haven't unpacked any of the Christmas toys, as we're going to start a rotation - to deal with the recent influx of stuff (good stuff, all good stuff). What else? He's not eating too much these days, unless presented with a plate of beef and rice; it's his favourite thing to eat, hands down - besides Smarties and the top two layers of a nanaimo bar, of course. As for how he feels about his sister, he tolerates her, and is sometimes mean and sometimes very sweet. So... it could be worse! And it just might be getting better....

in Bowmanville, enjoying the sled :)

Alana, 16 months
She eats all of us under the table! And then asks for more. Soon I'm going to have to start making double batches of their favourite meal (beef and rice); last night Steve, Hendrik and Alana almost polished off a full casserole dish of a meal meant for two adults and two kids. Yikes... those teenage years might require grocery store robbery! And the sleep... oh, the (lack of) sleep. She was up quite a bit last night - maybe it's those teeth again? Arrrrrr. Her favourite words are mama (I feel like she says it five zillion times a day), no, me, cookie, that, that one (more like "dat one") and she loves playing with baby, reading books and doing whatever Hendrik is doing. She loves the bath and loves brushing her teeth, and will play with and cling to a crumpled up piece of paper like it's beef and rice essence (I was going to say that she clings to it like it's a piece of gold but a chunk of gold would be super boring for a baby, no?). Over Christmas she was really into Alphablock, but has requested ("dat one!") A Book of Sleep, I Am a Bunny and The House in the Night for two nights straight. This means nothing, except that I get to read books that I like! Hurrah. For now, that's it!

2014 and first post recaps

And here is my first post of 2014, entry #679. It's been a while since I've looked back, so I thought I'd take a gander at my first posts of the year which carry me back to 2008; here's a recap, avec links to the original posts:

2008: We were on our way to Yaroslavl, and Living Like a Local was still a baby. I'd just started the year before, from Greece, but entries were few and far between... I was just getting started!

2009: Posted from Romania, but after a solid Christmas spent here in Bowmanville with a full house. This is one long blog, but so worth reading (for me, maybe not for you) - the events of those two weeks spent right here don't seem too far behind us; we had so much fun! We were all over the wedding planning thing, I found a gorgeous dress, we ate too much, drank too much, went to a musical and actually went to a party on New Year's Eve. FUN!

2010: This might be my all-time favourite New Year's Eve - spent in Tokyo, Japan. When the clock struck twelve we were at a shrine, and the Fab Four were right there with us (yes yes yes, really, it's you four that were the highlight ;)). I LOVED living in Tokyo and I wish we could go back and eat and eat and travel. One day, maybe.

2011: This one starts off with a mini-recap of the first decade of the 2000s, and I kind of wanted to do the same for the year that's just behind us. Anyways! Here's our first January 1st as parents, and the post is short and I am tired. Sigh... oh how I remember those days!

2012: This is a photos-only post, but what you see sure is easy on the eyes. Northern Italy, my home away from home, is not so far behind Canada in my heart as a place that I could see myself calling home forever and ever and ever. I loved living in Japan for a season, but I loved living in Northern Italy, and could have done so (/could do so) forever. Did I already say that? This New Year was also a special one because our little lady was newly known to us, as a wee tiny speck growing in my body. Vela, Trento, Italy, I miss you......

2013: China! We were in China, and the only things I really miss about it are having Shanti two floors away and Club Oasis in our basement. I haven't looked back at these pics for a while - I should revisit them more often; oh the days when Hendrik tolerated his baby sister, and the terrible threes were nowhere to be seen.

And then here we are, in 2014! I was hoping to do a family update sort of post, but I'll have to save that for another day; it's late and I'm tired! All the best to all of you in 2014, wherever you may be!