The Hockey Season is over :(

Today was the final tournament for church hockey and we lost. We figured we would lose the first one and did. We were pretty confident about the second one, but couldn't see to click as a team today and could do it. It was a tie at the end and so there was a best of 5 shootout which was cool. The best of 5 was tied and so it was sudden death shootout and we lost.
I think I have one last game next weekend, but since its Easter, who knows.

Now the snow can go away and it's on to Mountain Biking and Soccer!!

New Developments

This week has been an interesting week as far as Maya goes. Here is what she has learned this week.

• Go down the stairs. SHe just decided that she can . She backs up to the steps, crawling feet first , and goes down fairly quickly. We have tried to teach her this in the past, but it wasn't very successful. Its quite nice and reasuring to not be worried about her tumbling down the stairs trying to walk down them.
• Climb up into her high chair. Now we can say, "Maya, it's time to eat!", and she will run over to her chair and pull herself up into it. Its pretty neat to see. She doesn't have a 100% success rate yet so we do have to watch her, but she does a good job of knowing when she isn't going to make it and lets herself down.
• Climb into the bed. This is probably just an extention of the high chair climbing but its nice not having to pull her into it all the time.

Long weekend...

No we didn't get an extra day but it felt like it to me.
Anne was working nights all weekend and Maya was sick. This meant that Maya did not sleep well at night and we had to make ourselves scarce during the day so Anne could sleep. Maya coughed a lot at night and kept waking herself up, and then wouldn't let me put her down so I could sleep. So I was very tired at work yesterday. At least this allowed me to watch the first 2 days of the Mexico WRC and the first 3 episodes of Last Exile, but I think I would have rather been sleeping.
Saturday was a good day though, I bought this bike, a Brodie Brat. I can't wait for the snow to clear up so I can ride it! Of course I am not allowed to spend any more money for a couple of months now :)
Also, my church team won our second playoff game which mean we are garanteed a least 2 games in the tournament this coming Saturday. We play the #1 team first and we haven't won against them this year so it will be challenging for sure.

A sad trip...

On Monday Anne's grandmother, Christina McCutcheon died, it wasn't unexpected and she had lived a long life so it wasn't a terribly sad occasion. The funeral was in Huntsville on Wednesday which was a long drive but it was nice to spend time together and get away from work.
An Anglican reverend gave a nice eulogy, and the family gathered afterward for snacks and fellowship. It was nice to see people, most of whom I have only met once or twice before.
On the way back we had a very nice visit with my Grandad and Nana in Stayner and drove through very bad weather from there to Hanover.
Maya was sick at the funeral, but still well behaved and somewhat cheery. She slept pretty much the whole time she was in the car.
That was about as exciting as this week got.

Full Metal Alchemist

Last night I finished watching the last couple of episodes of Full Metal Alchemist. It was one of the most enjoyable anime series I have watched. The important characters were fully fleshed out and there was a great blend of action, comedy and drama. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get into Anime.
Next up is the Naruto series, I have the first season downloading now and I have heard a lot of good things about it. Plus it has ninjas! You can't go wrong with that, becuase they are the Real Ultimate Power.

Hockey Day in Hanover

Had one of my end of year tournaments today. This weekend it was an invitational church tournament in Flesherton. There were 3 or churches from the immediate area, one from Owen Sound and one from Barrie and I don't know about the other. We did not do very well :( .
We lost the first game, tied the second one, and lost the last one. It was still a lot of fun and there were no major mishaps or incidents which is suprising as there usually is.

However the big one was tonight as it was the first game of our church league playoffs. We have lost the last 2 or so games and so needed to get back on track. The game was extremely close and if we hadn't been so tried from playing 3 games earlier in the day I think we would have destroyed them. The game was very tight and tied 1-1 with 1 minute remaining. We got the puck in their end, I fed it to a winger (I was centre as usual), he fed it back to the point who got just in the bottom corner of the net with a slapshot. We hung on for the win!
So we have one more playoff game next Saturday, then the tournament the weekend after. I think we can take it this year for sure.
The only incident was when a guy who had really been harrasing me all night, (pushing, holding my stick, hooking, etc.) really shoved me after the whistle in front of their goalie. He got in my face about my stick in the goalies crotch and I relpied that I was just trying to get the puck through because thats what you're supposed to do before the whistle goes. ANyway, I was hoping the guy was going to shove me or take a swing so they would get a penalty. But then one of our guys come roaring in and totally rocks the guy into the boards. Fortuntely they didn't score on the power play and the guy stayed off me for the rest of the night :) Lot's if fun.

Toronto

Tomorrow we are going to Toronto. The primary mission consists of 2 parts. One is to go the the International Bike Show and the second is to visit the Whole Foods Market. I think you can guess who is excited about what. We plan on getting bikes for ourselves if we can find good prices. It should be fun.

Let it snow, let it snow...

So we are going skiing tonight and I don't know why but I just can't seem to get into it this year. I know I will have lots for fun once we are out on the slopes, but I just am not excited by it like I have been in the past. I don't' think its the fact that we have to bring Maya along, because she is a lot of fun when we are there.
Anyway, I hope there is lots of snow and lots of good jumps. So far this year I have been getting huge air off some jumps and I am getting better at the half pipe. I am a little wary however of my right knee because I still don't think its 100% from when I hurt it last August. On top of that the season is going so fast, I don't know how many more times we are going to get out.

Anne's Thoughts- It just makes a long night. Fun but long.

And the Oscar goes too...

For the past couple of weeks Anne and I have been practicing for a skit we did this past Sunday at Church. It was about irresponsible spending and the premise was Anne and I arguing about how she was spend too much money and didn't really care. It only took about 3-4 minutes to do on the stage and was quite fun. We did it in front of each of the three services right before the sermon and then Pastor Claran tied it into the message which was about tithing and Godly spending.
What made it interesting was that Anne worked Saturday night and didn't really get any sleep that afternoon. She got 2 hours while on her shift but was pretty tired but the time we showed up at the church to do the skit in front of the 8:30am service. So by the end of the morning she had be up for most of the past 36 hours.
Regardless, the first run through was the worst as we missed a middle chunk of the play but the congegration didn't' notice. The second run through we felt was a best one was we didn't miss any line and acted (we felt) quite well. The third time went excellent as well. People laughed a lot more then we expected (we didn't think it was that funny)
We are hoping that from this we can do a few more of these type of things a year as they are quite fun and can be our contribution to the Church.

Out with the old and in with the New

To me a blog is a great way to keep in touch with peoples lives. I can quickly find out what is going on in the bloggers life with a quick glance which to me sort of creates a type of community amongst a group of people that might otherwise not have any reason to keep in touch. Sure, sometimes posts are mundane or boring and other times they can be riveting or interesting but in the end it's a journal and a window into someone's life that you often care for.
So when someone thinks their blog is a burden or crutch and deletes the whole thing with very little warning it really pisses me off and makes me sad at the same time. I'll leave it that.

That said, we had an empty spot in our links and have added our niece Courtney's new blog! Its like totally new! So u peps should like go visit it rite now, K. I g2g now cause we r going to watch the totally nu ep of Carnivale . OMGWTFBBQ

Rally Vids

Here's some rally crashes I have on our web space that I had posted on the shack last week. I should let you guys enjoy them too.

Solberg crashes but recovers at Monte Carlo 2004
Anonymus Subaru WRX crashes coming off a hill at high speed (awesome)
Skoda driver Swartz crashes (almost off of cliff) at Monte Carlo 2005

Just a reminder that Ian and I do plan to go to Pennsylvania again this June for the STPR this year. Its on the first weekend of June, so anyone who might be interested in going with us please start thinking about it now.

I'd like to thank the following people for this free time...

Many, many, many thanks to Brenda and to Cheryl for looking after Maya yesterday so I could join the Superbowl festivities! I really apprcieate. I will get you tokens of that apprcieation later this week :)

Another lonely weekend *single tear*

So Anne abandoned Maya and I this weekend because she was working nights again. We managed to cope pretty good and found a good source of food by prying open floor boards with Maya's toys. I would lift them up just enough for Maya to fit her hand in and get a handful of termites for us to mash into a paste and eat with a straw, that was it was more palatable. She only lost 2 fingers but I glued them back on so I don't think anyone will notice.

Maya did sleep really good this weekend though. Friday night was bad but last night was the best ever. She only woke up 3 times (that I noticed anyway) and one of those times she put herself back to sleep. Its quite apparent that she understands that Anne isn't there so just deals with it by using the sippy cup and going back to sleep. I hope she is still used to it when Anne works Wednesday and Friday nights this week.

Because of this development I am not going to drink coffee anymore; it's back to tea for me. I started drinking it regularly after Maya was born to help with the lack of sleep, but I really feel it when I don't have it for a day or so now. Even as I type this I have a headache and feel fuzzy headed which I am sure is caffeine related.

These are two movies I can't wait to see.

Sin City - Its based on a popular graphic novel. The style of trailier is unbelievable. Plus, its got that chick from Gilmore Girls! you can't go wrong!

Kingdom of Heaven - The Crusades, epic battles, and Legolas is leading them! you can't lose with this one either!

Look! A Post!

Sorry we haven't posted much this week. A small hardware change on the computer at home that was supposed to only take a couple hours ended up taking 2 days.
On the plus side, I now am running with raid 0 (for 240GB total space) on two SATA 120GB Segate drives with 8MB cache each. So very fast...

Anne will think this is stupid but

I think this movie trailer is hilarious, it looks like a super fun matinee:
Kung Fu Hustle

Swish, Swish

Anne and I went skiing last night. I think it was Annes second time this year but it was my first. It was a great night to be out on the slopes as the weather was clear and it was cold, but not too cold. The only downer was they had a lot of snow guns going which totally iced my goggles at one point.
I always surprise myself on my first run every year was it feels like I never stopped; I can zoom around, stop and hit jumps just like I always can. Very pleasing.
Anne's parents met us at the lodge and looked after Maya why we went out. They left about 9ish and we took a turn each after that.
Maya loves to run around in the open spaces and go up and down the stairs there and so was suprememly happy with the situation. She is quite similar to the energizer bunny in stamina I think. It was also funny that they guy who works at the bar remember her from last year when I would carry her in my arms and watch hockey while Anne skied and Maya slept.
We are planning on putting her on skis next year to see how she does, that will be a lot of fun.

The Bee's Knees

I am not sure quite when it happened (during Anne's pregnancy I think) but we have been much more into natural type solutions for personal grooming and hygene since.
The major turning point was when we were in the praries on our trip out west and Anne bought some bug repelent from a naturopath in a small town. This stuff was supposed to just help with relieving bits but the guy said if you take it before you go into a buggy area that they would stay off you. The weird thing was that you dropped it under your tongue, so I was half expecting some sort of crazy drug experiece. But lo and behold it worked like a charm.
So Anne on one of her shopping trips discovers Bert's Bee's products. This stuff is amazing and we can't recommend it enough. Our favorite product is the deodorant, as regualr stuff was always made my armpits reacts in various painful or irritation ways. This Herbal Deodorant works great and I have absolutely no reaction to it. So if you have any problems with your deodorant like I do, then use this stuff because its awesome. We also use the diaper cream, shaving soap, cuticle cream, hand cream, and a couple of other products.
You can find the stuff in a lot of health food places and other "natural" and health type stores. Try anything from the company out, its great stuff.

sunday, Sunday, SOMEDAY

Yesterday I went to Toronto to meet up with my City-dwelling friend, Ian, and five of his closest friends to go see Monster Jam at the Skydome. This year it was the regular trucks ( I can't remember what they called them) , Freestyle motocross jumping and of course the Monster Trucks. Curiously missing from the line up was the demolition derby.
The trucks were a lot of fun to watch this year as the drivers were really try and made some spectacular circuits. There were even a couple of cars contending as well but couldn't make the cut. No crashes in this but one guy did an extra lap and almost crashed into the other competitor, and other guy spun out off the side.
The freestyle guys were pretty good and did the whole gamut of tricks except backflips. It was pretty impressive but I think I prefer the Quad-bike racing from the previous years.
The monster trucks did quite well in their racing this year. Most races were pretty close and there were a few close calls. Unfortunately, the one I was cheering for, Predator, blew his transmission in the final against Grave Digger thus making it a bit anticlimactic.
The monster truck freestyle where they just drive around and smash stuff and do tricks and jumps, was okay but "Safe Auto" and Grave Digger went all out. Safe Auto went over every obstacle and then went for an extra minute afterward. VERY nice. Then Grave Digger came and did a similar run but jumped much higher and crashed the truck at the end and thus won.
Overall the show was quite good and everyone seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. The number of lackluster Monster Truck performances were just barely made up for by "Safe Auto" and "Grave Diggers" freestyle runs. I don't understand why they didn't have a demolition derby either, they have been there every other year and are a ton of fun to watch. Oh well, hopefully next year it will be better. Here the official recap.

This is gonna hurt...

So its about 1:45am, Anne is at work and Maya isn't sleeping, She is either scream, crying, or looking sad. I have to go to work for 8:30 as I have a meeting tomorrow that I have to go to as well as some meeting stuff I have to set up for people in the morning otherwise I would just call in sick. I don't think its going to be pretty unless Maya suddenly decides to go to sleep.
She would be fine if she wasn't so dependent on Annes breast throughout the night, I don't know why she is. She would sleep for longer stretches when she was younger. Its quite frustrating.

7:45am update - went to bed at 4am and got up at 5:30, Back to sleep at 6am and up at 7:30 and now i need to get ready for work.