Recap of 2008

Okay, so I did this last year too and tried to do 2008 without looking at 2007. It's interesting how some of the answers are the same! After I was done, I looked at some of the 2007 answers and I know they'd be different if it had been common knowledge, not a secret, that I was pregnant!

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
Had a baby!

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't make New Year's resolutions

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Do I count as someone close to me? In that case YES

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Yes, Gramma Ross

5. What countries did you visit?
planet sleepy parent?

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
more sleep

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
August 17 and August 19 - the day I was admitted to the hospital early and the day that Baby J arrived

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Baby J

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not saying thank you enough. Not telling the people around me how wonderful I think they are often enough.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
does a c-section count as injury?

11. What was the best thing you bought?
a tie between the stroller and our own place

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Baby J

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
our government's leaders

14. Where did most of your money go?
to stuff for Baby J and a mortgage

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Baby J

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
Hush Little Baby

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
 a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?
happier, about the same, richer

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
sleep, spent time with Alex and Baby J

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
moving

20. How did you spend Christmas?
In K-town, introducing Baby J to the "clan"

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?
yes

22. What was your favorite TV program?
Bones.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
no

24. What was the best book you read?
a tie between What to Expect When You're Expecting and What to Expect the First Year

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Jennifer Gasoi - children's singer

26. What did you want and get?
Baby J

27. What did you want and not get?
five extra weeks to unpack the boxes before Baby J's arrival

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Wall-E

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
worked and had dinner with Fiona, Kamiah and Bret. 31

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
nothing. It was a pretty darn good year

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
umm...maternity wear for the first eight months and then post-partum-getting-back-into-shape wear

32. What kept you sane?
Baby J

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
none

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
minority vs coalition government. Obama vs McCain was pretty interesting too.

35. Who did you miss?
Kelsey

36. Who was the best new person you met?
Baby J

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
Talk to the bank, because it's amazing what you can do with your money! More than we thought for sure!

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
To the tune of Frère Jacques:
"Baby J, Baby J, go to sleep, go to sleep. Mommy's very tired, Mommy's very tired. Go to sleep!"
or a variation on the theme...like "Baby J, Baby J, don't you cry, don't you cry...."

It's Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our little cub elf. Oh, and from us too! Have a wonderful day!

And no, we didn't post this on Christmas Day. Gotta love future dating and automatic posting!

1 day 'til Christmas

2 days 'til Christmas

3 days 'til Christmas

4 days 'til Christmas

5 days 'til Christmas

Finland - Hyvää Joulua

Postcard from Finland from Hopsu

Description: Hyvää Joulua ja Onnellista Uutta Vuotta translated by Hopsu to "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year"

Finland

Postcard from Finland from J

Description: No description on the back.

TeamHardCore comes home

Yay! Kelsey came home today. Rebecca and I took Baby J to meet her at the airport and then indulge in a Las Margaritas lunch. I'm so glad we'll all be home in Kelowna next week so we can all hang out together some more!

Baby J at the airport in her special Auntie Kelsey outfit

the TeamHardCore sign

Kelsey gets her sign and meets Baby J...all at once

Kelsey shares her margarita with Baby J

Oh yeah, and congratulations again Iron(wo)man Kelsey!

TeamHardCore and her medal

6 days 'til Christmas

7 days 'til Christmas

8 days 'til Christmas

USA - Iowa - Corn

Postcard from Iowa from mtbm

Description: Iowa - "Where Corn is King"

Germany - Hamburg

Postcard from Germany from argotm

Description: Zollmuseum am Zollkanal from Hamburg - Lights and colors of the night.

Christmas Resolutions Revisited

Last year I made a list of Christmas Resolutions for this year...in hopes that I'd feel more Christmassy and into the season and motivated and all that...

So here's the list from last year and my progress this year:

1. I will not leave all my shopping until the week before Christmas. Most of it is done...we've got a few things left, but we're close.
   
2. I will do some Christmas baking. Yup! Done that. Lots of that.
   
3. I will not forget an entire box of ornaments in the basement (or storage or closet or whatever other storage arrangement next year brings). Nope, didn't do that...the empty boxes are ready to go back to the basement storage now until after the holidays.
   
4. I will not leave my Christmas cards until the weekend before Christmas. They're mostly done. And mailed. And I have four sleeps until the weekend!
   
5. I will use an assortment of different colours in my wrapping/bagging in future years. All red gets kind of boring. Done! No problem here, lots of colour this year!
   
6. I will not look for a new place to live in the six weeks preceding Christmas. Instead, I looked for a new place to live three months before Baby J's arrival.
   
7. I will not move in the four weeks following Christmas (okay, so maybe those two are somewhat out of my control sometimes, but should I ever get amnesia and forget what it was like this year, this will serve as a memory jog I hope). Didn't do this either...instead I had Baby J three weeks after we moved. I just don't make good moving choices (although some things, like being evicted and early arrival babies, are beyond my control!)
   
8. I will enjoy every moment I get to spend with friends and family. This one is easy. Very easy! And I am thoroughly enjoying the month of December this year.
   

9 days 'til Christmas

oranges! Christmas oranges. YUMMY!

10 days 'til Christmas

Snow...real live snow

It snowed on Friday, but that was big wet snow that didn't last and just made everything wet and was rain by 10:30 in the morning...but last night, last night it snowed for real. And today Baby J has a cold, so no snow for us...sigh...

snow from our balcony

snow from our bedroom

A sign for West 4th Avenue.

As seen from my bedroom window.

Only one problem with this picture: we don't live on West 4th. We don't live on something that intersects with West 4th. Unless that side of the street is West 4th and our side is something else and the streets in between are missing. Prank? Confused city engineers? Or maybe my camera is seeing things!

11 days 'til Christmas

Three Guesses

1. Where is this (that's the easy part)?
2. What's wrong with this picture?

12 days 'til Christmas

Estonia - Tallinn

Postcard from Estonia from Kristel

Description: A Street in old town.

13 days 'til Christmas

14 days 'til Christmas

Hungary - Sopron

Postcard from Hungary from Nariam

Description: Sopron. Nariam says this is the Main Square in Sopron.

15 days 'til Christmas

I miss it...

Tonight I spent a few minutes checking out some pictures from the last couple of years and rereading some posts about the back episode of 06/07.

And I decided that I miss the Blue House.

A lot.

I love our new place and I love that we own it, but the Blue House had character that the Lyons' Den just doesn't have...something to do with being a good 80+ years older than the Lyons' Den I think. We had a lot of big life events happen in the Blue House - the most significant being our engagement and the big bad back episode mentioned above.

It's hard to believe it's been a year since we packed our boxes for the first time...and that we'd be doing it again a few months later. Our new place has been good to us, but I miss the little office, the sun coming in the living room. A dining room and eating area in the kitchen. The basement with all its storage right there. But really, the new place...it has a dishwasher. It has way more closet space and two good sized storage spaces that are probably as big and definitely way less dusty than in the blue house. We didn't really use the dining room, so it's probably okay that we don't have one right now!

I guess I'm just being a bit nostalgic and that's probably a sign that it's way past my bedtime!

That's all.

Good night.

16 days 'til Christmas

Bright Nights - Strange Sights

We saw pretty lights on our little trip to Bright Nights...and we saw some pretty creepy things too...

creepy elves

squinty Santa

creepy dude with knitting Mrs. Claus

scary-eyed wise man

three-handed Santa

creepy Santa and Mrs. Claus

boy with no face

angry gingerbread man

Bright Nights - Pretty Sights

The pretty lights at Bright Nights...just wait, there are some strange sights too!

wind (if you squint you can see it!)

Bright Nights

On Saturday night Baby J and I were at Bright Nights in Stanley Park with some friends of mine from a committee I'm on...we had a nice time on the train...the theme was Hawaii, so there were some interesting displays. We definitely saw lots of pretty lights...and some weird stuff too!

Welcome to Bright Nights

unimpressed Baby J

chuggachuggachoochoo

Baby J and Mommy

Aleksandra

the ladies on the train

Surfing Santa

The hula dancer on stilts...all I can say is I think that would be challenging!

the entertainment

Baby J, Shannon, Robi, Claire, Aleksandra, Charlotte, Patti, Marie