Babynaut
So ever since I dubbed myself the Preggonaut when I was pregnant, we called the baby “Babynaut”, off and on. So his halloween costume was a foregone conclusion.
Ready for blastoff!
Pumpkin Patch!
Trevor and Wesley and I went to the pumpkin patch on Saturday, and it was really fun! We wanted to go someplace new- we’ve been to Snyder’s Family Farm in the past, but it was a fairly long drive and it’s a really big patch, so you have to do a good bit of walking around to find a pumpkin you like.
So we tried a place in St. Clements called Naumans. Much closer to us. And it was awesome! I took Wesley in the carrier, and we didn’t have to do too much hiking to find pumpkins we liked. It didn’t cost to get in, and the pumpkins were nice and cheap (we paid like 8 dollars altogether for ours, I believe). The weather was chilly, but pretty decent pumpkin patching weather!
They’ll sit out on the porch to keep fresh, and we’ll probably carve them the day before Halloween. I’ll post pictures of our costumes soon! 😀
New bed and other hedonism
Since we moved in together nearly 8 years ago, Trevor and I have not had the most awesome of beds. Our first bed was a futon (which we still have), but it was fairly low, and not super comfortable.
Then, we bought ourselves a proper bed, which we’ve had ever since. It’s quite comfortable, medium firmness and euro-topped and all, but it’s double size. Our apartment at the time was a decent sized one-bedroom, but we didn’t have quite enough space to go for a bigger size.
So we’ve been sleeping in that double bed for quite a while. Staying in hotels while traveling though, we’d gotten some tastes of the king size, and quite enjoyed it. Tons of space to move around. We could hang out with Wesley in the mornings for a morning bed cuddle! With us and the cats in the double, it was starting to look a bit like a clown car compared to the hotel beds.
So we went for it and bought a king size. It’s memory foamy and non-motion transfery and such. We also got some hardcore gel pillows that feel like down pillows without the annoyingness of down.
For the full hotel-like experience, I bought all white linens, too. It was all delivered yesterday. We slept in it last night and it was pretty comfortable! It’ll take a little getting used to though. The pillows are pretty blissful. And the linens. I had a cup of Calming tea in bed last night and it was pure hedonism. After a long bath in my sweet soaker tub. Yeaaaaah. Highly recommended.
BAM.
It’s SO huge compared to our old bed. Like, we can barely reach each other. But it’s awesome. Our double bed has been relegated to guest room use:
Come on over!
And the futon now lives in the office:
Seating!
I feel like a dork going on and on about it, but sleeping is a third of our lives and all. Anyone else done a huge bed upgrade like that? How long does it take to really get used to it?
Weather and other awesomeness.
The weather has been absurdly beautiful the past week or so. Just clear and sunny and perfect. Spent some time out on the deck, walked down to the grocery store with Wesley, went to Trevor’s soccer game last night (though we walked around a lot during that too to keep Wesley quiet). A picture!
This time of year has such gorgeous weather and it just makes you pine for everlasting summer. Fall is gorgeous too though, thankfully, so I hope I won’t be too sad when I’m staring down the barrel of the middle of September. That’s when my birthday and wedding anniversary are as well, so that helps. 🙂
Swimfit today, which may or may not be the last class- my schedule says there’s one more after today, but the instructor said last week that this was the last class, so we’ll have to sort that out. I’ve definitely enjoyed it, thinking about signing up for a mommy and me water yoga class this fall.
Gymnastics
Don’t worry, NBC-watchers, I promise not to spoil anything.
I just wanted to talk a little bit about the things I really enjoy about watching gymnastics. So I will!
Awesome beam mounts:
I love when ladies get on the beam in an interesting way. I feel like a lot of the beam mounts in this games are fairly ho hum compared to some that I’ve seen, but I didn’t get to see everyone, and hopefully the beam event final will have some more interesting tricks. Here’s a video of what I mean by interesting mounts:
Crazy hard bars routines:
I love watching a difficult release skill. Check this out:
Fascinating Gymnastics History
Yesterday, when I was learning some more about the history of gymnastics, I learned about a former Soviet gymnast named Elena Mukhina. I hadn’t read much about her before! She was world all-around champion, and preparing for the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. She did a lot of daring and dangerous skills in her routines, including a Thomas salto in her floor exercise. It’s a 1 and 3/4 flip with 1½ twists ending in a forward roll, meaning the gymnast is basically landing on their shoulders after the flip. Here’s a video of a Elena Shushunova doing the skill in 1987:
The salto is about 9 seconds in. You can see how if things didn’t go right for whatever reason, the gymnast could land on a pretty sensitive bit of head or neck, and that’s what happened to Elena Mukhina. She wound up a quadripalegic, which is bad enough, but the really crazy thing is that the details and severity of her injury were concealed for some time by the Soviet Gymnastics Federation, who kept deflecting questions and it took a while for the truth to come out. Eventually, the Thomas salto became a banned skill for women in gymnastics, though it’s still performed by men.
Anyway, I thought that was pretty fascinating.
Olympics
I’m pretty much a big huge fan of the Olympics. Summer, winter, I like them all. So I’m pretty excited about the London 2012 games that just started. One of the interesting things about living in Canada is that we have some more choices for Olympics coverage- we can watch the CTV coverage broadcast in Canada, or the NBC feed from nearby NBC affiliates in the US.
So we watched the Opening Ceremonies twice last night- first when it was broadcast live on CTV, and then when NBC broadcast it on delay. There are some things about the NBC coverage that I like- first of all, they have John Williams’ Olympic Fanfare and Theme. Which I love. Also, they do make a pretty montage.
I could pretty much do without Meredith Vieira, however. When I saw that she was hosting the Opening, I was surprised, and then thought “hey, maybe she’ll do well!” I was wrong. It was kind of a foot-in-mouth parade for her. I do kinda like Bob Costas, mostly because he’s been doing the Olympics forever so he’s like, the Olympics voice from my childhood. But man, Ms. Vieira really brought it down for me. Thankfully I’d already seen the ceremony once (including the bits NBC cut out in order to run more commercials), so I was just watching again to see the initial bits that I missed and to compare the coverage.
So a few point-form comments on bits I enjoyed of the Opening Ceremonies!
- Kenneth Branagh in a stovepipe hat
- Um, the Queen as a Bond girl. Â I <3 being in the commonwealth.
- And her CORGIS. Â I swear, corgis are turning me into a dog person.
- Glowing beds and dancing nurses and kids and a tribute to the NHS
- Childrens’ choirs singing pretty songs I know
- Abide with me, so pretty.
- All the pretty sod that they used for the opening
- The hill with all the flags of the represented countries on it
- OMG, each country a part of the cauldron. How awesome is that?
So the actual events start today! Artistic gymnastics is a favourite of mine, so I’ll be watching that. We’re watching a good bit of cycling (fresh from watching weeks of the Tour de France, we love our cycling). I like gymnastics and diving the best, but I also like to watch sports I don’t get to see much of otherwise- canoe/kayak, badminton, equestrian, rowing, etc etc. I like the opportunity to learn more about the various nations that have sent athletes, and about the host country. Super excited.
So yeah, for the next couple weeks, it will be Olympics fever up in here! Yaaaaaay. 😀
Weekend awesomeness
This past weekend was pretty nice! We didn’t have any specific plans for Friday or Saturday. We wound up having takeout wings for dinner on Friday, and on Saturday, we had a couple of nice outings and a long walk around the neighbourhood.
On Sunday, we went to the zoo! I’ve been to the Toronto Zoo a couple of times, but this was Wesley’s first trip. I love zoos, and have been to a ton of different ones in North America and Europe, and the Toronto Zoo is pretty good. Jackie, a friend of ours, was organizing an outing, so we decided to go!
It was a super hot day, so we made sure to stick to the shade where we could to keep cool. We saw mostly the African Savannah section of the zoo, since we were only there for a few hours.
Wesley is just getting to the age where he is able to enjoy a zoo trip. He was able to watch the animals (the ones that moved around, anyway- he wasn’t really interested in the crocodile that just sat still) and he liked being outside (though he got pretty hot before it started to rain).
And did it ever rain! We decided to stop for lunch because we were getting really hot, and the storm blew in while we were eating.
We waited until the rain died down a bit and then headed to do some of the indoor stuff, where we saw a pygmy hippo (so cute!) and some other cool animals. We hit up the kids’ zoo area before leaving (Wesley is gonna love that when he gets a little older!) and then came home.
All in all, a pretty awesome weekend.
Was reminded of this just now
Trevor just gave me a bit of his biscuit (there are not enough biscuits in Canada so I eat them every chance I get which is not all that often) and he reminded me of the best best best sports team logo ever.
The Montgomery Biscuits. Biscuits. And the Biscuit has a butter-pat tongue, and it’s pretty much the most ridiculous and awesome thing ever contrived by a graphic artist ever.
If we ever have reason to hang in Alabama, we’re going to a Biscuits game and I’m getting a t-shirt.
Basement Finishing
So when we moved into our house, it was with the assumption that at some point we would finish the basement- it was studded in around the edges and insulated and basically unspoiled, so it looked like it would be easy enough. Now, over 5 years later, we’ve started that project, and are even getting close to finishing it. It’s taking about 5 weeks to get it all done, but I’m excited for the extra living space that we’ll gain- we’ll have a rec room and a full bathroom down there.
We’ve been using a contracting company called Catalyst General Contracting. They’ve been pretty great- always in touch, keeping us up to date (and via email, thank god. I love companies that deal with me via email, it’s 100 times easier for me than dealing with phone calls and voicemails). We’ve had a couple of little problems, but everything has been resolved as soon as it is brought up. It’s the biggest contracting project I’ve ever been on the client side of, so it’s a new experience for me.
The project is wrapping up in the next couple of days. It’ll be awesome to have it all done, it has been a big part of my life for several weeks now! We’ve been taking photos along the way:
You can view more progress photos in the photo gallery.
Virtual Choir 3!
The final video of Virtual Choir 3 is up!
I have been looking to see if I can see me anywhere in the video, but I haven’t found me! My name is in the credits at about 6:31.