Trains: Riding and Reading

Riding Calgary's C-Train from Dalhousie Station to the Louise Riley Library at North Hill Mall (video version at the end of the post):

"Look Dad! There's a train down there!"

"Hey, let's get on the train!"

"Whoa! This is crazy! I'm on a train! I really dig trains."

"This is a really good book about trains.

...and this stool is pretty sweet too."

Here's the video version:


comments:

Allyson said...
So cute! He really takes his train riding seriously -- I loved the furrowed brow.

Kage said...
I didn't know they had books in Canada.

Kage said...
just kidding.
way cute video...you are a good Dad for taking Scott to see what is obviously one of his favorite things...

El Dubya said...
Scott's giant now! He looks like he's commuting to work.

Marc said...
I am always amazed at both your creativity with Scotty and getting the ideas done with pics and videos. What a great record for your family. I hope you are getting a copy of all of this in your own recoverable media.
-Senior Patriarch Citizen mw

Tara said...
Oh my he is huge! He looks like a real person now, and such a cross between you and R. Find of freaks me out.

Grandma Walters said...
Talk about wide-eyed-wonder at new experiences!!!

Happy Birthday Mama / Gramma

With all our love,
D, R & Scotty!


(watch for Scotty saying, "cheese!" at the end)

We hope you have a wonderful day!

Hey, Where's the Goat?

On Family Day this year, Scott discovered a goat at Cardel Place. This is him during the search for said goat. I think you can almost hear him asking that age-old question: "Hey, where's the goat?"

Family Day is an interesting holiday. The government says to you, "Hey, grab your family and go spend some quality time somewhere doing something." This is opposed to other holidays, where you are told more specifically what kinds of things to do. With little direction from the authorities, we went in search of activities and found that the Cardel Place community leisure center was hosting their First Annual Cardel Place Winter Carnival on Family Day.


We've been to Cardel Place before (1st visit, birthday visit) to swim and liked it, but we were pleasantly surprised by this carnival, which was on a massive scale. They had free public skating, hay rides, inflatable bouncers, an R/C car race, crafts, mini golf and a petting zoo. Plus, there were lots of little activities to do in the hallways, like guitar hero and sitting in a mini fire engine. Scott loved the fire engine, but he was intimidated by the retired firefighters who were standing around it. He started bawling when we got in it (I know the picture makes it look like he's crying because I stole his hat, but that is not the case).


As you can see, he finally settled down just as our turn in the fire engine was over. Then he cried because we took him out of it. Some people have trouble coping with the stresses of the holidays, I guess.


We were joined by two of Scott's cousins, who live near Cardel. His 4-year-old cousin A took charge of the kiddie posse, which was kind of nice. They all looked so cute, hand-in-hand.


Here are the boys. They are only 6 months apart and they are slowly getting to the point where they play happily together instead of just a tug-of-war over toys and screaming.

Still, even with all these good activities, we had to ask ourselves, "Where's the goat?"


After waiting in line for the petting zoo, we found the answer.
The goat is HERE.

Community Winter Festival

On Saturday we went to the winter festival hosted by our community association. The local Scouts and Guides were serving up scones and hot chocolate, and there were some outdoor games to play. Scotty wasn't really old enough to play many of the games, but he tried his hand at snakes and ladders -- tossing rubber snakes at a ladder -- and he went down the slide quite a number of times.





comments:

Allyson said...
Just when I think Scott couldn't get any cuter, you post pictures like these!

JwRiDe said...
That kid is insane cute

Grandma Walters said...
It is good you ALWAYS have your trusty camera handy!! I agree, his pictures are priceless!

Date Night: Value Village & Earls

For Christmas, R's sister K hooked us up with the means for a date night. She knows that we have a reliable babysitting arrangement, so she wanted us to have something to do. A week ago, we used a portion of her gift to go out shopping -- at Value Village.


One of the first dates that R and I ever went on involved Value Village (called Savers in the US). Back in high school, a group of us went bowling, but first we went to Value Village and picked out outfits. She and I ended up with gas attendant uniforms -- mine was from Shell and hers was from PetroCanada. This time around there was no bowling. We were just browsing for whatever looked fun.


I always gravitate to the overcoats section, and I have done quite well there in the past. I think I have 6 overcoats from there and some of them are pretty sweet. This time, I found this ENORMOUS winter coat made by London Fog. It was a size 50 and it was built for those white collar commuters who have to cross the Himalayas on their way to work. Awesome coat, but maybe a little big.


R tried it on, but it even seemed big on her. In the end, we decided not to buy it, even though we probably could have fit the whole family in it.


You know, I think we were the only people in there that were shooting photos. Strange. I guess other people aren't as interesting as we are.


After making a few purchases (mostly shirts and sweaters), we headed over to Earl's Restaurant for some hot wings and their divine spinach feta dip and toasted pitas wedges. We have been cashing in our airmiles to get gift cards for restaurants to pay for our date nights, so this was effectively free. It was a very successful and satisfying evening, so we want to thank K for making it possible.



Until next time!

comments:

David & Cheryl said...
Value Village is definately a great place to be. Every one seems to have their own personal area where they gravitate to within that store, but I also find that everyone has a certian area that they also stay clear away from too. I prefer the short sleeve collared shirt area, but I stay away from the items placed above most of the racks. There's often times things there scare me. Sometimes these items are right above the shirt rack that I want to peruse, it then becomes a battle of the mind vs your senses.

Allyson said...
I think "strange" is exactly the reason that you were the only ones taking pictures!
Looks like a fun date. Gary and I are almost giddy if we manage to include a trip to DI while we're out sans kids.

JwRiDe said...
This story tugs at my heart strings. So many good times, just out of reach. Im not allowed in DI or the equivalent. I started buying clothes for halloween costumes, but lost my privileges when I began wearing them as every day attire. Oh, that and something about a rowing machine...great read D.

Jessica said...
I remember buying all our Christmas gifts one year with AirMiles. Oh and another year we got all the kids toys at the Dollar Store.

Grandma Walters said...
It's neat when you young couples are learning to shop where you can afford! Thanks again to Karla. When our first baby was born we still felt we needed a break, so we had no car but had a bit of money for baby sitter and WALKED down town to buy some ice cream...some of our best dates!

Finding Your Place

We get together for family dinner pretty much every Sunday, and that usually makes for a pretty large crowd. If everyone is there, it can be 16 people sitting around the table. Fortunately, R's parents have a pretty large table, and you have to find a place for everyone.

At my grandparents' house just before a big meal, my Grandpa A would assign some unsuspecting grandchild the duty of telling everyone where to sit. I did not relish this awkward opportunity when it fell to me. I would usually try to make light of it and ask everyone to please sit down wherever they were comfortable, but Grandpa A would have none of that. He wanted things done in order.

Here in Calgary at the Sunday dinners, R's mom had her own system. She would make placecards for everyone out of 3x5 index cards so there would be no awkward moments of uncertainty. We noticed the cards and had an idea for a great Christmas present this year.

Wii is for Everyone

Scott's Great Grandma and Grandpa M joined the rest of the family on New Year's Day for a while. Grandpa took a turn playing Super Mario Cart on the Nintendo Wii. I don't recall if he won any races, but he looked good.

Scotty was happy to just play with balls, hoops and blocks.

Oh Ho Ho

Somewhere along the way, Scotty learned that the white-bearded man in the red suit likes to say, "Oh-ho-ho." Snowmen say it too, apparently.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas.

Christmas 1978 - 2008

My Grandma A gave me a Christmas outfit in 1978, when I was a about 14 months old. As noted in a previous blog post, my mom dug it out of a box somewhere and sent it to us just before Scott was born.

Because his birthday is earlier in the year, he was 20 months old when we dressed him up in the Christmas outfit, so it wasn't a perfect fit. Still, he looked awful cute and we took plenty of pictures. You just don't see many red velvet vests these days.

Christmas in the Idaho Hills

This year we spent Christmas with my family at the home my parents just acquired on the outskirts of Pocatello, Idaho. They are in the area called Buckskin, and they've started calling their place the "Buckskin Lodge" for reasons obvious from the photos.




It was constructed a number of years ago out of ENORMOUS logs and is heated from stove in the massive stone fireplace. Obviously, my parents love it.


Instead of skiing, the lodge offered direct access to sledding -- by way of the driveway. The daily runs with the tractor-snowblower left great snowbanks along the driveway that created a track much like a luge track. The kids (large and small) had a great time. The video shows Scotty and me making a run together.


After 2 or 3 trips, he decided he'd had enough.

The Building of Bankers Court

I started a summer internship in May 2008 in a downtown Calgary office building. Out of my 20th-storey window, I could see another structure being built across the street. After a little searching, I learned that it is called Bankers Court, a $68 million addition to the Bankers Hall complex. I found it fascinating to see how quickly they poured the cement for the successive floors, making the building appear to sprout like a plant.

To track the progress, I took a picture on my 3rd day of work and I tried to take one every 2 weeks since then. Today the cranes lifted the portable toilets off the roof, so the job must be nearly completed. That's good, because today is the last day of my "summer" job.

May 8 2008

June 9 2008

June 25 2008

July 4 2008

July 23 2008

August 13 2008

August 29 2008

September 15 2008

September 29 2008

November 17 2008

November 24 2008

December 10 2008

December 17 2008

Off Road Racing in Calgary

Do you like rally racing? What about winter rally racing?


After a fairly dry November with nothing but brown grass and dry pavement, Calgary had a sudden dousing of 16 cm (6.3 inches) of snow on Sunday. Regular roads turned into rally courses as conditions transformed overnight. Unfortunately, not every driver is a qualified racer, and there were more than 200 accidents reported. I was almost party to one of them, even though I wasn't on the road.


I was standing in a bus shelter on 53rd street NW, when I saw a Subaru wagon slide wide on a left turn and bounce over a curb onto the sidewalk near me. He missed a fire hydrant by about three feet and just kept driving on the sidewalk behind the bus shelter until he could pull back onto the road again.

I left my car at home and took the bus because I thought conditions would be crazy. Now I wonder if I would have been safer in my car.

Power Struggles

Based on the title, this blog could be about two things:

1. The move to try to unseat the currently-governing Conservative Party of Canada and replace it with the first coalition government in nearly a century.
2. The weakening performance of my laptop battery and the malfunction of its electric adapter amid the frenzy of end-of-semester exams and assignments.

It is about the latter.

The battery in my 2.5-year-old Dell laptop has been fading slowly. It used to get more than 2 hours per charge, but now it gets an hour or less. This hasn't been a problem, because I can usually plug it with the AC adapter... until last night. We were using my computer to host a webcast of our quarterly performance and the adapter mysteriously gave out, slowly draining the battery until the computer suddenly died, cutting the webcast to an abrupt finish.

I still had a number of important files on the computer that I needed for the truckload of assignments due this week, so I had to borrow an adapter long enough to pull all the files off. I also face a substantial outlay of cash to replace my ailing equipment.

I wonder if the economic stimulus package promised by the invading coalition has any IT allocations for harried MBA students. I doubt it.