big bessie's night out

 introducing the newest member of our family...

 big bessie!

ever since our 2009 foray into bed over cab freedom, purchasing gus with julie, lowell and my parents in new zealand, we have been on the lookout for a cheap and reliable motorhome to facilitate free camping in our own neck of the woods.  not only was big bessie for sale in chilliwack, but she's based on the same full size '88 chevy van that i grew up with.  my dad sold our van at 380k, so at 180k, bessie's got some spin in her duellies yet.

big bessie was certainly cheap.  it remains to be seen whether she is reliable.  she did prove herself strong and functional on her first voyage to a beach on the fraser river, 15 minutes drive from our house.  road trippin!

having an indoor kitchen and table while camping was every bit as enjoyable as it appears in the exotic pamphlets.  beach sand was kept on the beach by the simple expedient of removing ty's pants indoors.

 entertainment came in the form of throwing rocks in the water.  for hours.  when that got boring, it was an easy transition to an alternate form of entertainment involving throwing SAND in the water.  seriously... that's all we did.  well, in all honesty, i drank beer in the sunshine while ty shouldered the responsibility of actually heaving the physical rocks in the aforementioned water.

 ty loves his bed in big bessie.  our first night camping was also ty's first night sleeping outside of a cage.  he did his parole officer proud by not escaping once.


i guess not ALL the entertainment involved depositing concatenated mineral grains in aqueous solutions.  big bessie came equipped with an iphone compatible aftermarket pioneer deck allowing us to rock out in the morning after breakfast.  a speaker upgrade is planned shortly.

yay for camping!  here's to a great summer.

Nana Papa and Reen Visit

Last weekend, Nana, Papa and Auntie Reen (or Shareen as us older folk like to call her) came to the Valley for a visit. Ty loves having visitors (as do we! Especially these ones of the laundry doing and lawn mowing variety) and we packed a lot into 3 days!
Ty spent a lot of time reading with Shareen and Papa.  He really LOVES our window seat!!!
He has also developed a fondness for goggles and sunglasses:

Marc and his parents took the dogs for a walk on Saturday.  What a beautiful weekend it turned out to be!!

Saturday evening we headed to Abbotsford.  We first stopped in at Dave and Andrea's for a tour of their new place. 

Afterwards we went to the reception for Marc's cousin Ryan and his new wife Kristy who recently got married in Mexico.  With the groom and his family:

Marc's cousins John and Renee:

Cousins:

The food and company were both excellent!!

On Sunday after church, Marc and his dad drove up to Vedder Mountain for Trail Day.  With all the volunteers and their various tools a new trail was formed in no time! (Picture on the right)

A great weekend was had by all!

I will sign off with some miscellaneous pictures and stories:

Ty in the desk that Bette and I refinished for him last year.  He looks so big and ready for school!  AHHHHH! (Well until you actually look at his drawings) ;)

Ty loves backhoes! (And most other forms of transportation -  trains, planes, helicopters, vans, trucks . . .you know the standard little boy fare) He however particularly loves backhoes.  There is some house construction happening on the backside of our Little Mountain and there has been a back hoe there maybe two or three times.  He calls this walk the back hoe walk and if the back hoe is not there he asks to turn around and go back home.  I went to Vancouver the other day to visit my friend Grace and we were stalled for quite a while in bridge construction.  Thankfully because of all the bridge construction there were MANY backhoes and Ty had quite the time pointing them all out.  And just when I thought there wouldn't be anymore we would round a curve and lo and behold there would be another one!!  I have never taken notice of so many back hoes in my life!!

And lastly a cautionary tale for those who live in rainy climates . . . Marc took Ty to the park by our house on this particularly rainy day and put him in his rain suit.  Ty has recently learned how to climb the ladder on the slide and asked Marc if he could go up. Ty climbed up and headed down slide, only to be airborne on the first bump and then again at the end where he landed on the grass and not the wood chips.  Note to parents:  Rain suit and wet slides don't mix!  hee hee

Next post might be a baby post!  This weekend is my due date!!

Spring Happenings

I just came back from getting Henna done on my very pregnant belly.  I also did this last time with my friend Launa.  Her little boy Quinton (see below) and Ty are 10 days apart and we are both pregnant again with our second babies.  I love both these designs!  Last time my henna lasted until I had Ty and after I had him I was remarking to Marc that a side effect of pregnancy that I didn't know about was that your belly button turns brown afterwards. Only later did I realize that all the henna had pooled inside and dyed my belly button.  ;)

2012

 2010

We have been spending a lot of time outside lately and have had quite a few sunny days.  On Easter weekend we took Ty for a "chocolate walk." (His words.)  When he got up from his nap he was quite grumpy and Marc asked him if he wanted to go for a walk and find some chocolate. The whole time he was exclaiming, "chocolate walk, chocolate walk!"  Several times since he has asked to go on a chocolate walk.  Wouldn't we all love to go on a daily chocolate walk!
Ty had his first taste of chocolate recently and has been asking for it ever since!  The other day we were driving home and he found a chocolate loonie that I have had in the car for some time and was holding it in his car seat.  Not realizing it had chocolate inside he somehow opened it and took a bite.  The whole way home he was exclaiming to me - "Mama chocolate!! Mama chocolate!!"  He does come by his love for chocolate honestly as his father is definitely addicted to it!  Marc recently graduated to Lindt 99% cocoa chocolate and claims this is the best chocolate he has ever had.  I think he's 99% full of it. ;)

Ty was very happy to start finding chocolate on his walk and was thrilled to walk around with chocolate in one hand, finding chocolate with the other!

After finding all the chocolate we walked to the cemetery by our house and found a sunny spot where we have previously laid down to enjoy the sun.  Ty remembered and immediately laid down as soon as we got to the spot.

 Mmmmm chocolate face . . .

We have been thoroughly enjoying our window seat, especially this time of year as the cherry blossoms come out.  Ty has recently discovered his love of playing catch and particularly likes to do it laying down in the window seat.  I am all for any type of game that involves laying down, especially at this stage in my pregnancy.

Marc has taken Ty out quite a bit on his own lately, leaving me to sit on my butt diligently prepare the house for a new baby.  Ty has found the bike jumps on Little Mountain by our house and likes to jump off of them just like his daddy.  Thankfully not on his bike yet!  (And if his mother has her way he can start jumping them on his bike when he turns 18!!)

At Cultus Lake . .  .

We got Ty a new bike for his birthday and he and his friend Quinton went out for a ride last week.  Thankfully they haven't mastered the art of the kick bike yet and go nice and slow.  They were mostly interested in chatting back and forth in their own language peppered with the word BIKE!!

Check out the trampoline hair!!!

Lastly we saw 54 40 last week in Chilliwack.  We had great seats and went with some good friends.  54 40 sure knows how to put on a show!

The countdown is on, 37 weeks...!

jarrids visit

our good friend jarrid recently made the harrowing journey through the snowy rockies from edmonton to fernie to kimberly to kelowna to chilliwack.  his stops where beneficial to him b/c he got in some sweet snowboarding and beneficial to us b/c he came laden with tasty wines.

after spending the year running his own business (involving bungee jumping and west edmonton mall) he was looking for a vacation and we gave him one.  it was nice to have him in full on vacation mode at our house, b/c it set the feel for everyone.  even ty was on vacation!

we took him on all our local walks, as well as a few distant ones.  luckily he was game for braving chilliwack's fierce seasonal monsoons.

here is niko and ty both waiting patiently for us to arrive at our destination.

speaking of destinations, jarrid's visit gave me occasion to check out whistler/blackcomb.  the biggest mountain of them all.  i have biked there many times, but had no idea the ski terrain was so huge!

we had an amazing powder day.  it kept snowing hard all morning and there was bottomless snow under us at all times.  definitely the nicest conditions i have seen all year (and by extension, the nicest conditions i have seen in 18 years).  mmm... poutine...

we enjoyed jarrid's visit and look forward to hosting him again next year.  we had fun jamming, walking, sitting in the window seat, drinking wine and eating good food.

speaking of good food, ty had his first ring pop this week, and possibly his first real candy.  it was a blatant bribe for sitting still for a haircut.  he fervently licked it down to a nub.

i found a nice old wood bed on craigslist for ty.  he can officially climb out of his crib as of this week, so its almost time for a big boy bed!  plus, he's going to have a little brother or sister soon who will need the crib.

what do you think of that mister?!

we went to see an awesome irish band last week called caladh nua.  they were absolutely amazing.  my parents and kylie's mom actually saw them at the empress theatre in ft. mcleod a week previous.  my parents bought the accordian player dinner.  fantastic music.  there were a few songs that started out with a just a little muted guitar in the dark.  then one spotlight would come on and highlight the female lead singer adding a hauntingly lilting irish melody.  slowly the other instruments would come in and build the energy.  i felt like i was in a dream.

finally, i am happy to announce that our little '79 chevette, affectionately known as "benny", but most commonly known as "the chevette" found a new home last week.  it had been parked in our friends' barn, waiting for a new owner.  our friend gabe came back from ukraine recently and needed a car for a few months, so benny is all shined up and on the road again.  he passed aircare with flying colours.  thanks again mary for such an awesome car!