Child Care Instructions

My cousin in-law, Woody Crapo, posted this list of helpful instructions on proper child care on the family website. It comes at a great time for us, as we really needed the refresher before our bundle arrives.

How Cold Is It?

It's colder than a brass toilet seat on the shady side of an iceburg.

It's so cold, I had to kick a hole in the air just to get out my front door.

It's so cold, Tim Hortons is selling hot chocolate by the slice.

It's so cold, Emma can only play as far as the extension cord will let her.

It's so cold, I actually saw Richard Simmons wearing pants.

That's probably enough. We've barely left the house since Saturday due to the incredible deep freeze the city of Calgary is experiencing this week. It's been consistantly below -40 with the wind chill since Sunday, and it's only starting to creep up to around -10 today.

I've been working from home all week, as there is no furnace system in my office yet, and no place to plug in a car for that matter, and with the baby being due at any moment, I didn't want to risk being stranded in Crossfield when the moment finally arrives.

Both Tammy and I have ventured out a few times for various reasons, but poor Emma has been cooped up in the house for the longest period of time in her entire young life. She's starting to show signs of cabin fever, so I think we'll try and go out somewhere tonight.

It was during a cold snap like this last year that our furnace broke down and we paid what seemed like a ridiculous fee at the time to get it fixed. Turns out prices for such services have gone up, along with everything else in Calgary, but thankfully we've had no troubles with it this time around - knock on wood - conserve said wood for alternate heating source.

It's times like these when I always question the reasoning behind living in such a climate, when we know full well that there are nicer places to go. With how the cost of living has skyrocketed in Alberta over the past couple of years, I'm sure if enough of us pooled our money, we could buy some uninhabited tropical island and set up our own utopian society with me as Supreme Chancellor. How about it folks?

President Hinckley

We got a call on Sunday night at about 8:30pm from my sister Heather, telling us that my uncle Christopher had called from Salt Lake to tell them that President Hinckley had passed away that night at about 7:00pm. He was 97 years old at the time of his passing, and had served as the President of the Church for the last 13 years of his life, and as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles for some 34 years before that.

There are some articles on lds.org that summarize his life and service a lot better than I could, but for my part, I'll always remember him as the Prophet during my "coming of age" in the Church. It's his signature on my mission call, and I also had the pleasure of meeting him when he toured our mission and the rest of Canada back in 1998. He's always been one of Tammy's all time favorite people, and together we've enjoyed the many sessions of General Conference that he's spoken in since we've been married. He'll be missed, but not forgotten, as his impact on the growth of the Church will effect generations to come.

On a similar note, we've also recently mourned the loss of one of my young men's leaders, Kevin Way. His funeral was held on the 11th of January, and was both uplifting and well attended. One of the speakers at that funeral said something that stuck out to me, and I think applies to both Kevin and President Hinckley. I don't remember the exact phrasiology, but it was something to this effect:

"...When you look at the dates on a grave stone (1910 - 2008 in President Hinckley's case) the most important part of that inscription is the dash that separates the dates. That dash represents all the years and all the service and all the contributions that that person made over the course of their lifetime..."

There was more to it, but the idea is there. The remaining members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles have put together some tributes to the Prophet already, and I'm sure his funeral, which I believe will be held on the 2nd of February in the Conference Center, will also be uplifting and well attended.

SOLD

We've officially sold our house, to a young fellow who's parents are helping him finance the purchase, and who plans to bring in a couple of renters to help pay the bills. There's not a lot of young people who can afford to do it any other way in Calgary right now. We feel really fortunate that we were able to get into the Calgary housing market at the time that we did, and grateful now that we are able to get out of it.

Unfortunately however, the deal on the place we had lined up in Lethbridge has fallen through, so we're in a bit of a limbo right now. Not really the best position to be in with the baby being due this weekend, but I'm sure we'll get it all sorted out eventually. I'm taking parental leave as soon as the baby does arrive, so that should potentially free up a lot of time for me to get us packed up and to get arrangements made before we have to be out of here in March.

We are going to miss our first little house. We've lived here for almost 5 years, which is the longest I've ever lived in any house in my life, and it's the house we brought our first, and soon enough, our second child home to. We've got some good neighbours that we've gotten to know pretty well over the years that we will also miss, particularily our next door neighbours who have a little girl that's pretty close to Emma's same age. This area has been really great for us too, with all the parks nearby and it's close proximity to some major ammenities. We'll miss our ward as well, but the Church is not so big yet that we won't ever get a chance to see a lot of the friends we've made there again.

I guess I don't need to keep going on about it, it's already sold.

3 Wheel Drive

Today's Lesson: Check your lug nuts. (comic only slightly related)

How many times have you told someone to "Drive safe" when they leave your house? I know I've said it occasionally, but due to recent events, I'm changing my goodbye advice to "Check your lug nuts".

We were driving home from my parents house on the evening of New Years Day, and as we pulled into our circle, the front right tire (the drivers side in the Hilux) started to wobble like it was flat. There's a lot of construction in our area, so I immediately thought we'd run over a nail or a screw or perhaps a misplaced skilsaw, but when we parked in front of our house and I inspected the tire, there was no sign of a leak at all. It was late, and we needed to get Emma to bed, so I left it alone and decided to take a look at it when the sun came up again.

Daylight revealed that the tire itself was not damaged in any way, but that there was only one lug nut holding the entire wheel onto the vehicle. Not only were the other lug nuts missing from the wheel, but two of the studs had completely sheared off the rotor. All the other tires had a full compliment of lugs nuts, so I'm not sure if we were looking at a failed attempt to steal my wheel, or some form of sinister plot, but needless to say, we're exceedingly happy that we discovered it before something terrible happened.

I took one lug nut off the each of the other 3 wheels and put them on the 3 bare studs still remaining on the wobbly wheel, and drove it to the nearest mechanic, which happened to be Country Hills Toyota. They quoted me over $600 to fix it, so I spat on their shoes and drove it down to Clint Maucieri's shop, and they fixed it for about half that.

I've told a few people this story already, and most have come back with some horror story of their own, and usually the folks in their stories weren't so lucky. I'm usually in the habit of giving my tires a quick glance before I travel anywhere you have to take a highway to get to, but after this experience, I'm adding lug nuts to the checklist. I imagine you might be too.

Christmas 2007

Is anyone getting tired of seeing that picture of my scarred face every time they check out our site yet? I know I am, so let's get on with some posts.

Christmas officially ended in our house today as we dismantled our tree and packed away the decorations. It doesn't seem all that long ago that we were setting up the tree, but the Christmas season always seems to fly by.

Emma was very helpful when we set up the tree, now having a bit of a better understanding of what it's for. She likes to fixate on one particular branch (particularly the ones at the back that no one ever sees) and decorate it to capacity before moving on. We had some good chuckles after she had gone to bed, and we spent the better part of the rest of the evening spreading the decorations over the rest of the tree.

My cousin Malauney did a great job organizing the Bourne Christmas party this year over at the East Stake Center. There were some new faces, but a lot of missing faces as parts of the family have moved away or are serving missions. The food was great and we played the traditional games, but the fun is really in getting everyone together. Of course we did the pinata again this year (though the tradition seems odd as there is not even a drop of Mexican blood in our veins), and Malauney wisely selected one that was not made to look like a beloved children's cartoon character. We've had some traumatic reactions to that in the past.

The Bourne Christmas party was held the same time as our ward Christmas party, so Tammy took Emma to the Panorama ward Christmas party so she could get a chance to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what she wanted as far as gifts go. Every time we asked her what she wanted, the answer was always the same, "A blue present". When Santa (who was really Grampa Olsen, and the kids might have known) asked her, she didn't say much at all, she just gave him an uncomfortable stare.

I had a half day on the Friday before Christmas and then spent the afternoon at the Modus Christmas party. We actually had turkey this year, which was nice. In the raffle, I walked away with a gift certificate for $50 to Fas Gas. Not quite as fancy as the Keg gift certificate from last year, but appreciated nonetheless. They also handed out some pretty decent goodies in our gift baskets as well, though we did have to find a new home for the smoked oysters. After the party, I completely blocked work out of my mind and didn't go back until the day after New Years. It was a very nice break, and despite all the lurgy that was floating around the family, I actually spent the holidays feeling well.

After I started and finished my Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve, we spent the evening over at my parents house, but quickly rushed home to get cookies and eggnog out for Santa, and carrots out for Rudolph. Emma was asleep by the time we got home, so Tammy and I finished wrapping presents and settled in for a long winter's nap, hoping that Emma would give us the gift of sleeping in just a little bit. It was our first Christmas morning at home, as we've always slept over at Grandparents homes in the years before, so we were all pretty excited to get up and spend the day together.

Presents went by a lot faster since it was just the three of us, but we spent the rest of the morning making and eating a big breakfast and playing with Emma's new toys and games. That afternoon we went out to Carstairs and spent the rest of the day at Tammy's parents house, opening more gifts and visiting with everyone. The wives went out early the next morning to go Boxing Day shopping, and then we had a pot luck dinner and played games over at the Mason's for the remains of the day.

I was the 20min speaker at church the next Sunday, so sometime during the festivities I had to prepare a talk on "Enduring Well". I took almost all of Saturday to write it, and still didn't have enough to fill the time allotted to me, so I came up with a plan to fake an illness in the middle of my talk and then leave out the side door. Unfortunately, that's exactly what the youth speaker did. He stopped in the middle of his talk, turned around to the rest of us on the stand and said "I'm going to throw up." and ran out the side door, completely stealing my move. Fortunately, the other talk went a little longer, and we had a surprise musical number, so I ended up being OK for time.

We didn't get back to my parents house until New Years Eve, and we celebrated it as our Christmas eve as well. We opened gifts, played some games, ate tonnes of food, and went to bed far too late for people with 2 year old goonies. New Years Day was pretty cold, but we hit the rink in Citadel and the park across from it anyways. We didn't stay long because it was just too cold, and poor little Lucy ended up getting a touch of frostbite on her cheeks. We spent the rest of the day playing more games and eating more food and as the evening came to a close, the back to work blues set in, and it was time to head home.

After spending so much time with Tammy and Emma, I always wonder why I ever do anything else. We had a really great holiday, and we're all sad it's over, but we're all very excited about the baby coming in the next couple of weeks here, and I'm planning on taking some parental leave when it does, so we're all looking forward to that.