On the Farm

My mom and I were lucky enough to be able to take Donovan to a farm just outside of town, and visit with a new baby calf and some real race horses.

Here are some of the best pictures from that day (click on any picture to enlarge)

Phoenix

So, you may have noticed my absence last week? No? It's ok, my blogging hasn't been exactly regular these last few months (although I have been making an effort to blog more regularly, so you know, when you make the effort to click over here, there will actually be something new to check out).

Anyway.... last week Jamie, Donovan and I, took what would be his last free flight down to Phoenix (more specificlly Fountain Hills), Arizona to visit my parents at the vacation home they reciently purchased.

They bought this home last summer, and yes, it took them THIS long to convince us to go down there. You see, Phoenix was never on my "must go see list". For some reason I never really understood the big excitement about it. I thought it would be much better to go to Mexico for a week and relax at an all inclusive, or go to I don't know, there are a number of places Jamie and I have talked about, and Phoenix was never one of them.

That all changed when we got off the plane a couple Thursdays ago (my birthday actually) and felt that Hot Hot air on our skin (Jamie and I are both hot weather people), saw all the catus' and the rest of the beautiful environment, walked into my parents beautiful home, and then stumbled into the backyard to see this:

Of course, shortly after seeing that, we did this:

And we sat back, relaxed, enjoyed ourselves, and well, life was good.

And people, I am not lying when I tell you this, I am a Phoenix Convert. I LOVE Phoenix, and I can't wait until our next trip down there!

First a word or two about the weather. People, it was HOT, I'm talking +44'C (or 118'F) hot. And it was beautiful! The pool heater was turned off (obviously) and from just the heat of the sun, never dipped below 88' and most days stayed around 92' (one day it even got as hot as 97'). And it was WONDERFUL. We were in the pool, at least twice a day, and the first dip usually being somewhere between 6 and 8am, depending on what time Donovan got us up at, and how quickly we ate breakfast.

We spent most of our time around the house, which was perfect, as the intention of this trip was to relax and unwind. Jamie and I like to travel with no schedule, to get up in the morning and decide what to do that day. That by the way, drives my dad NUTS, and I think it almost killed him to not have a plan. So for his benift, we did make a tentive schedule, and would even go as far as to suggest what we might be doing the next day.

And on Sunday, that ment Jamie and I taking off in the morning on a little adventure.

(please note, these next few pictures are over exposed. Donovan dropped my camera onto the tile floor while we were down there. On inital inspection I thought just the UV lens had cracked, but after using the camera for about a day and a half, I realized there was some pretty serious damage done to the lens, which resulted in my loosing the last 35mm of the lens (it would no longer focus at that range) and also the sever over exposure of my pictures. I think a mechanisim jammed somewhere that caused the apature to be stuck at a wide open setting. Anyway, I really wanted to get this post up before things got too busy around here, so I haven't had a chance to photoshop these pictures into a better image. Also, after relaizing what had happened to my lens, I got a new one, so you won't have to put up with the crappy pictures for long).

Of course, we had to get a little shopping in, and I have been dying to get to a Carters Childerns outlet store for, well how old is Donovan? Two? Yes, well that's right, two years then! Being down in Phoenix, we finally had the oppertunity, and we made it to this one in Scottsdale. And people, it did NOT disapoint! Jamie and I had to practice some real restraint in this store, and even had to ban ourselves from the little girls section after getting our niece a couple shirts, had we kept looking, well she would have got an enitre new waredrobe.

That same day we decided to try to check out a boxing gym that was near by in Tempe. Unfortunatly the gym was closed, but since we had made the trip all the way over there, we thought we would drive around and check things out a bit. And we were THRILLED to find that ASU was mear blocks away from the gym!

We had a great time looking around the campus (or what we could see from it), only wish we weren't there on a Sunday, so a few of the buildings (read gift shop) would have been open!

Donovan took the liberty of learning how to swim while we were down there, which simply amazed us! I can't believe what a great water kid he is! I guess taking him to the pool when he was 9 weeks old started something! Becuase he absoultly LOVES the water. Every day he was larning something new, from just floating on his own, to doing the doggy paddle from one end of the pool to the other, to putting his head down and trying to swim (with eyes open under the water I might add) to LEAPING into the pool, he was absoultly GLOWING around the pool (and not just because we kept him covered in a layer of SPF70 sunscreen!)

Jamie and I also took another trip on our own to try to go to a boxing gym, that was, well you know, OPEN. And we were lucky enough to find the best gym in Phoenix, Central Boxing. It was a dream come true for Jamie to walk into the gym, and I almost had to drag him out by his ear to leave. It was the perfect boxing gym, both Professional and Amature boxers trained there, and Jamie was able to watch them train for a bit, to talk to the coach and Ms. Margret (who LOVED us) and to make some contacts. He is hoping to get down there to fight in the near future.

It was a wonderful week over all, and we can't wait to get down there again. Although somewhere along the line our baby turned into a little boy...

and I couldn't be more proud!

(also, I got to look at this all week, which wasn't so bad either....) ;)

(sorry, I just HAD to share that, lol)

On the Go

Donovan and I sure missed Jamie today. Weekends are the time that we always hang out as a family, and even if we don't do anything special, well at least we are all together as a family. So today, well today was lonely.

To help break up the time, and to take advantage of the beautiful weather, we took a walk to the park. There were some people flying kites, and Donovan thought that it was the neatest thing. One kite even "fell" and the guy let Donovan come up close and touch it, so that was pretty cool.

We didn't stay too long at the actual park though. Unlike the usual mix of kids, there were a lot of older kids play rougher tag games, and Donovan really really wanted to play with them. You could just see the confusion on his face when they didn't want to play too. I felt so bad for him, and so we ran around enough to get the wiggles out, and then walked home again. On the way home, Donovan decided he was going to lead us, so we took the long way. Of course half way through the long way home, he got tired and I had to carry him. But it was still a great day.

(the pics were taken with my phone, so they aren't the greatest quality, but you get the idea)

Keeping it Real....

Is this a sign that I take too many pictures? Or that Donovan is just expressing a natural talent early on? Either way, it is the cutest thing EVER to see him put the camera up to his eye and say "Cheeeeeessssse!"

Just to prove that he doesn't ONLY eat slushes. His afternoon snack one hot June day, oranges (his favorite, he would eat them all day and night if I let him) and cherries.

Last night I tried on his sunglasses from last year to see if they still fit. Not only did they fit, he insisted to wearing them to watch his last show of the night.

When I asked him to "smile please" this is the response I got....

A couple weeks ago my cousins little girl came over to visit (she is 6 months old), I looked at these pictures for the first time today, and wondered when my baby turned into a little boy???

And finally, I got my hair cut today, and since Jamie isn't home to tell me how good it looks, I thought I would leave that up to all of you ;)

On the Go

A couple months ago I got a new cell phone, one of those fancy schmancy ones that lets you take pictures and upload them and stuff.

I thought I would share a few of the pictures we've taken while out and about.


Playing in the backyard. Donovan thought the bucket over his head was the funniest thing ever, walked around like that and everything!

While driving to Calgary we got behind this truck, kinda felt like there was a bunch of nuclear war heads in front of us
The other morning I woke up to a flat tire. The local tire place (at least the one that was closest to my house and I was able to get to) is inside a Sears. So these are the pictures I took while waiting for the tire to be changed.

Who says you have to BUY the toys to play with them?

Really? Is THAT many different colours of playdoh necessary? When I was a kid, we had four colours, red, blue, green and yellow, and we managed just fine. I'm just wondering what 3 year old, needs THAT many different colours to make a snake?

I'm thinking On the Go might be a new thing here, where every couple of weeks I will share a few of the photo's I take while life is happening.