new windows

after some debate about what sizes and types of window to get: whether they crank open, or push, or slide, or even don't open at all - our new windows arrived today. it all happened remarkably quickly really. a few hefty blows of the hammer and the old windows came out, and not long afterwards the new ones were installed. fortunately it was a nice day so all our stuff didn't get rained on.


i helped the guys by getting them iced water from the fridge at regular intervals, and offering them my tools to use, but they had quite a few decent ones of their own.

On strike

summer's arrived and when the sun's shining there's nothing better than splashing in the waterpark, reading a book on the beach, watching the diggers doing road construction or going for a swim in Kits pool. obviously the city workers think so too, since they've all gone on strike. except they've obviously not thought it through too well - they may not be emptying our bins or digging the roads but while the libraries, pools and parks are shut they won't be able to have much fun either.

so now instead of going to the library we go looking for an unlocked commercial dumpster to throw away our smelly diapers. not exactly the summer entertainment we've been looking forward to since christmas :(

Andrew's fixing his motorbike ...... again

a friend of dad's is returning home to south africa soon, but rather than flying, he's going to ride his motorbike there instead. given how many pieces his motorbike is currently in, this is rather worrying.

andrew's staying in our basement at the moment fixing his bike on a daily basis, whilst waiting for his travelling partner to be ready to leave. or maybe he's waiting until his bike is fixed. who knows? i've decided my tricycle needs fixing too, so now i keep a wrench and a pair of pliers in the seat compartment ready for a daily tune up.

in the meantime we had our first ever yard sale. andrew needed to sell the last of his stuff- not much space on a motorbike for a clothes dryer, kitchen equipment or office stuff. we dragged out some of our stuff from the store room to bolster his offerings. despite the fact we had a load more stuff, he made a lot more money. seems no one else liked the light fixtures we took down either.


we had some fun though, we met some more of the neighbours and i got my bubble machine out to attract more passers by. we even got to wash the front steps while trade was slow.

you can follow andrew's travels online at http://www.homeinafrica.net

Bribery doesn't work

Mom and dad took me to toysrus to chose a special little seat that fits on the big grown up toilet. i chose a great Thomas the Tank engine one. I'm sure Katrina's going to love using it when she comes over.


Me? Why would i want to use it? i like wearing diapers. very convenient. no need to interrupt my playtime. it's all good.

new friends

mom's settled on some new friends for us in the basement suite. ollie and i met laura last week and she seems pretty cool. laura and her sister steph both play soccer when they're not studying at university, although laura seemed pretty interested in my toys so i'm not sure how much work she'll be doing.

they're working in tofino for the summer so they won't be moving in until the end of august, which is probably just as well since mom still has quite few boxes of stuff to move, not to mention painting to do and carpets to clean and the piano to get moved and........

janice

janice is a friend of mom's who spends all day looking at people's teeth. isn't that weird? i wasn't wildly enthused about her taking a look at mine, but once she'd let me play in the moving chair for a while i deigned to opened my mouth briefly. apparently i have to keep going back again and again. sigh.....

do you want to live with us?

mom and dad have been asking around amongst our friends recently to see if anyone wanted to move into our basement suite. despite promising that ollie now sleeps through the night, we haven't had any takers. i can't imagine why not - who wouldn't want to live with me?

finally mom resorted to posting an ad on craigslist and suddenly EVERYONE wants to live here. she posted the ad at 11pm and had four replies before 6am. by dinnertime there were more than i could count......considering i can only count up to 11 that's not overly surprising, i guess.

mom picked out a few of the replies and emailed them a few more details about us. if any of them still want to live with us after they've heard how early i get up in the morning then we'll meet them next week.

new room, new bed

we've finally moved enough things upstairs so that we can sleep up here. somehow downstairs still looks pretty full though. i get the feeling this is going to be a long job.

i've got bunk beds in my new room although i can't climb up onto the top bed as there doesn't seem to be a ladder. perhaps that's why they were cheap? there's enough space under my bed for me to keep my marble tracks and my train set, which means ollie won't be able to get at them. i've got a great new border with trucks and boats and planes on, and all my books and bears have come upstairs too, as well as my rainbow tent. i'm a bit disturbed by the noises the fridge makes through the wall, and it is kind of hot. after a few moments thought, mom and dad realised installing a ceiling fan in my room wasn't the greatest of ideas (it would have made a fantastic moving target though) so i've got a fan on a table just by the door.

one of the best things about being upstairs is that i can watch the squirrels out the window while i'm eating my breakfast, and we've finally got somewhere for me to have my sandbox. it's out on the front porch so that it's under cover when it's raining, and in the shade when it's sunny. isn't that brilliant! mom and dad have discovered that they can just see the mountains from the front porch too, so they're happy to sit out there for a while with me.

the pink has to go

it's not that i have anything against pink exactly, but blue is far more appropriate for ollie's new room and matches his funky new curtains far better. ol's new curtains have a rock star and a footballer on them, whilst mine have a digger. mom and dad don't have any curtains just yet, but i expect they'll get some eventually - it's not like they sleep long enough for the dawn to wake them.


having practised in ollie's room yesterday, today i got to help mom and dad paint our new playroom. after some debate about what colour to use, we've settled on 'sandy lane' - the same colour we used in our playroom downstairs.

the youth group came round this evening to lend us a hand. Kris did a great job of putting our new BBQ together. at least it looks great. we won't know if it actually works until we try it!

our first two house guests: Yoshi and his mom (also called Yoshi) are enjoying our hospitality. they're here until the weekend. Yoshi (mom) is sleeping in my new room and she keeps bringing me little presents when she comes in from her day's adventures. she doesn't speak much english, but i can tell she thinks ollie and i are pretty cute.

Canada Day

we had a strange kind of canada day this year. it was on a sunday so we had church outside in jericho park. people brought lunch with them, and the weather was great, so we hung out for a while waiting for ollie to wake up from his nap. i was pretty tired and in need of a nap myself by the time we finally left for home. by the time i was awake again it was a bit late to be thinking about going out somewhere.

mostly we spent the holiday weekend putting a few things into boxes ready to go upstairs, and waiting for the guys upstairs to move out. a big storage container arrived on the back of a truck for all their stuff, with a mini crane to lift it off. i got to watch from mom and dad's bedroom windowsill, but i think dad was hiding in case he had to move some furniture or something.

talking of windowsills, arun came back on canada day to discuss the designs for our new windows and then someone came in to measure today. it'll be a little while to make them, but by the end of the month we should have double glazing upstairs and down.