Owww!

thankfully this is the last lot of vaccinations for some time

Life in the world of joel, June 2006

Woah, you must be wondering what life in joel's world is like right now. full on!

• I run, climb, skip, jump, catch, kick, hit, throw and play most sports to a reasonable level
• I speak many languages with a few interestingly consistent phrases like "dat's a wrunne". unfortunately no one has worked out what I mean by that, but I'll keep saying it until they understand
• I am very good at saying "no" and shaking my head vigorously, but I pretend I don’t understand the word "no", particularly when dad shouts it loudly
• I like cookies (who doesn't?) .. and prefer them to most other foodstuffs .. vocally
• I play the piano distinctly and the drums well- I sing bob the builder a lot, and so do mom and dad
• I weigh over 30 lbs
• playgrounds are fabulous, and must have been invented by a 20mth old
• I'm still a very good eater. and when I've had enough, I throw food for fun. the trick is to wait until mom is pouring boiling water into her cup, and then throw as much food on the floor as I can followed by my cup and plate. smiling very important at this point- climbing is what I was born to do
• I like to drive the car, it's much more fun than being a passenger. dad's not let me take it on my own yet

current obsessions:

shooting hoops

playing drums - can you believe I have my own drum kit!! this isn't it, but it looks very similar
garbage collection

i am really really good at all these things, and list them in order of earnings potential for later life. so far the city have tried to recruit me for the last one, but no solid auditions for U2 or trials for the Nicks .. yet

family visits

dad has to sort out the hundreds of photos which are mounting up, i keep asking him so i can update the blog. we had wonderful visits from granny and grandpa, autie anna and uncle alan and cousin ruaridh (i have no idea how to pronounce that, but he showed my how to spell it - dad calls him roors which is funny). we went on a 3 day trip to the sunshine coast with granny and grandpa. we went to trout lake and bon’s (erin’s neighbourhood). we went to lynn canyon forest, lots of beaches, Granville island. generally i’ve been out and about and it’s been lots of fun.

mom and dad are exhausted, because of this and lots of youth pastor stuff, and mom keep’s saying it’s tiring being pregnant. she should try being the baby! oh she did try once.

i hope dad will get some time to add to the photo albums, cos there’s some great ones.

around town with great-grandma

she wasn't here for all that long, but great grandma certainly got around! as well as a coach tour of vancouver, she went over to the island and visited victoria and the buchart gardens. not to be outdone, we provided a full chamber orchestra of buskers for her entertainment outside the market at Granville Island, ensured she ate her quota of pancakes and maple syrup at a diner, and played plenty of basketball.

the great-relatives

today is great-granny's 90th birthday, so we sent her some flowers and ate fish and chips for dinner in her honour ( a british birthday tradition, allegedly).

great-grandma, after numerous letters, emails and phone calls, giving us several different arrival dates, and the named of a couple of different hotels actually arrived in town today, and we even managed to find her. she brought me so many nice toys and presents that her suitcase was almost empty by the time she'd handed them all over. i took her to the playground at Kits beach as a reward. i don't think she was quite as interested in the beach volley ball as i was, but maybe she was a bit tired after her long journey.

we'll play again tomorrow

chris martins

3 people have independently said that i look like a mini Chris Martin. in order to check this out, i joined him on the latest coldplay photo shoot. i'll let you be the judge of who's the best looking dude.

food glorious food

mom's been busy all week shopping and planning for this weekend's food extravaganza.

on friday night the youth group cooked chicken provencale ready to serve sunday lunchtime. first though we served brunch to the 9am congregation. pancakes for a hundred or so people. having located a couple of griddles to cook them on, and tried to persuade the locals that lemon and sugar is good on pancakes, not to mention training half a dozen teenagers in the art of pancake cooking, mom had had enough already. unfortunately she had almost 200 pieces of chicken to reheat ready for lunch.........

by the time it was all over we'd sold 900 krispy kreme donuts ( actually 899 - dad ate the last one), served and cleared up both brunch and lunch, not poisoned anyone AND raised over 2000 dollars towards the historymaker trip. hoorah

Finally..

after all that waiting, Monday finally came - and i got my hair cut by the Canadian men's hair stylist of the year. Really!!! Let's hear it for Alexandera Brown :) She came over and cut my hair in our kitchen, and dad's, and even mom's - although she's not a man. Mine looks pretty funky, although i say so myself. I'll have to get dad to take a photo for you.

What else - it was so windy when we went down to the beach i almost got blown over. There were lots of crashing waves and it was pretty exciting. Almost as exciting as going out for breakfast. Mom let me try maple syrup on my bacon. Now that's really good. I mopped up several servings with my bread too. I got kind of sticky, but dad came to the rescue.

That was at 8am, and before that? Oh yes, we went to the hospital where i got to see my new sibling turning somersaults. An active little thing, but just the one. No twins then. Phew!!!