Posting catch-up and general drivel…

…I have been remiss on one posting that should have been written at the LATEST July 26th. Andrews 2nd birthday was a terrific party. He had his cast on for 3 days by that time, but was dragging it around without complaint by then. We had a bunch of my family here, and some close friends. Andrew loves anyone's birthday, but he especially loves his birthday. The Cake was amazing. Mary Jo made the cake again, remember the one she made for my birthday last year? She is truly an Artist. For those who are not on the up-and-up of children's TV programming in Canada, the cake is of Toopy and Binoo, one of Andrews favorite cartoon characters. What fun we had!    

Since then it has been non stop action. We have camped a lot, and those stories are related in past episodes of this blog. We have run races, had date nights, visited with family, and worked. Boy oh boy have we worked. Every moment not spent camping has been spent working. I know a lot of people who read this blog are full time RVers, some are retired, but some still have to work a bit to keep the candles burning bright, however for the most part, they choose when and where they work. Typically it is a workamping gig that keeps them in the Campground, pretty much looking after other campers. What a life. I envy the lifestyle. I own a company with my Dad here in Calgary, and on most days this summer, it has not been worth it. The slumping economy has changed our business pretty dramatically this year. When things were high flying, the customers were nice people. Now that things are tighter they turned into jerks. We didn’t change how we do business, and our operating costs didn’t go down, but they want more from us. There are MANY days that I sit and daydream about having worries like *where are we going to go next* or *North, South, East, or West*. I even envy the toughest working positions I read about because they are normally simple jobs where the work is laid out in front of you and you don’t have to plan, sell, collect, remit, balance or anything else mind bending.

I guess I need to qualify the above a bit.  We love the work we do. We work hard but we create amazing landscapes that we are very proud of. There is a reward at the end of this long tunnel, and we will find it. The thing is though, I won’t do it at the expense of not seeing Andrew grow up. This probably slows the work plan down a bit, but all in all I think it makes me a better person. Besides, 25 years from now, do you think I will look back and wish that I had worked more?

Anyhow, that's a bit of a rant that I’m not sure will be appreciated here, except maybe by the people I an envying, and you know who you are.

Andrew has had a really good summer. Traci took a voluntary temporary lay-off from her position, which just happened to be back in May. We were talking about her taking the summer off anyway, so her and Andrew have had an amazing time this summer, playing in the yard, gardening, going shopping etc. They sing and read and watch movies, and generally enjoy this amazing time together. The voluntary temporary lay-off has turned into a permanent lay-off as the market in her business has not turned around yet, but she got a severance package and we re now starting to explore her options, maybe doing something she loves, like basket decorating and centerpiece making for weddings etc. Maybe she will stay home until Andrew is ready to go to school in 3 years time. That would be ideal, but we will see. It kind of depends on our company and it’s immediate future. We stay positive and keep working hard on our plan, and things always seem to fall into place for us just when we need them to. The bright side of the whole down economy, is that Traci got to spend another summer with Andrew fulltime. She is an amazing Mom and Andrew is growing up an Amazing boy because of it!

So what has Andrew done this summer that I haven’t blogged about? Well, he has been to the Zoo, Heritage Park, He has seen live shows, such as the Backyardigans, The Wiggles and Toopy and Binoo, He spends quite a bit of time over at Poppop and Nans where he learns things like how to play with a laser pointer and he teaches Nan how to operate the DVD player. He just love to garden too. Today he went to his first hockey game. Poppop and Nan have season tickets to the Calgary Hitmen of the Western Hockey League and they took him to the matinee game today. We are coming to realize that he LOVES any kind of performance and the crowds that go along with them!

We are now entering the winter season, which is normally slower for me, so that gives me the opportunity to spend lots of time with Andrew.

I am going to teach him how to skate, and we are going to go sledding a lot, plus we are working on finishing our basement. A few months ago, I took over our guest bedroom upstairs for my office and that left us needing a place to house guests. We decided to proceed with our basement plan and that included a murphy wall bed, that can be employed whenever needed, but not take up any space in the giant play area that is going to be our basement when no one is visiting. There is going to be a craft kitchen down there as well as all the rough in’s for my future 110” screen home theatre package. The best part of our basement so far, is that we purchased very cool subfl0or panels. Why are Subfloor panels cool? because they take a cold concrete floor and turn it into a warm wood floor just like any other floor in the house. When we are down there, it won’t feel anything like a basement, and that is cool. These panels are NOT cheap, but they are worth every penny.

So that pretty much catches you up to date in Non blogged stuff. Oh, yeah. I had a birthday too, Last Saturday. It was a low key affair, but was perfect. Traci, Andrew, Poppop, Nan, my sister Nic and my BIL Dean were there to help me usher out my 36th year.

And… always the same weekend as my birthday is Thanksgiving. Canadian style of course. It is pretty much the same thing as the US version, just without the triple header of football and ridiculous shopping sprees. It was the same crowd as my birthday, just a different menu.  

Oh yeah, this is Nan’s new cat, Helen. Well, Helen was her name at the shelter, but it was changed to Tessa. So now we call her the cat formerly known as Helen.

Wow, what a long blog. Probably a record. Anyway, most people who read this blog, have ties to RVing is some way. for the short term future I may include some items here that are related to RVing, like our future camping plans etc, but for the winter, it will be a bit more about our day to day stuff. I may talk about my running and training, as I will be starting a full 16 week program for a 1/2 marathon in February called the Hypothermic Half…LOL. Call me crazy, but I like running in the cold. I then will be considering a full Marathon. maybe. So, in the meantime, we will be following our RVing friends blogs down in the warm states, while we patiently wait for the May long weekend so we can get back out in the camper. Meanwhile, I will try to relate our funny and interesting stories from cold Calgary.

Thanks for reading, goodnight now.

Pic of the day. We gave Andrew a haircut as he was being bothered by hair in his eyes.  Remember Lloyd Christmas from the movie Dumb and Dumber? hehe. We fixed it the next day.