We were lucky enough to spend a week down in Palm Springs to visit my parents.
It was a great time that was really really HOT!!! Next time we'll go back earlier in the year as a few days I found to be uncomfortably hot, but regardless it was great to get 7 days in a row of sunshine. Escaping the Vancouver weather is a very healthy thing to do. Why do people live in Vancouver? That's another question for another time. Put it this way, we're actively looking for an exit strategy.
Anyways, here are some photos of some of the highlights
Amber enjoying her $5 pool on the back deck with Marg's new little puppy "Trinket", a miniature Pinscher who is a great little dog.
Kayaking out on the lake was also fun. Luke, a great little Jack Russell, was a natural boater and he loved to hop on both the single and tandem kayaks that we borrowed and act as the maidenhead.
We went hiking to a really cool place called Indian Canyon. Here Kristy was underneath a small waterfall and Amber wasn't too happy about it.
Did I mention it was hot? This umbrella worked great to keep Kristy and Amber shaded and cool.
This shot hardly does it justice but the contrast between the lunar-like barren desert and the greenery of Palm trees where the spring water flows was stunning. Surprisingly, the water was actually really cold and it was quite refreshing to dunk your head to cool down.
Another highlight for us was being able to pick fresh grapefruit off the trees which we either ate with spoons or one day made about 1L of fresh juice. A real novelty for us. Here I am developing my technique with pointers from Mom, it's actually not as easy as you might think.
This is a quick story of how the douchebaggery of a new neighbour,
motivated me to stoop to his level while making our apartment just a
little bit better.
Preamble:
Living in an apartment complex is interesting. I've had lots of less than stellar interactions (and some good ones too) with neighbours in the 6+ years we've been here.
I keep a dolly down in the parkade for transporting heavy things up to our unit. I've left it down there, unlocked, without issues for years. One night, at about midnight, as I remembered I had to get the 250 lbs of concrete-mix out of the back of my truck, I discovered that someone had stolen my dolly.
In disbelief I cased the parking lot and the storage lockers looking for it. I thought someone must have "borrowed" it and forgot to put it back. As I peered into the locked van of a new neighbour, I spotted it. Since said neighbour is a cabinet-maker-contractor, he has his phone number displayed on the side of his van. I texted him right away to let him know I was not impressed that he had taken my dolly and that I needed it back right now.
He came down, with his thick Russian accent, and proclaimed, "I have one just like that, how do you know it's yours?" Luckily I had replaced one of two little cotter pins that are part of the dolly, and the replacement did not quite match the original, so I was able to identify it as mine.
I don't really like being directly lied to, but since living in this building I've lost respect for much of humanity and all I really cared about was getting my dolly back to save my back from carrying the concrete bags by hand.
And now the renovation-revenge part:
A couple of weeks later, I had the washer/dryer pulled out to install a water filter. Before putting the laundry machine back beside the hot water tank, I was down in the parkade and I spotted my crime of opportunity. In
the douchebag's parking spot was a perfectly good 6-foot long piece of
wire closet shelving. I debated it for a second, but then something came over me and I blatantly stole it from him knowing I could
simply say, "Oh I thought it was mine, I have one that looks just like
it", in case he spotted me. I probably would have used a Russian accent
too just to mock him a bit more.
I've never been so motivated in my life to put up a
couple of shelves and give us a bit more storage space.
Here are the before and after photos showing the water filter and the new "shelves of opportunity" above the hot water tank.
Before:
After:
And that concludes the story; petty I know, but
simple pleasures for simple minds. I need to get my motivation for renovations wherever I can.
I should also add that this is my viewpoint of "revenge". But in all reality I was probably just doing him another favour by saving him a dump-run as the piece of shelving is the same stuff used in all the front closets in this complex. Most likey the situation was less sinister as he surely had ripped it out of his house and was doing some upgrades. Still though, I like to think about it from my perspective.
I love craigslist. This is the top of the line Deuter kid comfort III child carrier. All the reviews say that this is by far the most comfortable carrier for both the baby and the parent. MEC has it for $315+tax which in BC makes it $352.80.
If you're unemployed and not afraid to bomb out to Langley you can get a nearly new one for $100. And of course, Loca was an unwilling participant in yet another trial run of something baby related.
Wow, two posts in one day...I should get back to work.
Amber loooooooves bunnies. It started with one particular bunny that she loved, but she loved it so aggressively that it often needed laundry. Actually she kind of helps us clean the house by using it as a swiffer as she crawls along the floor. So we got another bunny for a laundry rotation. And then like bunnies do, they replicated to the point that we now have a bunny army. There's mini-bunny (a recent addition), two regular sized bunnies (road bunnies), and one large bunny (crib bunny). All of these bunnies make our parent lives much easier. Every time I've taken the skytrain with Amber strapped to me, I've had a bunny wedged between her head and my chest. And nothing puts her to sleep faster than being plopped down onto Crib Bunny with a soother in her mouth. And up in Sechelt (where we've been going a lot lately), Grandma Jenny got Amber a MEGA-bunny which Amber loves proportionally more.
The other day, while Amber was out at daycare, they ended up at a store that sold these exact bunnies Amber loves so much and they decided to literally bury her in them. As you can see, I think she was in heaven.
Vancouver is really full of douchebags, it's important to always keep that in mind.
Last night I met up with Kristy downtown and we grabbed some food before heading home. I had Amber strapped to me. For some odd reason, we decided to take the elevator down to the lowest level of the skytrain rather than the 2 escalators just because we were carrying so much stuff. As the elevator door opened, this little db wearing a toque and aviators emerged rather quickly (in hindsight) and we proceeded to get in. It took about 5-10 seconds for us to notice but just after the door had shut, we realized that said db must have just discharged a pepper spray cannister. It was horrible, our eyes, noses and mouths immediately started burning and I just covered up Amber's head with my jacket and we hit the buttons to get out and fortunately got out only 1 floor down.
Poor Amber was wailing, 15 months old and already been pepper sprayed. My sinuses and eyes felt like they were on fire. Then we got to board the crowded train with a very unhappy baby and head home. Woohoo!!
Getting the whole family pepper sprayed was the LAST thing I was worried about as I stepped into that elevator. Normally the biggest risk would be a bit of BO or someone's bad fart. So next time you're in Van, be careful of getting into a closed public air space, you just never know which little anarchist loser (who I would love to run into again) might be out to cause harm to you.
We are all fine now. Rant over.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Mount Cain Snow!!
It's been awhile since I've posted. The theme here is snowboarding and more specifically Mt. Cain and how much snow it's got received (that's for you mom) this year.
Our first visit was over New Years where we celebrated and rode nothing but powder. Check out the snow level around the cabin, at least the last 4 stairs showing and a big drop still off the decks out front and back.
I guess the tobogganing was really quite tame and perhaps too boring for Amber.
But she had a great time partying on New Years
The next time I was up there was just me; more powder and the Cain Cup in late January, a fun little slalom race down the face of the lower t-bar. It was snowing so hard that I missed the last gate on the course in my first run due to visibility which was too bad because I had a great run. The 2nd run I lost an edge a couple times but still ended up getting 1st in the men's oldtimer snowboard category which was a real laugh. I snapped this self photo showing the cabin but again check the snow level Jan 21st-ish.
Lee, our cabin mate, ended up getting 2nd so it's made for some great cabin banter, although there was probably enough already without this. The only place in the world where my 1st place medal looks any good is next to his 2nd place one so they are now up on the wall in the cabin. Here's Lee about to drop in for his second place performance. Note that
he has ski poles for the start whereas I did not, again just more of
the banter and I'll be training hard for next year's race.
The next visit was late February where we had a great crew of people and if you can believe it, powder again each day, the 2nd of which was bluebird. There was another race, this time a boardercross but it conflicted with my daddy daycare time. Kristy finally got to get out and snowboard two days in a row. I was really happy for her as these were her first couple days in two seasons and she got to rip lots of untracked runs on the upper t-bar. Unfortunately I didn't take any outdoor shots of the cabin this time for some reason but got some party shots.
And some posing scenery shots...
But back to the snow levels.....check out this shot of the cabin taken March 24th and look at where Loca is standing next to the window. Also note that we are now digging DOWN onto our stairs.
For the full appreciation you have to contrast this with a similar shot showing it in the summer.
So note that where Loca is standing is about on top of about 15 feet of snow. The other thing is that in the back Loca can now walk off the side of the deck where you can see in the shot taken in January, it was easily still an 8 foot drop off the deck.
And speaking of amazing, how about the real reason all these cabins and a volunteer-run ski hill exist up there anyways....the skiing! Well actually snowboarding and splitboarding for me. This photo is of the famous "Dream Chute" which you can see we ripped apart. It's quite the mission to do this actually. We were waiting in line for first t-bar at 9:30 and got back the 1st time around noon. This shot was taken as we were approaching it for the second time. It was so good that I just had to do it again.
Here is a shot of Lee ripping down Dream Chute from our morning run.
When photographed in portrait mode you get a better idea of the pitch
of the run. The very first pitch seems near vertical when you're
dropping in. We were tempted to air into this but at Mt. Cain the
consequences of hurting yourself in this location are pretty bad. The
only way out of here is a traversing climb through the trees across a bowl (and slidepath) so we just
played it safe and enjoyed it for what it was.
This is a shot of me charging it the 2nd time. The wide angle of the camera just does not do it justice and makes it look about half as steep as it is.
And as long as I live, I'll never forget how good this backside slash felt. I was just going so fast and then adding to that the g-forces from being up on the shoulder; if my soul has batteries this is the recharger. I imagine surfing on a big ocean wave must feel something like this but at this point I can still only imagine.
And here is the video of my 2nd run that I will always remember.
Getting over to this place, even though it's right next to the ski hill is not easy. This next shot is a view looking back towards the east side of the mountain to give an idea of where we were. To get out you cross the bowl and traverse up through the trees.
Also on top of the mountain we found the elusive Kokanee Sasquatch. This particular Sasquatch was my partner in crime for the "Double Dream Chute" and who's deep breathing you heard on the video. I was impressed that Big T (Tyson) did the climb twice, especially because he wasn't on a splitboard for the traverse out and instead did it on snow shoes.
And simply because no post about Mt Cain is complete without the quintessential view of Mt Abel here she was. On the Saturday, a group of 4 skiers did a line down this in front of a rocking beer garden just before sundown. They definitely one-upped our descents down the relatively tame Dream Chute but for both our morning and afternoon rips we could see quite a gathering of people at the top lift watching us. Overall, it was my best shredding of the winter.
As you can see it's been a great winter up at Mt.Cain!!
It's been far too long since I posted a McNelson family update! A lot has happened since the last post so I'll try to keep things as succinct as possible.
The first big event of the year was Amber's first birthday. We had a small celebration with just a few family members. The birthday girl had a pretty great day....especially when the birthday cake came out!
Mmmmm.....can I have cake for dinner too?
Other highlights of her birthday included:
Goofing around with "Uncle" Aaron
And getting in a birthday snug with Tibs
And the day wouldn't be complete without a birthday nap/snug with Grandma :)
Just over one month later I celebrated my big 3-0! I had a fantastic birthday weekend thanks to Tim who started things off by taking me out for a fancy dinner at one of Vancouver's revolving restaurants. The view from the top was amazing and the meal was delicious too!
Great view in the daylight
Even better view in the nightlight :)
After a great dinner we kept the celebration going with a trip to the Aquarium with a great group of friends. Although it was a big year to celebrate I opted for a more subdued celebration as there were a number of us that had small children. We had a great time nonetheless!
What's a birthday without cupcakes!
Our next family adventure was our trip to Mount Cain last weekend. It's always quite an ordeal to get there, but it pays off 100 times over when you get days like this:
It snowed so much that the first morning we were there the mountain was just a nice place to hang out. Everyone that did battle the mountains of endless powder said that they spent the entire morning getting stuck in one snow bank after another. Once the runs got a little more 'tracked out' we were able to get some nice powder turns in before closing time.
Amber also got geared up a few times for some snow treks. What is hilarious about this photo that you probably can't fully see is that Amber is such a marshmallow in this suit that she is actually physically stuck wherever I put her. Poor thing, although it's nice not having to worry about her being cold!
As for a general Amber update, she's progressing steadily. She's finally started pulling herself to standing - one morning I came into her room to find this:
She was standing, waiting for me to come and get her. When she saw me enter the room she started bouncing and shrieking with delight. I couldn't help but laugh :)
Due to our daycare provider being on vacation, Amber has been spending some quality time with Dad and, because she's so spoiled, Grandma McCourt has also been around to spend some time with her.
A familiar pose? I think so :)
Since Amber has been spending so much quality time with Dad these days she's really developing a great bond with him. She has the biggest smiles whenever she sees him and lately. She's also thinks it's hilarious to feed him her snacks. I guess she notices that he steals them any ways....lol.
I think that covers everything since the last blog. Hopefully I'll keep up with the posts a little better in the future so I won't have to have these mega posts every couple of months!
