Weddings, Hummingbirds and Las Vegas Baby!

As unbelievable as it may sound, I've managed to get off my duff and actually post some more photos. We had a great time at Crystal and Derek's wedding and at the open house up at Paul and Wandy's place. I managed to get a few nice shots. You can check the set of photos out by clicking here. And don't forget that you can view it as a slideshow once you get there (look for a 'view as slideshow' link on the upper right when you get there.)

We also had a great trip out to Vegas. I got a decent round of golf in with Howie and the scenery was just superb. We didn't lose a lot of money (hard to do when you're playing the nickel slots) and had a wonderful time. The Vegas set of photos is right here.

I even managed to get a few decent photos of the flowers and the hummingbirds at Ruthe and Howie's. For that set of photos click here.

Well whatta ya know... finally a blog update!

As always, it took a threatening email from a close relative (in this case Aunty Sandy) before I got off my duff and uploaded new pics.

I've uploaded a few new soccer pics. Em got her first GOAL on her last day of soccer. Of course Daddy was too busy clapping and cheering to have taken any pictures of that moment!

A heaping helping of pics from our recent week off in Haliburton makes up the rest of it. There are loads of great shots from that week.

We had Sarah doing her best Jerry Lewis impression with Uncle's dollar store reading glasses, we had Emily doing her utmost to be both fashionable and beautiful and then to our surprise we had the UFO sighting pic. Emily seems to have loved Grandma's expression on that one! While not a great photo by any means, I don't think it will be forgotten.

And Grandma... the 'sumo' pic didn't get uploaded and will remain in my possession for safe-keeping. Unless of course someone is willing to pay me a hefty sum for it! It's currently locked away in the 'warm-a-tron'. :)

Fiddling with photos and the new Ride!

As you may or may not have noticed, I am fooling around with the header at the top of this blog. I'm not sure I like it the way it is. I may fiddle some more... In the meantime, here's a couple of photos of my new ride!! It's a 2007 Kia Rio Ex-Sport. It drives quite nicely, eases the pain at the gas station and most importantly Emily likes it! :)

Playing Catch-Up

Believe it or not, there are now almost 250 new photos up on the Flickr site as of this morning. I won't go into what they all are, but I'll point you to the various photo sets for you to check out at your leisure. Hopefully it won't be another 3 month dry spell before posting new ones! Here are the sets:

Myrtle Beach 2007 vacation shots

Various Em and Sarah photos from February 2007

Various Em and Sarah photos from March 2007

The Combo birthday party in March in Gilford

Various Em and Sarah photos from April 2007 (this one has the darling hat and bandana pics!)

Easter egg painting pics from April 2007

Mark's visit from April 2007

Shots of our recent Niagara Falls mini-trip

Some more of Emily's skating pics


Phew!

No new pics, but learn something useful instead!

Click To Play

There are two types of Internet users, those that use RSS and those that don't. This video is for the people who could save time using RSS, but don't know where to start.

While I haven't uploaded any new pics in quite a while, I do have quite a few sitting on my home PC just waiting for me to get off my butt and post. It'll happen soon. But in the meantime, here's a little education for you:

Right now, the vast majority of internet users go around to their favourite websites (blogs, news sites, whatever) every once in a while to see if anything new has been posted. If you're checking this one every once in a while you must be getting pretty P.O'd that nothing new has been posted. ;)

Wouldn't it be good if all those websites automatically provided any updated posts and content to you, instead of you having to check them all every once in a while?

Every time one of those sites (like this blog) puts up a new post, or article, or news story, the info would be forwarded for you to read (or ignore). You wouldn't have to visit those sites to see the updated info unless you wanted to.

That's exactly what RSS is for. Rather than me wasting time trying to explain it, you should watch the above video.

And I'll try to get more Emily and Sarah pics up on the site soon enough.

The three of us are off to Niagara Falls for a mini-mini vacation this weekend. Let's hope the weather holds up and Emily can properly enjoy the sights.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Before I get in any more trouble....

[Click here to go to the photo set]

Before I get smacked down again by the currently flu-ridden Aunty Sandy, I thought I'd better get crackin' and post some more photos. I've got lots of them but going through them and posting them hasn't been as high up my to-do list as it should've been. So here we go with the first of a few new posts over the next week or so.

Two weeks into the new year we had Emily's 5th birthday party for her friends. We had it at a play place down in Concord. There was an abundance of bouncing, running, climbing and pizza-eating. All in all, a great success. After the party, Paul, Sandy, Sarah, Steve, Sam, Meridith, Jen, Emily and I (phew!) headed over to a brand new (and hence happily quiet) Tim Horton's for some Timbits, coffee and tea. It was good fun and I managed to get a few more good shots of the kids before we headed into the big-arse Vaughan Mills Mall for a little shopping.

We had a great time with Sam, Steve and Meredith during their visit. Hopefully it won't be too long before we get to see them (and more precisely Meredith) again. ;)

And Sandy, take care of yourself and that little one. Hopefully you can pull yourself out of bed and/or away from the toilet long enough to enjoy the pictures. :)

Paul - Get Back Home!

Holidays, Birthdays and Celebrations!

It's been a busy holiday season with Christmas, Emily's 5th birthday, New Years, Ev's 100th birthday and the visitors from England to top it all off. Needless to say I snapped lots of pics. I finally managed to upload some of them so you can check them out here:

Ev's 100th Birthday Photos
New Years in Lockport
Dinner at Ruthies

There are a few more still to do, most notably Ev's dinner at the Quaint House and Emily's first foray into skating. But those will have to wait for now...

Another Beautiful Camera Magnet...

Under intense pressure from an unnamed person [cough..cough..Jen..cough], I managed to get some new photos up to the blog in record time (record time for me anyway!). I've just posted 28 odd photos of our beautiful little niece. There really isn't a heck of a lot to say except she's beautiful and as you might tell from the photo above, definitely not camera shy! You can click here to see the photos (and don't forget you might want to click the 'view as slideshow' at the upper right when you get there). Enjoy.

Leaf Fight!

Well.. Fall is upon us and Christmas is coming fast. Not much to spout off about right now. Too much work and too little sleep, like always. Emily's enjoying school and learning in leaps and bounds. Even with all the hard work at school, she sure knows how to have fun. There are a few good pics of a leaf fight at Nonno's house a couple of weekends back. No shortage of smiles and rosey cheeks on that day. :)

Bringing it on...

Various shots (most of them harmless, and a few quite nice) from Ruthie's birthday dinner last weekend. David and Margie have come across the pond to visit as well! At the moment Jen is in Las Vegas (poor thing!). As for the picture above...well.. don't ask. You can see the above photo as well as several others right here.

And they thought I wouldn't dare publish them. :)

A Milestone.. for us anyway...

This is truly a post for posterity. Today our little girl officially started school! It's both amazing and sad how quickly time passes. It's definitely a good reminder to make the most of every moment. Emily of course was quite gung-ho on the whole deal. With brand-new lunchbag in hand and a whack of new clothes (thanks to Mom) she's entered the next phase of her life. As I said, Emily thought it was the greatest thing. And of course Mommy cried (but not until after we had dropped her off). She came back after her first day very positive. She was proud to announce she had already had a music class, a French lesson and most importantly her very own lunch! Of course Daddy was outwardly calm and positive as usual. But typing this, well, it's not so easy to remain nonchalant. We know she'll do well, but there are lots of times we both wish she'd remain in diapers a while longer.

Stop right there!

Amazingly, I have managed to upload some more new pics to the Flickr site. There are some great (and messy) new fingerpainting pics in this set. And even better, there are wonderful new pictures of cousins Emily and Sarah. Tell me these aren't two beautiful girls. Uncle Paul and I are probably going to have to keep them locked away until they're 21 !! Maybe we'll both have our shotgun licences by then too! :)

Ev's New Digs, and Baby Sarah's Shower

Yes, that's a hunk of cake on a fork. You can dress her up but you can't take her anywhere I guess...

After some not-so-subtle hints today from Uncle Paul, I thought I had better get my butt in gear and update the blog. (Funny that we haven't seen a blog post from Paul in an age..maybe too busy changing diapers now I guess.). Anyway, I've posted two new sets of photos. The first set of photos contains some shots I took of our first visit to Ev's new place. She seems very comfortable and happy there, and her spirit seems much improved. We visited her today and it sounds like she's getting a lot more visitors than when she was back on Oren Blvd. She's loving that part of it for sure.

The second set of photos is from Baby Sarah's recent shower. It was held in Ruthie's back yard in Gilford and was a big success by all accounts. There's not a lot of shots, but enough to give you the gist of it. Of course I wasn't there for the shower proper (since it was girl's only of course) so the photos I took are from the last couple of hours. Molly, Alison and Janie were on their way out when I arrived but at least I did manage to see them.

As always, I'll try to keep this blog a little more up to date.. Yeah.. we'll see how that goes. ;)

Gee.. do ya think she's posing?

Here's a textbook pose from Emily during our recent outing to Canada's Wonderland. Onlookers were chuckling when they saw her mugging for the camera. We had a great time although Mom tried to avoid the 'spinny' rides at all costs. We also had a great picnic up in Barrie. Of course Ruthie and Jen went overboard with all the food, but I really shouldn't complain now should I. I've uploaded a few of the highlight pics on the Flickr site. Check out the photos here. By the way, Evy moves to her new digs in the next week or so. I'll make sure to take some pics on our first visit and post about them here. Don't forget to check back here soon for those.

Sarah Grace Evelyn has Arrived!

Sarah Grace Evelyn Davies was born on June 23, 2006 in Barrie, Ontario. Congratulations and all our love goes to Paul, Sandy and Corey on their new addition to the family. What a beautiful girl! Jen, Em and I saw her on the 24th and of course I took quite a few pictures. She's quite photogenic, you can already tell! I've posted a few pictures here on the blog, but you can go the new photoset I've added to see some more. Click here to check them out. A proper email will follow of course, but I thought I'd get the pictures up and ready first.

Meredith !!!

On April 4th, 2006 at 2:30pm, an 8 lb-3 oz little wonder arrived. Today I received a comment on a blog post (a few posts down) notifying me that the internet should beware... new grandparents David and Margie have broadband! A short time later I received an email asking me to post a couple of pictures of the little beauty on the site. Here they are. I can't decide whether she got her good looks from Sam or Steve, but of course she's more beautiful than either (I'm sure they wouldn't argue). Cheers you guys. I hope you're enjoying the newest little family member..and still getting some sleep.

The Start of Soccer Season

Emily's first outing at soccer proved to be quite fun. She had a good time as did we. Mommy, Daddy and Nonno were there to see all the great action. Of course Emily looked great courtesy of Uncle Paul, who got the shoes and shin-pads lined up for us. I got quite a few good shots. You can see the rest of them here.

Painful Episode

It is so humbling as a parent (and a person) to sit and watch your child endure any sort of pain. Em had a tooth that had to come out today. Jen and I grabbed and held her hands throughout the process trying our best to comfort her and explain however feebly, that we are doing this to make the pain go away (she had an abscessed tooth). Em has made it easy for us as parents, ridiculously easy. I know that many more parents go through much worse every single day. But days like this remind us of how we would do *anything* to prevent our child from hurting - I'd have jumped into that chair in a heartbeat if I could've been a surrogate for her pain. Of course an hour later she's sitting on the couch watching George Shrinks as if nothing had happened and anticipating the arrival of the tooth fairy later tonight. I believe 5 bucks is on offer for the inaugural visit.

This post is nothing more than a placeholder to remind myself in future years of what it really means to be a father and of what it really means to love my daughter. There will be times when I undoubtedly forget.

Photos A La Mode

It's been a while since I last posted (the one with the soccer/wrestling backyard fun shots) so before anybody screams for more photos, I've uploaded a bunch of new pics to the flickr site. There are shots of Emily and the dogs at Nonno's house, shots from Mothers Day and some others. I've got a few good ones from Lauren's wedding that I'll try to post in the next little while as well.

Ya ya

It goes without saying that we are all glad (and relieved) that Howie is back at home and doing fine after his surgery. The complications and subsequent second operation threw everybody here for a temporary loop. But he thankfully leapt that hurdle. We're so happy he's doing ok.

P.S. Appropriately enough, this photo was taken by Emily (his No.1 Fan) who, at 4 years old, happens to be very adept at using my digital camera.