Ode to the Long Weekend

What a whirlwind of a weekend we just had.  Happy to be back at work this week for the simply purpose of ‘resting’. 

The weekend consisted of a 10 hour long drive out to Fernie, BC for Dwayne to take part in a 3-day stage mountain bike race.  Olivia, Payton and I tagged along to make it a family event and an actual summer vacation.

On one hand, traveling 10 hours in one direction isn’t my idea of a great start to a family get away BUT we did get some sun while there and that was a decent trade off (if we had stayed home it would have just been rain).

First off, Dwayne’s race wasn’t all he expected it to be. Years ago we had done some mountain biking in Fernie and had fun.  At the time it was nice to try different style of trails (different terrain and different trail builders) but we were very grateful to return home to ride our back yard after a couple of days. 

8 years later Dwayne had high hopes for the growth of the mountain biking in Fernie but unfortunately was somewhat disheartened to learn that 3 days in a row he would have to ride some of the same single track (much different than his expectation of a new experience 3 days in a row).  So suffice to say he wasn’t overly disappointed when his chain broke during the 3-day of the race. 

On another note, Dwayne ended up in the hospital after day 2 because he was having such a bad time with his chronic hacking cough.  A few test later and it was determined his oxygen levels were low and he was an asthmatic.  Alas, perhaps Fernie was a good thing in that we can maybe say goodbye to Dwayne’s middle of the night coughing that is loud enough to wake the whole house.

On the Payton front, big advancement for such a little girls.  On Thursday, June 28^th (exactly 11 calendar months) she started voluntarily taking her 1^st steps.  After a week of it she’s still a bit shaky but she’ll tak a step now, balance herself and take another one.   Today she's even progressed to standing and taking a few steps with no one in front of her encouraging her.  I think her record is about 5 steps before she reaches her target.  Still a ways off from full time walking but forward progress none the less.  The other thing I love about it is she's ultra cautious.  She always has an exit strategy (she makes sure she's balanced so that when she falls its on her butt).  Not that she's cautious with everything. She's keen to climb on anything she can and today took a nasty spill off her quad bikeand ended up with an egg sized lump on her forhead  (not sure where her helmet was...).

Payton is also now a kisser (sort of).  She’s always been quick to share a kiss but hasn’t yet mastered the closed mouth kiss (instead she zooms in with a wide open mouth).  We’ve taught her to say “mmm-mah” when you say “kiss” to her.  Unfortunately she follows the mmm-mah with an open mouth kiss. 

This morning was the 1^st time she’s waved ‘bye-bye’.  This little trick has been a long time in coming and I can only guess its because she doesn’t want to say goodbye.  Still, its in every baby’s repertoire to wave bye bye so now we’ve joined the masses in that department.  

We now have a mixed bag of tricks to share at parties including: the standing balance act, the High-Five, the Clap your Hands, Arms Up trick, turning on and off a light switch, taking a few wabbly shaky steps and now waving Bye Bye.

As for Olivia, I think its safe to assume she’ll be a thrill seeker.  On the drive back from Fernie on Monday we stopped in Osoyoos to give the girls a break.  We initially were planning on swimming in the lake but we drove by a small theme park (bumper cars, rides etc).  Dwayne had a great idea to stop there instead.  We loaded up on some ride tickets, 1^st stop the tea cup ride.  Dwayne and Livy survived the tea-cup (or the parks version of it) only to notice the bungee tree (a harness, ropes and a trampoline).  This was by far Livy’s favourite and she LOVED flying through the air.  She kept asking the ride operator to go higher.  I finally had to tell him she was going high enough.

We have video so I’ll post when I get a chance.

If it wasn’t the puking episode at hour 2 on the ride back (several hours before we arrived at the park) I would say Livy had an iron stomach like her mom.  Mmmm, must reassess that one.