you are getting sleepy...

There is no particular reason for me posting these photos except that they are pretty freaking hilarious. Brian is KNOWN for being able to fall asleep anywhere. It really is quite a talent.

In 2004, we were racing in the Victoria Dragon Boat Festival and we shared a room with the Edzel's (aka Ed and Liezel). One of them took this photo of Brian and I conked out on our bed after a long day of racing and probably a few drinks with dinner.

I know it's not one of my finest sleeping moments, but at least I'm fully laying on the bed! Check Brian out! I think he fell asleep watching tv! Literally. He was probably watching tv one second and sleeping the next! And he's not even drunk!

Here is a better view of his positioning. Truly talented, I tell ya...

happy easter

The Van Dop family celebrated Easter at our house this year. The quarters were cramped, but I'm hoping everyone had a good time nonetheless. Despite my awful cold, I had a great time! I love watching Josh interact with his Van Dop cousins. It's such a funny sight for me because all of his Van Dop cousins are fair-haired with light eyes and then there is Josh with brown hair and dark brown eyes! Who would ever think they are all related?!

This was also Josh's first Easter egg hunt. Though he didn't really understand the point, he had a fun time picking up the eggs. He didn't want to put them in his basket, though. He just wanted to hold on to them!

Here are some photos from the egg hunt. We let the toddlers go first, since the bigger kids would have them all snatched up in an instant!

Then, we let the bigger kids have free reign. Jaidyn is loading up her basket...
I think Josh and Brooke see that there is more benefit in "hunting" from Ciarra's basket...
Trying to get them all in a group shot is still somewhat difficult...
And then we all went indoors and opened presents from the "Easter Bunny" (aka Nana and Opa!)...


Happy Easter, everyone! We hope you had a peaceful and familial one!

ski trip 2008

I was going to start off this post by saying how we haven't gone on our annual ski trip in awhile. Well, it turns out "awhile" is 4 years, and before that, we had only done it 2 years running! So, I guess calling it our "annual" ski trip is a bit misleading.

Each of us has been to our fair share of BC ski resorts, but we never really went together. So, in 2003, we organized a group ski trip to Red Mountain in Rossland, BC. A group of 6 of us piled into a rented minivan and drove the 8 hours to Rossland. Five years seems like such a long time ago and I don't recall many details of the trip, but I recall that Red Mountain was an awesome ski resort - I would go back.

Missing from this photo is Rosanne, who was taking the picture

The following year, we decided that the 8 hour drive to Red was not far enough and we organized a trip to Fernie Ski Resort in Fernie, BC. This time, we rented a Yukon, and 7 of us piled into the mammoth vehicle for the 12 hour journey. There were 9 of us in total, but Josh and Mon went on their own, by way of Revelstoke, Josh's hometown.

I remember Fernie more clearly, perhaps because we pimped out our vacation a little more! Since there were more of us going, we were able to rent a chalet. It rocked. I remember Louanne going nuts over cream puffs and Kei locking Brian and I out of the house while we were in the hot tub. Bad move, Kei!

Though Fernie was a great mountain, I think the general consensus was that the 12 hour drive was a little much. As a testament to that, we actually have more photos of us in the Yukon than in our whole time in Fernie!

Jump ahead 4 years later to Ski Trip 2008. This time, we had 10 adults, 2 babies and a dog. My, how life changes. We went up to Silver Star Ski Resort in Vernon, BC in a 2 car caravan (no car rentals this time, since we all own houses now and need to keep travel expenses down!). Again, Josh and Mon (and baby Maddy) went separately by way of Revelstoke. We stayed at a ski-in, ski-out suite hotel called The Pinnacles.

Things started out a bit sketchy when they showed us our reserved suite. The suite was supposed to accommodate 8 to 10 people. Liezel explained that we had 10 adults, 2 babies and a dog and they said we would be fine for us. Well, a word to the wise - when a suite says "sleeps 8 to 10 people", it means that it sleeps 8 people comfortably and it WILL sleep 10 people, if you are all university students, are tight on cash and willing to compromise space. So, we complained, and for $10 per person per night more, we ended up in a suite that sleeps 17 people! NICE! Honestly, though, it was quite comfortable for our group, so I'm not sure how comfortable it would be for 17 people!

Silver Star was a great ski resort as well. We only hit the slopes for one day (possibly another casualty of 4 years passing!) and we BARELY got to cover the whole mountain. The snow conditions were not great in some areas and there was a bit too much traversing for snowboarders, but all in all, I would definitely try out Silver Star again.



Check out the rest of Liezel's photos in Flickr. Now, I hope we don't wait another 4 years to plan our next ski trip!

everybody say hi

I previously posted that we are astonished at the rate that 1-year-old's learn and understand things. I say this about Josh because he isn't much of a talker. Since he started walking at 10 months, he seems a bit more focused on doing than talking, so we give him a bit of a break!

It's amazing because at 10 months old, Josh may have been walking but his friend, Nolan, was saying the 2 syllable word "doggie". Crazy! At 15 1/2 months, Josh is barely saying 1 syllable words! Now, it is ALOT of work to make him talk, but we've heard him say "woof! woof!" when he hears a dog barking. When we say "all done" when he is done something, we think we hear mutterings along the lines of "all done" (and we'll take it!). He's been saying something that sounds like "ice" but he repeats it over and over again. I have NO idea what it means!

The 2 big words of the moment are "up" and "hi". He says "up" quite clearly and we are getting him to say it when he wants us to pick him up (we are trying to get rid of that whiny "ah, ah, ah..."!). But I think we confuse him because we say "off" too, when he is turning off the lights and such. He sometimes says a combination of "up" and "off" that sounds like "uff" (not to be confused with the "woof" of the barking dog).

Like I said, Josh picks and chooses when he'll say a word. He won't say it everytime. But this morning, he was having a "hi" moment (please excuse my awful, scraggly pyjama look)...