Surgery At The KGH..........

Today was a tough day. I had an appointment with a surgeon to do a relatively minor job on my air sinus passages but that seemed to change after he got my MRI. I didn't find this out till I was being prepped for surgery.  I didn't feel that I needed to discuss this with him cuz he is the pro and  knows what is best. I sold him a piano a few years ago and have gotten to know and trust him since . The only surprise to me was that the surgery was going to take 200 minutes.  That is a long time .  When I came to in post-op I was full of tubes and probes. I looked like crap and felt even worse.

I asked why there was a bandage on my forehead and the nurse in post-op didn't know. She thought that I may have gotten a little scratch during the procedure. I laid in the hospital for about 10 hours until they felt I was good enough to go home. Ruth sat with me for the last hour which was nice. They are terrific people working at Kelowna General. We are lucky we live in Canada. So my Doc. came in to see me before I was discharged and said he did 3 procedures plus he went into my sinus thru my forehead to do a little extra clean up. That was what the bandaid on the forehead was covering. Sharon my oldest laughed when she saw my picture. I had told her that I was glad he didn't drill into my brain and she said he likely misunderstood what I has said to him before. She figured I had told him that I wanted a bottle in front of me and he heard me say I wanted a frontal lobotomy. FUNNY GIRL. Now I have these 2 exrea holes in my head to contend with. These are the finest stitches I have ever seen.

I am going to just lay low for the next few days. I do feel better now than I did this morning but there is still a lot of swelling and tenderness in my nose. I'm glad for the drugs.

Its True.....

Everything that she wrote in my blog is true. Even though she hacked my blog I couldn't have said it better.

I'm one lucky Dad.

I sure love my daughter....

she is the most beautiful, wonderful woman....i am so proud and honored to be her dad.

I had a thought....

I should probably try to be a little more creative with my password......because it just means that my daughter can sign into my blog whenever she wants and write whatever is on her mind.  As much as i love to know what is on her mind, this is probably a dangerous position to be in because people will think its me writing....and not her!!  

I know she would only add positive and wonderful things because she is such a kind and gentle soul....but i am sure it crossed her mind a few times and that she wrestled with whether or not to post an unflattering picture of her sister on here, to make it look like i posted it.....and then her sister would be really really mad at me.....but there is no bad picture here, so i guess her ethical compass won the battle....phew.  lucky for me i have such a wonderful daughter.

Happy Holidays ALL!!!  Hope you have kids as great as mine!

MWAHAHAHAHA.....

Its Not Much Fun

When a three year old announces he wants to sleep on the couch in the living room at 4:30 in the morning.

Boxing Day 2011

Jack wanted to sleep over tonight so here we go again. He has been so charming this evening. I love having him here when he acts like this. He laughed and talked all evening. Around 7:30 he looked up at me and said "it must almost be time for a hot tub". That made me laugh. How could I say no to that request. So we both put on our Christmas Kimonos and headed out to the tub.

                                       
He is still a little short and needs help climbing in to the tub.

It is hard not to laugh while listening to him talk about how great a hot tub is.It seems that the bubbles are not good for us and that we should really enjoy the quiet. He is laughing here because he just blew a few bubbles out his back door. This joke never gets old with guys. It doesn't matter how young they are.

We came back into the house and he had a nice hot shower. He was happy to brush his teeth after the shower with his new electric toothbrush. He does such a good job with this new machine. Its fun to watch him do this because he seems to enjoy it so much..

I'm walking thru my bedroom from the bathroom/on suite and am thinking about how much my living quarters have changed. Here is the bed that Jack sleeps in. Ruth makes up a little bed beside her on the floor that Jack seems to like. We only have a one bedroom house and he is too young to send out into the apartment above the garage to sleep.

Then I look over at the foot of the bed and see Ellie's bassinet sitting there. I seem to think that there are going to be 4 of us sleeping in this room before too long.

I came bact to get my phone out of the bed room and saw Ruth and Jack hunkering down for the night. This kid loves to read. It is fun seeing how fast he picks up letters and words. He is only three but knows an awful lot already. This is good because I think he will be able to support his grandparents in a few years.

So I come into the living room and have to laugh to myself. Doesn't Daisy look like Puss -N-Boots off of Shrek in this pose? This little dog has such a great personality.

Our Christmas Day........

This was a really nice day. We all decided to make it a low key day. Brad , Carrie and the kids planned to come for dinner and a few gifts after Jacks nap . Ruth and I  just hung out in our home for most of the day but we did head out for a hike mid afternoon . They are almost finished building a new regional park on the other side of the canyon our home is built on. They have built a trail along the ridge so we wanted to see what it was like. What a nice walk.

                             I love where we live. Three minutes from home we can be in the woods.

I have always wanted to see what our place looked like from across the canyon. We see people on this trail while sitting in the hot tub and I use to wonder if they could see us. I don't think they can .

        So we set the timer on the camera and took this shot. I love the forest that surrounds this canyon.

                                  The pathway is an easy hike.There are tons of deer trails up here.

         The walking sticks helped while we were doing the steep parts. I was glad I had mine with me.

                                                      I feel like we live in paradise.

So Ruth and I got ready for the kids to come over for our Christmas dinner. This has been the longest Christmas ever. With Sharon and her family coming one week ago we have been in Christmas mode for over one week. It is really easy to be low key when it is lasting so long.

We sat down for a great meal.Ruth made a nice lemon medallion pork tenderloin on a bed of spinich .It was nice to not be eating turkey again. It has been 6 days of turkey so far and that it too much of a good thing. Jack took this picture. He is getting good at this.

                                                   I took this one . it was a little more centred.

                                                After dinner we settled in to open a few gifts.

                                        We made Jack Santa Clause. He did a good job for us.

            He was really happy when he got to open up his gift. I love the expression he was showing.

His dad offered to help put the spider man action figures together. I love seeing Brad concentrate this hard.

Carrie had told us she and Brad didn't want a big gift from us and was very gracious when we didn't listen. Ruth and I are happy to be in the position to do what we do. We love our kids and want to do as much as possible for them . They don't realize how good this makes us feel.

                    Here is Jack trying to make the timer on the camera work again. He makes me laugh.

Jack also took a picture of his mom getting a nap on the couch . It was a true look of a mother who has a 3 year old and new born. I think Carrie would kill me if I put this picture on my blog. Hahaha.
This has been a great Christmas. I got everything that I had asked for.

This Was A Great Christmas Eve........

Ruth and I had a really nice Christmas eve. We got over to the kids place around 4:00 just in time to see Brad prep a beautiful Prime Rib. I am so sick of turkey dinners right now . This was a treat.

                                                   Ready to cook. It tasted as good as it looks.

 Jack is getting good with a camera so I told him to grab mine off of the counter and take our picture. This isn't too bad for a 3 year old. It is amazing me on how smart he is.

We wanted a picture with everyone so Brad took the camera and set it on the timer. This gave him 10 seconds to get a picture of the whole gang.

Jack thought the timer was cool so he tried to do it as well. It didn't quite work out for him as he was hoping but I love the concentrated expression he has on his face while trying to make the timer work the way he wanted.

 On the way home Ruth and I stopped in to a party that our friends  Kim and Bruce were having. Unfortunately Bruce is very sick and was laid up in bed. He has to get better by New Years Eve because his band has a big gig happening just down the road from us that night. The party ended early and so Ruth and I got to hang out with Kim for a nice visit. I love her laugh. It is infectious. I hope she can still laugh if she ever sees this blog.

So we sat around for about one hour shooting the breeze before we left. It was a really nice evening.
Looking at this picture it is easy to see that Kim keeps one of the most impecable houses on this planet Earth. I was over this week to tune her piano and I put my tool kit on one of those two stools she has in the living room. She kindly asked me to put my tool kit on the floor as she wanted to keep the stools looking good. I didn't mind doing that but I did ask her what the stools were for. Turns out they are not for sitting on. Fair enough. They do look good.

So when Kim left the room I was encouraged by my friend Rob to try them out. I have been curious on how they feel so I jumped at his suggestion. Rob took a picture of me lounging on the stools and I must say that I really enjoyed their comfort. I think I will be sitting/lounging on these stools in the future every time Kim leaves the room. MWAHAHAHA.

An Early Christmas........

The last few days have been wonderful. Sharon and Chris did a detour on their way back to the Island on their California holiday. They got here with the kids on Friday and left this morning. We have had lots of laughs this last weekend as well as a great early Christmas. So on the first morning the kids were here we had sticky snow. Ruth took Isaac and Elliot outside to make a snowman. I was laughing at how funny Isaac looked in his outfit until I realized that he was dressed in Ruth's jacket and hat.

                                      They did a great job of Frosty the pool man.

Out neighbour gave us a huge box of lego that the kids got into. They made some wonderful creations.

                      Isaac loved this long model he put together. He did a good job.

Sunday morning we went for a walk with our friends down the greenway. We started out together as a family but the kids soon fell behind.

Sharon tried to carry Isaac for a while but he is getting to be too big. Elliot got slower and slower. Chris stayed back with him. Sharon was wondering how the boys can walk for 12 hours in Disneyland but 20 minutes into a walk with the grandparents they act like they can't take another step,

Sunday morning after breakfast I had to go to Vernon to tune the Steinway in the Performing Arts Centre for a concert with the Okanagan Symphony. Sharon came along to keep me company and the kids stayed with Ruth and Chris. Isaac helped Ruth stuff a 22 lb turkey that was for dinner on Sunday night. He did a great job. We all think that he would have preferred not to wear the rubber gloves. This kid makes me laugh a lot.

                                             It was a feast of a Christmas dinner



We told the boys that they could open their presents after dinner but not until they played a piece on the piano for us. Elliot played first and did a terrific job of it . While Isaac played his piece Elliot got up and danced to the music. He is such a little showman.

         It was so cute watching the 3 grandsons open their gifts together. They are all such nice boys.

Someone gave Jack a whoopee cushion as a gift but he wasn't too keen on sitting down on it once an adult got it loaded and ready to go. However he was very happy to step on it. This made him laugh and laugh and laugh. I guess this type of humour never gets old.

                           Quiet time for the boys on the floor. This was a nice moment.

Little Ellie had a Photo shoot done by a pro. Ruth took this one over the photographers shoulder. I can't wait to see the photos that she took. They should be here next week.

Here is Isaac holding his new little cousin. I can't believe how quick he is growing up. It was nice having all the kids here for the weekend.

This picture is of Ruth and I with our 4 grand kids. What a thrill it is to be here for this. I think Ruth got a little verklept with these kids all around us. I know I did.