Our Christmas story in one sentence per day...

December 19 - Tuesday
Today we went to Morris to visit Great Grandma Stevenson, it was a nice visit.


December 20 - Wednesday
Today was spent doing more painting of the dollhouse which Jenna and Claire received on boxing day, here are pics of that.

December 21 - Thursday
Today Matthew and I went into Winnipeg for a night off at the Inn at the Forks; never stay at the Inn at the Forks, they have poor customer service, long story short I have a swollen toe and just alot of bad memories on how rude they were about it. Oh, and we missed Bronson dearly - he was glad to see us the next day.
ALSO - today Bronson met Santa Claus for the first time - he was a great little buddy boy smiling on the big man's knee.

December 22 - Friday
Drove Teri in to Portage with us today, this evening Jeff came over to visit with Matthew, then we went to a restaurant called 'Bill Stickyfingers'!!! and met up with some of Matthew's high school friends - Mandy and Megan if you have any pics, please e-mail them to us!

December 23 - Saturday
Wrapping, wrapping, wrapping... also a quick trip to the mall for last minute fare - what a bad idea.

December 24 - THE BAZINET CHRISTMAS GATHERING deserves a blog post unto itself

December 25 - CHRISTMAS DAY deserves a blog post unto itself

December 26 - THE STEVENSON CHRISTMAS GATHERING deserves a blog post unto itself

December 27 - Wednesday
Took a "quick" trip into Winnipeg to MEC where Bronson took loud poops and people stared at me as if I was doing it, and a mall where I got overtired and hungry and almost started screaming at teenagers to "Stop Loitering!" but Matthew saved the day by finding me a seat and a yummy taco salad :) What a great husband.
ALSO, met Teri's fiance Jay for the first time as he arrived this evening - in a suprising turn of events Matthew, Jay and Terry managed to beat Diane, Teri and I at a close game of Taboo. Almost as suprising as the baby shower.

December 28 - Thursday
We spent the day attempting to pack our belongings (new and old) into our luggage ... then gave up to spend time with the family... then started working on it again...late after much visiting and wine.

December 29 - Friday
Woke at 3:30am after 2 hours sleep, Terry was kind enough to drive us and our load into Winnipeg, after a quick airport visit with Alan we boarded our 7:15am flight and so began our long journey home. 2 flights, 2 security checks, 2 baggage claims, 5 luggage carts, one shuttle ride, and NO VEGETARIAN SANDWICHES TO BE FOUND ANYWHERE later we were outside of our building, breathing in fresh air and sunshine.

Bronson's Christmas vacation!

[Warning - to those who don't know, please note, there are two Terry's, one (Terry) is Matthew's step dad. The other (Teri) is Matthew's sister. I know, it's confusing. We wanted to name Bronson Tery just to add to that, but thought that might be cruel.]

Well... it all started early Tuesday (the 12th). We caught the airport shuttle to LAX @ 9am, and 13 hours, 2 flights, 1 stop over in Calgary, 4 vegetarian sandwiches and a few dirty diapers later we arrived in Winnipeg to the robotic security machine, lights flashing, ordering Grandma Diane to step back from the arrivals gate :)

The trip was good, we had many compliments on the cuteness of our baby, as well as his wonderful behaviour on the plane. We got a spare seat on each plane, as they were not full and that certainly helped with the travel.

On Wednesday we headed in to Winnipeg to visit Granpa Alan and Grandmere Lorraine, we also saw Natalie and Lydia, and Teri came along too. We had a great dinner and a nice visit, then headed back to Portage.

On Thursday evening Matthew joined the local lawyers curling team for a match at the local rink. Bronson and I watched out first live curling game and Terry explained to us what was going on. After the games Matthew took me onto the ice and let me try curling. I'm not the natural I was hoping to be. I think I may be scared of ice. But try, try again I shall.

Our days are mostly spent sleeping, however I did have the best massage of my life on Friday afternoon (which convinced me that I probably could handle living here), and Teri spent the weekend at Diane and Terry's with us.

It's cold, but "unseasonably warm" to the locals. I've learnt alot about dealing with the weather - covering the baby with a fleece blanket to take him to the car from the house (as well as his snow gear, mitts, tuque, etc), the beauty of long johns and most notably, not to try to retun the shopping carts to the correct area in the winter - they pay people to do that :)

On Saturday I went with Teri and Diane wedding dres shopping, and Teri found some nice ones. That evening a ton of family and kids came over and we got picked up by a horse drawn sleigh for an hour long ride to the "island" and around the lights disply they have setup there. It was very cold (on my toes), but alot of fun. Bronson wore a onesie covered in fleece pj's, a fleece snow suit, a tuque, a hood, mitts, socks, shoes and was wrapped in 1 blanket for warmth, another to cut the wind and lastly mom and dads arms. He fell asleep during the ride and I kept his face uncovered and made Matthew keep checking that he was breathing every few minutes. But it was fun, he did get a little bit of frost bite on his cheeks which basically means they're pink-ish and a little dry. After the ride everyone enjoyed a warm dinner made by Terry - of award winning chili, and it was great. Here are some pictures of the people there.

Kyra and Aaron (cousins) holding Bronson

"The girls" (Haley, Ciara and Daria - cousins) torturing Matthew

Grandma Diane with her 2 other grandkids - Claire and Jenna

Lots of people milling around.

On Sunday we all went in to Winnipeg to get our hair cut by Aunty Denise. Bronson got his first haircut that day, too. After the haircut we went to Aaron and Amber's to see their new house and visit Ethan (1 year old cousin). We got in the house and I walked into the living room which was full of people, they all said 'Surprise" and I was stunned. This is the first time I have ever really, truly been suprised. They threw a baby shower for Bronson. I guess it was a combination of not expecting anything and of amazing covert sneakiness on the part of the family, but I was completely shocked... and still sort of am. Anyhow, it was a great party, and there are some pictures below of people there. Thank you everyone for the party and the gifts and the suprise... how did you all manage to be so secretive?!?!

Bronson's first haircut - no tears!

Amber (Ethan's mom) holding Ethan and Bronson.

4 generations with Grandma Bazinet

We proped Bronson up in a chair next to Ethan, then all gathered around and took lots of pictures. Bronson fell over to the side and Ethan got upset. But the picture looks like they're buddies hanging out, so mission accomplished!

Well, Monday was spent painting details in the dollhouse that Terry made for Jenna and Claire, and tomorrow we're headed to Morris to visit Grandma Stevenson. Thursday Matthew and I will enjoy a night off from parenting at a hotel in Winnipeg (yeah dinner out, ice skating and swimming!!!) and Friday will signify the beginning of the Christmas weekend craziness. I hope everyone out there is enjoying their holidays, Matthew's certainly enjoying being able to hang out with Bronson more and I enjoyed our first few nights here when Bronson slept for 8 or 9 hours straight each night. As for the B-man, every time he wakes up he's somewhere new with someone new holding him, but he's rolling with the punches and being a generally happy, albeit painfully teething baby.

Whoa baby!

Bronson saw the doc yesterday ... in addition to receiving 2 shots which he handled very well, we learnt some things about kiddo.
B now weighs 16 lbs 14 oz, and he's 25.5 inches long. Oh, and he still has a big head. The doc confirmed that Bronson has started teething.
The best part about yesterday was the 8+ straight hours of sleep we got out of the little guy!
I was pretty shocked when I woke up at 9am on my own. I got up and ate breakfast, pumped, cleaned, sewed a little. Kept checking to make sure he was breathing... I thought he'd wake starving and irate, but instead he awoke with a smile. What a great baby.

Bronson accompanied Matthew on some chores today, and helped him study a bit. I spent the day baking cookies for neighbors and friends ... and a few misshapen ones for Matt. Matthew writes his last 2 exams of the term tomorrow. Whew, almost over :)

Sorry no pics - I'll try harder tomorrow.
Goodnight :)

Hello folks,

This here is the long promised field trip entry. Sorry it took so long; I was having some trouble getting all the pictures to upload properly. But problems are now solved, so without further ado...

The Owens Valley Field Trip! (interspersed with pictures of Bronson to keep the masses happy)

As Jenn was saying, I had a nice field trip up to Owens Valley during the days of 16-19 November. It's about 5 hours north-east of Pasadena, up past the Mojave Desert. We left on the Thursday and came back on the Sunday. The drive was pretty nice -- we stopped for gas in the town of Mojave, which is home to the SpaceShipOne, the rocket-ship which won the X-prize 2 years ago. They had a bill-board there. Neato.

We also stopped in Redrock Canyon which was a neat area. The restrooms there didn't have roofs. Here's a picture of Elijah sitting on the can.

We had plenty to occupy ourselves once at Owens Valley. We brought an 8" telescope to take advantage of the dark, dark skies. We went to the hot springs (twice). Oh, and we learned some stuff about the radio telescopes. Before getting on to the boring educational part, here's a few pictures of the Valley. It's a really beautiful place.

The Owens Valley Radio Observatory is currently home to four experiments. There is the Sunyaev Zel'dovich Array, which is trying to find galaxy clusters based on their effect on the Cosmic Microwave Background, there's the Solar Array, the 5.5m telescope which is ramping up to do an all-sky survey, and the 40m telescope which is currently being retrofitted with a new detector. Here's a picture of the 40m:It might look familiar to you Charlie Sheen fans, as it was the set of the film "The Arrival". The control room is actually inside the base of the telescope. We did some calibrations on the 40m, which required bringing a box of liquid nitrogen up to the prime focus (that little cage supported above the dish). I went up there. It was pretty neat. The telescope points at the horizon while people are in the cage, but you still have to climb across a bare ladder 20m above the ground to get there. One surprising thing was that at the prime focus, my cell phone had remarkably good reception. This is because the telescope was pointing at the cell phone tower. It was like having a 40m antenna on my phone.

Here's a picture of the observatory office building. It might look familiar to you Jodie Foster fans, as some scenes of the movie "Contact" were filmed there.

We also went up to Cedar Flat (an hour's drive East into the mountains), which is where the "new" CARMA (Combined Array for Research in Millimetre Astronomy) array is located. The dishes aren't actually new, though. The smaller, shiny ones are from Northern California, where they used to comprise the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Association (BIMA) Array, whereas the larger white ones are owned by Caltech and used to be down in Owens Valley. The dishes have just recently been joined together to form this even better observatory.

After seeing CARMA, we drove up into the mountains to see the bristlecone pine forest. Here's me during a brief stop on the drive:Bristlecone pines are among the oldest trees in the world. They grow very slowly and hence are very hardy. The oldest ones are ~4000 years old. Here's a picture of me in front of a 4000 year old tree Here's a picture of me next to a ~50 year old tree. Neat stuff.

Anyways, it was a fun trip. I hope to go back soon: the cottage up there is apparently available for booking, even if you're not observing... very tempting.

My classmates are: Back Row, R-L: Megan, Chelsea, Agatha, Ann Marie, Laura, and Elijah.

Front Row, R-L: Me, Walter, Varun, Yacine, and Mike.

Matthew, Jenn and Bronson do Hollywood

Today after sleeping in, the Stevenson family took a drive to Hollywood. We were on a mission, for the perfect christmas present for a certain relative that Matthew drew in a secret santa draw this year. After looking in many places, we did locate the item, however we can not at present disclose what it is, we won't get your hopes up, it's for Tom. Anyhow, more to come on the item after he has received it. For now, suffice to say it was an interesting sight seeing time. We found many stars on the walk of fame - two of my favorites:

We were also intrigued by the many Scientologist buildings on Hollywood boulevard. Matthew made me take pictures. Santa was on the BLVD, too, appearing at the Scientologists' L. Ron Hubbard Winter Wonderland. I N T E R E S T I N G. The Cruise's were nowhere to be seen.

Here's more Hollywood pictures, Matthew and Bronson in front of the Chinese Theater, and a picture next to our $10 parking spot. Now that's a photo op ;)

All around, a pretty cool day. It's really not hard driving into LA, and it's really nice to go home to the 'burbs when you've had enough. Next trip - picnic at the HOLLYWOOD sign?!? (seriously)

Bronson enjoys December

On December 1st mom and Bronson spent most of the day asleep. Bronson had initially woken at 3:45 am, so the rest of the day was spent resting. At 4 pm we woke with a start and realized we'd better seize the day, so we headed out for a walk down South Lake. We ended at CalTech and waited for dad, to walk home with him from his last day of school in 2006. This is a picture of Bronson waiting with me for Matthew. Around 5pm momas with kids all congregate to CalTech to pick up their husbands. The older kids yell "Daaaa- adddddd", and we all say hello to each other. It's pretty great, very community-like. Nothing like that really happened at UVic, that I saw, anyhow. There were very few children on UVic campus, and there are many many at CalTech.

At home we opened Bronson's first gift of 24 in a countdown to Christmas that grandma Diane had left here on her visit. It was an orange block with letters m, n, o and number 5 on it. This is a picture through the middle of the block of Bronson. Poor kid, we're going to assault him with the camera for every gift opening there is!

The family then spent the evening enjoying the awkward humour of the american Office series, season 1. Now there's an incredibly politically incorrect show to be quoting. We made a late evening trip to Target ("Tar-jay") to replenish the 2 important stocks in the house - diapers and wine. Actually, we're having a dinner party next friday and Matthew's in charge of baby and drinks. I'm in charge of food and house. We promptly forgot the box of diapers in the parkade, however the good folks at Target found them, and when we went to plead our case today, gave them to us. It's nice when people cover for your screw ups.

Bronson's new toys

Bronson and I took a shopping trip to the CalTech baby pool on Thursday and came out with some great second hand toys for the kiddo - we got him a new bigger car seat, because he's nearly too big for the one he currently has, and a walker and a jolly jumper! It's been fun playing with him in these new toys - he only takes a dozen or so minutes at a time in them, but he seems to be enjoying discovering his legs.