Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Oh Bronson...
The boy - he grows!

The past couple of days have seen a sullen Bronson nursing a fever. Poor kid is drooling like a large drooly dog as his 2 new top teeth push through. His fever varied between moderate and fairly high, enough to warrant Tylenol, but not enough to rush him to a doctor. He appeared to respond well to the medicine that is: being held and rocked by mom and dad. He just didn't want to be put down, he wanted to sleep in our arms and play in our arms.



Which leads us to his new "tricks". Bronson is now doing some major hands and knees crawling, he's learned to turn on all of his toys, including the radio, cd player and pressing play (though I'm not sure that's on purpose), and he reaches up when he wants to be picked up. His favorite activity is flipping the pages in books, and that took awhile to master, and as I write this I glance over shocked to see him standing at the coffee table - apparently he now knows how to pull himself up, too. Good job buddy!




This weekend we attended an Indian cultural event held on campus that our friend Varun was a part of - it was a show with a couple of plays and some dance, then a 3$ Indian feast at the end. It was really fun and yummy, Bronson seemed to enjoy the dancing. I enjoyed the comedic play and Matthew, well he quite enjoyed the food.

Through Varun we have come across the best samosas we've ever tasted, made by a man... with a restaurant... who delivers food to campus daily for students who order. He is our samosa dealer (that really is the most appropriate term seeing as we know so little about where it's all coming from), they're 50 cents each and we buy a dozen for a week. They. Are. Awesome.

OK, so actually when B stood up a minute ago I didn't act so cool, I started yelling for Matt to come quick... a couple minutes later he'd woken up and slowly emerged into the living room, gave B a nod, said Good Job buddy, then told me he was going back to bed. I hovered near, but not too near Bronson to make sure he didn't fall and split his lip on the edge of the table - I've heard of that happening :) I also put 2 crayons in his hand and a piece of paper in front of him and he created his 2nd work of art (his first being my mothers day card - in marker, that daddy lives on the edge.


Other than Bronson growing, geting sick and getting better, we've been frequenting the nearby farmers markets and found some good food (we're trying to buy all of our vegetables fresh and local, not so hard a task in California). We've also had Keira over from next door for a babysit (though she's no baby at 2 1/2) Bronson loves her and thinks that the best way to show her this is by grabbing her face, she does not agree. B and I went to a Gymboree kindergym class last Friday, it was neat but I fear too expensive to commit to a full session at this age. There he got a play a drum with a mallet. As you can see below, he has transferred this knowledge to pots and spoons.

Matthew is into his 2nd to last week of classes - after this its research research research! I'm glad because hopefully he won't be pulling so many late nights on assignments, but we'll see how it goes.

I have been somewhat house bound nursing my sick baby and have taken to cooking and baking. I made my first ever loaf of bread by hand on Sunday, and am set to make a cottage cheese dill loaf today. I've made banana bread and some good old fashioned Saskatchewan dishes that my gandma and grandpa used to make me featuring cream, dill, potatoes and beets. Later today I'm making leek and potato soup, and last night I was reminiscent of the island and made a tray of Nanaimo bars.


So that is the update for now, hope this finds everyone well, and for those of you who know Sabrina, her and Mike have been posted to BC and are still waiting to find out where.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

My baby brother got married!!!




Oh, it's been so hard waiting for the pics to arrive before I could post this, but I am happy to finally announce that my brother Jess got married last Saturday to his long time girlfriend Kim! The elopement in Grande Prarie, AB was a suprise to all, Jess called me during Matthew's birthday party to ask me what I was up to, then tell me what he was up to :)





Congratulations to the happy couple! Welcome to the family Kim and Bronson's 2 new cousins Jayden and Alexia!




The good news; we already know and like Kim, the bad news; we haven't seen Jess, never mind the rest of the crew for nearly 1 year... and we still have to wait another month until we all meet up in Agassiz for aunty Suzy's wedding!!!




Hugs and congratulations to the Grande Prairie location of the Barkers and good luck saving up for your mortgage!
Good job on the scruffy hair Jess, you look like young-dad/Sherman/Shayne must be a stage in the male Barker's life cycle. :)

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Our day at the Zoo

On Wednesday Bronson and I went for an outing to the LA Zoo. It's a deceivingly large zoo with lots of animals.













We rode the tram around the park and saw; elephants and lions and zebras, oh my!











We also saw many types of monkeys, some very interesting orangutangs (including a mom carrying and stroking her baby's face - so cute), porcupines, giraffes (Bronson found these intriguing), big turtles, birds, birds, more birds, meerkats, flamingos, peacocks, seals,... and much more.






The highlight of my day was finally seeing the real live koala bears - I've loved koalas from a young age - now I just need to see a live Panda and I'm happy with my animal kingdom experience :)

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Busy busy growing boy

First the good news: since we live in University subsidized family housing, we need to re-apply every year for our apartment. Every year they hold a lottery to see how many people get to live in the dorm apartments again (this is the same for non-family grad students as well), luckily we were winners this year and will be keeping our apartment through next year! We are SO happy because not only are we sick of moving every year, but with our upcoming trips, it would be tight for us to move out by the allotted date.
Well, we've had a busy past few days! On Matthew's birthday (Saturday) we hosted a dozen or so people to a board game marathon which lasted 10+ hours. Bronson was quite happy to have a house full of people, and especially enjoyed the visit from 2 year old Keira from next door.

On Mothers day my baby made me a card (with some help from dad who made sure the marker stayed out of his mouth), they suprised me with a massage gift certificate and took me on a picnic at Caltech - it was a beautiful warm sunny day and so nice to spend it with my family.

Monday was the first day in more than 3 weeks that Bronson and I spent alone. I thought he'd be demanding, but he didn't seem to mind that I was the only one around to watch his antics (and sometimes not). We went shopping for garden supplies and then he watched as mom re-potted plants and rounded out our garden - it's small but should provide us with some nice vegetables soon enough.
We also got some plastic chicken fencing to line the balcony railing with so that our kiddo won't get his head stuck between the bars.

Tuesday was "Ditch Day" at Caltech, this is a tradition where the senior undergrads organize a day for undergrads to ditch classes - the other undergrads and teachers, etc don't know when it is. On said day the seniors must leave campus for the entire day - any senior found on campus is duct taped to a tree by the other undergrads. The intention is for the undergrads to mess up the seniors dorm rooms, so the seniors must create an elaborate set of clues to keep them away, at the end of the clues should be the key/combination, etc to getting into their rooms. Hopefully the clue set is so lengthy that they never get to the end. If they do find the way in to the room then the senior should have left a bribe to deter them from messing the place.

So, needless to say yesterday was a very interesting day to roam campus! CalTech provides the seniors with a budget, and things were looking very interesting. Each undergrad group had t-shirts made in the theme of the room they were working on and there were large elaborate structures all around. We saw a giant paper mache turtle on wheels with 2 bikes inside so that it could be pedalled around; when we brought Matthew back to see it, it was gone...

There were large boxes, small boxes, buckets of water balloons, a slip & slide bowling alley and more pool noodles than I could count. There were space age contraptions in the middle of fields and the highlight for Bronsons was the 100+ rubber duckies in the pond outside of the library!

Matthew got to participate a little in the fun, as his senior undergrad friend Chelsea enlisted him to play a character at one of her clue spots - his office. Matthew played Zorg the tinfoil eye patched arms dealer who demanded the students create counterfeit copies of art pieces in exchange for the supersoaker weapons that he hoarded. Such art included the standard Mona Lisa, Starry Night, etc; but also such modern classics as a 'Carrot Top' poster, Jimi Hendrix poster and the ever popular David Hasselhoff speedo shot. He had fun.

Tuesday was a big day for Bronson, too as he started crawling forwards! He'll go a few steps, then do a fish-like flop on his belly to move forwards, but today he's doing even less flopping, so we figure in a few days he'll be off! Furthermore yesterday heralded the outcropping of 2 top teeth and a third ready to break skin, too. He is pretty happy for a kid growing teeth and in addition to chewing everything in sight, he likes to click his teeth together, too.

Here is a video message from Bronson who's been just so happy lately that I wanted to share.



Monday, May 14, 2007

A Visit from Aunty Sabrina!




Last week my best friend/matron of honor/Bronson's godmother Sabrina was visiting from Victoria, having just finished her teaching practicum and now being a full fledged high school English/writing/French teacher (Congrats!)


Sabrina came for a beautiful week, we had a total heat wave and both got really tanned. We spent most days next to the CalTech pool (and some time in it), but we also took trips to Santa Monica and Huntington and Old Town and Little Ethiopia and of course Target :)



At the bottom of this post I've posted a link to a montage of Bronson pics to a song which is originally posted to YouTube. This is a special mothers day treat for the moms who raised Matthew and I to be the good parents we are today (even if we do call our son Booger face sometimes).

Happy belated mothers day, oh and, Matthew had a great birthday, too.

The video may also be viewed (larger) on You Tube. The video is quiet, so turn up the volume!

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=JennMattBronson

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Our Trip up north...
Alright - everyone - stop your whinning! Here he is, our cute little round faced twerp.
Bronson and I had a great trip, we took 7 planes in total and only had one small crying spree on the first. We spent 6 days in Manitoba, where I successfully renewed my Passport and attended Teri's bridal shower (aka "the Main Event"). Bronson had an especially good time at the bridal shower, being held by various relatives and watching the cousins run around. At one point he was handed back to me and I thought someone must have slipped him some punch because he was vibrating from excitement! His smile only left his face when he eventually fell asleep, but he was ready to run around with the "big boys" - cousins Ethan and Joshua - if only he could walk!

Teri shows off B's belly at the shower "this is my nephew... this is my nephew!"


Teri models her beautiful chapeau - beware Jay, this matches her the dress.

You'll notice that while Diane is clear in this picture, Bronson is blurry - this is due to the aforementioned "vibrating with excitement"

Bronson steal grandpa Terry's chair

A trip to grandma's wouldn't be complete without some cow balancing/acrobatics

Bronson and I spent many the afternoon outside in the sunny backyard - I threw out my back soon after arriving so we spent most of our downtime close to home.

Bronson is very excited to have a great idea!

3 planes later and we arrive in BC. When in MB I gloated that if it's nice and sunny here, then Vancouver Island will be paradise... not so. We had a rainy visit with a couple hail storms and a brief sunny period for Saturday morning's farmers market run. We visited Port Alberni for 10 days and Bronson got very comfortable there. He loves Aunty Aimee and watched the staircase every morning waiting for her to come down and play.

During our trip B learnt to roll from tummy to back and now is rolling over and over and over, covering alot of ground.

We went swimming with David and his mom Melissa and Theresa. Cousin Sky and Aunty Jean came to visit for the weekend and Molly from next door came over to show Bronson her tumbling. Bronson especially enjoyed the doggy - Dixie hung around Bronson the whole time and Bronson was quite gentle with the old dog.

As we flew out of Victoria in the afternoon, we got a chance to briefly visit my old workplace - Amaranth Consulting Group. It was so good to see my friends and I think they feel some closure now having seen the product of all my whinning during pregnancy :)


Bronson chills with aunty Am

Grandpa mimicks baby boy


Bronson and Dixie, his faithful companion (though he was rather wary of the doggie kisses)


Now, there is a trip update. As for life in California since returning, Matthew is busy busy with school, we celebrated our second wedding anniversary yesterday and my best friend Sabrina is visiting for the week - which means we're hanging out at the pool and swimming at least twice a day. IT IS SO HOT HERE, we're starting to worry about the months to come :)

Matthew's birthday is this Saturday and he is having a boardgame party (there really is no way to make that sound grown up). Also, we find out on Friday-ish if we get to keep our apartment for next year - fingers crossed!!!

Oh, and we have booked our next trip up to Canada - wedding tour 2007, we will be in these places on the following dates:

June 22/23 Agassiz, June 24/25 Victoria (staying at the Coast Hotel), June 26 - July 1 Port Alberni, July 1 - July 5 MB (July 4 P la P for sure), July 5 - July 8 Assiniboia and Regina July 9.