Baba & Gedo

I've been feeling quite... let's say domestic, of late. Baking, cooking elaborate suppers, decorating, cleaning and looking to entertain guests. The nesting continues, it seems.

Looking through my cooking books, I started to notice that there were quite a few recipes written by my grandmother (Grandma Kay, who would be Bronson's Baba) I started to mark the recipes that were from her and subsequently have unlocked a gold mine of all my favorite foods that she used to make me. Her slush and pizza dough and oat fudge bars... needless to say I've been thinking of her and cooking up a storm. I'm so surprised that after getting rid of 3/4 of our stuff and moving to another country I've been able to find family memories (heirlooms?) I never even knew I had.

Here's grandpa Tony (Gedo) and Bronson

Time with my family

Before driving down to California to meet up with Matthew, I spent a week living in Port with my parents and Bronson. It wa definetly very odd sharing my old room with my baby... but all in all it was a good visit - my parents got me hooked on about 6 tv shows in 2 days and Matthew had to work to undo it all once I got down here. So, no the California Stevenson's do not have cable, instead Jennifer has a dvd buying allowance amounting to about 2 show seasons/month and has already caught up on all there is to know about her current favorite show Gre's Anatomy.

Small towns are interesting little things, at a baby clothes store I was asked who the father of my baby was !!! and a trip to Wal Mart with my mom involves alloting ~ 30 extra minutes to show off her grandson to everyone she sees (I'm not complaining, I like to show him off too, I was blessed with a darn cute kid)

On this note - apologies Spence I think we got you in trouble with your grandma for not telling her you'd already seen the baby!

The best part about grandparents, aside from the wardrobe and etc's they provide the baby with is that their answer to the question "Will you hold the baby while I..." is always "YES!!!"

Grandma Diane


Grandma Val


Grandpa Tim


Grandpa Alan

Bronson's Baptism

Bronson was baptised on September 10th at Fairfield United Church - rumour has it that he was the youngest baby to ever be baptised there. He looked dashing in the crocheted gown he wore (par grandmere Lorraine), and got many compliments, he also got quite hot and had to change for the afterparty... I mean sunday school and coffee time (hence the onesie in the pics) :)



Bronson with his godmother Sabrina

Fraser & Sarah

Good friends of ours, fellow gamers, and now husband and wife!

Fraser and Sarah got married in Courtenay, BC on September 17th, the day before Matthew left for California. It was a beautiful wedding, and Bronson especially enjoyed the dance floor (he managed to sleep through his dad forcing him to dance to fast, loud music, but once we took him upstairs to bed, he woke instantly)

We had a great time and want to thank Fraser and Sarah for asking us there, and for including Matt in the party as a groomsman.

As wedding favours they gave out cds of their favorite romantic songs, currently my favorite cd.
One song in particular however is making me miss them very much - the song goes "If we're lost, we'll be lost together..." and it really reminds me of a story I heard about Fraser getting lost on a hike with friends and having a total meltdown. Fraser - I think you picked well with the Sarah choice - she'll do a good job of helping y'all find your way, so stay calm and dress warm :)

Here are picture of Bronson at 2 weeks old in his little tuxedo;

We have arrived!

Well, Bronson and I have arrived and settled in to our new abode in Pasadena. We've been here for almost 3 weeks now, we're completely unpacked and leading relatively normal lives...

Matthew's been doing the school thing, it's rather hectic, but he's holding up and Bronson has been concentrating on growing... he's outgrowing clothes and fitting new ones, and it's pretty exciting. As for me, I finally threw my back out - those who know me well probably put bets on how long it would take for that to happen, thank goodness it was after the 4 day drive to get here, nevermind the packing oh yeah, and the labouring and birth :)

My back felt alot better after 3 days of icing and lying around, so on Saturday I played half a game of soccer [Matthew and I switch at half time so that one of us is with Babe at all times], and that was a bad idea, now I'm pretty badly sore again and I've promised not to play next week on penalty of chocolate being withheld for a week.

Anyhow, to avoid the mishmash, I will follow this up with specific pieces about life over the past few weeks, after a quick mention that I'm painting with oil again! Yay! and I've done 4 new pieces and found an amazing art supply store called Blick, so I'm quite happy with the space our family has created down here. In fact, I think we all are.

Off to California

Today is the day that my mom, dad, baby and I head out to meet Matthew down in Pasadena. Tonight we head to Everitt and then onwards to Pasadena by Wednesday evening. I'm very excited to get to our new apartment - see Matthew and get settled. No more travelling for awhile - we need some consistency for a bit.

So, good luck to us on our journey, and more to come when we reach our super duper dishwasher equipped apartment :)

(Bronson @ 2 1/2 weeks)

Introducing Mr. Bronson Timothy Anton Stevenson

The story of the birth of Bronson is short:

3 days of pre-labour
38 hours of natural labour (no pain killers!)
7 hours (& some sleep) of an epidural
2 1/2 hours of pushing
15 minutes of pushing with vacuum help
16 hours of baby in the special careunit where mom couldn't visit
7 stitches

= 10 lbs 6 oz of BEAUTIFUL BABY BOY on Sept 3rd

..... just don't ask me to do it again any time soon.

Bronson is doing great. So is mom, dad and grandma Val are still a little tired, though.
We've had a big first week, we came home on Tuesday, visited the folks at Amaranth Consulting Group on Thursday, had an open house to meet baby on Friday, a garage sale selling off our worldly possessions on Saturday (even had an offer on the stroller - had to explain that actually the baby was currently using it and so was not for sale), and the baptism on Sunday.