Greetings from snowy England

We have been in England since Friday morning and the weather has been quite lovely and fall-like until tonight when it began to SNOW! Of course we are taking the blame for importing the fluffy stuff.

Here are a few highlights of the trip thus far:
- Bulkhead seats on the flight over and each of us had an extra seat which made a huge difference. The kids took about 30 minutes to fall asleep but then slept soundly until the breakfast service began with an hour left in the flight. Could not have been easier.
- Lindsey and Serge live next to a church and cemetery so there has been lots of walking there. The kids like to touch each gravestone, wave, and say "Bye bye". Sure to freak out some of the parishioners before long.
- We went into London on Sunday. The kids walked all around Covent Market and then right through the Tate Modern. We managed to escape without damaging any of the expensive paintings. Molly didn't enjoy the subway but otherwise the kids were unfazed by the big city.
- Yesterday was St. Alban's, where we walked around the pretty old town, through the park and ended up at a family-friendly pub.
- Today we spent the afternoon in Windsor, checking out the castle, and Eton, where Jacob and Molly took in their first rugby practice.
- Tomorrow we head to Heather and Neil's in Oxford.

- Video of Jules, Molly and Jacob playing in Serge's box "house" - getting along like they're all best buddies

- On a canal walk, earning our pub lunch

- At the pub - how much does Molly love her Mama?

- And how much does Jacob love profiteroles

- Kate and Molly in the park at St Alban's

- The 3 kids at the Tate Modern

- Molly about to kiss/eat Jules

- Crossing the Thames from Windsor to Eton

More Snow Photos

My camera ran out of power, but I did manage this very short video of the kids out in the snow for the first time. Later, when we were putting the kids to bed Kate looked outside and saw the maze of little footprints in the snow - another first (I know, I know, we're getting all sappy about the snow).

- In the bootroom, getting ready to go out in the snow

- Who says the polar icecaps are melting - look at that globe hanging behind Molly's head. And yes, we do have gloves for the kids, we just weren't quite prepared for this snowfall.

- Sitting amongst the remnants of summer fun - wagons, rocking horses, slides, soccer balls, unraked leaves, etc.

Today's Snow

Here's proof of today's snow - Molly looks out her window at the whiteness

Fortunately, their new snowsuits arrived in the mail this week:



And Molly in her Finnish toque from T-Bay

Dreaming of a white halloween

Memories of a summer-like Thanksgiving weekend are quickly receding as it has been SNOWING all morning. Enough that the grass is white. It looks like Thunder Bay in late August. The kids were pretty impressed with all the white stuff coming out of the sky. I'm pretty impressed that we're heading to England in a couple of days, where it might be rainy but surely not snowy.

Lots of Walking Videos

After the initial burst of walking last week, Jacob has been playing it close to his chest, preferring to rely on a parental finger for balance. Last night he exploded back onto the scene, with speed walking, dodging his cousin Maeve, giddy spins, and pushing himself to standing. Here's some evidence.


- And here's Molly showing she's not far behind

It's All About the Benjamin

I dropped Kate's parents off at the airport yesterday, giving me a good excuse to drop by Greg and Jo's to welcome Benjamin home from the hospital.
-Here he is being sniffed by Libby for the 1st time (no flesh wounds ensued)

- I wasn't sure who he looked like until I saw this face - the one Greg pulls when he finds out there's no more beer in the fridge

- Jo showing off that her 2 day old baby has more hair than my 15 month olds

- Proud granny

- Big Ben with two doting women

- Me trying to remember to support the head. I couldn't believe how little he is, even though our guys didn't reach his birth weight for weeks

Thanksgiving photos

Busy weekend with all of Kate's family in town. Thanksgiving art gallery tour on Saturday, with beautiful drives through the foliage. Lots of tennis, of both the Wii and real varieties. Beautiful, summer-like weather everyday. Dinner out with Dan, Al, and Ben while Brent and Lois watched all four kids. Fantastic turkey dinner last night (and tofurkey for the carnivore-challenged - which tasted somewhat like a gravy-flavoured jello mold).

Big news from T.O. as Jo and Greg are new parents of Benjamin.

Best twin story from the weekend. I was feeding the kids breakfast and Jacob was banging his food-filled spoon on the bowl and table to great delight. I firmly told him that the spoon is for eating not playing so when he continued banging I took the spoon away. Molly looked up at me defiantly and thrust out her spoon. If Jacob can't have his spoon, I don't want mine. Twin solidarity.

We went to a nearby farm's fall festival yesterday and here are a few photos.
- Jacob looking about 10 years old on the bike. He would have stayed on this trike all day if he'd had his choice. My back is feeling it today from pushing him around on it.

- Molly determinedly climbing the slide

- Ben and Jacob on the hay bales. A less happy Molly with me.

- our favourite pumpkin, on a pumpkin

- pre-photo chaos

- a slightly better family photo

Doctor's Visit

15-month check-up went fine yesterday. The kids continue to be right around the mean for height and weight (Molly slightly taller than average, Jacob slightly lighter than average). Jacob's head circumference continues to be almost off the charts - meaning we can attribute the high number of head bonks to his Hazel brain size, rather than his maternal side's clumsiness. I took Jacob out of the office while Molly was getting her shots. When she screamed, he looked at me with big eyes, pointed to the room and said a plaintive "Bah", which I took to mean "Molly's in trouble - why aren't you helping her", but it could equally have been "I left my ball in that room".

We're hosting Kate's family for Thanksgiving, with the first arrivals commencing today.

Here are a couple of pictures that Scott took of Molly (in the foreground), Jacob and Nicholas playing at the park.

Don't the boys look ready to join some 1950's bike gang?

Jacob Walks!

Jacob walked across the room unassisted for the first time last night. I particularly like Molly and Kate beaming with pride. Here's the footage...

We had a great visit to the McMichael gallery yesterday (oh the joys of Kate now getting days off!). Walking around the grounds after our visit, we came across some spiky past-bloom flowers. To impress upon Jacob not to grab them, we said "ouch" while touching them. Then we came to some asters and when Jacob reached out for them he shouted "ouch" and laughed so hard that tears were streaming down his face. He continued to find this joke funny for the next 20 minutes.

I've talked to enough people about the English election debate to realize that it's impossible to judge these things objectively. Righties think that Harper was cool under siege and that May was rude and shrill. Lefties think that May was a breath of fresh air, Layton was forceful and Harper was sinister and creepy. Neither side can imagine the other's point of view. That said:
- How many votes did Dion lose when he looked up at the camera during the culture section and said something about how important it was for us to all have fun. How could a party that was home to Trudeau choose this dweeb as their leader?
- I liked the part where May's index finger got tired from her wagging it at Harper for so long, then she switched to her little finger and started shaking that at him.
- Kate was disappointed to learn that we don't have a Bloc candidate running in our riding. I think she'd vote for Attila the Hun if he had a French accent.
- I didn't switch to the US VP debate once because I was riveted by the sheer entertainment value of the Canadian debate. I'm as disillusioned as the next guy, so that's pretty cool. Kate says it's just fun to see four people try to beat up on Harper for two hours. She suggested a reality show where 4 different people get to attack him every night.
- Before the French debate, Don Newman introduced the moderator as a "well-known personality in Quebec". How do you think the French media introduced Steve Paikin before the English debate - here's a guy who no one in English Canada has ever heard of unless they've only got rabbit ears hooked up to their tv and are one of the 8 people who watch TVO.
- Paikin was ridiculously bad. He was completely biased against Harper (how's that for objective reporting from me!!), asking his own follow-up questions directly to Harper whenever he didn't think The Four had grilled him properly and asked the most awkward debate question ever - "do you think Steven Harper is a barbarian?".
- There had to be someone from the Ontario government watching last night thinking, "Is TVO still on air", "Are we paying for it?", "Is it all as pathetic as this Paikin clown?". If you see cuts to TVO in the coming months, we'll know what started it.

Boring political stuff

What's more boring than reading about someone's political observations? I know, so I'll keep it short and will finish with some twin photos to placate the masses.

Watched the French debate last night:
- During the "pre-game show" Don Newman kept referring to it as the Quebec debate and to tonight's debate as the Rest of Canada debate. Are you kidding me? The CBC dismisses all of the French speaking Canadians outside of Quebec. It was weird.
- Dion leads with his surprise announcement of his new economic crisis plan. His plan is to spend the first 30 days consulting with experts from the Bank of Canada and elsewhere in order to come up with a plan. Umm, note to Stephane - that's not a plan and that's not leadership.
- But what do I know. A poll of French Canadians taken right after the debate showed that 40% thought that Dion won the debate. Then again, these same people thought that Layton was the sexiest of the leaders, so perhaps it says more about the poll-takers than about me. For the record, I'm going with Duceppe as sexiest, but let's not head too far down that road.
- I thought May was feisty and hilarious, considering she speaks about 20 words of French. She learned that the French word for fraud is fraude, and proceeded to shout fraude at Harper. The funniest moment of the debate had to be when each leader was asked to say something nice about the leader on their left and May drew the short straw of having to praise Harper. She said that he was a good dad and that his kids are charming and then she looked like she was sucking on a lemon as she said that he has strong principles, but then she couldn't stand it any longer and ranted that his principles might be strongly-held but that they're all wrong and will lead to the destruction of the environment and our country.

In the interest of full disclosure I'm voting Green and am feeling more optimistic about their chances since our lawn sign went missing about 24 hours after it was erected. Good to see that someone thinks they're a threat.

Off to watch the English debate and probably switching over to see just how vapid Palin is in the VP debate.