Easter Weekend

Well, Easter weekend flew by. We had big plans to clean the house and organize some of the basement, but barely any of that was done. We spent some time cleaning out the garage and the front room upstairs, though, collecting junk for a run to the dump -- this was probably MUCH better time spent than doing the basement.
Now, neither of us claim to be good at keeping things tidy, and we both confess that we tend to be pack-rats. It's something that we're working on, and also hate about ourselves. Take the front room, for example; We had boxes and boxes of clothes, books and notes back from University, and in some cases back from HIGH SCHOOL! Yes, I really thought I would wear that 15-year old high school CWOSSA Volleyball jacket again. Or re-read my University text books... It's just JUNK at this point. So, most of it was junked, and clothing donated to Good Will (the clothing had been sorted earlier, but sitting in that room for a while). We feel good about getting that done as it's been sitting around in various places for 4+ years!! Don't get me wrong, MUCH more needs to be done in regards to de-cluttering, but this is a good start.
So on Saturday, we loaded up the van and went to the dump... along with every other K-W resident cleaning up their junk! I think we later found out that Easter weekend is one of the busiest days of the year. People must get spring cleaning fever, and go through their house and yard, then go to the dump. It was crazy. Luckily, we knew the person working the long line-ups at the entrance and he handed us a "free pass" to bypass all of the lines and scales! This probably saved us at least 30 minutes just to get in!

As far as Easter festivities were concerned, we were invited to Marn's parent's on Friday night for dinner. Saturday night we were at my friend Louise's place for Sarah's birthday dinner. Sunday morning over to Candace's place for egg hunting and candy/brunch, then over to Mom's house for another Easter dinner. It was a jam-packed weekend with a lot of eating and visiting. I feel like I need a week off just to catch up on things around the house. Time is flying by these days, so much faster than before Violet and I'm often wondering what happened to the week gone by?

As far as Violet goes, we're still introducing a lot of different foods every couple of days. She tends not to like anything that has "rougher" texture, which I'm sure is pretty common (but even yummy apple sauce!). She prefers her pablum warm and won't eat it once it cools down. She's eaten, or tried; sweet potato, carrot, avocado, cauliflower (one bite, and won't take another!), apple sauce, oat and rice cereal, and.... I think that's it so far -- she's going to try butternut squash this week. Marn really should be the one updating on this stuff (*nudge*). We got some shots of her "dislikes it" face and it's pretty funny, so I'll have to post some of those pics.
She's still not rolling from back to front, but rolls front to back pretty easily and when we put her in a "crawling position", she sometimes rocks back and forth. So, she's getting ready to crawl but not there yet. She likes to stand up with assistance and getting pretty good at that, just holding on to fingers, etc. We're not expecting that she'll be an early walker, but crawling may just be around the corner! (yikes)

Weather

Yesterday was t-shirt weather. Everyone was outside playing, doing yard work, enjoying the sun.... today? 10-15 cm of snow by the end of the day!! WTH?! It's April, enough with the snow! Man, I hate this about Ontario. The mood swings of mother nature can be so drastic. It's no wonder everyone's sick around here.
I was in the front yard with Echo raking the lawn, trying to get all the dead grass up (Echo was tied up, otherwise he'd be running around the court like an idiot with slobber flying everywhere, terrorizing the kids). I was literally in a t-shirt and sweating. I managed to get most of the dead garden stuff cleaned up as well which was neglected last fall.
The backyard, on the other hand is still a mush-pot and will have to wait until we have at least a week of no rain/snow and lots of sun for it to dry up. I hate that about our backyard. The water doesn't drain anywhere due to the clay content. And because Echo was tied up in the front itching to run after the other dogs (off leash, but not coming near him) and kids, as soon as I let him off in the backyard, he burned around for 5-10 minutes tearing the crap out of the lawn and getting muck everywhere. uggh!!
Whoever told us that Danes are calm and gentle is a horrible liar. He's almost 3, and yet by his behaviour, you'd think he was turning 1.

Today I have huge blisters on my thumbs from the raking and my shoulders are sore. That will learn me for doing manual labour... I'm an IT guy, in front of the screen all day - hands aren't ready for this kind of abuse! ;-)
ok, ok, it's just a reminder that I need to start getting back into shape - Marn and I are going to attempt to do this P90X workout (minus the eating plan). It's like a 90-day boot camp (but they don't use that term). It's made up of 12 DVD's, each it's own type of workout. It's big on what they call "muscle confusion". So when your body gets comfortable with an excersize, they switch it up, keeping your body on it's toes, so to speak. It looks very, very hard, and I'm not sure how we're going to do it yet - you need an hour every day for it, as well as a few items that we don't have, like chin-up bar. Anyway, it should be good once we get into it.

House Cleaning

It's a full time job, and never stops. Both Marn and I hate doing it. With a (male) Dane, the cleaning becomes more frequent, or should...
Yesterday it felt like I was cleaning all day. Well, I was, but spread throughout the morning and early afternoon. Between playing with and entertaining Violet when Marn was out, or watching Echo for any signs of puke/diarrhea emergencies (Why does my spell check want to spell that, diarrhoea? OH! Canada/UK spelling Vs. USA) Yes, he's still not feeling well and is back on the Med's he was on when we were gone.
I felt like I was cleaning all day, and hardly getting anywhere. Our house needs a really good cleaning. Partly because it's getting to be spring, and the house always needs it after a long winter, and partly because we both hate cleaning/laundry and it doesn't get done as often as it should. I didn't get beyond the downstairs, but I did manage to mop all of the floors and vacuum the rugs, kitchen, clean/condition the leather couches and do the dishes/load/unload the dishwasher.... and that's about it. I had to stop to start getting ready for dinner -- Mom, Tony, Lisa and the kids came over for dinner. It doesn't sound like much, and there are a LOT more tasks to do (the window sills are really irking me right now, they're so filthy).
I didn't get to, what we affectionately call, "Slobber Patrol", which is needed badly, especially after yesterday. Echo sometimes drives us crazy with the amount of drool, and frequent head shaking sending it everywhere. He was in fine form last night with all the excitement around him. The worst part of that is his slobber dries to a nice black splat on the walls and, yes, sometimes even ceilings, which is very hard to get off (it takes the "California" stucco off with it when wet)! As much as we love him, we'll never get a male Dane again... Marn was going to try and do Slobber Patrol today if she had time.

Now with Violet becoming more and more active, it's going to be a harder and more important job to keep on top of all the cleaning. I think our problem is, we'll clean and then not keep on top of it to make the task less daunting. It's a problem that we both concede to and need to change!

Why are cleaning ladies so expensive? Because no one else wants to do it!

She can roll!

Finally! Almost 6 weeks after her first roll (that I didn't even get to witness) Violet can roll from her front to back all by herself. Last week in BC, Adreinne and I worked with her on it, but no real changes. Yesterday, I took quite a bit of video because I really thought she was going to do it, but it was today when I was looking after Sadie that she finally figured it out (maybe it was the constant demonstration from Sadie that helped - LOL). Then she rolled like a champ and tried to stop me from putting her back on her belly!
Ahhhhhh, the little things.
We also started solids this past weekend (6 months exactly - ugh, where does the time go already!). Such fun. She is not really motivated for them but seems to enjoy slurping the rice cereal up.


Her second tooth broke today so soon she will be a cutie pie with two bottom teeth. She has been having trouble settling in at night since we got home from BC and as a result often ends up in our bed in the morning. I snapped this shot of A cuddling Vi after I got up to have a shower, sometimes A hears the flash click out and gets mad that I am snapping a shot as evidenced by the scowl (side note: just minutes before this, A had his back to us and was not snuggling with us, then I got up and told him she was there...I come back out and she is sneaking all my cuddles)

TEETH!

So, I had a dentist appointment last night at 5:15 to re-attach my crown, and an hour and a half later, it's back. It's not exactly in the same position as before, but pretty close (I think it's a little bit lower than before, but not that noticeable). Only I would be able to tell that, I think.

Anyway, the tooth "post" did break off, so he had to remove that piece from the crown, then clean up the remaining tooth. Because there was not much surface to grab on to the crown, he had to build up a fake post with epoxy or what ever it's called, reshape it to fit the hole in the crown, then cement it back in when everything fit snug. what a pain in the butt.

He thinks that because that tooth is so damaged and it has been worked on so much, if it falls out again, he thinks I should go with a surgical implant for more permanence. This is when they pull out the tooth completely, drill a screw into your jaw bone, then attach a crown to that. This is the most permanent/strongest option, and is also a minimum of 5-6 months from start to finish (extract, heal, screw implant, heal, crown). I would have to wear a removable denture between extraction and crown if I didn't want a big gap for that time.
The other option that he doesn't think is practical for me, is to do something similar, but instead of drilling the post into the jaw, it's put into the stump of the tooth. He doesn't think my tooth would be up for the task because there's not much left of it.
An estimate of the extraction/implant is $3000. He recommended that I consider getting both front teeth done. Not all at once, but because the other crown may eventually suffer the same fate and to basically "plan for it" before it happens again.

So, here's hoping that these crowns last for another few years. I suppose I should start setting aside some $$$ for this purpose for the future.. Dental insurance doesn't cover "cosmetic", or surgical implants. Who knows, maybe if the dentist wrote a letter saying that this was necessary because the other, cheaper, methods wouldn't work.... It does cover dentures, however, and possibly the crown portions again. If I do end up going this route, I may as well go the whole nine yards, and go for a zoom whitening as well. If I'm getting more fake teeth, they better be white! Why not?!

So what's the lesson here? TAKE CARE OF YOUR TEETH!

We're Back

Well, we're back from the West Coast, and had another great time. We didn't do very much, as planned, so got to spend a lot of time with the Asbury's. Unfortunately, Den had to spend most of the week in Victoria, so our visit with him was shorter than expected. We had planned to spend a lot of the week over there, but the weather was really not good and didn't want to spend the whole week indoors at a hotel -- it's much more fun to spend it indoors "at home", so that's what we did.
Apparently Ontario was having great weather while we were gone. Ah well, you can't win them all!
Violet was a hit (as usual), and was really great on both flights and at their house. I don't think she was bothered by the time change all that much. If she was, we didn't notice. In fact, she popped a tooth without any of us noticing, other than being very sleepy the day before. We attributed it to the travelling (cue the "she gained a tooth and I lost one" jokes).

Madison loving the snuggles

Speaking of, I'm heading to the Dentist on Monday to figure out what they're going to do. I should NOT have lost this crown already...

Violet and I showing off our new, or missing, teef

Marn and I were talking about the highlights of the trip, and to be honest, there wasn't really one key thing to mention that stands out as REALLY fun or interesting, other than the complimentary upgrade to Executive First Class on the flight out (but that's been written about already)!! We tried to go to the Aquarium as we've never been and surely that would have been a "high", but the lines were very, very long and there were many, many people - the perils of Spring Break that we didn't plan for.

Yes, we did go to the Aquarium - the front door, anyway!

So that trip didn't happen. We decided to go to Granville Island instead for the afternoon which was fun. Marn and I both bought new hiking shoes (50% off!), and then a new collar, leash and doggie boots for Echo. There was nothing special about the prices of those, but we did need to get that stuff. The other fun thing we did was take the kids to a swimming pool. Violet's first! They had a beach entrance to a warm pool and it was really fun having her in the water with us and the kids. I think we were in the water for over an hour.

Swimming group shot

Vi splashing

checking out the surroundings

with Daddy (after being told not to smile too large)

The rest of the week, we pretty much sat at visited, hot tubbed, or played Wii with the kids (or drumming in Rock Band by myself!). It was exactly what we planned, and to be honest, the week flew by! Granted it was a shorter visit then "normal", but it still seemed to be a very short 7 days.

Aunt A taking in her smell

Story time, yum!

Madison was "all over" Violet as soon as we got there. She was very eager to do everything and anything for her. It was really cute to see how much she loved having her there for a visit. Everyone knows that Violet is a smiler, and as soon as Maddy figured that out, it's all she wanted to get her to do. We're definitely going to miss hanging out with everyone, and seeing Madison interact with her. Parker on the other hand had little interest. He'd come over the odd time if Madison was, but other than that, indifferent. He'd actually move to another spot if we came and sat Vi down beside or near him or if Vi tried to reach out and grab him (I didn't mention this to Adrienne, so not sure if she saw that too). It was pretty funny!

Maddie getting in some more cuddles

Friday while driving home, we called Mom to let her know when we were going to arrive and to tell her that we were going to get some take out and ask what she wanted. She told us that she was making dinner for us - Pizza and Salad. Nice! Now, there is a long standing joke that when Mom's cooking, the fire alarms go off from the smoke. In her defence, her kitchen does not have a hood fan over the stove, but never fail, during every large meal get together, that alarm goes off... In nearly 5 years in this house, we have never set them off. But Mom did! lol She didn't have the hood fan on (why would she, what is that?) and some cheese fell to the bottom of the stove. Cue the smoke, cue the alarms. Repeatedly. I laughed out loud because it just wouldn't be Mom cooking without the alarms going off! lol Did I mention that we have NEVER set them off??