Birthday

Today is the last day of 2015 and the first day of Tavas' life. Here's how his day went.

In the morning, everything was nice and warm and dark, the way it's been forever.

...but something was afoot. A fool in scrubs was a clue to the day's grand events to come.

Mother was ready in her birthday party outfit.

Inside the party tent, the magicians performed a great trick... and Tavas' made a spectacular entrance to the party.

It turns out all the blue-hands people are very interested in you when it's your naughth birthday.

Trust me, I'm a doctor. Not that kind of doctor... but whatever.

The rainbow sunshine panda measured Tavas' weight. This is the sort of fun fact inquiring minds want to know.

Mother was stuck in the party tent, but did get a chance to wish happy birthday.

Even on your birthday, there's always some kind of paperwork that needs to be done.

Tavas' birthday hat was a hit at first - until he discovered that what goes on, can also come off.

More than one of the people in this picture might be ginger. Sorry son.

Mother eventually got out of the party tent and came to join us.

Happy 2016 everyone - it's time for a nap.

Stocking Stuffers

Happy holidays, Christmas, and anything else you celebrate!

Jingle bells

Lately here in Vernon, everything has turned white. It turned brown for a while, but it's white again now. I don't think anyone around here is going to win anything for betting on a white Christmas...

Due to all the white stuff on the ground, my bike - the one with the big tires which according to our local bike shop owner, I'm not allowed to call it a Fat Bike or a Snow Bike - has been coming in very handy. On Tuesday night I did my first bike ride on groomed snow trails up at Silver Star, with an experimental slide run down a ski run. There was a predictable amount of going sideways, backwards, over the handlebars, and generally getting away with things you can't do on dirt without losing a lot of skin. Fun times indeed. Kal Park is also all white again (as it just about everything), so rolling on the fat tires looks to be the way I will keeping things - unless I get around to going skiing.

During the brown phase, before the white came back, Lina went for a paddle which I just found the pictures of:

Hello ducky

So many browns

Is that some green? No, just greeny-brown

During this period I got around to finishing a project I started months ago, which coincidentally is mostly brown:

I finally got my welder hooked up to something appropriate - the power supply for the oven.

Don't worry - the oven still works, but we can't weld and make granola at the same time.

Here we are - our neighbor in Vancouver's old stairs combined with some stainless rod from Chris' family's cabin roof. Mix together with some electricity and you get shelves.

And speaking of making things, it's getting very close to the time something small and loud will come out of Lina's belly. Whenever we're asked whether we're ready, I find it hard to say yes... but we've run out of things to do to get ready. We are at least feeling ready to meet Junior when they come out - which is now tantalizingly close. Things are about to get very different.

The last belly picture?

The weather forecast

Being a British person I pay attention to the weather forecast. You don't have to be British to be interested in the weather, but it helps. Here's what the forecast says:

That's right - our recent run of sub-zero weather, that has been keeping everything crisp and frozen for the pat two weeks, is about to end. That's going to bring brown goo that snow turns into when it reaches the end of it's life. Yuck.

I've been enjoying the cold and clear days, especially for riding my newest bike.

And then this morning we got what I missed the first time around. Freshies! Ok, it was only about 2 centimeters, but it was fresh snow. I also used this opportunity to test out two things:

Thing #1 - Uphill vs. downhill grippiness. I claimed in conversation at the bike shop that the bike with 5 inch wide tires was good for the uphill but "had too much grip" on the downhill.

Thing #2 - New cranks. Due to a combination of good and bad fortune, I have a fancy new pair of carbon fiber cranks on my Banshee. I broke the fancy pair of carbon cranks I used to have, but I won the warranty department lottery and got fresh new ones. Happy days.

Evidence

So here are my scientific observations:

Thing #1 - The uphill was mostly nasty, on the fat bike it was fun (as much as uphill can be). The comical sliding all over the place on the downhill was worth it.

Thing #2 - They go around and around. Success.