A Week Of Fun

I enjoyed so many things this week that I thought I'd blog about it! We did such a variety of things that the week had a little something of everything.

My Week of Fun started on holiday Monday when, along with my folks, we took the kids to the Telus World of Science to see the IMAX film Born To Be Wild. We got there early so enjoyed playing with all the science displays; the kids LOVE the hands-on experiments. They don't understand them yet but the more we go the more I'm sure they'll start to get interested on how and why things work the way they do. The film was great! It was only about 40 minutes or so (great for a 4yr old and 3yr old) and they loved watching the animals get a bath! We enjoyed ourselves so much I bought a yearly pass as we'll pay for it within 2 visits. I'm planning on taking the kids again in a couple weeks as the new show, Sesame Street presents The Body, it starts this weekend and runs all summer.

On Tuesday night I met up with some friends to see go for dinner and see a concert. After a rough start (I forgot one of the tickets) I still ended up having a lovely dinner with Two and The City at Bistecca. After dinner we made it for about the last 15 minutes of the opening act - Bright Eyes. I only know maybe 1 of their songs so wasn't really familiar with their stuff. We went to see Death Cab For Cutie and they performed really well! I found the sound to be a bit off at the beginning but it was fixed and I enjoyed the show.

Wednesday night I had the pleasure of attending the Modern Mama Hottest Tot Products event which was held at the Century Grill. What a fun night!!! There were some pretty amazing products that the moms got to take home but the BEST part was socializing with all the moms. Check out the link attached as I think there's still a listing of all the prizes that were won - you wouldn't believe it but there were things like strollers and booster seats given away!

I capped the week off by participating in the Canadian Cancer Society Relay For Life. The event runs from 7pm until 7am. Most teams put up tents and take turns walking/sleeping but our team tries to stay awake the entire night AND walk the entire night. Three weeks before the event  I broke my toe so didn't walk as long as I'd hoped but I did walk for 7 1/2 hours and I estimate that I walked around 23km. I was walking pretty slow towards the end but I still went as long as I could. Our team consisted of 14 people and between us we raised over $32,000. One of the most amazing moments in my life is when this was announced at midnight to the arena of walkers, they gave us a standing ovation. What made it so amazing was having cancer survivors stand up and cheer for us, when really we should be standing up and cheering for them. Such an emotional moment.  If anyone has ever done this event they know the most difficult hours to keep walking are around 3am - 5am. It's cold, it's dark and usually fairly deserted at that time so it's also very lonely; a small touch of what someone with cancer must sometimes feel like. All in all it's a very uplifting and emotional 12 hours but my twitter folk kept me company throughout the walk so I didn't feel terribly lonely.

There's my recap on my week of fun. Up this week...dinner and a show with Two and The City tonight, U2 concert on Wednesday night, International Children's Festival on Thursday and my birthday party on Saturday. Looks to be another good week!

April Reads

April was a bit of a slower reading month for me; shame as I have SUCH a stack of books waiting for me to read! Oh, and I just bought 2 more...help me!

1. Let the Great World Spin - Colum McCann:  I had great hopes for this book. I'm not exactly sure why but I think maybe it's because I liked the picture on the cover. There were some really good moments and ideas in this book but at times it got drawn out so that you wished it would just hurry up and get back to the good parts. It's not a book I'd probably pass along to others but I still liked aspects of it and am glad I learned a few things out of it.

2. The Ringworld - Larry Niven:  I'm not a huge fan of Sci-Fi books so I was surprised when I found myself liking this book. There were so many original ideas and concepts that I found I actually had to read every word in this book or else I'd miss something important. There were times that I needed to take a break from it because it took so much thought to follow it, but all in all I enjoyed it.

3. The Wind and the Willows - Kenneth Grahame: I KNOW! How is it I haven't read this book before now?!? But, it was in my 501 Must Read Books list so it was about time I got around to it. Plus it helped that it was on sale for $4 at Chapters ;)  I found it was an enjoyable book but must admit there didn't seem to be much of a point to it other than to follow the lives of these little critters. I think I might have enjoyed it more if I had read it when I was younger.

4. Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin:  I loved it! I was in a panic to try and read it before the TV series started but quickly became so absorbed in the book that the TV show didn't matter at all to me. I loved that the author could make you love his characters and not hate him when he killed a few off! I'm already 1/4 through the 2nd book in the series and just ordered the 3rd.

Anyone else read anything interesting this month? I'm always open to suggestions ;)

Mother's Day Do-Over

Well, if anyone read my last post they know I was really looking forward to Mother's Day and my time alone. I even said to my SIL on Saturday night how much Mother's Day means to me. I must have jinxed it.

When I got home on Saturday night my 3yr old son was kept waking up with a sore tummy and I could tell we had the beginning of a stomach bug. Within the first 30 minutes I had changed his night-time pullup three times. I stayed up with him until about midnight and then Hubs took over so I could get some sleep. I was praying I'd wake up and he'd feel better but sadly that wasn't the case.

We still decided to get ready for brunch since we'd already bought the tickets to go and as I was doing my hair I could hear my son crying so went to check on him. He was standing in the bathroom with poop EVERYWHERE. I've never seen anything like it. On the walls, on the floor, on his clothes. Yep. Happy Mother's Day.

There was no way I could take this kid anywhere, he might get someone else sick! So I had the job of cleaning poop out of his clothes and the floor while hubby gave our son a bath. Then instead of getting into my new dress to wear to brunch I threw on some jeans and ran to get groceries since we were running low on wipes and pullups (since he's potty trained except for at night we don't keep many supplies like this).

I'd fully admit that I had a good cry. When I thought about my ideal Mother's Day of sleeping in, going to brunch and having a few hours to myself I thought I was being pretty realistic by knowing I'd only maybe get 2 out of 3 of those wishes. But never did I think this would be my Mother's Day. Admittedly I've been having a string of bad things happen lately so this hit harder than it might have but all in all it's still a sucky thing to happen.  I just wanted 1 day to feel special, feel appreciated and acknowledged for my work as a stay-at-home-mom.

Oh, and as per the rule of life my son slept through the night last night and isn't complaining about his stomach at all today. Figures.