Goodbye Tree

Brent and Jim took down the smaller tree in the back yard. It only took a few hours. Jim looked like the official tree removal man in his coveralls and hard hat! I was happy to see this tree go, the photos are deceiving but the tree was 30% in our yard and 70% in the alley. We are keeping the bigger one in the yard. It's the only thing we are keeping. Next up, the big pine tree out front...

Tree before with Brent for scale:


Jim the tree removal expert:


After:


Gido even cut Eli his own seat!



Sitting in his new tree trunk chair:

Seriously people

I don't believe it. I am having the worst luck with this running clinic. The first one I signed up for was cancelled due to lack of instructors. So, I switched to a different running room location. Then the new class got postponed (to tomorrow) due to the long weekend, and now I get an email saying it's postponed again due to no instructor (until May 1st). They are not making it easy for me to stay motivated. Grrrrrrrrrrrr. I'm considering just training on my own, I have the training schedule. We'll see what my running partner decides to do, I guess if she's in, then I'll be in. Thank goodness for peer pressure.

I can't believe...

... that this was my kitchen.



It feels like a lifetime ago that it looked like that. I was sifting though old photos of the renovation because Brent's mom is wanting a new kitchen at her house. Brent is going to be doing a lot of the work so I was looking back and it reminded me of how much work it is!

On our renovation front, we are mostly finished the basement and are struggling with the decorating. It's one giant room so I'm having a hard time figuring out art and how to separate the areas. Most decorative items are not exactly baby/toddler friendly, my mom glasses don't allow me to see past the hazards.

We are planning some landscaping in the near future. I'll definitely take some before photos since our current fence is so embarrassing. We're keeping it simple so that Eli has more grass to play in and less beds to keep out of. It's also budget friendly to do less! We have a bobcat guy coming on Friday to give us a quote. The whole yard needs re-grading and the "jungle" needs to be ripped out. We also have some juniper bush roots in the front that I am so excited to finally get rid of, they have been an eyesore for almost 2 years. I think our neighbor will be happy to see them go as well because he keeps volunteering to help us remove them. Bring on the sunshine, there is work to be done!

So far so good

We've been venturing into the realm of allergy prone foods with Eli. I'm not a stickler for rules, so we haven't been waiting until the magical 12 months to try most things. The good news is that so far he hasn't had any reactions. Brent was that kid. The one who was allergic to everything. He's grown out of most of his allergies but still has a few (cats, too much chocolate, horses). It looks like Eli took after me in the one department I was hoping he would. Phew! Maybe all that prenatal acidophilous I took paid off.

Here's the happy boy after eating his peanut butter and jam sandwich for lunch:

Visit from Norway

Stacey came to visit today all the way from Stavanger, Norway. She's there with her husband Martin on an expat assignment for a few years. She's been there 8 months already and we went to their wedding in Hawaii back in November. We had a great breakfast visit and it was wonderful to see her!!

Stacey and Eli,with his just woke up rosy cheeks. I think he likes her, the smile says it all.

Stargazing

We finally had a clear sky on Saturday night so Brent and I went out to the U of C Rothney Astrophysical Observatory. It was bring your own telescope night so Brent finally got to really test out his telescope. Dad told us about the RAO so we all headed out there together - after some delicious Vietnamese food. The University had plenty of people out there to help newbies learn how to use their scopes. Brent really enjoyed himself and we ended up staying until the very end of the evening. He saw Saturn and Saturn's rings, as well as O'ryan's nebula. He learned how to align his scope which is the most important part! All in all, it was a very fun evening. Thanks Dad, Angel and David for a great night out. We'll have to do it again when it's a little warmer out.

Technical difficulties

I've been having some problems with my ipod and nike + chip over the last week. I can't seem to get it to upload my runs or even sync my ipod sometimes. So, my jogging log is short around 10K. Hopefully I can fix it soon!

Also, my running clinic got cancelled! But, I managed to register in another 10K clinic that starts this Friday - just at a different location.