Happy Birthday Daddy!

Colin is officially 29! Happy Birthday babes! xoxox

Him and I often talk about our different "love languages" (something we learned from our marriage prep course), his language is quality time. So I was trying to think of something he'd appreciate. So on Sunday morning we dropped Robbie off with Grammie and Grampie and off we drove into the mountains! We made our way up to Chateau Lake Louise, Colin's never been in that neck of the woods and I thought it would be a perfect way to spend some quality time together. We had reservations at the hotel for Sunday brunch, it was amazing! The meal started off with a protein smoothie in a shot glass after which was followed by a 3 tiered platter; the top plate had cheeses, humus and crackers. The second tier was fresh fruit and the bottom tier was all pastries.... yummmm. For an additional $5 we got a platter of chilled fresh seafood, I figured because it was Colin's birthday I'd suck it up and give it a try (for those of you who don't know, I'm pretty stubborn in my ways and have never had seafood before) I tried a crab leg and some glazed salmon. I wasn't a fan of the crab, I found it fairly salty.... the salmon on the other hand... yummy! After we had brunch we walk around outside, they were having an ice carving competition so we stood and watched these amazing artists at work. After roaming around for a little bit Colin asked if we could go check out the ski slopes to see what all the fuss is about (I've been trying to convince him to try skiing/snowboarding this season) so off we headed for a quick 5 minute drive up the mountain to the Lake Louise ski resort. We walked outside to where the chairlifts were and the bunny hill to the left, I was getting all excited... it's been years since I last hit the slopes and I'm itching to get back on the hill. "I can do this" he says, he saw a bunch of moms/dads teaching their little ones how to snowplough on the bunny hill and I think that inspired him (it did for me at least!). We checked out prices for ski rentals, classes and daycare (yep, they even have that!!) and then decided to head back home as the wind was starting to pick up. We got home early enough that we were able to catch a matinee before going to pick up the monkey.


On Tuesday Colin caught a wicked cold. His body was going from one extreme to another... first he was freezing and then roasting. He spent the entire day in bed and couldn't seem to get enough sleep! Also, Robbie got up several times that night... I noticed that his room was a little chilly so I kept on hiking up the thermostat but it didn't seem to get warmer.


Wednesday morning we noticed that our pilot light was off for boiler and after several attempts to re-ignite it we came to conclusion that it was broken. So we called Atco Gas and they told us they would be by within the next 24hrs.... I was blown away, that's a LONG time to go without heat/hot water, especially with the extreme deep freeze that the city was in (-49 with wind chill). Thankfully Robbie was at the day home for the entire day, so he didn't have to bear with the frigid temperatures in the house! It was also apparent that Colin wasn't getting any better; he ached and was always fatigued. He had a hard time regulating his body temperature and the fact that we didn't have any heat in the house didn't help his situation. He had such a hard time moving from the bed to the couch and spent the majority of the day sleeping... what a horrible way to celebrate his birthday! I took the day off to catch up on some sleep from the day before & to be here when the Atco Gas man finally showed up (~3:30pm) After the gas man left I ran out to pick up our monkey, I love hearing about his day. I guess there's a little girl that's just shy of 2 years old, named Cassandra, that he's taking a liking to. He calls her "Cassi" and she teaches him everything that she knows "up" she says as she reaches the ceiling and "down" as she touches her toes, I guess Robbie mimics her by reaching up high then touching his toes. Patty (the day home provider) said it looked like there was an aerobics class in her living room from all the stretching they were doing together. I brought him home and he started saying a new phrase!! "No way" it's so cute! He's figuring out when it's appropriate to use the sentence (ie. pretend phone convo's)

Thursday Colin finally caved in and asked me to take him to the hospital, he just was exhausted with trying to beat this sickness on his own. Thankfully neither of my parents were working and my mom was able to come and watch Robbie right away. We spent close to a total of 2hrs at Foothills (we were expecting a lot longer of a wait) and the Dr just had to hear his symptoms and look at his tonsils to diagnose that he had strep throat. The Dr was really nice, he said there's 4 main symptoms that they look for and if all 4 are apparent then they don't have to do a swab and they go straight to the Rx meds (penicillin). Colin had all 4 symptoms so he gave us the Rx and we were on our way to the pharmacy! My mom was so sweet enough to stay with Robbie once we got back so that I could do some grocery shopping (we desperately need more food but it's hard to do when you're running the house by yourself & taking care of a toddler). This was the night that I made the decision to cut the bath out of Robbie's bed time routine... for the past 2-3 days all he does is sits in the tub crying. There's no fun in bath time for him right now so why make him do something he hates? So last night I sat in the rocker and read some books to him while he had his bottle and that worked just as well! :)

Here we are at Friday and Colin seems to be 100% better. He's cracking jokes, he's able to sit up without any pain and he doesn't look like he's suffering any more :) I took Robbie to Ikea today and we had a blast! There are so many toddler beds that are so functional (they expand as the child grows), I can't wait to take Colin there to show him how cute Robbie looks when he's able to climb into a big boy bed. Robbie knew exactly what to do, he laid down and smothered his head into the pillow.

Well, that's my attempt at a re-cap. We've been crazy busy and hopefully it'll calm down now that Colin's on the mend.