An Uplifting Job

There are a lot of reasons why I love working at Grouse. Of course, you would have to love you job to be there for sooooooooooooooo long. This winter is #21!!

I have to say that over the years, there have been a few projects that I find facinating. And this one is just that, facinating. Grouse has installed a single energy generating wind turbine.

The "Eye of the Wind" will generate 25% of our current power needs. And not only that, it will provide an additional attraction for our mountain by having a viewing pod located at 57 meters above the mountain. The pod is serviced by a seven passenger elevator and makes it one of a kind in the world.

I was lucky enough to hop on a helicopter twice in the last week to take photos of the before blade / after blade turbine. Just spectacular. The whole thing. The process of the build, the complexity of the structure, the whole deal.

The "Eye of the Wind" will open to the public early 2010, and will (I am sure) be a must for everyone visiting Grouse Mountain. I am very excited to get inside the pod and enjoy and even better view of the mountain and city I love.

Follow me through October - week 1

Each time I sit down to my blog, I get nervous. I'm behind. Again. Where do I start? What do I skip? Well, who really cares. So here I go (again).

On www.skrapnchat.com I issued a photo challenge. Here is the gig. One photo per day. Within each week, there is a mandatory photo to take. Week one, show the change of fall. At the end of the month, we need to create a LO with all 31 photos.

Since I can't remember where I put my keys each day, I thought I better track what the photos are / why I took them / what I might want to include in the actual LO.

Day 1

My beautiful daughter Kaylee. She loves to follow her big brother, but I love it when I see her doing independent things. For the longest time, she just watched Braydon on the computer. Sat ideally by and let him do everything. But once she figured out HOW to make things work, well she loves to play on sites like kids CBC and Disney Playhouse. She does things like math, spelling, shapes, but doesn't even realize she is learning along the way. You can see her concentration in this pic, and I love that she loves to learn.

Day 2

Braydon loves sports. All sports. All the time. He loves riding his bike. On this day, he went with me to pick KJ up from school, and wanted to ride his bike. It scares me how comfortable boys are with just hopping off curbs and going up steep hills. I hold my breath and let him be him. I love it that he is so active and healthy, and hope that he chooses this as a lifestyle forever.

Day 3

This photo is the challenge photo. Show fall. We have these beautiful marigolds in our front yard. They come out in the summer, but are the last ones left in the garden this time of year. The richness of the orange is just so October, and so fall to me.

Day 4

Cuteness 100%. Took KJ Halloween costume shopping, and this is what she picked up. When we hit the store, she wanted to be like Braydon, and be a Star Wars figure. In fact, she wanted to be what Braydon was last year, Darth Vader. Again, in my effort to show her her own independent world, we went without big bro and she decided that she would make a cute Panda. I think she may score some extra candy this way.

Day 5

Ok, this is my "artsy" photo. I walk by this to get KJ from school. Yes, it's a fire hydrant. But I just love the vivid red and white against the green. I love the different aspects of how it is put together. I love that I love something as boring and mundane as a fire hydrant. Maybe I need more of a life, but hey, I document what I like.

Day 6

My sweet fur child. Takaya turns nine this year. Nine years of this big beast being right in the middle of everywhere. Nine years of companionship. Nine years of fur. Nine years of having a warm body to put my feet on. Nine years of good times.

Day 7

Today is day seven, and I will admit that this photo cost me chocolate. I came home from work and wanted everyone to come out and take a photo for me. No one felt like it, but I'm not above bribing. Hey, I got a shot with my three crazy family members. They were all in goofy moods (got some ridiculous shots of Chris not smiling for me), but these are the moods that make me laugh after a long day of work. These are the laughs that make me happy.

There we go. Seven days, seven photos, seven stories. I love this type of project. It gets me to stop and take photos of my everyday world. Maybe not the all time "perfect" pics, but things that I want to remember later.

Stay tuned for Week #2!!

My brush with fame....

One of the things that I love most about my job, it's different all the time. I do all kinds of "off" things that would never show up in my formal job description. Sometimes I get to go take photos. It's one of my favorite "off" jobs. I've caught some beautiful sunrises, sunsets, snow drifts, wolves, bears and other things along the way.

Well the other day I got asked if I could be the photographer for a tv shoot that was happening on the mountain. Michael Buble was coming up with an Australian TV show, and we needed someone to capture him being at the hill.

He's a totally nice guy - with enough "attitude" to keep him in the famous category. But I was most impressed when he offered up his seat on the Skyride to some elderly guests. So I guess he is as sweet as his voice.

The Colours of Fall

I just love fall colours. While the west stays green, and we don't get forests full of golden leaves, we have enough beauty to keep us happy here too. In the golden glow of dusk this evening, I was able to get a few moments to capture some of these fall colours.

Gurlz Poker Night

I'm a little behind on my blogging, hoping to catch up on the past couple of weeks over the next few days. But hey - that is life. Since my word is "simplicity", I try not to get all worked up over things not getting done. I still have the photos and the story can always be written later right?

Well this is an important story of friendship and how well, lives get busy, but certain bonds are unbreakable.

To start, I need to take you back six and a half years ago. January of 2003 to be precise. I was pregnant. Jen and I decided that in the best interest of Dan and Chris, we should attend pre-natal class. Honestly, I learned nothing about birthing (that I hadn't already read) and it didn't bring anything to the labour table per say. But what I got out of that class was invaluable.

You see, when I walked in I saw my high school class mate Nicole. We sat beside this funny lady with and incurable laugh, Jodi. Another women in the class was an old co-worker Shelley. Instant connection. We were all about to be moms, and none of us knew what the @#(*$&@( to really expect. Another friend of mine, Helen, had met a woman named Julia in her pre-natal and all of a sudden we were a gang of Moms.

Fast forward to March and April, and all these kids show up. Now this networking group became our life line to the outside world. All of us professionals, all of us social. All of us needing to get out of the house and see the great big world outside. Share breastfeeding stories. Stories of success, failure, depression, husbands who were great, and husband who were having a hard time adjusting to fatherhood. But most of all, we shared laugher. We knew who needed the extra hug, or extra latte. Who needed some shower time without a newborn and who needed a casserole made for them.

As all groups form, it's kinda expected that as time changes, the dynamics of the group will too. Shelley moved a bit further out, so we saw her less. After three years, with one exception, we had all had our second kids. After four years, there were 12 children amongst the strong six of us.

Sure, we are all back to work. We all juggle lives of kids, soccer, work, husbands, our individual interests....but we all have each other. As I seem to be involved in their lives individually, I have always been the coordinator of the group. I decided it had been too long since we had been together, so threw out a date and decided it was poker night for us gurlz!

Not many of us had played, but winning was so far from the object that evening. We laughed. We laughed hard, to the point of crying. Everyone had stories. Sure the kids were part of it, but really only a small part. We were six women who happened to have children of the same age. It was a fantastic night.

I know as time goes on, less of these nights will happen. But when they do - we communicate like it was only a week in-between visits. For so many reasons these women play such a role in my life and I am blessed to be part of this group.

Grade 1

Well, it's been a whole week. A whole week of getting into grade one mode. Here is what happened (in a list mode thanks to Suzanne).

* First day, one hour, no teacher.

* Day 2, 2 teachers. Mrs Elhome and Mrs Jette. Most excited that he got lunch and recess.

* Day 3, loves school - needs a new room. You know, to do homework and stuff Chris starts painting and priming.

* Day4 - painting continues, buy a new bed. Loving school

INSERT WEEKEND - finish room, build new bed, overexcited child, hits wall, recovers

Week 2 - still loves school, all is well.

The last weekend of summer

So I know technically there are still a couple weeks left, but let's face it - the Labour Day weekend is the end of "summer" as we know it. And after a beautiful sunny summer, it seems as though fall is making an early appearance. Rain was in the forecast all weekend long.

Knowing that, Friday night we headed out to the playground to make the most of the dry weather. We have sure enjoyed living so close to the school, and use this playground as often as possible. It's killed more than a few hours of time, and allowed a fun safe place for the kids to burn off some energy.

Saturday the rain came. So we hung out inside for most the day. We managed to keep ourselves busy with a variety of things through the day, and watched a movie with popcorn and cuddles. Thanks Mr. Disney, you really have made many family nights together memorable.

Sunday the rain was there again, so it was pj day. I pulled off some cleaning and some grocery shopping, a few games of wii were played over the day and even some other board games made appearances. One more movie to close up the evening, and that was that.

Monday morning, after some of the heaviest rain I have ever heard overnight, the sun looked like it was going to make an appearance. So this afternoon the kids and I headed to the fish hatchery to see the salmon spawing. They were jumping everywhere - out of the water and up the ladders. We wandered through the forest and once again took in what a beautiful area we live in.

Then this evening we ended up buying Braydon a new bed. With grade one (um, how did he get that old that fast) starting, he's gonna need a desk. And it's time for the kid room to get painted over so his sports room can happen. He's been waiting for it for a long time. More on that later.

That's it. School starts tomorrow. The rain is here again. The leaves are changing colour and I guess that means routine will start to happen. I love this time of year, it's very beautiful. So here is to embracing change and growth. Seems like it's happening.