To Canada and Beyond!

I'm always late with this stuff... lazy, busy, and unable get much done while Bunky is awake, so time is limited.

For Mark's birthday we flew to Canada - we visited with his dad (Grandpa!) and saw some nice stuff. The funny thing is that I did not get any good photos of Fin in Canada, only things like him being silly in the hotel room. That's okay. That's what you really want to see anyway.

Also have some photos of us at the petting zoo, which has become a Sunday regular treat. Fin likes chicks and bunnies, and even rescued a bunny that had escaped from the big bunny bin. Otherwise, he's more interested in the goats' food and how the gate works... though he did chase the chickens for quite some time.

Coming soon... DISNEYLAND!!!

Fintan the Junior Executive

Fintan gets ready for Disneyland

Fintan tries some Thai peanut sauce

Fintan holds the bunny on his lap

Fintan goes for another bunny

Fintan makes sure the animals have water

Fintan pets some goat butt
(note the facial expression)

Fintan practices using the Force to stack cans
(a very new discovery! can-stacking!)

Just for fun

Just some semi-recent photos for your viewing pleasure...

Bunky gets very excited when he sees hockey. (Except when Mommy is playing, then it's the most traumatic thing imaginable. Even seeing daddy in his helmet in the locker room brings about the blood curdling cries.) We got home from dinner and turned on Game 3, and you'd have thought he was completely aware of the fact that this is the Stanley Cup Finals and this game means everything to Ottawa! He was so cute, I tried to get video but (a) it distracted him, so it's not as cute, and (b) I can't edit it on this computer.

Ottawa who? I bleed blue!

Okay this isn't very recent, it's just before the last haircut, but he's so cute eating his bread at the restaurant... AAAAAHHHH!!!! He's so independent.

And here's Bunky getting ready to travel in time in his Dr. Who inspired phone booth box thingy. It's one of his favorite toys, of course. Here he's taking a temporally displaced lion into the future to assist with respeciation after global warming fries most of Africa. Okay I made that up.

The vocabulary has begun to explode. It's really amazing to behold. Omi taught him "one more" and he actually uses it in context. Today he asked for "one more cherry" which just about floored me. Of course, when he says "one more" it sounds like "man moh" and his ability to say "cherry" is, well, let's just say I can tell he was trying to say "cherry" and leave it at that.

Words he's big on lately, whether or not anyone other than me recognizes what he means: one more, all gone, airplane, helicopter, ding (dong), gato, agua, cheese, cookie (haha sounds like "dackie" but at least he's consistent), doggy, bow-wow, meow, cherry, strawberry, banana (nanana), and I swear he tried to say "hockey" today but I don't count it until he says it in context and deliberately... There are other words, too, but I can't think of them all at the moment.

Bunky's Wet Memorial Weekend

So I had a hockey tournament (we won, thank you) and I brought along Omi and Bunky. Dad stayed home, which is fine... we missed him but our hockey tournaments are a girl thing and he's had his fill of women's hockey over the past decade and a half :)

We stayed at the Westin-Kierland in Scottsdale which is a very nice resort in the middle of the "Beverly Hills" area of the valley. When we arrived, they had painted Fin's name on the bathtub and he got a nice rubber ducky. They had a real crib, not one of those pak-n-play things, though one of the three nights he slept between me & mom (Omi) on the bed.

This tournament is about kickin' it at the resort when not kickin' butt on the ice. So we spent a lot of time by the pool or just hanging out in places. The pool had a nice "sandy" beach which really meant a concrete slope into the shallow pool, which was perfect for Bunky to wade into himself.
Mostly he liked to sit on the side and splash with his feet. Good exercise for his Mr. Universe hockey legs.

He's just friggin' adorable, face it.

See what I mean? No contest. "I'm cute! Hey, watch me prove it to the camera!"

Did I mention we won? :) I think we all had a great time.

Finally - pics of our zoo trip on Mother's Day

So here are the photos from the Los Angeles Zoo, and a few others. Click to enlarge.

Daddy carries Bunky to SPIDER CITY! Yes, I went, I looked, I did not vomit. Bunky played with the big brown fuzzy spider hand-puppet and poked at all the glass windows. They had a brown recluse in there, it's so unremarkable... it looks like a boring brown house spider.

The Koalas catch a siesta in the branches.

Bunky likes the view from up high.

Hey, it's Mother's Day. He should be holding MY hand!

The Snow Leopards were the highlight of the day. We watched them play around and pounce on each other and jump off the fencing and rocks for half an hour. Bunky recognized that they are "gatos."

The chimp habitat is really quite lovely. Some males were playing "thief" to the delight of the onlookers. I personally abhor chimps, while at the same time admiring their human-like qualities. Of course, it's the human-likeness that scares me most.

The elephant's enclosure is being rebuilt. It'll be huge and open with some hills and a small lake. The female is being shipped to one of those prairie elephant sanctuaries which will be nice for her, and the younger male is going to get three new girlfriends.

Okay, not the zoo. Bunky and Mommy eat Ch'os together!

Bunky broke the medicine cabinet mirror with his head. No harm to his head.

Stay cool, yo.

Just a few updates

We went to the Zoo last weekend for Mother's Day but I'm slow at uploading my photos to the laptop, as usual. It was easier when my main computer was networked... Anyway, here are a few more to tide you over.


We are now having some regular playdates with Aisling each week. She is adorable, and apparently now walking pretty well. Hooray! She looks like the young twin of her mommy :)

Here Fintan plays with my hockey gloves. This is from a few weeks ago but it's still cute. I have a bunch of them. He tried very hard to walk around with them on his hands but they are as big as his head! And we know how hard it is ... his head, I mean... I mean to ... never mind.

He's lookin' cool in mamma's shades, ready for a walk around the neighborhood...

This is also from a while back, before his haircut, but it's cute. Him in his Big Fins Swim Camp shorts in our front yard grass.

The Dread Captain Bunky

Crankypants & The Hair Cut

The Bunkster got a hair cut. Omi was visiting and she trimmed the front, leaving, as requested, the curly bunch in the back. Mommy hated it - it looked like a mullet. Daddy hated it for his own reasons. So Mommy & Daddy chopped the back curls off, which made Mommy sad. They went to breakfast with Omi and Papa and a little while later Mommy finished the trim to even things out and fix the back. Now he looks great... but I miss those adorable curls!

He also got a cut on his nose. Not sure how. Boyz wil b boyz.

I'm cute. Check out my hair.

Aaaahhhhh!!! More chicken please, Daddy!

Why, you'd never know I've been
HELLSPAWN for 72 hours straight!!!

Mmmm. Yummy.

So, what's this about being hellspawn? We're not sure what's going on, I guess it's some kind of anxiety attack or just testing his limits. But only with me. He must be held, at all times, not held while sitting, mind you, and he must be transported to the objects or locations he desires, and then held there. You must get his food while holding him. And no one else, only Mommy. Not even Isabel this morning. *ugh* And fusspot city! 24/7! I am getting NO reprieve from Mr. Crankypants. He is fine all day until I come home, and then it's meltdown after meltdown after meltdown.

This weekend I took him to the park - he wanted me to hold him the whole time. "Take me to the swing! But Noooooooooooooooo!!! Don't put me IN the swing!!! Let's go over there to the gym. Noooooooo!!!!! I don't want to be put down! How about that trashcan? Beh-peh? But I want to touch it!!!!! AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"

And in Fry's, our favorite geek-out store, he wouldn't go in the stroller, or the cart. Had to be held the whole time. By Mommy. Daddy not good enough. And then he wanted to walk, but of course, his direction not ours, which led to a 5-minute face-down meltdown on the floor while I just looked at Mark and laughed at the absurdity of it. (While all other parents looked at me with pity or disgust, getting ready to call child services...) Same thing in the grocery store later on.

I did get some happy time when I let him play for an hour in my car, in the driver seat, while I sat in the passenger seat with my laptop (wireless is a wonderful thing). He pushes all the buttons, puts the key in the ignition, turns the radio up and down and up and down (and dances when it's loud). It's rather cute. I just hope he's not destroying my car.

Let's hope this fussy thing goes away soon. We have a playdate with Aisling tomorrow night!