Happy Birthday Cate Rowan

Today is the third birthday of our sweet and beautiful Cate Rowan.

From moving across the world - twice - to having new a little sister take all the attention sometimes, Cate has taken all the craziness we've given her and continued to be the quiet, loving, gentle-hearted girl we first met. I have no words to describe how happy Cate makes me every single day. As a parent, I hope we can give her every opportunity she deserves.

She’s put up with a lot in her first three years, and through it all she’s been the easiest and most perfect daughter we could imagine. She makes me a proud daddy every day and I can’t imagine what she has in store for us as she gets older.

"Her gentle spirit has filled our lives with unimaginable joy. In love and adoration we look forward to many more."

City

Prairies

In the top picture you can see the Calgary skyline. That's about how far away from downtown we feel sometimes. On the way home from taking these, I saw two kids get stopped by a cop for crossing the freeway (22x) at an intersection from their suburb (Chaparell) to the rest of the city. So I officially live in a place where it's illegal to be a pedestrian. There's nothing like promoting car culture through the long arm of the law.

BTW, Carmen is finally blogging again. And she's more interesting than me.

Weekend

I don't usually spend the week looking forward to the weekend. I enjoy my job and I appreciate what I do during the workweek. I also like the fact my three ladies get to hang out every day together, even though Carmen probably wishes it were otherwise at times. But, without a doubt, these are the most enjoyable times in life. Saturday morning brunch at Eat Eat in Inglewood and a walk downtown. Hanging out with this beautiful trio, sometimes I fee like I'm the luckiest guy in the world.




For the record, those are wholewheat pancakes. Like that makes a difference.

On another note, we've been keeping up with our one-movie-a-week-for-a-year thing. Lately we've seen In Search of a Midnight Kiss (shrug), Doubt (I doubt the production team could've been any lazier), Seven Pounds (my eyelids felt like they were about seven pounds by the end), Rachel Getting Married (drugs, depression, loneliness, death and music - what's not to like?) and Vicky Christina Barcelona (Spain, beautiful people and a threesome, you make the call, but depending who you're watching it with, it could get very awkward.).

And on a third note, I passed on Coldplay tickets. I had a pair of pretty good seats staring at me through the computer screen and I hit cancel. That's willpower y'all. $225 would get me four front row seats to Pearl Jam, nine tickets to the Weakerthans show we're going to next month or two weekend passes to Folkfest. Not to mention almost half a return airfare to Europe. You may have the biggest band in the world, Chris Martin, but you and your Sgt. Peppers suits won't pull the wool over my eyes. Suck it.

This week

This is what I come home to every day. Not bad, eh?

Wednesday

Cate took me out to the alley after work to show me a really cool puddle. She's more about exploring than splashing. These might give you a sense of what it's like to hang out with her. She spends a lot of time thinking and reflecting; pondering and examining, instead of jumping in feet first (literally and figuratively). It makes it easier for me to just sit and watch her. Her pensive demeanor calms me.

Monday

Our friends, Alison and Leon, gave us our first encounter with Vietnamese food. Delish. Except every time I bit into a piece of lemongrass I nearly threw up. I don't know why anyone would want their food laced with Pinesol. Everyone else liked it though, and apparently so does all of Vietnam, so to each their own.