What's Old is New

Most of my recent photos were individual shots of the girls (again), so I just added them to their respective posts below: Ivy and Ella. A few others from the past week or so:

• Orchard rows lit up
  
• All four girls at the beach -- I was in charge of this wrecking crew for two days last week while Nada and Tannis took their course. Easy peasy.
  
• The girls exploring the creek and hanging out in the big tree
  
• We found an alien creature and saw beauty emerging

Cougar Salvo

It's a little jarring when you wander over to Coasting to see how the Powell Pletts and their brood are doing, expecting to see the latest cute photos of the model mom and kids frolicking in coastal bliss...only to find that you're confronted with a couple of dozen pictures of a very intense military exercise -- guys in full gear carrying weapons, SWAT teams rounding up insurgents, military helicopters, police dogs...oh, and did I mention the weapons?

The scene is so far out of my frame of reference for "normal life" that it feels like peeking into a movie set -- something imaginary. But Canadian troops are actually engaged in real-life battle in Afghanistan right now, which is all too easy to ignore. Anyway, it sounds like Steve was in his glory.

They Got One in South Patagonia

I want to live in los angeles
not the one in los angeles
no, not the one in south california
they got one in south patagonia

Not much to say about my most recent trip to LA a couple of weeks ago. It was a fast trip, all work and no play. I brilliantly forgot the key to the lock that keeps my bike "safe" in the office down there...safe from me being able to ride it, that is. I didn't really have time for exploring, so it didn't bum me out too much.

I did bring the camera, but only took a grand total of three boring photos, all within two minutes and a picturesque half-block of the fantastic diner we ate breakfast in every morning. Productive work week and fancy suppers and drinks every night. My beer gut would thrive while my liver pickled if I lived like that full time.

Flying in and out of Penticton is pure greatness, if for no other reason than it lets me route through Vancouver to hook up with Angelo, who has so far been willing to schlepp through wind and rain to meet me at the airport for beers, laughs and good grub.

Welcome, Ethan

Huge congrats to Greg and Sophie on the birth of their new little guy -- they've been kind enough to provide photographic evidence, and I challenge anyone who knows Greg to not howl with laughter when they see how much Ethan resembles his proud papa. Love it.

Dirt

Tannis posted some photos yesterday, and they couldn't really be any more opposite to my experience right now. They represent a very earthy view of home life -- three-year-old Ella raking in the garden with an orchard backdrop, a glowingly pregnant Tannis poking around in a sunny flowerbed, and a front-yard crocus ringing in spring. In the sharpest contrast, here in LA this week it's ultra-urban, grown-up, indoors, car-bound and intense. As I flew over the city Monday night, I was shocked by the lights stretching forever in every direction and traffic jamming most streets at 10:30pm. Unbelievable.

Ivy Close

Little missy Ivy Jane,
sun and moon and stars and rain,
sometimes your dad's a pain,
but he loves you ,Ivy Jane.

• Smiling recovery from a tough week
  
• Eyeball Ivy, in retro black and white
  
• Opening a get-well gift from a friend

March 27 Update: A new post full of Ivy photos seems redundant, so I thought I'd just add them here:

• Showing off her helicopter design. The name she gave it could just as easily be applied to the artist: "FRE SPERIT".
  
• Digging in the spring dirt
  
• Chalk art. Not content to simply draw the colourful butterfly, she diagrammed its life cycle as well, from egg to caterpillar to cocoon and the eventual butterfly, all carefully labelled.

Ella Blue

Oh, my little Ella Pearl,
beautiful girl in a big wide world.

• Seriously cute in black and white
  
• Colouring up a storm
  
• Hanging out with big sister

March 27 Update: In an effort to not create a new (almost identical) post, I thought I'd just add a few new Ella photos here:

• Hangin' out in the big tree at the bird sanctuary
  
• Ella's rainy chalk art
  
• Although it looks like she's being punished or something, she had some project on the go while sitting at the old school desk.

Picture Board

We got this picture board from the Hildebrands as a house-warming gift before Christmas, and a couple of weeks ago Tannis filled it up with photos from the past year. So pleasing to see little collections of beauty, friends and great moments like this. The girls helped with it too.

On the hodgepodge theme, I've posted lots of photos to my Flickr site lately and then forgotten to post links here. A few faves:

• Friday night after work I went snowboarding at Big White: speeding up the chairlift, foggy trees, the huge Happy Valley rink all lit up, and snow ghosts
  
• Radiant Ivy and smiling with her painting...and another painting project
  
• alpacas down the road from us
  
• cutie Ella painting
  
• crocuses came up early last week and bloomed beautifully
  
• I took a whole series of photos of vines, water drops on leaves, and melting ice one morning after a short-lived snowfall.
  
• craggy tree on my favourite knoll
  
• chalky cliffs by the lake and a cactus colony

Daddy-Daughter Weekend

Tannis took the bus down to Vancouver for a weekend getaway -- sounded like she had a blast with Bill, Rose, Mark and Esther (in that order, I think). So it was a Daddy-Daughter weekend around here, and we were ambitious (although my hands were apparently too full to take any photos):

• The Hiebert grandparents kicked off the Daddy-Daughter weekend by taking care of the daughters while the daddy went snowboarding on Friday night, and then we all had a sleepover.
  
• Pioneer Market in the morning for spudnuts and fresh bread.
  
• We lounged and read in the kids' section at the downtown Kelowna library, an old favourite spot we haven't been to in a while.
  
• Checked out the Kelowna Museum, which has a real hodgepodge of disconnected things, but the girls were totally into it.
  
• Coffee at the Bean Scene, another old haunt. Surprisingly didn't run into Bean-Scene regular and ex-Rosenorter Malcolm.
  
• We walked along the waterfront to the Kelowna Art Gallery, which turned out to be really fun. It's small, and didn't take long to see it all.
  
• On the way back to the car, we popped in at the Art Ark, where I would have purchased Meghan Hildebrand's Playground for the Unwilling if I felt rich and could somehow justify the $1700. Yikes!
  
• In the evening, back in Summerland, we hit the pool not knowing that it was "Tropical Swim Night" -- total, complete chaos with several hundred kids, games filling the pool deck, cold "rain" showering the overfull hot tub. My worst nightmare, but I toughed it out. Kids had fun, anyway.
  
• Breakfast at Lorne and Nada's, house-clean-up in the afternoon, a hike at Hardy Falls, and then picked up Tannis in Westbank. Whirlwind!

Okanagan Mountain Goats

On a bike ride last week near Summerland, I spotted the herd of mountain goats I've been seeing for a few years. They're easily visible from the highway, but the trail I was on took me closer to them than I had been before. I had brought my camera, so I hiked in even closer and got some nice shots of these amazing creatures:

• As I approached as quietly as possible, they were lounging on a ridge overlooking the lake
  
• I guess they must have heard or smelled me, because the next time I popped my head up to take a picture, they were standing around. I saw two of them butt heads at one point, but unfortunately didn't catch it with the camera.
  
• This big shaggy fellow seemed to be a leader of sorts. He didn't seem too alarmed, but kept a pretty close eye on me.
  
• It's a beautiful area with sweeping views, so I took a few other photos as well: picturesque stump, red shoots poking through the ice, my tracks through a skiff of snow, pretty moss, red-tailed hawk swooping over the lake, deer blending into the background, an early-rising chipmunk, and some colourful bulldozers seen from above.