Announcing the Arrival of Daniel Robert Griffioen

Its been a crazy last 48 hours. After beginning an induction on Sunday morning at 7.30 and a hard natural labor most of Monday, Daniel Robert Griffioen was finally born through a C-section at 2.21 pm. He was 7 pounds, 13 ounces, 21 inches long, and he is a beautiful baby boy! More to come later, but here are some early pictures that my mother-in-law Barb Snelgrove took at the hospital. Jenn is doing very well but will be there until at least Thurday recovering.

One month to go!

As promised, here's a picture of at least part of the baby room and myself at 8 months pregnant. I'll take a better picture of the room and the border tomorrow. I just thought this one was funny since Stella came and settled into the chair like she wanted to be in on whatever we were doing. At least now you can see my impossible-to-describe paint colour!

Whirlwind

What a crazy weekend we've had! One of Keith's former students, Theo Thams, is a finalist in the Canadian Idol contest, so throughout the summer Keith has had calls and interviews with various media. On Friday Theo came to perform at the local fair and CTV asked Keith if he would come to say a few words and then do an interview with them after. If Theo makes it to the top 3, which he should, then you'll see footage of the concert and probably a sound bite (sp?) from Keith. It was supposed to be a surprise to Theo that Keith was there, so we were ushered in a special gate and put in an air conditioned trailer until it was time to go out. Afterwards, traffic was stopped for us to get out again- I may be ruined for regular parking from now on!


A great crowd came out to support the local boy!



On Saturday evening we headed back to Whoop Up days, this time for a completely different cultural event. My sister's fiance is currently in the running to make the CFR, and was competing in the steer wrestling event. Once again we had some privileged access as we got to watch the rodeo from where the competitors & their families did. The bleachers were nothing to write home about (except maybe to complain), but the view was up close and personal. At one point, we were almost hit by bull snot. Isn't that just what you wanted to imagine?

Somewhere in the middle of all that, Keith also finished working on his composition for the new Hockey Night in Canada Theme and uploaded it to the CBC website. You can listen to it by going to cbc.ca and following the links to the Anthem Challenge and searching for "Aim High".

Random bits of summer

Summer has been flying by, so fast we barely took any pictures! We did a lot of traveling around BC and Alberta in July. We left town literally within the hour that Keith got out of school the last Friday in June and headed west. We spent our first night enjoying a good visit with my great aunt and uncle in Grand Forks. We stopped for a lunch visit with friends in Osoyoos the next day before arriving at Keith's brother's place in Mission. While there we made a quick trip over the border for, you guessed it, more visiting in Lynden and Bellingham, Washington. We managed to visit most of the relatives we have in the Lower Mainland in the few days we were there, as well as take a quick day trip into Vancouver for some music shopping, Chinese food, and gelato.


Above: Inside the chapel at Mission, BC's seminary on the hill. There is a beautiful view over the valley from their lookout point, but it was very smoggy while we were there.

Below: Up to the clean, but rain filled skies of Northern BC now. This shot was taken from the Telkwa Pass Road (which isn't really much of a road!)
From the Lower Mainland we ventured north on the longest drive of the trip. We stayed a night in Prince George to visit with friends before arriving in Telkwa, BC where Keith's parents live. As I blogged earlier, it rained everyday. We had lots of time to relax and chat with Keith's parents as well as friends in Telkwa and Smithers. In all we stayed about a week before heading home. It's about a 16 hour drive to Lethbridge from there, so we opted to break it up by staying a night just outside Valemont, BC. We enjoyed our B&B, and the restaurant they recommended eating supper at, The Caribou Grill (yes, they DO serve caribou, but we didn't try it). I found out a couple weeks later the restaurant is actually owned and operated by a relative of mine!
Above: The B&B outside of Valemont. Very quiet, lots of hummingbirds & wildlife, delicious breakfast!

Below: We were exhausted by the time we got home. Stella empathized.

A week at home allowed us to rest up, get a few things done around the house, and re-pack our bags. We first drove up to Sherwood Park to attend my cousin's wedding, then over to Vermilion to hang out with my family and take in the Vermilion Fair. I don't have any good pictures of the wedding myself, but it was beautiful and at least a dozen other relatives took enough pictures for all of us (the power point re-cap was finished within days though I didn't snag a copy myself).

While in Vermilion we did a lot of resting, eating and visiting (can you sense a pattern here?). The Fair always gives us a chance to meet up with family and friends, and of course my Mom's house is grand central station regardless of the time of year.
Above: Sky over the Vermilion River Valley after a thunderstorm. It held off until after the fair celebrations were over.

Below: Keith sometimes gets put into situations I don't think he ever would have considered before joining our family. Here he had to hold a filly while my sister doctored an infected eye and then rigged up a very creatively built eye patch. She may look small, but baby horses are pure muscle and nerves, and Keith had a tense moment when the mother horse leaned over to sniff his head to see what he was up to.
Yes, that eye patch is fashioned form a very small halter and a bra. Unconventional, but effective!
We've been home now since the very end of July and are enjoying not spending much time in the car this month. The baby room is finally starting to look like one and we have been overwhelmed by the generosity of friends who have passed on useful items and advice.

Keith gets back in the swing of the new school year this week with a two day course on the new grade six social studies curriculum (not that they have any resources yet- oh what a surprise that Alberta Learning is behind again). He starts at the school officially next Wednesday, so he'll be in the thick of it in no time.

In between we're trying to make sure our house will be baby ready and enjoying the last few lazy bits of summer vacation. I will try to post later this week to give a baby room update!

Rain, rain go away

So we're in Smithers and it's raining again. What a surprise. The current tally for nine consecutive years of visiting is sunny: 2 days, rainy: ALL other days. It's really statistically unbelievable. I'd like to post a nice picture of one of the mountians for you all, but we haven't seen much of them. In fact, if I didn't know they were there, I would be hard pressed to believe it.

But enough complaining, it hasn't been all bad. The temperatue is not too cold (and definitely not too hot) and we've had a chance to visit with many friends and relatives over the past two weeks (last week we were in the lower mainland). The trek home starts tomorrow morning. We've booked a B&B in Valemont for the night to break up the drive into two days, and I am really looking forward to sleeping in my own very comfortable bed on Saturday. All the sitting around has not made my lower back very happy so I'm also looking forward to getting a few things done around the house as well as going for some walks. Well, my time is running out so I better log off. We'll be home most of next week if anyone wants to visit!

I read this quote on a friend's blog, and thought it described my husband well (especially this week). For lack of a better place to post it, I place it here:

"The Long Winded Man"

Neither in public nor in private life, indeed, is it at all true that the man who talks a great deal is necessarily an offensive person. It is an entire mistake, for instance, to imagine that the man who monopolises conversation is a conceited fellow. The man who monopolises conversation is almost always modest. The man who talks too much generally has a great deal of humility. Nay, even the man who talks other people down, who argues them down, who shouts them down, does not in the least necessarily think himself better than they are.

It may seem a contradiction, yet the truth and reason of it are really very obvious. The man who talks too much, talks too much because he is interested in his subject. He is not interested in himself: if he were he would behave better. If he were really an egoist he would think of what effect his ego was producing; and a very mild degree of mental perception would enable him to realise that the chief effect his ego was producing was a unanimous human aspiration to hurl him out of the window.

A man who fills a drawing-room for two or three hours (say) with a monologue on bulbs, is the very reverse of a selfish man. He is an unselfish hero, courting the scorn and contumely of men in the great cause of bulbs, objects which are hardly likely to offer him in return any active assistance or even any animated friendship. He is a Martyr, like Stephen or Joan of Arc: and we know that the blood of the martyrs is the seed (or bulb) of the Church.

No; the really selfish men are the silent men, those wicked and sinister fellows. They care more for their own manners (a base individualistic asset) than for conversation, which is social, which is impersonal, which is divine. The loud talker is humble. The very phrase you use about him proves this. If a man is rude, and bawls and blunders, the snub given to him would be “You forget yourself.” It is the very ecstasy of altruism — an impersonal apotheosis. You say to the cad, “You forget yourself.” What better, what higher, could you say to the saint than that “You forget yourself”? — G. K. Chesterton, “On Long Speeches and Truth,” Collected Works 27: The Illustrated London News 1905-1907, pp. 132-133 (paragraph breaks added).

A few more photos...