COLVIN.CA

For those mainlanders a CFA is Come From Away (I hope or I will be shot) and that is exactly what I am and always will be I believe. I am not sure of the ‘code’ of when or how you become a CFA … if you are off the island for a while do you become a CFA? I don’t know … I feel sort of non-CFA’ish only because I married an Islander. Who knows!

Anyway the weekend went pretty fast. We hung out at Bev and Tony’s house on Saturday as we were extra bagged. Carter hasn’t been napping much (more on that later) we think because of a cold he is harbouring somewhere deep inside. That hasn’t stopped Carter from playing with Shutout though.

Connor has been having fun with Shutout as well. Needless to say this trip will reinforce in his mind that he loves dogs and that all small boys should have one. (Thankfully both parents agree that having a dog is like having another child that can’t be taken on trips such as this!)

Friday night we had a nice fire outside in the backyard of Bev and Tony’s. As you can see it is awesome in their backyard. Tony (with the help of Brandon) laid some new sod just a week ago now (I think) so the grass is looking great albeit long in length.

The boys summarily went to bed after the fire … note how Carter isn’t asleep?

Ah Carter!! The love of everyone’s life. He must be battling germs or something because yesterday he didn’t even nap all day. Oh boy was he ever cranky! C’est la vie! We bit the bullet and went to Bowring Park here in the city. It is a nice park with lots of birds. Unfortunately the local talent decided to steal one of the swan’s signets and now they are swimming around the pond looking very lost. Sad to say the least. Apparently the other mother ducks are losing babies as well. Some say it might be some of the local wildlife in the park but the money is on the human ‘rats’ taking them for some reason. Anyway it was fun for all ….

Today I got the day off and went to The Wilds golf course about 1/2 hour south of the city. It was really fun and the weather was outstanding. I was not Tiger Woods today to say the least but a little bit of Mike Weir (who sucks this year too) in my overall game. The golf course is one of three that the current Premier of Newfoundland owns. He is a multi-millionaire before being Premier after selling his cable business to Shaw or something like that. Nice job if you can get it. Interesting thing about his The Woods golf course here in the city. Apparently they got complete (I mean all 18 holes) winter kill on their greens. I was a bit shocked at the odds of that and the low-down is that the fired greenskeeper(s) late last year might have put chemicals down on each green as payback. Well they haven’t proved it but the fallout of what happened is that the course is closed for the entire season. That’s pretty serious to say the least.

While I was golfing Barbie and the boys (with their two aunts) went out to the Science Centre. They had great fun and low and behold as a treat Mom found a hotwheels track they really wanted and when we got home they were busily setting it up. The boys love it and will keep them busy for a long time. Nanny and Poppy will be taking it home for us when they leave in August.

Whew … better go as my hands are tired. More updates later!!

Just a quick update on the travailles of the Colvin family. We made it to Newfoundland about 15 minutes behind schedule.

The interesting part was getting out of Ottawa. Our pre-arranged ride didn’t appear so we had to scramble to the airport to get on our flight. We zoomed through a really slow security control point and then literally ran with the boys in the jogger stroller to our gate which was in the old terminal building (of course the absolute last gate!). We got on with minutes to spare and the rest of the flight was pretty uneventful.

We had a layover in Halifax airport for about 2 hours and the boys spent the time in various kids structures (one of them was a new one with video games and everything). The next flight was full (as was the outbound from Ottawa to Halifax) so there is no shortage of cash being stuffed away by Air Canada!

We are all very tired as we got up at 4am so tonight hopefully will be nice and quiet. The boys really love playing with Aunt Bev’s dog Shutout …. they in fact have already worn him out!

More updates as I see fit!

Not anywhere as hot as it is in Ottawa but it did get up to 29 C. I got my chores done early by cutting the lawn and doing the trimming with my new Cordless Unit. This is the second one I bought. The first one was always fouling up and I had to keep re-threading it. I took it back to Home Depot and then got the same brand, (Black and Decker) at Wal Mart for Just a few dollars more but this one has twice the power and it doesn’t eat up the line like the other one did. We went sailing around 11.30 and stayed out to about 4pm. We didn’t have much wind but it did get up to about 4knts which generated enough breeze to keep us reasonably cool. Then the wind died completely and I went for a brief swim in the middle of the lake. Earlier we sailed close to Gyro beach which is in “The Mission” (We took Connor and Carter there last summer as it has a beautiful sand beach.) The beach was quite crowded so lots of people were taking advantage of the weather. It is predicted for 22C tomorrow.

Well we finally had a storm today that actually caused a power outage (albeit a quick one) and shook the house! Ottawa is famous for storm warnings being issued and then this so-called storm comes through and rains for about 10 minutes and then disappears.

Well … this one is still going on which is tres bizarre! It’s been over 2 hours now! Mother Nature must be confused and thinks it’s in a different city or something.

I didn’t really care until my Xbox Baseball game got zapped by a quick power outage … I was winning too! Sigh …

Had a great day sailing yesterday. We started off with virtually no wind but after we had motored a bit the wind came up nicely and we were pulling 5 knots with around 10 knts. of wind. Got as far as Mission Hill before we turned back. Nice day on the water. I have been sailing the boat myself for the most part. Taking it out of the slip and putting it back in. No mean task with a 30ft boat.