Bird Nerding

Maddy's latest school interest has been all about birds. She is interested in identifying them and learning about topics such as mating habits and migration patterns. She asked Santa for a pair of binoculars and since Christmas we've gone 'birding' at Burnaby Lake and Richmond Nature House a few times. I have to say that the girl has an amazing capacity for remembering bird names. She used to have a BC Guide book of birds common in our area from the library and she's since become the happy owner of her own North American Guide book.

On one of our trips to Burnaby Lake, Maddy started talking to some men. They were fellow 'birding kindred spirits' who were there to clean out the bird boxes. They gave her a bird nest to take home for dissection. Oh, the things that crawled out of that nest!!!

For Christmas she also received a hummingbird feeder from Gong Gong and Po Po and it has been a joy to have the feeder in our backyard. We get at least 10 visits per day from the little birds and I even find myself greeting them with a 'hello' each time they come.

The kids have the use of our old point and shoot camera and they use it while we go out to look for birds. By chance Maddy happened to take a cool shot of some ducks at Burnaby Lake just as they took off. Her homeschool teacher suggested we try to submit it to CBC's Listeners Lens site to see if they would publish it. Sure enough, they did!

 Here is Maddy's claim to fame. Sure enough, our last name is spelt wrong!

This weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) and we've just submitted our first day's count this afternoon. We started with the count from our living room window. There were fewer birds than usual (except for our hummingbirds) and we thought that it was due perhaps to the rain storm that occurred earlier in the morning. We decided to try another count from the park. When we got out there, we didn't find many of the usual chickadee or crows that we more often see. We did however (in an amazing stroke of good fortune) spot a bald eagle in the tree! I was skeptical at first that it was indeed a bald eagle, but with the help of Maddy's binoculars and many zoomed in photos, we were sure it was an eagle. Crazy right?!?! Well even crazier is that we also noticed 4 other birds soaring in a circular pattern in the sky. At one point they were close enough that I could see the white heads, dark body and white tail feathers. These birds circled and soared around us for a bit and went off in the distance. During this whole time though, the original eagle in the tree was still there. It must have sat there for at least 20-25 mins. I even had time to go home and get our camera. Later on the soaring group came back and as I was busy trying to identify the soaring birds, the eagle in the tree took off and joined the group. What a crazy, strange day it was for bird watching. Especially since it was the first day of the GBBC and we couldn't see many of our usual neighbouring birds.

California

Last year I had the chance to tag along with Josh to a work trip in Santa Barbara. When the opportunity came up again this year, I'd be crazy to not to go. We decided that since we'll be celebrating out 10 year wedding anniversary this July, we'd use this trip as a little celebration. While Josh was busy with his conference I had some 'me time' and enjoyed every minute of it. I did some shopping (the CDN dollar is not doing so great, so it wasn't as tempting to spend) and just enjoyed being able to browse in peace. I also went to see a movie one evening and was pretty much in heaven with my bag of popcorn and water.

By Friday around noon, Josh was done and we were able to spend the rest of the weekend together. It felt so much like our old traveling days. We explored around the Wharf, Courthouse and State St. in Santa Barbara and ended one evening with a lovely dinner at Stella Mare's (a cute little French Restaurant). The next morning we headed to Santa Monica and checked into our 2nd hotel. The hotel had bikes you could borrow, so we took them down to the boardwalk and cycled to Venice Beach. Venice Beach is definitely a great place to 'people watch' and we spent the afternoon there before heading back to check out the Pier. Unfortunately, our very last day was met with an unusual storm, but even lounging in bed and watching TV felt like a treat. We made a quick stop to see Marina Del Rey and then Josh took me to my first meal at In/Out Burger before we headed to the airport. Such a fun weekend to spend with each other. We did miss the kids, but it was also a lot of fun being able to explore as we wished, stop for happy hour drinks if we felt like it and talk to each other without interruptions.

Thanks for a wonderful 'early anniversary' trip, babe. I love you so much and look forward to another 10 years!

Big White Trip with DIDO Gang

This year was our second annual trip to Big White ski resort with our friends. We stayed again at the same condo and it was perfect for our group. We skied a total of 3 full days and we had a blast. The time was spent hitting the slopes, hot tubbing, eating (lots of eating) and just hanging out together.

Maddy was especially excited to go because Josh said she was ready to learn to use poles. She did really well and was happy to spend some solo time with Josh while he taught her. It's really is cool to see how much they improve in just 3 days of skiing. By the end of the trip, the kids were comfortably skiing blue runs and begging to ski in and out of the trees. I have to admit that I had to push my own comfort limits a little bit and try the trails a little more. My main motivation for doing so was a fear of being left behind as the kids get better and better!