Neil's graduation....

Apologies for not posting these earlier but here are some photos from Neil's graduation back in January (courtesy of Nigel and Sarah as unfortunately our camera ran out of batteries within minutes of arriving at the ceremony....ooops)

It was quite an impressive event and we were all very proud to watch Neil and Nigel collect their diplomas. Well done boy's!!

A big grin from Seabass who was wearing his mini police training outfit made by Auntie Cake.

More Seb....

Daddy dressed in a police costume.....

.......and Seb dressed as a convict!

Guess who!

Be one with the rubiks....

Neil was thrilled to recieve his very own Rubiks cube in the post from Rubik Master Philip. He's done nothing but play with it for the last two days. I spent most of Valentines day trying to ignore the constant shuffling sound coming from the cube as he tried to figure it out. He finally mastered it (with a little help from Philip's hand written instructions!) I've tried to do it myself but can't quite understand Neil's explanation and haven't got too far with it yet. Seb seems to like it so we're trying to train him so that he can become the world's youngest Rubiks cube expert. Yesterday Travis and Janette came over with their little son Dillon, he caught sight of the Rubiks and grabbed it. He was fascinated because he thought it was the Allspark from Transformers! Neil looked a little worried that his precious Rubiks was in the hands of a 4 year old and made sure he kept his beady eye on it just in case Dillon decided to start peeling stickers off.

Sebastian shows his friend Dillon how to become one with the Rubiks....

A warm day in Beaumont!

It reached a toasty 3 degrees above zero yesterday and it felt so lovely and warm! It was a gorgeous sunny day and Neil took advantage of the melting ice and finally managed to clear some of it from the driveway. We were outside without coats and hats and I honestly would have felt quite comfortable if I had been wearing a t-shirt, it's amazing what a couple of weeks at 30 below can do to you!

Me and Seb soak up some rays.



Neil shoveling while it's nice and soft.

Seb gives his Daddy a bit of a hand.

Seabass gets jabbed!

Yesterday we took Seb to get weighed and measured and to get his second set of vaccinations. After the first time I knew how horrible it was going to be to watch the poor little guy get jabbed and I was dreading it, Sebastian on the other hand was very brave.

Sebastian at just under 4 months weighed in at 16lbs 15 oz, in the 90th percentile for boys his age for height and weight!

Big boy!

What a lovely head band Seb!

Awaiting the giant needle!

In it goes.......

Ouch!

Poor little guy! 2 shots in one leg and 1 in the other.

Sebastian eats cereal!

Yesterday Sebastian had his first ever meal of baby rice cereal and he loved it! Philip videoed and Neil took photos to remember the occasion. We thought he might not be quite ready and only made up a very small taster but apparently we were wrong as he wolfed down the lot!

Num num!

Who's a happy baby now?

Brrrrrrrrr!

We've had some seriously cold weather here lately, last Tuesday it was -53 with wind chill! That's the coldest I've ever been in for sure! Here's a couple of pictures of some freezing fog on the trees outside our house.....

Pretty don't you think?

Thankfully things have warmed up over the last few days and today Seb ventured out to pose for a couple of photos for me. It was the first time he'd been outside without being completey covered up since we were in England....

Banff trip....

We had planned a lovely trip to Banff for the day after Neil's graduation (details of that event to follow soon)and we were all really looking forward to a relaxing weekend with a bit of skiing and some nice walks with Sebastian around the shops in Banff. Things took a turn for the worst during our journey down there. There was an incident involving some gum being spat out onto the car window during some extremely bad driving conditions which resulted in us ending up in the ditch just outside Cochrane. Myself, Neil and Seb were in the Audi and Gordon, Toni and Philip were in the Land Rover following on behind us. I take responsibility for the gum-spitting that inadvertantley caused Neil to take his eyes off the road for a fraction of a second...just enough time for our slick summer tires to catch the snow at the edge and pull us into the ditch. Sorry Neil, I'll never do it again I promise but please can we get some winter tires??? xXx

We were all OK, Sebastian slept through the whole event. Some kind passers-by stopped and tried, unsuccesfully, to push us out. One guy was even pushing the car with his bare hands in temperatures of below -20 and everyone was sinking to their knees in the snow.

Eventually we hooked the car up to a tow rope connected to the good old Land Rover and she towed us out with ease!

In the ditch.

This is Neil trying to maneuvre the car back out of the ditch whilst being towed by the land rover. The Wheels became so full of compacted snow that the whole car shook the rest of the way to Banff.
After quite a few tries we were eventually rescued.

Unfortunately that wasn't the end of our bad luck. When we finally arrived at our hotel they had mixed up our booking, they had us booked for the 9th of Jan not the 19th! We didn't get the nice suite Neil had booked and our group ended up in separate rooms all over the hotel. We were really lucky to get a room at all in Banff in January. The manager was very nice and arranged for us to have an upgraded loft suite the following night which turned out to be lovely but things got worse still.....poor little Seb became ill, he got his first ever cold and really wasn't happy at all. We got very little sleep that night and I spent the whole of the next day in the hotel room with the poor little man. Neil and Philip did manage to get a day's skiing in but we left earlier than expected the following day to get Seb home.


Philip on a cold mountain top in Banff......

and thawing out in front of the fire back at the hotel.

Seb goes to England!

Sorry for the lack of posts since Christmas but it's been busy, busy, busy since then. Seb and I took a trip to England and surprised everyone on New Year's day. We spent three weeks there visiting and catching up. We had a really lovely time and Seb was the most well behaved baby ever! In the photo above you can see him in his bassinet on the plane, I was so worried about flying with him and just couldn't believe that he stayed so happy and smiley for most of the trip both on the way there and on the way back. Even the cabin crew commented on his wonderful behaviour.

In England we stayed with my Mum in Upnor and went out every day visiting friends and family. Seb really enjoyed finally meeting all of his uncles and aunties and his grandparents in the flesh.

Here's a few photos from the trip, I'll try to post some more when I get a chance to go through them all.

Here's a very happy Grandma Zena changing Sebastian.

I took this picture for Neil, it's the view from my Mum's house looking across the river at our old house.

Outside "The Ship" in front of Neil's crane.

Seb with Auntie Cake.

Great Grandma Shirls.

Mmmmmm...proper English fish and chips at "The Ship" with Seb asleep in his chair in the background.

Uncle Dan Dan.

Practising crawling on Grandma's floor with Auntie Cake.

With Grandpa Nigel.

Looking sleepy at Uncle Dan Dan's house.

Grandma Toni shortly after we surprised her with our arrival. She looks a little teary-eyed don't you think?

With Auntie Monkey.