Monthly Archives: May 2007

First of all, I just want to say thank you to Laura for helping make Mark into the wonderful man he has become. I have always believed that the way a man behaves is a direct reflection of how he was raised by his mom (or mum in this case!). Mark has proven himself to be a man of great integrity, honesty, loyalty, with great kindness and a wonderful heart. He has been wonderful during my pregnancy and the first year of Emmy’s life. He has done more for us than I could possibly imagine. I didn’t realize that a man could even be like Mark is and am so proud to have him as my husband and father of my kids. As a grandmother, Laura has been completely amazing. She has taken Emmy swimming, babysat many a time (including yesterday!), taken Emma on long walks, played video games and pool with Kris, she’s done so much more than I could possibly list here. I really appreciate all that she has done for Mark and I definitely, but the things she has done for our kids is what really truly endears her to me. Thank you Laura for everything. You are loved and appreciated more than you could know. Good luck in the race today — Laura is running in the Mother’s Day marathon here in Calgary — even though it’s raining!

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Poppy quarter led to spy coin warnings
Last Updated: Monday, May 7, 2007 | 7:37 PM ET
The Associated Press
The surprise explanation behind the U.S. government’s sensational but false warnings about mysterious Canadian spy coins is the harmless poppy quarter, the world’s first colourized coin.

The odd-looking coins were so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. army contractors travelling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them.

The worried contractors described the coins as “anomalous” and “filled with something manmade that looked like nanotechnology,” said once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails.

The 25-cent piece features the red image of a poppy inlaid over a maple leaf. The quarter is identical to the coins pictured and described as suspicious in the contractors’ accounts.

The supposed nanotechnology actually was a conventional protective coating the Royal Canadian Mint applied to prevent the poppy’s red colour from rubbing off. The mint produced nearly 30 million such quarters in 2004 commemorating Canada’s 117,000 war dead.

“It did not appear to be electronic [analog] in nature or have a power source,” wrote one U.S. contractor, who discovered the coin in the cup holder of a rental car.

“Under high-power microscope, it appeared to be complex consisting of several layers of clear but different material, with a wire-like mesh suspended on top.”

The confidential accounts led to a sensational warning from the U.S. Defence Security Service, an agency of the Defence Department, that mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors travelled through Canada.

One contractor believed someone had placed two of the quarters in an outer coat pocket after the contractor had emptied the pocket hours earlier.

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Em and I were out on the deck playing with her little playhouse and blowing bubbles. I thought I might as well get some stuff done out there while she was playing and grabbed the Windex and paper towel. I cleaned off the table and set up the umbrella. Next, I started to clean the patio doors. I sprayed Windex everywhere and started wiping with the paper towel. Emmy came running over to “help” me as she always does and unrolled the paper towel over the entire deck. Once I got that rolled back up, I gave her a square to play with and went back to work cleaning the doors. Much to my amusement, she started cleaning the bottoms of the doors with her paper towel. I started singing her a little song and thought, awesome, she’s learning how to clean. After a few seconds, I looked down and noticed she was now cleaning the Windexed door with her tongue! The paper towel had blown away in the wind and she wanted to keep helping! What a little angel… Continue reading →

Well, I always feel bad that we write mostly about Emma, but the simple fact is that:
1) Thankfully, Kris is not changing as fast as Emma, although he is constantly changing into a young man!
2) Many of the stories about him have to be carefully edited, as he would be appalled if we told many of the things about him!

In short, he is becoming more and more of a teenager, but is a great big brother and takes great care of Emma. He shaves (yep, he is growing up!). Some days he is a young man, and some days he has a ways to go… With summer coming on, he is off on his bike more and more.

As for Emma, here are a few things happening with her:
- She is becoming a total Daddy’s girl recently. Yesterday, I ended up going to my parent’s house to help them out and Paula ended up walking her around the neighborhood so that Emma could see that I was not there and then calling me so that Emma could say “Hi”. I love it when I pick her up and she just snuggles in and gives me a big hug! It is even nicer when Paula and/or Kris also join in the hugs. Don’t worry, she still loves her Mummy dearly too!

- She still has that lovely smile, but is also laughing more and more (especially if you tickle her).

- About a week before her birthday, I finally gave up and started giving her baths in the bath tub instead of the kitchen sink. It was a sad day, but she was getting a bit big. Now if you say “do you want a bath?” she will run over to the stairs and go up to the bath. Boy was she upset when she misunderstood “Do you want to go to bed?” one day.

- She is learning to wrestle. She will tumble around with me and make “arrrgh” sounds. It is pretty funny. At least she no longer cries every time someone else (like Kris and Paula or I) wrestles. For a long time, she would cry if we started play fighting with Kris.

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A friend of mine (maybe I wouldn’t go so far as friend Shawn), happened to mention a cool site to me today. It’s www.urbandictionary.com. It’s a dictionary site where users can define slang words used by them. Definitely not appropriate for all audiences, but mostly pretty harmless (Kris don’t even think about it!). Check out some of the definitions below:

Yoink:
An exclamation that, when uttered in conjunction with taking an object, immediately transfers ownership from the original owner to the person using the word regardless of previous property rights.

Though I cherished my automobile, I had to purchase a new one when my second cousin came up from behind me and politely exclaimed, “Yoink” while taking my car keys.

Bees Knees:
When bees flit from flower to flower the nectar sticks to their legs. The phrase “bee’s knees” means sweet and good, because the knees of the bee are where all the sweet, good stuff is collected.

You bought me a coffee? You’re the bee’s knees!

Pac-manning:
To drive right on the dotted white lane divider, which gives the same effect as Pac-Man eating dots.

“Dude, quit pac-manning, you’re gonna hit that car!”

Girlfriend voice:
The change in pitch or tone of a man’s voice when talking to their significant other. The girlfriend voice is characterized by a higher pitch and a more effeminate tone with speech patterns scattered with pet names and childish words.

This type of speech is usually frowned upon when used in the presence of other men. When another man uses this voice they will usually receive a fair amount of ridicule.

“Did you hear Bob’s wicked girlfriend voice when he was talking to Lisa? Let’s whip his ass!”

Site is mostly really cute. Check it out. Continue reading →

After lunch, Emma was sitting in her high chair finishing up eatting while I went to check my e-mail on the computer. She seemed happy enough. I got up to answer the phone and looked at Em, she was sitting on the tray of her high chair eatting macaroni with a giant grin on her face. Thanks Mom for calling right at that moment. The high chair was at least pushed up to the table so it didn’t tip over thank goodness! She really seems to like it when I scream… The child is a monkey, she climbs on absolutely everything. I don’t know why I never think to strap her in, always in a rush I guess. I better run, she is in the high chair as I type this. Strapped down this time, and hopefully still seated in the chair part! Wish me luck…. Continue reading →

I found this really neat web site that calculates how much you spend per year/day/week on cigarettes (http://www.tobaccofreeu.org/calculator/index.asp). It also tells you how much you are shortening your life by based on your consumption of cigarettes.

If I can quit smoking, so can you. Think of all the time you are taking away from your family by smoking. Since I quit two years ago strictly for my children I can relate. I find it hard now to even let my kids become close to smoker’s because I know that their time with those people is limited. Alot of my family members are smokers and I hope that they too will be able to overcome this addiction which effects not only their own health, well-being and financial stability, but that of everyone they come into contact with as well.

Also on this site is a list of the detriments of smoking physically. It is linked with everything from impotency, all sorts of cancers, cataracts, and ulcers.See the following:

Did you know that smoking is the largest cause of preventable death in the country? But people keep on puffin’ anyway. In fact, more than 5,000 Americans start smoking cigarettes each day. And that’s despite the fact that they have been told over and over how damaging it is to the human body. Wanna know how bad? One in five deaths in the United States is related to tobacco use. And get this, every ten seconds, someone dies from a disease related to smoking.

Heart
When you smoke, your pulse quickens, causing your heart to beat an extra 10-25 times per minute… or as many as 36,000 additional times a day. This forces the heart to work harder and can contribute to the risk of a heart attack. Cigarette smoking is directly responsible for at least 20% of all deaths from heart disease; it lowers “good” cholesterol levels, causes deterioration of elastic properties in the aorta and increases the risk for blood clots.

Lungs
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