Things that go bump in the night

Each year around Halloween, we like to do something spooky. We usually go on one of the many ghost tours around the city... some are good, some are less good. Victoria is supposedly a very haunted city... maybe because it is older than most Canadian cities. Other theories say that ghosts (if they exist) are found closer to sources of water, and Victoria is surrounded by water, except to the north. Who knows. In any case, we love to learn more about the ghosts in Victoria... the spookier the better. We have gone on ghostly walking tours of downtown on Halloween night, ghost bus tours around the city, tours of the haunted Maritime Museum, ghost tours of Point Ellice house, and more. This year we decided to go on a ghost tour of St Ann's Academy, an old convent and Catholic school. It was lame. No other way to say it. It just wasn't scary. It was more of a historical tour, which would be OK, but that's not what we were looking for. We wanted spine tingling ghost stories. We got weak ghost connections, at best. The tour guide would take us through a portion of the building, tell us about the history of it for 10 or 15 minutes, then, almost as an afterthought, say something like, "Oh, and someone thought they saw a ghostly figure over there once." Ummm.... lame. We both agree that the absolute scariest one was the tour of Point Ellice House. Darn freakin' scary. I wouldn't let Steve leave my side. I also would totally go on the ghostly walking tours again. The picture above is of Steve and Sam in front of St. Ann's Academy. Even Sam wasn't scared.

Happy Thanksgiving

Wow, it has been awhile since either of us has posted to this blog. We have been a little busy. We have embarked upon our first ever real reno in our new house, totally re-doing our bathroom. In short, doing a reno is H-E-double hockey sticks. It's tiring, and expensive, but darn it if the bathroom doesn't look awesome! I am glad we have done it, because it looks really good and has improved the value of our home, but I don't think we will be too quick to jump into any more reno's in the near future. Other than replacing our carpet. But WE are not actually doing that, the fine folks at Home Depot will be doing all the hard work. All we do is leave in the morning... then at the end of the day we have beautiful new carpet. Yay! We have been taking advantage of the fact that we are getting new carpet and being quite cavalier about how we are treating the old carpet. Spill a glass of pop on the carpet? Oh well! Acidentally cut a hole in it while doing the reno? No worries! Cat scratching it bare! No problem (unless of course this problem continues with the new carpet, and then there will most certainly be a problem.) So Steve, with the help of my dad, Kevin, John, Sean and Erik, completed the bathroom... we, 95% at least. There are still a few little things left to do, so when it is entirely complete I will post of picture of it.
On the family front, Sam is now the proud owner of four teeth... his bottom two, and his top two eye teeth. Not the top two centre ones yet... makes for a cute little smile. He is learning new things all the time, at an absolutely amazing rate. If we ask him where the light is, he looks and points at whatever light is closest. He will also do that with cats, and Daddy. Not with Mommy, yet. I guess I am around to much to be any kind of novelty, and therefore not really worthy of his new party trick. He is crawling like a mad man, but not yet expressing a desire to cruise or walk, thank goodness! In the last few weeks it has really occurred to me how he is transforming from a little baby into a little boy. He will just make a silly noise on purpose and then laugh, or pass a ball back and forth between his hands, and i will think... wow, where does he learn this? Not that this is the stuff of rocket science, but it's not like I taught him to do those things. He just looks at us, and picks stuff up. Children really are a miracle, no cliche here.
So tomorrow we go for the big family Thanksgiving dinner, and Steve will be bringing his family recipe sweet potato casserole, which everyone loves. Sam will have his own little turkey and yam dinner, with some applesauce instead of apple pie. I figure it's a pretty good facsimlie of what the adults will be eating.
I have plenty of things to be thankful for this year... beautiful baby boy, my health, the loves of family and friends... the list goes on. Also, a new camper van, which I will blog about shortly when I have a picture to back it up!
Happy thanksgiving to you all.