This edition is supposed to be the end-of-year summary of 2012.

Busy summer

The Chedleys travelled to Ontario, Alberta, and around BC this summer.

In July, they attended a reunion of the Dean family and Granny Ankaret Dean’s eightieth birthday in MacDonald’s Corners. The trip was sandwiched between visits to Toronto/St Catharines, where they stayed with Grandma Marilyn and Aunt Louise; and to Quebec on the farm with Aunt Joanna and Uncle David.

On the way back, they stopped in Calgary to attend a friend’s wedding.

Two weeks later, they flew to Castlegar for another wedding and stayed with the Georgets. Russell played with his cousins Ankaret and Kaitlin.

A week later, they drove and ferried to Vancouver Island for a third wedding in Saanichton. They stayed with Basil in Victoria.

In total they were on six flights. They intend to take advantage of the free airfare for Russell while he is under two years old.

See more pictures in Matt’s summer set and Lois’ ontario and west kootenays sets!

Matthew changes job, stays at Hydro

Matthew took a lateral move within BC Hydro to work for the Standards Department.

He is currently implementing a standard for a fall-arrest system. A fall-arrest system is needed for crews working on equipment high off the ground. If they slip and fall, such a system is designed to prevent serious injuries and death.

Russell turns one, grows eighth tooth

Russell spawned a total of eight teeth this year, just before he turned one.

If he continues at the same rate, he will have over one hundred teeth by the time he completes high school.

For his first birthday, the Chedleys held a party at home and invited family and friends to attend. He received many sweet gifts and ate a small amount of cake.

Lois goes back to work, Russell enjoys daycare

After her maternity leave ended, Lois went back to work part time. They managed to find a daycare for Russell as well. Russell enjoyed daycare. On most days, he did not want to come home.

Sadly, near the beginning of December, Russell’s daycare discovered that they could no longer take him because of his young age. They had made a mistake initially in the calculation.

At around the same time, Lois’ company laid off all its staff due to lack of work/money. So the lack of daycare is no longer a problem, but Lois is funemployed as of the new year.

Russell remains tiny

Russell weighed in at 7.25kg at the one-year check-up – just under seventeen pounds. He is in the bottommost one percentile of the WHO weight-by-age chart.

The doctor advises that we feed him ice-cream (which we do) and sweets (which we do). She also recommends PediaSure, a caloriffic concoction designed to meet the energy and nutritional requirements of a growing toddler. Unfortunately, Russell prefers to pour it on himself than to consume it.

GIR stressed, pukes blood

The Chedley’s pet terrier was hospitalised overnight for bloody vomit and dehydration.

He has developed a phobia of tape measures, and by extension, all things that come out of the garage. He also dislikes having his nails clipped or teeth brushed. With Russell toddling around and making plenty of noise, GIR has spent a lot of time cowering under the humans’ feet, which has increased the incidences of being stepped on, which increases the time he spends cowering.

The Chedleys hope the poor dog adjusts better over time with more exercise and training at home.

Matt runs for office

Matt is a candidate in the upcoming BC elections. He is running for the Green Party, whose provincial platform most closely aligns with Matt’s values about the environment and economy.

If you would like to chat policy with him, or strategise, or provide some much-needed financial support, let us know ;)

Website for more info, see Matt’s Green Party campaign website.

Recipes

The Chedleys have had less time to be adventuresome with their cooking, but still enjoy great food at home. Here are some of their favourite recipes from 2012.

Sesame Crusted Tuna with Ginger Sake Cream (from Whitewater Cooks with Friends)

ingredients

• 1/4 vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup gresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 2 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
• 4 tbsp sake
• 1 tsp sriracha chili sauce
• 1 tsp honey
• 1 1/2 cups whipping cream
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• six 6 oz tuna steaks
• 1/2 cup sesame seeds, toasted

method

1. Saute ginger, onion, garlic in 2T of oil until soft and fragrant.
2. Add vinegar, lime juice, sake, chili sauce, honey. Simmer until very thick, about 10 minutes.
3. Add whipping cream and simmer until reduced by half, about 30 minutes.
4. Strain if you don’t want lumps.
5. Coat tuna steaks with sesame seeds on both sides.
6. Heat remaining oil in pan to medium high heat.
7. Sear the tuna. Sesame seeds should be browned and tuna rare.
8. Serve with cream sauce on top.

Bonus pictures!

April – Noticeably more willful… if you take a mango away from him while he is enjoying it, he WILL make a scene. Meltdowns around dinner and bed times are common as he discovers he really doesn’t like sleeping. Started swimming lessons. Bathes in tub with mum & dad like a big boy. :D Survived another roadtrip. Rolls from front → back and can sit on his own (though wobbly). Some time this month we washed his last poopy diaper. (!!!) Eating solids three or four times a day, typically a couple teaspoonfuls of pureed mango, yams, carrots, peas, chicken, and fish.

May – Can roll back and forth freely. Rolling, then dragging himself on his elbows, then commando-crawling. Quicker than you’d expect. Loves dog water, potty, computer cables and chasing Gir. Discovered to like lemon, vinegar, and ginger (wtf). Battles with constipation and food intake (distracted nurser → compensate with solids → not enough fluids for baby GI system).

June – Big enough for the baby swing! Unsure about it, though. Often shows preference for mum and dad when around strangers. Fusses when daddy comes home and goes away without kissing him first. Can stand up, propped on his elbows on the coffee table or window ledge. LOVES banging stuff together. Three teeth popped, one more on its way. Can manipulate cheerios into own mouth and likes to feed himself, often fussing when you try to feed him.

Looked at some of his very-baby photos and he looks SO different. Totally amazed. They grow up so fast <sniff>

Previously: Russell’s First Months

I wanted to make a list of all the special things that all the special people did to make our special weekend extra special, but realised that the list would be long – and I’m deathly afraid of forgetting to mention this detail or that, because it all seems special. So instead, here are some special links to some photos and a very special video. Special!

Professional photos by Gerald Deo

• Wedding-before
• Wedding-during
• Wedding-after

If you’re needing prints or something, let Lois know and she’ll send you the originals!

Other photos

• by Adrian
• by Matt

Videos

• Clare composed a song for the occasion and performed it during the signing ceremony!!!! Recorded by Gerald and set to some of his favourite photos from the weekend.
• Matt’s time-lapse videos of the epic breakfast (can you spot Byron going for thirds?) and the ceremony

We’ve harvested all of our lettuce. They looked like weeds after two weeks. We managed to eat most of them before they started bolting (thickening and turning bitter in the hot sun).

In their places we now have tomato and basil plants of several different varieties.

We went to the Okanagan for Easter. Gir loved it as usual – he has energetic playmates and all walks are off-leash. Unfortunately, all the tearing around has consequences.

We noticed his neurotic licking but only saw the swelling in his paw pads a week after we got back. So we put bitter apple on it. But he noticed that he could lick it off, and did so consistently for two nights. (We’d wake up to slurping sounds in the middle of the night.)

So we put a homemade bandage on it (torn up an old bed sheet) and hoped it would deter his licking – did not work. In fact, it started bleeding because he was licking the bandage, so the friction caused the skin to break open.

I put some polysporin on him and then dragged him to see the vet. Not his favourite place.

Luckily, the vet didn’t find any signs of infection, so he just had to get some steroid cream and proper bandages. It’s healed fairly quickly; the inflamed areas have returned to the normal colouration and the swelling has almost completely gone away.

A few weeks ago we hired Ron, a really fantastic landscaper to get our bantam backyard ready for spring. Our bedroom is in the basement and opens outside with sliding glass doors.

It was obvious that the previous owners had spent very little time in the yard. They had laid down some new turf for the sale/open house viewings, but left it to brown in the month since the sale completed. (Which was okay since we didn’t want to cut grass, but speaks volumes about the sort of stuff that goes on in the real estate market here.)

So in March Matt drew up a detailed plan for Ron, which Ron tweaked with his knowledge of native plants. The work was done just after Easter, in time for the heat wave. Here are the results!

The ornamental cedars are an existing fixture that everyone in our strata are wondering whether to keep because they’re a pain to have to cut back every year. They provide good privacy for us from the neighbouring apartment building, but the droppings do turn our soil fairly acidic, limiting our choices for what can go under.

Luckily, cedars are native to BC, which means that there are also lots of native undergrowth that thrive in such conditions. What we got are some bleeding hearts and forget-me-nots for the lovely flowers, and some creeping wild ginger that will hopefully spread into mounds of greenery.

In the far corner is a new trellis with a clamatis surrounding the base of a huge magnolia tree. The magnolia tree blooms spectacularly for about a week before all the petals fall.

Uneven flagstones take us through the yard with moss bits ready to spread throughout the cracks.

The raised vegetable beds are boxed in with rough-cut, untreated red cedar posts… the first week they were laid down, our bedroom smelt oh so good. So far we’ve planted some lettuce and broccoli. The beds get about three hours of evening sun, so we’re not sure if they will be productive.

Matt has installed automatic sprinklers all over the yard as well, because the hose is difficult to reach and we were worried about being away for long stretches.

Matt and I were both band geeks in school, so we’re lucky to be surrounded by musicians. Clare Morgan is a friend of mine since high school. She rocks the harp. She’s very experienced with wedding stuff too, so I barely had to ask for “the wedding package” and it was all set for us.

She brought the bigger of her two harps, Niamh. And she wrote us a beautiful song. (It made more than one of us cry.)

So much <3

Lois previously wrote about Russell’s birth story but we haven’t updated you on Russell since then. Here’s that post you’ve been waiting for, from Russell’s first five months!

October & November – noticing growth every day: rounder head, darker skin, more time with eyes open. Had baby shower near end of month. Lots of stress from baby and moving, though R quickly settled into new home. R’s paperwork got done. Outgrowing some clothes already. Started bed-sharing on day 4 and never looked back. Discovered diaper rash. Squeaks a lot. Showered with gifts at end of November. Loot includes awesome hats from Frances, story books and toys oh my, and enough clothes until he is 2 years old.

December – R’s hunger and sleepy cues are either getting more consistent or we just got better at noticing them (or likely both). Christmas at granny’s, met cousins for first time. Saw snow. first shots :( after which he had a small fever. Overreacting parents called newborn hotline freaking out about a 38 degree “fever.” First reliable smile/grin response to play while being changed – ah kick kick kick kick! Got Momo Sling.

January – had thrush scare but doctor says not to worry. Started EC-ing by peeing in sink. Spending 1 day a week with tai-po (great grandma). R giggles to person grinning, noticed own shadow. Slept 4-5 hours in one shift forr 2 weeks in a row before reverting. Noticing his pudge! Enjoys “see-food” and other tongue goofs. Got ERGObaby. Watches me and Matt while we use phone/computer. Diaper rash disappeared at some point. Poo is less frequent but bigger and smellier!

February – Babytime at the Library → silly songs and rhymes. Making songs up when we forget words. Enjoys “falling” down and up. Fusses when need to pee/poop sometimes but not reliably. Went swimming, doesn’t like it much :( Started rolls – first on slanted futon with help from giraffe, then on floor with no help, from front → back. Arches when nursing because of distraciton, needs to be clamped/lay down nursing.

March – More swimming! Granny came to swim and R started enjoying it. Tasted lemon, grapefruit, strawberries, canteloup, ice cream, bacon. Pees more often in potty than not. Does not sleep well at night, escaping from swaddle frequently. Enjoys songs about riding, marching, elevators and cuckoo clocks. Plays “gasp! ah nom nom nom nom” with Matt. Loves to chase Gir. Got Jolly Jumper. Mastering nursing in sling/Ergo.

Last weekend was the first sunny one in recent memory, so we hopped in the car and bought a bunch of things to populate our balcony with green things.

Matt built a table for the potted stuff and raised the cedar planter box on a stand so that they can get more sun. We used to have glass and metal railigs on the old balcony so we got away with putting things on the ground, but not so here.

We’re really lucky that our balcony is really big for a townhome, and it’s south facing and roof-less so we’ll be getting tons of light.

So far we’ve planted two boxes full of lettuce, some green onions and the old oregano that survived the move. There’s also a planter hanging over the southern railing which is seeded with chamomile.

We’re starting some more seedlings indoor first and then planting them in a week.

Hopefully it will coincide with some rain right away, too.

To say we’re big on food is a bit of an understatement :D Matt and I love food and it was a big deal to get it right.

(This is a picture-heavy post! Watch out if you’re reading this on your phone, you hipster.)

Since we encouraged folks to arrive early, we were responsible for the breakfast on day 2. We rented a huge barbecue and asked Basil, Blake and Lucas (brothers and friend) to “be in charge” – we left the details up to them. I hid in my cabin because I wasn’t supposed to see Matt so I didn’t get to be there with everyone, but I heard lots of bacon and sausages and eggs and pancakes and fruit were et.

Also, perpetual walks and free pork for Gir!

When it came to dinner, we realised there are many great cooks in our ranks (birds of a hungry, foodie feather) so we thought HEY, let’s make use of that! We asked everyone to help prepare a dish, so that the cooking was shared among all the attendees. It was a highly organised potluck and by gods were we lucky. We had a mother of all feasts, with: many salads, cheese, dips, soups (including a big vat of wonton soup! which my mum+dad+grandma made), sausages and steaks and chicken and kabobs and fish, a delicious lasagna, several cakes (including a meat cake by Kristen and a tetris cake by Tara) and fresh pies from the market made that morning. Uncle Bill brought a roast pig that we cut up the day before.

Oh, and libations poured from no fewer than two dozen wine bottles and a couple of kegs. Tea and coffee flowed freely throughout the day and then hot chocolate came around sunset. Everyone was to be hydrated. At all times.

Thank you for the fantastic meal and super extra thanks to everyone was a great sport about doing the dishes afterwards! The hunt to complete each cabin’s dishes could have gone so, so wrong (all the dishes can come outside for dinner as long as the same number went back in) but somehow it was almost fun. (M: I don’t know if I’d call it fun – it’s certainly memorable though) So thankful for our family and friends being awesome!

The rings were mainly Matt’s doing. So I’ll just post a couple of pictures and describe them generally, and let him tell you all about them (either as a blog post later or when you come over for dinner!).

My ring is also the engagement ring. It has nine stones, three each of sapphires, white diamonds and black diamonds, set to nine interlocking fishes.

Matt’s ring is a moebius strip, with a line of rose gold that traces one of the two surfaces (there are two surfaces because it has thickness). Acorns and oak leaves are hand-engraved on the opposite surface.

Our rings match in their wavy shape. I think we have the coolest rings ever, and I love that they are one-of-a-kind, yet they belong together.

It began with the groomsmen’s vests.

Matt and I looked at what’s available for rent, and narrowed it down to one style, in either lime green or aqua blue versions. For the green, I picked a royal purple to pair (which is one of my favourite pairings of all time). Matt didn’t like that very much though. He’d rather have the aqua vests. Fine. I matched that with a hot pink.

For the wedding party, we went with minimal tailoring and purchasing – black cocktail dresses for the ladies, and dress shirts and trousers for the dudes. Kristen made pink felt flowers for the ladies. The flower girl was the only one who had to purchase a new dress (I think). Bare feet because I could not find shoes and hated shoe-shopping, and Kristen saved the day with pink nail polish. The daisy crown was made the morning-of.

And then there’s The Dress.

My mum gave me her wedding dress. Her wedding dress! It needed some adjustments, but was a great basis for Marijka to work her magic, and it became a meaningful “something old.”

We spent a few afternoons looking at dresses that would accommodate my growing belly. I was surprisingly easy-going about the design, considering I used to spend quite a bit of time dreaming about dresses.

The sheer fabric on top was found in Fabricland in North Van. The rest was magic from Marijka. The pictures speak for themselves…

Our Martha Stewart balls were colourful and fun to make, but they were on the small side. Even if I wanted to make bigger ones, we couldn’t find any large sized tissue paper in either Deserres or Michaels in a pinch.

My mum ordered the miniature potted plants and baskets, and also made the table runners. We rented the table cloths to classy up the picnic tables, which were gathered under the tent with the blessing of the resort managers, and the might (and discomfort) of our friends.

The gorgeous and playful cake was made by Aunt Joanna. She was afraid that we wouldn’t like the cake because it was too wild – just the opposite! We loved it. And it was extremely delicious. The lemon filling and the fondant were mouth-watering. Many came for seconds.

The daisies? The were in full bloom all over the hills around Cusheon. Uncle Dave went hunting for some to add to the cake; as did Marijka and I, but for a slightly different purpose.

Matt and I were certain of what we wanted, though translating them into reality would take a bit of work. We knew we wanted a place where our friends and relatives could stick around for a few days and enjoy the surrounds. We’ve also heard stories of frugal weddings, to which we would often turn for inspiration. This quickly ruled out a city wedding – in Vancouver, weddings equal big business, and we’d heard plenty of horror stories of how much other people’s weddings cost.

Somehow I got the idea in my head that I wanted to have a sea-side wedding. Orginially I had my sights set on Tofino, BC, a gorgeous surf-town on the western tip of Vancouver Island. I’d looked and looked, but having a wedding during peak-season in Tofino was going to use up pretty much our entire budget.

Matt’s mum suggested Silverton, a pretty little town in interior BC where they own a vacation home. It sits on beautiful Slocan Lake, and would be much more affordable. But it would have been somewhat tricky to get to, and though it was a quaint little spot, it was far from the ocean, dammit.

Then we remembered Salt Spring Island. Matt and I camped on Ruckle Beach for a few nights one summer. Memories of falling asleep to the sound of waves and finding awesome, quirky foods and arts and crafts around every corner kickstarted us into a search for a wedding-appropriate venue on the largest of the Gulf Islands.

It didn’t take us long to find the Cusheon Lake Resort. They were one of the few places big enough to accommodate all of our guests but not so big that we’d feel silly – we were aiming for a hundred guests – and, as a bonus, managers Judy and Tom were incredibly nice.

When we arrived in person to confirm the booking, we were immediately enchanted by the cabins and docks, in spite of the sopping wet Decemeber weather. We discovered another bonus: there was little cell reception and wifi service was limited to the office. Our guests would be trapped! Muahahaha!

It turned out way better than expected. The helpful fellas of The Rental Stop set up the tent the day before we arrived, Judy spent upwards of an hour getting us all checked in, the weather was holding up, and the dogs were loving all the spare pieces of roast pig that my Uncle Bill brought.

We were apprehnsive at first – not everyone loves rusticness as much as we do. But when the date rolled around and we heard Clare’s beautiful voice ring out across the lake, we knew it would be okay.

The day after the wedding I got up at ~7am. Everyone that hadn’t got up at 5am to catch the early ferry was packing up and leaving slowly. I finally had a chance to visit with some of my family that I hadn’t talked to yet during the week end, and I thanked everyone before they left for coming out helping make Lois and my wedding such a great time. It had been so great to see everyone that I didn’t realize how special it was until it was too late and everyone was gone. A couple weeks later when I was going through all the wedding photos I finally realized just how much everyone helped out and contributed. Despite having already thanked everyone for coming I felt like I need to go and thank everyone again for the contribution I hadn’t even known they provided. Thank you for your generous help, without you the wedding would not have been as great as it was.

Love, Matthew

Our wedding was everything I wanted it to be: simple, small, spontaneous, sweet. Seventy close friends and family gathered to witness our special day, the eldest being our grandparents – M’s grandma drove all the way across the country! – and the youngest was mere months old. Some travelled around half the globe to be here. We were so honoured and happy to see and visit with everyone.

The most beautiful part was that we didn’t do it alone. Everyone took part and creating something that weekend and helped make it the awesome party that it was.

The original desire to be more DIY came from wanting to be cheap (heh heh). The end result, however, was really way better than anything we could have bought for money…

M and I want to give our sincerest thanks for sharing a wonderful weekend with us. I only wish we had more time…

To those of you who have already purchased gifts, thank you!

To those of you who have not yet purchased gifts, please consider donating to our favourite charities/groups:

• BC Cancer Agency
• UBC Farm
• Medicins sans frontieres
• Engineers Without Borders
• SPCA or Dhana Metta Rescue Society
• Wikimedia Foundation
• MercyCorp (e.g. for http://www.mercycorps.org/japanearthquake)
• Warchild

We would, however, still love to see your favourite recipes anyway. :-)

• Some nice, sharp, folded-steel knives (like Shun)
• A stick immersion blender
• A Kitchenaid stand-up mixer
• A burr-grinding coffee grinder (no blades)
• Raincheque for a tiny couch
• Bag-less vacuum
• Multi-fuel camping stove (like the Whisperlite)
• Re-usable silicone muffin cups, big and small sizes
• Canning equipment: metal funnel, jar lifter, racks
• Oven mitts
• Heirloom seeds
• Cookbooks: Momofuku, Nobu, Feenie, Vij, Evaleen Roy’s Four Chefs One Garden, etc.
• Your favourite recipes