Wednesday, July 2, 2008

It's a dog eat dog world


Sophie loves dogs, both real and stuffed (we're talking toys here, not taxidermy), so I brought her plastic dog dog for her to play with today. We ran into a nice woman with a real dog dog (a poodle/Cavalier King Charles cross) and before I knew it, our little plastic dog dog (pictured here before the attack) was missing a nose. I gathered up a few of the pieces, but I think that poodle might have a bit of a tummy ache tonight.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

A summer evening at the beach

Yesterday was a hot one (or so they tell me - I spent my day freezing in an overly-air-conditioned office), so we went down to the beach after dinner so Holly and Sophie could take a dip. After running up and down the sandy beach, Sophie decided to run straight into the ocean to join mommy, tripped on the water, and did a lovely faceplant into the waves. Here's the aftermath...



Luckily, she recovered quickly, and enjoyed being dipped in and out of the water and feeling it with her hand.



After the swim, we hung out on the grass for a bit. Sophie started mouthing off pedestrians - she's so cute when she tries to do rude hand gestures!



Another of her forms of intimidation, Sophie's sumo stance is nearing perfection...



She almost had her bluff called by a small dog who looked like trouble, but Sophie managed to stare him down. He slunk away, Sophie did a triumphant dance.



To try to curb her aggressive tendencies, I hung her upsidedown for a while to cool her off. I love the red in her hair in this one...



After that, she relaxed a bit, and played one of her favourite games - running with shoes. What you do, as if this needed explaining, is to grab some shoes, then run for it. If you can get the shoes far enough from where they're supposed to be before you get caught, you win.



And finally, here's Sophie vaguely trying to wear her blue hat. All in all, it was a fun evening with summer written all over it. Good times.

First bike ride!

Summertime is officially here, and with it comes some really prime biking weather. We recently bought a bike trailer to cart the wee one around, so a few days ago, we hooked it all up and took Sophie for a ride along the beach. She took it quite calmly, just relaxing in the trailer with her feet up, commenting on passing dogs and how much she loves her hat - a huge red helmet (with dinosaurs on it) that makes her look like a big mushroom. Here she is in transit, and then (happy) with mommy, and (sad) with daddy.





A few fun fifteen-month-old photos

1) Cause when you find a mini Groucho Marx mask, you need to try it on your baby!


2) This kid is a bookworm, and she especially LOVES her copy of "Each Peach Pear Plum". I can recite that book by heart and Sophie knows exactly where the dog, cat, baby and birds are in all the pictures.


3) Dean had the brilliant idea to get bubble bath the other day. Can't believe we waited this long to give her her first bubble bath. Fun!

Running around town

Friday, June 20th was the first annual Chip's Not Dead Yet Memorial Mile and since it started right by our place, we had to check it out. People were encouraged to dress up in all sorts of costumes, from rock stars to brides to super heroes and run one mile up the hill. Here you see me and Sophie checking out all the "ba-oons" and a few of the colourful characters in the run.




Sunday turned out to be a very busy day for us, starting with the 8:30am start of my first 5K at Stanley Park. Dean and Sophie showed up at the start line at the last minute to support me and I'm sure it was their cheering that got me over the finish line in under 30 minutes! After the run, we decided to walk the 7K home from the park, go out to breakfast at the Sunshine Diner, check out the Kits Farmers' Market, explore Greek Day, go to a BBQ, and then check out Greek Day a little more. A good time was had by all.

Father's Day weekend 2008

For the Father's Day weekend, we travelled over to the Island, first stopping at the Graftons' new place in Craig Bay, near Parksville. We had a great time, taking a walk along the beach, seeing baby eagles, and relaxing on the patio over a delicious lunch. Here we have pictures of Sophie with Grandpa Ken and Brian and Aunt Janet, and one of Sophie's shoes that I think it pretty neat. (Shoes are one of Sophie's favourite things at this stage - mainly the finding and transporting of shoes to new and exciting locations, rather than the actual shoes themselves.)







The day after our up-Island visit, we went down-Island to Victoria, to Beacon Hill Park, for the 6th(?) annual Father's Day family picnic. It's always fun to see family members, especially seeing the little ones (Soph, Isabella, and Dominic) hanging out together. Here are a few pics, including Aunt Sher showing Sophie a picture of Dominic, Sophie and Dominic on the swings being pushed by Dean and Greg, Grandpa Ken demonstrating the slide (Sophie has been crazy about slides since, although her preferred method of getting down them is to stand at the top and step off, not bothering with that tedious "sitting down" nonsense), and Sophie showing Great Grandma Irene a ball.









Shifting the blog into overdrive

It has been a while since we properly blogged about anything Sophie-related, and today (July 1st, Canada Day, a Tuesday off work) is the day we remedy that.

We'll start with a picture of Sophie discovering grandma Star's book, Havens in a Hectic World, on board the BC Ferries.



Stay tuned for more posts! We've got around 30 more pictures, so brace yourselves.
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