Left Coast Mama » Family Time

January (So Far) in Photographs

Gwen — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 05:37:40 +0000

I have been playing with both my iPhone camera and my T2i a lot in the last couple of weeks. I have especially been playing with Instagram (my user name is Gwen Floyd) and with my macro lens on the T2i. I got a new camera strap and I am amazed at how much of a difference it makes on my photo walks with my boys. I also love that Aidan is getting so excited about walking around with his dad and I taking pictures.

This picture of Quinlan was captured by Aidan.

Quinlan and Anthony at the Aquarium.

Wonder

Watching the sea turtle.

Playing with my macro and the water drops.

Neon

Unintentional heart bokeh.

Wrought Iron, peeling.

First Family Photo Walk of the year.

Hail

Industrial

I am so happy with the photo and I am not sure why. It just works.

Playing with focusing through a frame.

My companions on the Floyd Family Photo Walk.

I think this may be one of my new headers.

Farewell 2011, Hello 2012

Gwen — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 07:14:30 +0000

Like the last few years December has gotten away from me. I was so busy writing Advent letters and planning for surprises and trying to get something that might actually be a surprise for Anthony that it left me with little other time to write. Of course we have also had two bouts of intestinal illness go through the family as well.

Christmas was wonderful in many different ways. The best was Quinlan’s reaction to Christmas morning. He got up pretty early but we managed to keep him in our room for a few minutes so we could get upstairs with him and give the surprise guest a few seconds to get up as well. When the boys saw Grandpa sitting at the dining room table they were thrilled. When Quinlan saw the cookie that Santa took a big bit out of he was absolutely flabbergasted. I tell you I wish I had been awake enough to have my camera set up for his reaction as it was classic. He had the biggest round eyes and open mouth, and the hand to the cheek as he exclaimed “Santa ate the cookie!” Once Quinlan saw the presents under the tree there was absolutely no turning back. It was all we could do to open our own presents. I have never seen anyone open presents so fast in all my life. He was so excited that he even “helped” Aidan with the opening of Aidan’s presents.

Having Grandpa John come to stay for 5 days was fun, but went really quickly. We were able to have a small family get together on the 27th, and I am so glad we decided to have the turkey then and not on Christmas day.

There have been a lot of great things about 2011. The start of preschool for Quinlan has been a highlight. He loves school, and ballet and swimming. Aidan is growing up so very much. He is getting so grown up and he is so interested in learning about everything. It was especially acute during our road trip. Aidan was so interested in figuring out about everything. He found out about so many of the parks and their geological features. He got to look at the night sky and actually see stars.

This new year I am hoping to keep up with all the boys activities including theatre, swimming, skating, piano and ballet. I am also hoping to keep up with writing and photography for me. We want to keep up with our geocaching and keep going to events like the few that we took in this year. The Geo-monster ball and the best of the bad events were fantastic and really helped to give us the best caching year ever.

In 2012 I am going to try to get to Blogher in NY again. I won a conference ticket and as soon as I get the confirmation I plan to figure out the rest like hotel and airfare. I also want us to take the boys camping this year, it is about time we used the tent.

Those are my goals, simple and easy. No worries about losing weight or being a better person. I like who I am and I think that I will be much happier if I stop trying to change myself. All I want is to be happy.

© 2011 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | One comment
Related: Aidan, family, Family Time, goals, Gwen, Holidays, hope, My Boys, New Year, Quinlan.

Best Day Ever According to the Boys

Gwen — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 05:15:55 +0000

Today we had the best breakfast ever, french toast and fruit smoothies. Then we got dressed and headed out into the chill air and sunshine to the Grey Cup festival. So much fun to see the Olympic Cauldron lit, and Bobs and Lolo. Two footballs and a microphone each and some tap dancing and you have just about the perfect day.

Seconds after the Olymic cauldron was lit.

Having lots of fun . . .

You are never alone . . .

Jump in, Action packed!

Muscles, Muscles you're the best . . .

Bobs and Lolo

Cindy Seahorse

Aidan and Quinlan with Bobs and Lolo

Touchdown!

Aidan Floyd here reporting for Global BC . . .

© 2011 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | One comment
Related: Aidan, Family Time, My Boys, outings, Photography, Pictures, Quinlan, Vancouver.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Gwen — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 06:15:29 +0000

As some of you may have guessed we are big fans of Carousel Theatre here in the Floyd household. They have not only given Aidan an outlet for his imagination and creativity but they foster the child within all of us. Last year was the first year we had season tickets and all the productions were fantastic. Aidan and whichever grownup was privileged enough to go with him were entranced and thoroughly entertained.

This season we have season tickets again, but this time we also have tickets for Quinlan for a few of the performances. I can’t wait for Frog and Toad as this will be the first time that all four of us will get to go to a play together. Aidan and I are going to the opening of The Wizard of Oz on the 3rd of December and we can’t wait, especially after having seen some of the wardrobe and the rehearsals when we have theatre classes.

Now for the exciting part for my local readers, I have 2 sets of 2 tickets for the December 10th performance at 7pm, of The Wizard of Oz. If you have a child 4+ and would like a chance to go all you need to do is comment on this post and let me know who is your favourite character in The Wizard of Oz. You must be able to come to the December 10th performance at Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island. Leave a comment by next Friday the 25th and I will email the winners. The winners will have 48 hours to contact me, if not I will draw another winner.

If you want to hedge your bets you can get your very own tickets by calling 604.685.6217.

Photo by Tim Matheson

Disclosure: The season tickets we purchased ourselves. They are well worth it.

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UPDATE: The winners chosen at Random.org are Zoe and Leah! Congratulations!

Trains, Trains, Trains

Gwen — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 00:28:01 +0000

I am pretty sure the boy get their love of trains from me. That is not to say that Anthony doesn’t like trains, but I think he was more into other things growing up. A big part of the reason the boys have so much wooden train track and trains is because I love them. When Aidan was too small to make his own track layouts I took the time to make intricate layouts for him. Aidan loves trains and his track layouts are extensive and intricate and beautiful. Quinlan’s eyes light up when he is playing with trains. Both boys were excited when we walked into the gymnasium filled with elaborate tracks, scenery and moving trains at the Model Train exhibition in Burnaby.

I think my favourite were the Lego trains, but there were a lot of cool models there as well.

Although it may just be the elaborate minifig presentations that won me over.

The details in the other models and backgrounds were pretty fabulous as well.

Our boys had a great time and it was nice to see the looks of joy on their faces and that of the grown ups running the trains. Everybody needs a place to play.

Happy Hallowe’en or Halloween, however it is spelled now.

Gwen — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:50:48 +0000

My boys love Halloween. I love Halloween. Anthony likes Halloween except when we get a parking ticket. Our love of Halloween and the relative closeness of Quinlan’s birthday gives us a week or so of Halloween celebrations.

Ghost train theme this year: Circus of Disaster.

We have Quinlan’s Halloween themed birthday party, other Halloween activities like the festival at Aidan’s school and the Stanley Park Ghost train and of course trick or treating. We also added a Halloween themed geocaching weekend in the mix.

Quinlan picks up a geocache on our Geo Monster Ball weekend.

Aidan and some of his friends at the Halloween Howl at his school.

On the weekend we had Quinlan’s birthday party at the pumpkin patch and came home with four pumpkins.

Four Muddy Friends

Aidan already had a pumpkin from his school the week before so we had a total of five. The upside to the plethora of pumpkins is that everyone got to carve or plan the carving of a pumpkin. We had Quinlan’s scary faced pumpkin. (I wish you could see the face and hands to go with the pumpkin, but alas we did not get a picture of Q describing what he wanted Anthony to carve for him.)

Quinlan's scary pumpkin.

We had Aidan’s self carved (mostly) ghost pumpkin. We had my double duty robot and owl pumpkin, and a quickly carved Frankenstein’s monster pumpkin. Last but not least was Anthony’s adrino powered pumpkin complete with fading lights and sound.

Halloween dawned bright and dry but cold. Aidan was happy to be able to wear his wizarding cloak and hat to school, and Quinlan was happy to be a robot on our way to swimming lessons.

Boys ready for some trick or treating fun!

I love how many people smiled and let Quinlan know that they thought he had the best costume. Mostly because he was making so many people smile and he was happy, but also because except for the head, I made the whole costume and it was a lot of work. Once we had a decent supper in the boys we headed down and parked near the coop and started our trick or treating about 6:30 pm. The coop went all out again this year and by the time we were finishing about an hour later lots of houses were running out of candy. After we finished we headed back to the car where a shiny parking ticket was waiting for us. It looked like Easy Park was not being charitable this year and all the cars had parking tickets. Happy Halloween to us.

© 2011 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | No comments
Related: Aidan, Anthony, Family Time, Gwen, Halloween, Quinlan, Vancouver.

Halloween, Pumpkins and Candy, Oh and a Birthday

Gwen — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:11:45 +0000

Halloween, next to Christmas, is my favourite time of year. I love to dress up, trick or treat with the kids and decorate. I have always loved carving pumpkins and decorating the house even before we had kids. The few years that the smell of raw pumpkin gave me a migraine were the saddest few years of my life and I resorted to carving up green and red peppers. Aside; the green peppers were very cute and the littlest trick or treaters at my mom’s house were enchanted with them.

When Anthony and I moved to Vancouver we lived in a condo for the first few years an didn’t get any trick or treaters, but we still carved a pumpkin. When we lived in an apartment we decorated and got a few kids. When we moved to the townhouse in Vancouver we really expected some trick or treaters. Now seven years later we don’t expect any. We do however get the place decorated, the kids costumed up and leave candy out for whomever decides to come while we go out trick or treating with our two boys. Halloween, though fun before the boys, is so much more fun now.

Since Aidan was a baby we have taken time before Halloween to take pictures of the boys in their costumes. I love this tradition and I really hope they don’t grow out of it. We also have gone to the Richmond Country Farms Pumpkin Patch for the last 4 years. It is a little expensive but the boys have a wonderful time. This year, like last year, we are having Quinlan’s birthday party at the Pumpkin Patch. It is a lot of fun and has music, a maze and of course tonnes of pumpkins. This year we are adding the Stanley Park Ghost Train to our traditions.

The best of our traditions is our trick or treating ritual. We go down to a housing co-op near our place that is right next door to an elementary school. We usually drop off candy to some of our friends living in the co-op and then go around. We take lots of pictures and let the kids stay out a little bit later than usual bedtime. This is the best place near us to trick or treat because the co-op goes all out. They decorate to the nines and all the kids in the co-op and nearby elementary school are there. We come home with a tonne of candy and have hot chocolate by candle light and jack o lantern light before bed. Once the boys are in bed it is chocolate o’clock for the grownups, just like it should be.

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Disclosure: I am participating in the Allan Candy Company program by Mom Central Canada. I received compensation for my participation in this campaign. The opinions on this blog are my own.

Allan Candy Halloween treats are all made in Canada and are peanut free and their line-up includes: Allan Intense Jubes & Jellies, Allan Chewy Rascalz and Allan Fruit Buddies.

© 2011 Left Coast Mama | Permalink | No comments
Related: Aidan, cute, Family Time, Halloween, Quinlan, Trick-or-treating.

Being Healthy and Active (and a Giveaway)

Gwen — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 23:22:39 +0000

When we were growing up Anthony and I had a very different lifestyle than our kids do now. Anthony and I were suburban kids with backyards and woods nearby, and Aidan and Quinlan are city kids with parks nearby.

I was a kid who was outside and active a lot of the time. Sure there were times that I preferred to be inside reading a book, but the majority of my childhood was spent outside, playing in the backyard, or swimming, skating, biking, playing in the woods and climbing trees. With the amount of time I spent in trees you would never think that now I have a great fear of heights, but spend time in trees I did. We also were very close to our elementary school, so we played pick up games of softball, and played soccer wherever we could. Anthony was one of those boys who skateboarded, and road his bike recklessly down hills and off homemade ramps. He was also sent out in all weathers to play in the backyard. Our kids have a very different life, but one that is active.

We do not have a backyard, but we live in a very walkable part of the city. Both boys take swimming lessons and have since they were small. We spend a lot of time at the playground. We walk to school as often as we can. Last year Aidan took skating and skiing lessons and he and Quinlan will do so again this year. We walk down to Aidan’s theatre classes every week. Quinlan has started ballet. All of these things are good things, active things and they love to do them. Anthony and I also model active behaviour. Anthony commutes to work by bike. I walk everywhere with the kids. Most weekends we go geocaching.

I think that geocaching as a family has brought about more activity in the last 4 years than anything else. Most weekends we explore a new park and walk or bike around to find new geocaches. It is a chance to get out and about and explore new places. You would be amazed at how many small and big parks are in and around the Lower Mainland. When we go to a new city to visit, we cache to find different places and have other places to walk around.

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When Healthy Families BC asked me if I would help them with their social media presence and get the word out there about their website I was happy to do it. The website is intended to be a starting place for having a healthier lifestyle, and the blog is full of great tips in exercise and healthy eating including some fantastic recipes.

To help promote their twitter (@healthyfamilybc), facebook and website, Healthy Families BC is giving away a $250 gift card to Lululemon here on Left Coast Mama.

Rules:

You must either follow Healthy Families BC on twitter, @healthyfamilybc, or like them on facebook, then comment here letting me know you did. If you do both, please put them in one comment and I will count it as two entries.

Entries must be received by Monday 19 September 2011. I will contact the winner by email and the winner will have 48 hours to respond. The card will then be mailed to the winner as soon as possible.

Disclosure:

I am not receiving anything to run this contest. I think that promoting a healthy lifestyle is a good thing and I am glad to help.

Pharaoh Serket and the Lost Stone of Fire: A Review

Gwen — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 18:06:00 +0000

On Saturday night Aidan and I were able to attend the opening night of Carousel Theatre’s Pharaoh Serket and the Lost Stone of Fire. We got dressed up and headed to the Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island. This is the last play in Carousel Theatre’s 2010-2011 season, and it is billed as a cross between Harry Potter and Indiana Jones.

Pharaoh Serket is a story of a young king of Egypt who is talked into taking a journey to find a lost treasure of Shogali. With political unrest in Egypt, and recovering from an illness, Serket find himself on an adventure with Zalira, the witch who saved his life, Bakneb, the scribe, and Asteth, a thief and guide. In the end Serket figures out who he can trust and how to be a good king.

The set was fantastic, the costumes interesting and the comedic pratfalls and sneezes gave the play some well deserved doses of funny in this intense adventure story. The play was a little scary for the younger set, and Aidan would recommend it to kids a little older than him. He did enjoy the play, but there were some times when it was a little too intense. I must admit that there were a few parts that made me jump a bit too.

I think one of the best decisions I made this year was to get season tickets for Carousel Theatre. Every performance was fantastic and seeing Aidan so into the action was a treat to see. I can’t wait to get tickets for next year, including some extras for a few of the performances so that we can bring Quinlan.

Pharaoh Serket and the Lost Stone of Fire runs April 8th to 30th at Waterfront Theatre. For information and tickets call 604-669-3410.

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Disclosure: I purchased the tickets to these performances and I was not asked to review the plays. All opinions are my own. All photos are taken by Tim Matheson and used with permission from Carousel Theatre.

Geocaching With Kids

Gwen — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 04:40:22 +0000

Caching in Pacific Spirit Park in Vancouver

Anthony and I have been geocaching since Aidan was 2 years old. Quinlan has goecached all his life. It is something that gets us out in all weather and has us exploring places we would never have found on our own. Of our almost 800 finds since we started, at least 700 of those have been with the kids.

Aidan finding a cache. He is about 3 in this picture.

So, what is geocaching you ask? Simply put, geocaching is a world wide treasure hunt that uses GPS technology to find a cache. A cache can be as simple as a small container with a log, or as unique as a fake rock. Some caches only have a log ( a place to write your caching name and date) or they can have a lot of trade-ables (little toys etc.) and some have trackable items.

The Floyd Family posing after finding 24 caches in two days. Quinlan was about 10 months old.

We started geocaching with a GPS and an account at geocaching.com. With the advent of smart phones it is much easier to get started, just get yourself the geocaching.com app and see what you can find. If this is your first time, start with caches that have lower difficulty ratings. When we first started out with our boys we would do only 1 to 1.5 difficulties and 1-2 terrain. If you have a child in a stroller stick to the 1 terrain so that you are not frustrated.

Caching with a stroller. This was the first summer we cached.

A good way to get started is to check your geocaching app around playgrounds. I swear that almost every playground in the Lower Mainland has at least a few caches close by. When Aidan was younger we would trade off a playground cache with a few woods caches.

For more information on getting a geocaching account started, how to choose a GPS, how to navigate geocaching.com check out geocaching-101.