Here's the baby's room before and after painting it a new soft green color.  In the next couple days we'll start assembling the crib and change table/dresser.

 Darcie and her growing baby bump!!

 Emmett and Dexter have become good cuddle buddies!  He cleans the inside of Emmett's ears out now and then for him

 We took Emmett to a pet store the other day when Santa was passing through Vernon.  He wasn't very interested in getting his picture taken with him - we had just brought him into the store and there were too many other animals and smells to investigate first before being bothered with getting a picture with Santa.   

 I grew out my facial hair for the whole month of November to see what i'd look like after a full month of growth.  Darcie hated it and practically avoided me for the entire month.  I was ready to shave it off by the end of November too.  Anyway, I thought it'd be fun to take some pictures of different moustaches while I shaved it off.  The handlebar is on the left and French waiter on the right.

Ultrasound photos

Darcie and I went to get the ultrasound done on Nov 6th to get measurements done of the baby and look to see that everything was progressing normally.  We'll find out the results when we meet with our midwife in a couple weeks but in the mean time, we asked to find out the gender.  So we're happy to announce that we'll be having a baby girl!!!!  It was pretty wild to watch the screen and see the images of her heart beating, moving her arms in real time, and other features like the umbilical cord and her face.  We are so excited of the news that we're expecting a baby girl.  We can't wait to see her and hold her in person.  

Autumn sleepy at the table during Thanksgiving

Starting Hike into the Grand Canyon

View of Grand Canyon

Taking a rest to look at the view

Along part of the path in the Grand Canyon

In the Grand Canyon

This is the furthest point that Mark and I got to within the canyon

Playing Tennis in Arizona with Mark

                                          

Mark and I played a lot of tennis when we were down there.  We even got to play at night with the lights on.  It was a lot of fun!

Remember this?

This is Isaac two years ago after Thanksgiving dinner at Josh and Laura's.  We started taping after the best part but coaxed him to keep going.  Still managed to get a little bit of him talking about Liam being a good boy and him being the monster guy.  Pretty funny stuff.  Look at Liam too.

Trip to Phoenix With Friends Mark & Vanessa

We hadn't seen our friends Mark and Vanessa who live in Toronto since last August when they were up to see some of Mark's family (Mark's from the Okanagan and Vanessa is from Toronto).  Her parents had recently purchased a home in Phoenix.  They were planning on making a trip out there for some R&R and invited us to come and spend some time with them.  It ended up being a trip full of adventure, relaxtion, tennis, good eating, the game Bananagrams, and really good company.  We had such a great time with them down there.  We were really sad to leave but look forward to the next time we get together.  We arrived in Phoenix late on a Thursday night where they picked us up from the airport.  We went for a walk around the neighborhood and stayed up late talking.  The next day we went for a hike up this hill in the middle of Phoenix called Camelback Mountain.  At the top is a 360 degree view of the city and it's surrounding suburbs.  It's such a large city.  It's sprawled out over such a large area of land, its incredible.  The view from the top was one of the best, if not the best I've seen of a city.  With the clear blue sky, higher mountain ranges on the horizon, and the flat lands between filled with fields and the city, it was spectacular.  I wish I'd taken a camera to show you what it looked like from the top.  On the way down, Vanessa saw a small lizard on a rock which we approaced slowly.  We tried throwing water droplets at it to see if it'd drink it but it didn't seem to be botherd by it so I poured some water into the bottle cap and slowly moved my hand infront of it's face and it actually licked some water out of it.  It was really cool.  Then Vanessa poured water onto the rock it was on and it kind slid around in it.  It was pretty funny and really cute.  The hike up and down was a good warm up for what was ahead.  We were planning on driving to the Grand Canyon tomorrow and hiking down on one of the paths into it, and seeing how far we could get before having to turn back.  For dinner we went to a really good restaurant called True Foods which serves really fresh, natural, organic foods - Mark's favorite restaurant.  Two of us had chicken burgers and two of us had the Bison burger.  They were both really tastey - we shared!  After dinner, we got some groceries for the time we were going to be there as well as lots and lots of water and other snacks to keep us nourished for the hike tomorrow.
We went to bed fairly early because we needed to get up really early since the canyon was a 4 hour drive away and we figured the hike would take atleast 7 hours up and down so we had to get there early.  We didn't want to be hiking up in the dark.  We set our alarms for 4am but it wasn't tough getting out of bed because we were excited to get going.  We were on the road by about 5:15.  We got to see the sunrise and drove through a town called Sedona which Mark wanted to show us because you can see those red pillar-like rocks there.  It was a beautiful area.  We carried on through Flagstaff and finally made it to the canyon around 10ish.  We started our hike at 11.  It was easy going down.  It was about a 3 foot wide trail and steep at the top with many switchbacks.  Most people would hike down to the first couple of viewpoints and then head back up.  The 4 of us hiked down for 2 1/2 hours and then Darcie and Vanessa decided to start the climb back up.  Mark and I wanted to try and make it to the bottom so we kept going.  We hiked down another 1 1/2 hours and got a good view of the Columbia River and some suspension bridges across them but from where we stopped, we still would've had another hour to get to the bottom because of the path snaking it's way down the cliffs.  We could hear the river and were almost on it's banks, but because the canyon walls at that point are so steep, it still would've taken a while to snake our way down the last bit of elevation.  It was cool being in the Grand Canyon looking up at the top.  It was awesome to be there looking at it with our own eyes.  It was so huge and so beautiful.  So many different colors and rock layers and lower plateaus within the canyon.  It's such a cool place.  Oddly enough, on the way down, Darcie asked a guy we were passing how much further he thought it was to the bottom.  We were talking for a little while and as I was looking at him, he looked really familiar to me so I asked him if he was from Vernon and he said yes.  I asked if he played squash and he said yes.  It turns out I recognized him from Rosters in Vernon where we play squash.  I've never played him but I recognized him.  It was so weird.  What a small world.  Darcie couldn't believe that I asked if he was from Vernon and that he actually was.  So, once Mark and I decided we shouldn't go any further due to the time, we started our way back up.  We went at a fairly quick pace and I was really feeling it in my quads at the top.  They started seizing up when we were almost done.  Mark was okay but my legs were not happy near the end.  It was probably the hardest hike I've ever done.  We would take breaks now and then for water, look around and remember where we were and what we were doing.  It was pretty surreal.  It was neat doing what we were doing, where we were doing it, but it was really tiring.  I was so glad we took as much water as we did because I've never looked forward to the breaks and drinking water as much as I did then.  I was so happy when we made it back to the top.  We got back just before 5 o'clock.  Faster than we anticipated.  Our shoes and socks were coated in red dust from the path.  We refilled our water bottles at the top, looked at an elk eating right at the visitors center, took off our socks and shoes and washed our feet.  It felt so good.  We started driving to Flagstaff to get something to eat and boy did we ever eat.  We were ravenous.  We were all really tired too.  It was so nice to get back to the house and have a shower.  I wanted to have one when I got to the top of the canyon so bad.  You could see white stains on my clothes and back pack from all the salt that was sweated out of my body and dried.  We took about 2 litres of water with us each and it was all used by the time we got up to the top.  It was an awesome day because of what we did and what we were able to see so we were all really tired but really happy.
The next day was definitely a sleep in and rest day, swimming in the pool and playing a lot of the game Bananagrams.  We made up our own couples version of it which was fun.  Mark and I played some tennis in the evening after our bodies had recuperated under a lit court and jumped in the pool to cool off after.  Yah, it was pretty awesome.
The next morning, Mark and I started playing tennis around 9 even though it was really hot out already.  It felt great to jump in the pool again after to cool off.  After playing some more Bananagrams, Mark and I went to a place called Cracker Jacks that's kind of like Scandia in Kelowna but also had go-carts and a driving range.  The driving range was so cool.  Once you hit the ball off the tee, it'd lower into the ground and would rise back up with a ball on it ready for you to hit again.  Never seen that before.  It was so neat.  We did some laps in the go-carts which I hadn't done in years, and went into the batting cage.  We both started hitting balls thrown at us at 40mph which were hittable but for fun I went to the fastest cage which were balls thrown at 75mph.  I connected with 3 of 18 balls.  It was so fast.  We played some arcades too and then headed back to get ready for another dinner at True Foods.  I paid for dinner but Mark and Vanessa weren't happy with that so they bought Darcie and I a gift card to a baby store 30 feet from where we ate to pay us back.  It was really nice of them and it was the first time Darcie and I had the chance to look for and buy things for the baby to come.  It was pretty fun.  We got a nice bag for diapers, bottles, etc and two toys.
The last day there we had lunch at a nearby golf club, and then headed to a Target to look for maternity clothes Darcie could wear to work.  She got some shirts and a pair of jeans which she wore on the plane because they were so much more comfortable in the belly.  We loved Arizona and had such a great time there with them and look forward to the next time we can get together again.

                                    

 Red pillar rocks in Sedona

 Driving into Sedona

The view from the top

 

 Darcie and I along the path, shortly after we started down

 At the top before hiking down

Mark, Vanessa, Me and Darcie

Horse Ride

While I was driving north of Enderby a while ago, I noticed a sign on the side of the road that said you could do some trail riding on horses for $25 an hour which I thought would be fun to do with Darcie.  She had ridden a horse when she was younger and the only time I'd ridden a horse was at Sunnybrae when I was a lot younger too so I figured it was long over due to saddle up again.  It's something different that you usually don't do too often so I called them up and booked a 2 hour ride through the woods north of Enderby.  I got a painted horse named Phoenix and Darcie's horse's name was Paully.  They were both females.  We went up some steep inclines and down hills and sometimes our horses would do a quick trot which is a little unnerving at first because you're not used to it.  They asked if we wanted to get the horses up to a trot or canter but we were both happy having the horses walk.  In hindsight, we probably would've been okay with just doing a 1 hour ride.  After a while our buts and inside of our legs got sore because we weren't used to riding horses at all but it was pretty fun riding them in the back woods.  They've taken kids as young as a year and a half old.  Kids that young would ride with someone on the horse, but other kids a little older can be on the horse themselves with people walking along side it to make sure they don't fall.  It'd be fun to do with the kids next time you guys are up if you're interested.  It's the cheapest place I found after looking into other people who offer the same thing and $25 an hour is really reasonable I think.  Other people were charging twice that an hour.  Anyway, it was a lot of fun getting to interact with the horses like that. 

Darcie getting on Paully at the stable

Darcie riding Paully

Me and Phoenix after the ride

My view of Phoenix

                                               

Riding through the woods

My New Job

Well for those of you who didn't know, I was laid off from my job at WestPro Machinery in April where I was doing Quality Control work on manufactured mining equipment.  It got really slow and I found out later that after they laid me off, they ended up shutting down the plant.  I applied for Employment Insurance the day after I was laid off.  I'd never been on EI and figured I'd paid into long enough, I should use it for once. I was looking for work while on EI and took the time to get an air brake endorsement and take a professional driving course so that I could get my Class 1 license and possibly create some opportunities or open up some doors as far as jobs go.  I past my Class 1 ICBC road test July 12th and continued looking for work.  I applied to an ad in the Morning Star paper requiring experienced Class 1 drivers needed for local work.  About a week later I got a call from Rick Nickel Trucking in Armstrong who I faxed my resume and cover letter to.  I went for an interview on Tuesday, August 14th, and they got me to hook up and drop off trailers from their trailer lot to shipping bays for a couple hours to see how I did driving.  I got hired and had orientation the next day for four hours.  My first day on Thursday was nerve racking and I went through a big learning curve.  The lot/office is in Armstrong and I had to take a loaded trailer to Merritt, through Kamloops and over the connector into Merritt.  I knew the road well and all the hills I'd have to climb and descend on the way so I was a little nervous.  I knew it'd be a challenge figuring out the gears to be in going up and down the hills to get there safely driving by myself.  I'd only really driven in town and hadn't done any mountain driving so there was a lot to learn for the first time.  And to top it all off, I had to drive a 10 speed transmission which has a different shift pattern and way of shifting with a splitter valve than the 13 speed I learned on in the course.  It was my first trip and all I wanted to do was get to Merritt and back without getting into trouble or an accident.  Once I got to Merritt and dropped off the trailer and picked up the empty one to take back, I felt much more confident with driving the mountain roads and with the truck.  It was an exhausting first day.  My second day was really long.  I started at 6:30am and didn't get home until 10:30pm.  Another trucker and I started from Armstrong, drove to Kelowna to pick up an empty trailer each and took it to Grand Forks.  Then we had to go back to Kelowna and pick up a second trailer each to take to Grand Forks again.  Before we got back to Armstrong, we had to refuel and fill out our paperwork before heading home.  I asked the other guy if it was normal to work long days like that and he said it was pretty rare but that it had to be done.  I was glad to hear that.  I'm enjoying it and getting more confident with every day.

Here is the truck and trailer I drove to Merritt.  I'm at the brake check before heading down the hill into Merritt (coming from Kamloops)