In our house Anthony is the video editor. He puts in an incredible amount of work to make Aidan’s videos look and sound good. Thank you for staying up way too late Anthony, Aidan and I really appreciate it.

© Gwen for Left Coast Floyds, 2011. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: Aidan, Carousel Theatre, Theatre Review, video games

Six years ago I remember getting a game for Anthony and some chocolate for the both of us to make the most of our last free weekend. When my water broke that evening I knew that perhaps my plans for a quiet Easter weekend were not going to happen. That 24th March evening was a little uncomfortable, and while he had decided to come early, Aidan wasn’t really in a total hurry.

***

Aidan coming home from the hospital 6 years ago.

Aidan you are still like that, you do things in your own time. You are an incredibly curious boy, and I love the questions that you come up with. Your father and I are always challenged to find ways to answer your questions so that you understand, because you ask such complex questions. I love your use of language and vocabulary. You constantly amaze me with the things you say.

The Week Before Aidan Turned 5

Aidan I love that you have found your niche in theatre this year. Your acting skills have improved so much over the last year and your comedic timing is beautiful. You make your Dad and I laugh out loud. I think you are made for entertainment and I hope you continue to enjoy acting.

Aidan, I love that you are so willing to try new things and work to improve your skills. This year you have conquered your fear of putting your head in the water and you are well on your way to becoming a fish. You also wanted to try skiing and had a great time learning. I can’t wait to try again with you soon. You also are getting much better at skating. I love that you are so willing to learn to fall and you are getting much better. By this time next year you will be skating circles around me.

Aidan now.

This year you have gone from reading only books with pictures to reading small novels and now Harry Potter and some really cool books on whatever you want to learn. This has fueled you imagination and I love to watch you play wizards, or whatever comes to your mind.

Aidan, I love that you have so many inventions and plans for the future. The Aidan Company will be a great success. I love hearing about everything you think that the Aidan Company will do in the future. I love that you want to take care of your parents when you grow up.

Aidan I love how much you care about other people. You are mostly very sweet to your brother and there are times when you are the best brother in the whole world. I love that you think about things that make other people uncomfortable and want to figure out how to fix things for them. I love that are not afraid to ask about death and how babies are made even though I find it hard to know what to tell you.

Aidan, I am so glad that you are mine, or should I say, Aidan I am so glad that I am yours. I love you baby boy, Happy Birthday! I can not believe you are 6!

© Gwen for Left Coast Floyds, 2011. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: Aidan, birthdays, milestones

On the weekend, Aidan and I went to see Carousel Theatre’s musical “Munscha Mia”. Aidan has started doing video reviews of the plays he sees, so here’s his review of “Munscha Mia” for you to enjoy.

You can also see his review of Bird Brain.

© AnthonyFloyd for Left Coast Floyds, 2011. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: Aidan, Carousel Theatre, Munscha Mia, review, Robert Munsch, theatre, video, youtube

It’s been a while, I know. Perhaps you’ve been following along at LeftCoastMama. Perhaps you’d given up on ever seeing anything new here and are surprised to see this pop up in your feed reader. At any rate, sorry about that. I’m going to dust off the cobwebs and start posting more to this blog again.

But first, a bit of a photo essay showing what we’ve been up to over the past umpteen months.

We had some professional photos taken. This photo was taken by Bopomo Pictures:

The LeftCoastFloyds

After getting back from my mother’s funeral, Gwen left for the East Coast again to attend the BlogHer conference in New York City!

Gwen and Tracey in NYC, August 2010

Times Square, NYC, August 2010

Radio City Music Hall, NYC, August 2010

Later in August my grandmother Muriel Forwood passed and I returned to Nova Scotia for another funeral. My grandmother lived with us from 1986 until she moved into a long term care facility in the early 2000s.

Remembering Muriel, August 2010

Back in Vancouver, Aidan went on longer and longer bike rides with me on the Trail-A-Bike. This was taken down near the Olympic Oval, halfway through a 50km ride.

Public art in Richmond, August 2010

We don’t get out for as many hikes as we used to, but I did manage to get up to Joffre Lakes again this year. This time, I went with a bunch of people I met on Twitter!

Joffre Lakes, August 2010

Aidan started school this year! He’s in a half-day French-immersion kindergarten at Lord Tennyson Elementary.

Aidan on the first day of school, September 2010

Aidan got a bigger bike for his birthday, but was having trouble with it. One of the best things I’ve done was to remove the pedals from his old Tigger bike so that it became a push bike. We lowered the seat and let him push it around. This was a great way for him to learn to balance the bike. Training wheels were too much of a crutch. By February 2011 he was riding his two wheeler, no problems at all.

Aidan freewheeling, October 2010

Aidan pedalling on two wheels, February 2011

Of course, at the end of October Quinlan turned 2! We went to a pumpkin patch with some friends for his birthday “party”.

Picking the perfect pumpkin. Or two. October 2010

Chilly birthday cupcakes. October 2010

Happy Birthday Quinlan! October 2010

Hallowe’en was fun this year. Quinlan wore a monkey costume, and Aidan had a great fire fighter’s costume (with an authentic Delta Fire Services patch given to him by an authentic fireman.)

Quinlan is a monkey, October 2010

Aidan in his fireman costume, October 2010

All set for Hallowe'en, October 2010

We had quite an early snowfall in November, and the boys had a great time playing in it.

Aidan catching snowflakes, November 2010

Quinlan enjoying some early snow with some friends, November 2010

Yes, it was that cold. November 2010

Aidan looks sharp, and loves wearing his hat and tie.

Aidan, November 2010

We did lots of Christmassy things this year.

Gwen and the boys had the very special opportunity to join other kids and Air Transat on the Flight in Search of Santa.

Flight in Search of Santa, November 2010

The Flight in Search of Santa, November 2010

Gwen took the kids to Oakridge Centre for their annual photo with the best Santa in Vancouver:

Santa Claus, November 2010

Bright Nights in Stanley Park is an annual fundraiser in which the Vancouver Fire and Rescue Service decorates a portion of Stanley Park. The kids love it.

Quinlan at Bright Nights in Stanley Park, December 2010

Aidan at Bright Nights in Stanley Park, December 2010

And then there was the Santa Claus parade.

Vancouver Santa Claus parade, 2010

Aidan and Gwen took skiing lessons this year at Mount Seymour. I don’t have any action shots of them, but while they were learning to ski, Quinlan and I played on the toboggan hill.

Quinlan on the toboggan hill at Mount Seymour, December 2010

In the midst of all this, we discovered that Aidan needed glasses. He looks pretty sharp in them and doesn’t mind them in the least.

Aidan and his new glasses, December 2010

Grandpa came to join us for Christmas. This was wonderful, and we did lots of things.

Gwen, the boys, and Grandpa went to the VanDusen Festival of Lights on the first day he was here.

Grandpa, Quinlan, and Aidan at the Festival of Lights in VanDusen Gardens, December 2010

Christmas Day and the days that followed were awesome.

Grandpa and Aidan put together some Lego, December 2010

More Lego Airport assembly, December 2010

On New Year’s Eve Day, we all went snowshoeing at Mount Seymour.

Grandpa and Quinlan snowshoeing at Mount Seymour, December 2010

Grandpa and Quinlan snowshoeing at Mount Seymour, December 2010

Aidan snowshoeing at My Seymour, December 2010

Snowshoeing at Mount Seymour, December 2010

Since the Olympics, the plaza in front of UBC Robson Square has been turned into an “outdoor” skating rink, open to the public. We took the kids there in January. The zamboni was as exciting as the skating, I suspect.

Skating at Robson Square, January 2011

Even in the depths of winter, we keep up with the geocaching. :) 2010 was our best year yet in terms of our number of finds, and we hope to eclipse it this year!

We did some geocaching with grandpa while he was here.

Geocaching in Pacific Spirit Park, January 2011

And we continue to do some winter geocaching.

Geocaching at Kits Beach, February 2011

So that’s been our past 6 months in a nutshell. It won’t been 6 months until the next update.

© AnthonyFloyd for Left Coast Floyds, 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments
Post tags: Aidan, Anthony, family, Gwen, leftcoastfloyds, photoblog, photos, Quinlan

Katherine Mary (Forwood) Floyd

Katherine Mary Floyd nee Forwood, 60 of Halifax passed away the 22^nd July 2010 at Victoria General Hospital. Born in Halifax in 1949, Kathy was the daughter of Muriel (Zinn) and the late Gerald Forwood.

During her early career Kathy worked for Canadian Customs before she had her son and became a full time stay at home mother. Kathy was very involved in many volunteer roles in both her children’s schools and in the greater community including work as a playground supervisor at both George Bissett and Col.John Stuart Elementary schools. During the early 90′s Kathy helped set up and run a Meals on Wheels program in Cole Harbour. She later became involved in many aspects of the Dartmouth Skating Club including volunteer work for Skate Dartmouth and Skate Canada. Her many roles included hospitality, registration and she could be counted upon to do whatever was needed. Most recently Kathy worked at the Diocesan Bookroom.

Kathy is survived by her loving husband John, son Anthony, daughter Paula, grandchildren Aidan and Quinlan (Floyd,) brother Paul Forwood and cousins Maureen, Patricia and Frank (Zinn.)

Visitation will be held Sunday 25^th July 2010 at 2 pm to 4 pm and 6pm to 8pm at Cruikshank’s Funeral Home, 2032 Robie Street, Halifax. The Funeral Service will be held on Monday 26^th July 2010 at 11 am, St. Patrick’s, 2267 Brunswick St, Halifax with Father LaPorte officiating. Interment will be at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Lower Sackville.

In lieu of flowers the family requests that donations be made to Ovarian Cancer research at www.ovariancanada.org or a charity of your choice in Kathy’s name.

The family would like to send special thanks to a number of people involved in Kathy’s cancer treatment; the nurses and staff of the ward 11 chemo unit particularly: Ramona, Vivian, Smiley and her doctors Dr. Paula Rittenberg, Dr. Katharina Keiser, and her nurses Kathy Mac, Laverne, Thelma and Jodie. The kind support and sensitive care over the last 5 years has been appreciated more than you know.

***

This was one of the hardest things I have ever had to write. Kathy was a fine mother-in-law, a great mother, loving wife and a doting grandmother.  She could be sarcastic and stubborn but she loved to laugh and have a good time.  I am pretty sure that is why Anthony had such a strict curfew for the longest time.  Even though she was a little worried about her little boy being so serious so early she made me feel welcome in the family . . . eventually.  I know she took distinct pleasure in telling others that “Gwen was such a quiet and polite girl before she became involved in our family.”  Kathy took full credit for making me the sarcastic person you know today, and she wasn’t too far off.

I know that Kathy was very happy when Anthony and I became engaged, but it was nothing like when we told her she was going to be a grandmother.  I know she must have been absolutely thrilled and it was momentous because it was the reason she quit smoking. There was almost nothing she wouldn’t do for her grandsons.

We love her and we will miss her very much.

© Gwen for Left Coast Floyds, 2010. | Permalink | One comment
Post tags: A Life Well Lived, Grandma, Kathy, Mom, Obituary

Aidan’s 5th birthday was yesterday. He was pretty excited.

We had been to Toys’R'Us two days previous, where we bought his major gift from us (a new bike, no training wheels) and a Lego set from my parents. So of course, he was up early (“Daddy! Guess what? I woke up 5 today!”) and immediately wanted to build his Lego bucket truck.

By daybreak, Gwen and Quinlan got up, and Aidan opened presents before breakfast.

Later that night, there was AWESOME cake, hand made by Gwen.

We took some video of the blowing-out too:

© AnthonyFloyd for Left Coast Floyds, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments
Post tags: Aidan, birthday, birthdays, cake, lego, presents

On Saturday, we packed up the kids and headed to Whistler to take in some Paralympic Alpine events. There were some events scheduled for Sunday, but the weather forecast was such that VANOC moved the Sunday events to Saturday. This was good for us as it mean that we were able to see the men and women’s nordic combined events: Super-G and Slalom for standing, sitting, and visually impaired.

I’ll spare you the story of getting there. Suffice it to say that Quinlan makes the third member of the family who gets carsick, and we had an unscheduled visit to Wal*Mart and Shopper’s Drug Mart.

Getting to the venue involved driving to a parking lot well south of Whister, then taking a shuttle coach to the bottom of Whistler Creekside.

From there, we were fortunate to be able to take the “accessible” shuttle to the venue site (a significant walk, up the mountain for most). Having the baby on my back apparently qualified us. After seeing the walk people were taking, I didn’t mind taking the bus at all.

The venue was very impressive. The grandstands were at the bottom of the ski run, with the incredibly steep final slope right in front of us.

We had a pretty good view of the last part of the skier’s runs, and what we couldn’t see was shown to us on a giant screen.

The crowd was quite excited too! There were lots of international fans. The loudest and most stand-out were the Germans and Japanese.

With the kids, we were a bit more reserved.

The performance of the athletes was nothing short of awe-inspiring. I can’t imaging going the speeds they do going on one ski, a sit-ski, or BLIND. Incredible.

As part of the event, they had set up an area where kids (and adults) could try out some of the Paralympic equipment.

Aidan got to try out the cross-country sit-ski, and had a great time with it!

Aidan and Gwen got to play a little bit of sledge hockey too!

And finally, as we were leaving the venue (a bit early because the kids were restless, bored, and hungry) we saw William Elliot, QC, the Commissioner of the RCMP (ie the top of the RCMP org chart). He had quite the colour guard with him. As an aside, there have been tonnes of Red Serges at all the events. Nothing wrong with showing the colours, making the tourists forget about the less-uniformed security.

A pretty good day for only $15 per ticket! The Paralympics were excellent value, and this was reflected by the number of people with kids at all the events. It’s a shame that it doesn’t get more media exposure.

© AnthonyFloyd for Left Coast Floyds, 2010. | Permalink | One comment
Post tags: outings, Paralympics, Whistler

This is BEYOND awesome. Click below to start then wait (patience) for it to load. Or, click it again to make it larger. In fact, it deserves to be embiggened.

© AnthonyFloyd for Left Coast Floyds, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments
Post tags: Aidan, video

I’ll do an Olympics recap post over the next week or so. Suffice it to say it kept us supremely busy.

The Paralympics are in full swing and today Aidan and I went to a sledge hockey game: Canada vs Sweden.

Getting into the venue was a completely opposite experience to what we had during the Olympics. There was no line up. There was no bag search. There were no metal detectors.

There was, however, Sumi posing with his adoring public.

The game took place in the new UBC Thunderbird Arena, a 7,000 seat arena built just for the Olympics and Paralympics. It replaced an aging facility that needed replacement anyway. It’s a rather nice building. Being a small arena, there are no bad seats and here’s the pre-game view from ours:

In sledge hockey, all the players sit in sleds supported in the middle by a single skate-like blade and there’s a small support at the front to provide a bit more support. The players use two sticks to propel themselves along the ice, and the sticks double as hockey sticks for shooting and passing.

The game is VERY physical, with many collisions knocking players to the ice or sending them caroming across the ice into the boards. The game was rather lopsided, and the Swedes started showing signs of being a bit dejected. Here’s a shot a post-goal celebration/mourning starting:

In what was one of the best sights of the afternoon, all the (able-bodied) refs knelt down and gave both teams high-fives and fist-bumps. This was, of course, after the two teams had shaken hands at the end of the game. Can you imagine the NHL doing such a thing?

Also very cool — Team Canada spent quite a bit of time at centre ice after the game acknowledging the crowd. Home ice sure is nice, huh guys?

On a side note, we got a new camera after the Olympics and before the Paralympics (barely) so all these pics have been taken with our new Canon T2i. Sure does a nice job!

© AnthonyFloyd for Left Coast Floyds, 2010. | Permalink | One comment
Post tags: outings, Paralympics, sledge hockey, T2i

On the weekend, Gwen and I put on a “Geocaching 101″ event for some people we’ve met through Twitter. You can read an awesome summary of the day on the Outdoor Vancouver blog.

As part of that event, the fine folks (Helen and Chris) at Landsharkz loaned us a Geomate.jr GPSr.

The Geomate.jr is a “family-friendly” GPSr. It’s intended to be simple to use so that kids can just pick it up and start geocaching. You don’t have to worry about downloading caches from it … it comes with 250,000 caches already installed. It promises to be quick, easy, and uncomplicated.

The device itself is small, rubberized, and only has a two buttons (plus a power button). The display is a black and white LCD that presents a small amount of information at any given time. When searching for caches, it shows distance in metres and an arrow pointing the way. On the periphery of the display are LCDs for cache size, difficulty, and terrain.

And, it’s quite inexpensive: $70 CAD!

We had the GPS for a bit over a week, and brought it to the Geocaching 101 event where quite a number of kids were able to look at it and use it. We used it to find a few caches and even after a short time with it I think we got a pretty good idea of what it’s like.

The best things about it are the things it’s designed for: it’s a nice small, rugged device that’s quite suitable for small hands racing around the forest. The display is easy to understand on the cache hunt, with big numbers counting down the distance to the cache, and an arrow pointing the direction.

On the other hand, I found using it a bit less intuitive than I liked. The only information you have about the cache you’re seeking — other than the size, terrain, and difficulty — is the GC number. No cache name, no description, no hints, no logs, nothing else. As such, you still need this information somehow, so you need another device or print-outs.

The distance display is good, but the arrow is only helpful when you’re moving. For kids, this is a bit of a challenge: they (and me!) like to stop to get bearings.

Additionally, I found it confusing navigating between the units different screens, and getting it to go back to the cache I was interested in. One of the buttons on the unit goes from the closest cache to the next closest and so on, but to get back to the beginning of the list you have to hold the button down and wait. Sounds easy but I was never sure it was working.

Also, those 250,000 caches? They’re all US caches. To get international caches (including Canada), you need to buy the Upgrade Kit (a special cable) and download caches to it. And they’re just traditional caches. No multi’s, no letterboxes, nothing else. That’s probably ok for kids (we mostly do trads anyway) but it’s a bit confusing when you’re trying to figure out what the next cache is (or should be).

Pros:

• Small, and rugged
• Simple display
• Easy operation
• High-sensitivity GPS
• Inexpensive

Cons:

• Direction arrow only accurate when moving
• Confusing interface
• To put Canadian caches on it, and to update any geocaches on it, you need the $25 “update” kit
• No extra cache information: name, hints, found status, etc
• Only traditional caches, no multis, letterboxes, mysteries, etc
• No backlight

In the end, while I’m grateful for the loaner, and while I applaud the goals, I don’t think I’d get it for my kids. For a few more dollars, a Garmin eTrex gives you a GPS that does all the same things, except has maps and can show you (marginally) more information.

© AnthonyFloyd for Left Coast Floyds, 2010. | Permalink | No comment
Post tags: geocaching, review