Update on Phoebe

Phoebe has now been in Musgrove Hospital in Taunton for 3 nights; She has Bronchiolitis, which is described here. She is in a stable condition and is simply in hospital to recover; They are hopeful that she will be home with us by Christmas Eve - she is in an oxygen box which is helping her with her breathing and she is taking most of her feeds by nasal gastric tube. They are keen to make her recover as easy as possible, hence all the support.

Meanwhile, Gracie is over the worst of Tonsilitis and is herself again which is great. We're holding up well, and look forward to all being back together for Christmas. Some photos...

Where are you now?

Yes we know, it's been an inexcusable amount of time since we've blogged but we've been kind of busy! We left Langley on the 7th September to embark on a road trip across the Rockies to Calgary where we would be flying on the 11th back home to the UK. We spent the first 2 nights of our trip at the Cabin that we visited earlier in the summer with our wonderful friends Jaben & Sarah; While it was lovely to visit again it just wasn't the same without our great friends and of course the home made Sauna!

We drive onwards towards Calgary and spent our first night 'on the road' at Lake Louise; Sadly the bigwigs at BMW had booked out the entire Chateau on the lakefront which meant we had to stay in the village which was lovely, although the rumblings (read racket) of freight trains tumbling past every 30 minutes in the night was a little discomforting as we were about 40 yards from the track! Never the less, we enjoyed Lake Louise, and Moraine Lake the following day and were simply blown away by the natural beauty that we saw - I even said (forgive me kiwis) that it could almost beat Milford Sound (only just though) for awe - wasn't a patch on Hamilton though!

We spent our next night in a youth hostel in Banff which was pretty good fun; we did all the tourist things such as the Gondola ride to the top of the mountain, the hot pools, shopping and plenty of gawping at mountains. Banff was a great fun town, and a great place to spend our final night in Canada.

So now we're back in the UK and back on the jobhunt; Our plan is to move to Worcester when I can get a decent job there, but in the meantime we are living down at the Cottage in Devon which is wonderful; We're adjusting to the VERY slow pace of life and enjoying daily walks to Bantham Beach, outings to Salcombe (my alltime favourite place in the world) and having some wonderful time with Paul, Nitca and May (who has been doing some wonderful baking for us!). We don't have internet at the cottage so don't expect to hear more from us in the too near future, but be assured that if anything big happens you'll hear it here first!

Hear are some photos in their rawest form - I haven't had the chance to go through the yet and our computer is in a box somewhere between here and Canada so it'll be a while!

Our holiday in Shuswap Lake

Last week we headed north east with our good friends Jaben & Sarah to Sarah's family cabin on the shore of Shuswap lake... For Tom's comedy account of the week click here. We had a wonderful relaxing time including some fishing, swimming, golfing, BBQ's, fires, hand built beach sauna, and our first experience of Smores (a canadian fireside institution). We had the most amazing time with our friends and discovered a new favorite place! Thankyou Jaben and Sarah and the Meraw family for showing us such a good time.

Beach fires!

A walk in the woods!

Gracie out in the Canoe

Night sky over the Shuswap

Dinner overlooking the lake - stunning views

Jaben & Tom fishing off the pontoon

Tom's catch...

Fishing from the boat

Speed boat trip...

Fun at Cultus Waterslides...

Summer is well and truly here and we've been doing all manner of things to keep cool; A couple of weeks ago we took uncle Tom to Cultus Waterslides which is about an hour east of Langley - Gracie had an absolute blast on the waterslides, and us grown-ups had a little bit of fun too!

A weekend in Whistler

While my parents were here we took the opportunity to go and visit Whistler which is one of North America's most popular ski resorts (and we could see why). Although it was the summer season, there was lots of stuff to do including a ride on the Peak 2 Peak gondola which spans the summits of the 2 resort mountains; It opened this year and is very very impressive indeed! On our trip we saw 4 bears, the olympic bobsleigh track and the ski jump site for the 2010 Olympics! What a fun weekend! We had such a fun time with my parents and we were sad to say goodbye to them at the airport afterwards.

The very impressive Shannon Falls

Mum & Dad heading up Whistler Mountain

Gracie infront of the Olympic Emblem on top of Whistler Mountain

Our first bear sighting

On top of Blackcomb Mountain

Ice cream in the village

Night swim in the hotel pool

A panorama from the top of Blackcomb

A musical interlude

Laura thought it would be appropriate to celebrate the arrival of Tom (her brother) with a trip to watch Coldplay playing in Vancouver; Tom & I and a few good friends from church had a great night out singing along with some Coldplay classics... Good times!

Wes, Katie, Tom, Janice & Jaben & I on our way

Tom Waiting for Coldplay

Fueling the engine...

Having a good sing-along!

Coldplay... Fantastic!

Busy, busy busy!

We're sorry that our blog has been a bit quiet recently but we have been busy enjoying the start of a lovely summer: beautiful weather, visits from Paul's parents and my brother, Tom. We've been having lots of fun discovering a few of the delights of British Columbia. We will post about some of the fun things we've been up too over the next few days...but firstly a little update on our gorgeous girls:

Today Phoebe is six months old- we can't believe that she is already half way to one! She is doing amazingly and we really don't think of her as a preemie any more. She is incredibly healthy and is a delight to have around; smiling lots and making cute little noises. She is catching up with her actual age (six months) in size and is plodding along nicely in development at her corrected age (12 weeks). She is very relaxed and reminds us more of Paul's personality where as Gracie is far more like me.

Gracie is loving life and is so much fun to be around. She makes us laugh a lot! Her current interests are photography and singing (nothing new there!), however, to Paul's delight she is currently into Coldplay and sings 'viva la vida' and 'fix you' at least once a day! Gracie is growing up so fast and in September she will start pre-school. I'm slightly freaked out about all the things I have to get organised for this huge event in our lives....snack box, bag, labels etc. But more worryingly I will need to get myself and Gracie up and dressed (Phoebe can get away with p.j.'s!), all fed and out the door by 8:45am two mornings a week! I know most people do this every day but we are often in our p.j.'s until 10am...oh the start of our schooling career! Anyway, enough of my ramblings, here our some photos!

Two pictures from Gracie's photo-shoot this afternoon...(there we A LOT more photos, but sofas, the floor and the toilet might not interest you so much!)

(funny faces are a must!)

And Phoebe at six months old...