The Coleman Family

This weekend we decided to put Oliver’s skating class...

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 20:37:47 -0500

This weekend we decided to put Oliver’s skating class (yes, one class) to the test and go for a skate at Spencer Smith park in Burlington…

Last weekend we took advantage of the fresh snow and headed out...

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 20:36:05 -0500

Last weekend we took advantage of the fresh snow and headed out to Lowville Park for a little tobogganing…

It lives...

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 10:40:00 -0400

Okay got this puppy resurrected once again… more frequent updates coming. I promise :)

First time on skates...

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 17:01:00 -0500

We took Oliver out for his first ice skate (and ours in quite a while) this morning. He had a great time and two tired, sore parents practically had to coax him off the ice.

Burlington recently put in a great new rink right on the Lakeshore downtown. It’s a great facility with a snack bar and a nice warm place to sit and get gear on and off.

Looking forward to more skates in the future!

Photos:

The Wiggles: Live! (Oh Yay!)

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 09:20:00 -0500

When Mum called a few months ago to ask if Oliver wanted to go see the Wiggles live in concert Erin’s first reaction was “Are you sure? Have you seen that show?” (She hadn’t).

Still we thought Oliver would enjoy it so we said “Sure”, and then poured ourselves a nice stiff drink. We tried watching “The Wiggles” once last year, when our friend Lori was visiting from Australia and loaned us one of her son Patrick’s discs. We got about five minutes in and couldn’t really take the grown men bouncing around like idiots - which meant, of course, that Oliver loved it. We desperately wanted to turn it off but didn’t want to upset him - and then the power went out! (Thank god for flaky power @ the cottage)

With that experience in mind we braced ourselves for what was sure to be a long, long Saturday morning.

After dawdling around the outside of the Skydome (I refuse to call it by it’s new name) as Oliver checked out every intricate detail of the doors, sidewalk and anything else he encountered we finally got inside - at which point Nana promptly marched him over to the souvenir stand and pretty much told the girl “one of each please” (did I mention Granddad was out of town?).

Once the show got started it actually turned out to be pretty enjoyable for the parents too. I don’t know if it was just that show or if the guys were always like that but even they seemed to be having trouble with the silliness of it all - on more than a few occasions they cracked each other up to the point where it took them some time to recompose themselves. I also got the distinct impression there were times where they were just outright messing with each other.

Oliver, although feeling a bit under the weather, loved it and once he got used to the 6,000 other screaming children he started to really get into it - doing the actions and everything.

Overall he had a great time but when we got home that evening he passed out at five o’clock and ended up going to bed without supper and getting a good 13 hours sleep.

Photos:

Halloween 2006

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 09:14:00 -0500

This year we figured Oliver would be good for a few houses up and down the block - we had no idea he’d muster the energy to cover over 30!

Erin picked up a great costume for him (as you’ll see below) - it was a dragon costume but rather than covering him entirely he stepped into it so his legs were the dragon’s legs - but then the head came out by his stomach and the wings and tail came out the side and back. It was nice because a)he could see and enjoy the costumes and b) it was a cool night so we could put a jacket on without covering the costume up.

With help from his babysitter Debbie, who taught all the kids the motions of Halloween, he did a great job saying “Trick or Treat” at each house and following up with a “Thank you” after he got his candy. He had a great time and even this morning he came wandering into the bedroom with his bag as we were getting ready for work making yet another attempt at Trick or Treating. Heck he even said thank you after Erin stuck a (fresh) Kleenex in his bag. :)

A Visit to the Pumpkin Patch...

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 09:08:00 -0500

To get ready for Halloween we took Oliver to the Pumpkin patch at Springridge farms in Milton. It was a pretty cool day (complete with hail) and it was mucky from the previous day’s rain but we still had a great time.

Oliver loved tearing through the maze they had setup and just trundled off into it on his own without waiting for us. He also got to go for a pony ride (something he’s still not completely sure about even though he’s been before) and see the other animals. Overall I think I liked Chudleigh’s farm better last year but it was still a good day.

After playing Oliver picked out his own little pumpkin (which has been carted around the house like an abstract teddy bear) and we got a bigger one to carve that night (see the coming Halloween post).

Photos from the day:

Oliver turns 2!

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 09:52:00 -0400

Oliver turned 2 over the weekend and he somehow managed to score himself not one, but two parties. Saturday we had family and friends over and then on Sunday he had a group party with his friends Mason, Clara, Cole & Alex - who all have birthdays within a month of each other.

He had a great time at both parties and made out like a bandit (he even got to the point where opening presents just wasn’t interesting anymore - rough life!)

Anyways, here’s some photos from the parties:

Update from England

Sat, 30 Sep 2006 05:19:00 -0400

We’re having a great time so far!

Flight on Zoom was great - we left early and arrived 45 minutes early! Thankfully Aunt Diane had checked ahead to see our schedule so she was waiting at the airport for us when we arrived. After stopping by her house to unpack and freshen up Diane took us to Arundel to see Arundel Castle , and wander the town for a bit. Got some great photos that I’ll put on Flickr when we get back.

After, we went for supper at a pub close by with her cousin Richard and his wife Shirley. We had a few good laughs, drinks and a good meal to boot. Erin had to nudge me a few times on the way home to keep me awake and we finally surrendered to our exhaustion by 8:00 pm… 12 short hours later, Aunt Diane, gave a knock on the door to get us up to start the next day.

We spent a great day in London yesterday. We bought a couple of tickets on the hop-on/hop-off tour buses and managed to pack in a pretty good sampler tour of London . We actually ended up getting on and off several times as we made our way around the city. We stopped at Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square , & Harrods, wandered around China town & Soho then ultimately ended up at the South Bank for a stroll. We had dinner overlooking St. Paul ‘s Cathedral as the sun set on the water and then hit a few pubs as we made our way back to Victoria Station to take the train back to Diane’s.

Today, Alex and Marcus are joining Aunt Diane and us for a trip to Portsmouth… and tomorrow we’re spending the morning with Ros and Robin. Hope the weather holds – so far we’ve had good luck!

Off to London...

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 22:20:00 -0400

Erin & I are off for a quick long weekend in London. Oliver is getting a weekend off of his own with Grammy & Grandpa.

We’re both looking forward to seeing some of the Coleman’s on the other side of “the pond” and enjoying a whirlwind tour of London.

Cottaging 2006: The (almost) end of another season

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 16:32:00 -0400

Labour day has passed and with it comes the (almost) end of another great season of cottaging. I say almost as there’s still a couple of weekends left to go up for close up etc (and maybe a weekend of winter cottaging) but after labour day it’s a very different (and equally as fun) experience up north.

Erin, Oliver and I didn’t get up as much as we would have liked to this year (of course anything less then moving up Victoria Day and coming back at Thanksgiving would qualify as “not getting up often enough”) but while we were up there it was a ton of fun. We were worried at first that this year would be nothing but chaos as we chased a now-mobile Oliver around the property but it turned out to actually be a little easier this year rather than last.

One great help was the new deck across the front of the cottage - we had it for the end of last season but Oliver didn’t start walking until Labour Day weeked ‘05. This year he had a good 50 feet of “fenced in” deck to run free on, so Erin and I could sit out there with him and but not have to be always on top of him.

As the previous post indicates it was also a bit of an exciting year as well. Right before the August long weekend our chain of lakes was hit by a pair of tornados (F0 & an F1). Thankfully no one was injured, power was down for only a few days and the community rallied together to get everything cleaned up.

An extra little bit of excitement came as Jim finished the pine ceilings in all of the bedrooms! Needless to say everyone is glad to have the pink insulation and plastic sheets covered up. The ceilings look great and Erin and I both look forward to waking up to them each morning.

The slideshow below is of all the photos from the 2006 season:

All the photos can also be seen here.

Tornado!

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 16:11:00 -0400

We got a call last week from some neighbours up at the lake - it turns out our cottage was in the path of one of the tornados that struck the area around Beaver lake Road. Fortunately the cottage itself avoided any damage but we lost a bunch of trees and had some decking damaged.

Photos:

All the photos can also be seen here.

2006 Easter Video: "Egg Hunt 2"

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 16:02:00 -0400

Well, at the risk of starting a new tradition:

Oliver in "Real Canadian Superstore" baby aisles!

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 15:55:00 -0400

Oliver did this photoshoot late last summer… we were starting to wonder if they were ever even going to use the photos. Erin stopped in at the store the other day and surprise, surprise:

More pictures can be found here

New Years Family Cruise Pictures

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 16:07:00 -0500

Here’s a slideshow of our photos from our 2005/06 New Years Family Cruise:

All of the photos in full rez can be found here.

Oliver's First Easter

Mon, 28 Mar 2005 17:55:00 -0500

A short video from Oliver’s first Easter:

Oliver's big debut!

Tue, 22 Mar 2005 12:47:00 -0500

So a few months ago Erin and I took Oliver down to a Child Talent Agency called Kamera Kids - we figured it’d be a fun experience for Erin and Oliver during Erin’s year off, as well as a good way to help top up the RESP fund.

Over the past couple months Oliver’s been to a handful of “look-sees” (the photography equivalent of an audition) and had two “photoshoots” for Sears. The photo for his first “gig” was in the big Sears flyer this week - it would have been delivered with your local news paper on Saturday or Sunday. His photo is in the bottom right hand corner of Page 16 - he would have been about 14 weeks at the time this picture was taken.

A few weeks later he did another photoshoot for Sears and that picture should be in one of their Fall catalogues.

As for other news, things have just been crazy busy around here. Oliver is picking up new things left & right. Last week he said “Da Da” to me, then he turned to Erin and said “Da Da”, and to the cat, and his toy, and - well you get the idea. I knew I was supposed to cherish the moments because they wouldn’t last long, but I thought I’d get more than 10 seconds! (He’s since added “Ma”, “Ba” and “Wa” to his repitoire)

Erin’s doing well, she’s made friends with a handful of mums from the various Mom & Baby fitness classes she’s been doing. Ironically I think her social life has gotten even busier since having Oliver!

For my part work has been going crazy as of late. A few big pieces of the puzzle serendipitously came into place over the past six months or so and it looks like the business is finally finding it’s place in the marketspace. We just launched the site for a new spin-off company at www.clay-tablet.com - It’s looking more and more like the usual summer slowdown just isn’t going to happen this year!

For now we’re just counting down the weeks until we can start getting up to the cottage again. From a construction point of view, the addition that Erin’s parents started last year is pretty much finished - Jim and I have a summer of work ahead of us to finish the interior and put a deck on it though. Now if we could only get the snow to melt so we can get back in the roads again :)

I’ll try and get some updated pictures of Oliver in the gallery this week. I’ll make a new Gallery so you’ll see it in the top right corner.

Hope everyone else is well - I’ll try not to go so long between the updates again!

Ryan

Going Up & Down

Thu, 27 Jan 2005 10:11:00 -0500

I’m making some hardware software changes to the server that thecolemanfamily.com is hosted on over the next couple of days. There may be some periodic down times but most should only be a few minutes (reboot). There will be at least a couple longer duration down times as I’m also physically moving the box to another room.

See you on the other side!

Ryan

Oliver's present for us this year

Sun, 26 Dec 2004 15:35:00 -0500

Hope everyone had a great Christmas - we had a great time, made all the more special by having Oliver this year.

Erin’s family came over for Christmas morning, it was a treat to be able to celebrate Christmas in our own house this year - Oliver must have known something was up because he was actually bright and alert as soon as we got him up (morning is usually the time he just sleeps away - the kid is usually a night owl).

After a brunch with Erin’s parents we headed over to my Mum & Dad’s for the Coleman family Christmas - far from a subdued affair with 20+ people round the tables. In both places Oliver was spoiled by both families - thankfully babies don’t remember this age or it would take us years to change his expectations of Christmas! ;)

We had a great time with both families but it was also nice just to spend some time alone as a family once we got home last night. That’s when Oliver decided to give us his gift.

He’s been looking like he was on the verge of giggling or laughing for a week or so now, and even gave Grampa Jim a sneak preview earlier in the day (a dress rehearsal you could say) - but we didn’t expect him to let loose quite like that just yet. That clip is the tail end of his little giggle session - we were to busy staring at him in shock and laughing to grab the camcorder right away.

It truly was a special end to a very special day.

Ryan

Twas the night before Christmas...

Fri, 24 Dec 2004 11:15:00 -0500

Well - Time sure flies doesn’t it. Between Oliver’s arrival, Christmas and increasing amounts of work the past couple of months have just been a blur. I finally managed to wrap up the last of our Christmas shopping yesterday - the snow storm provided excellent cover to keep the crowds at bay in the different shops. Two days before Christmas and Wal Mart was a ghost town!

We managed to keep up with most of the Christmas stuff this year - we got our first real christmas tree this year. Erin loves it, my skin doesn’t. The putting up of the Christmas tree resulted in a pretty interesting reaction all up my arms - needless to say it’ll be long sleeves next year (if I can’t talk Erin back into our nice “looks real” tree). Erin did her usual fantastic job of decorating the house, giving us a great festive feel.

The only thing we didn’t get around to was Christmas cards - they just didn’t make the schedule this year. So if you didn’t get one, you haven’t been taken off the list or anything - no one got ‘em. We’ll be sure to send extra nice ones next year.

Oliver is doing great, every week brings something new for us (and him). Every week his “stories” get a little longer and a few new sounds are thrown in. We’re in the licking and tastng phase it seems too, everything seems to take a pass by his mouth if he gets it close enough. So far he’s been a really happy, mellow baby (knock on wood) - he doesn’t really seem to have a fussy time, if he’s acting up there’s usually a reason. And, after 9 weeks, we’re finally starting to be able to pick out which cry is which.

He still sleeps a lot of the day, but when he’s up he’s alert and playful. He’ll happily sit and yabber on about something and as long as some one is paying attention to him, he’s happy and smiling. Having him for Christmas will be really special - although I suspect next year will be the really fun christmas when he can open his presents himself. Erin was wrapping his presents the other day and commented “It seems kind of silly when you realise that we’re wrapping these so we can open them”.

The little guy is over 11lbs now and has even gained over 2” in length - he’s just starting to grow out of a bunch of sleepers and such. But thankfully that means he’s also growing into a bunch of outfits that Erin has just been dying to put him in.

Well - I should run, we’re off the to now traditional Christmas Eve @ the Cooneys. We’re doing our Christmas morning here at home this year, which we’re both really excited about.

Hope everyone has a great Holidays!

Ryan (& Erin & Oliver)