Tag: Life

Sight Eyes

I’ve been fortunate in life to have been blessed with good eyesight. As I have grown older, my sight has remained good, but I have noticed changes. When I am reading on the couch, then try to see the time across the room, I certainly notice it takes longer to focus on the clock. Every once in a while, my right eye feels a little fuzzier than my left. I’d never gone to see anyone about this, since I wasn’t worried about it at all.

A few weeks ago Sox mentioned Amy was going to get her vision checked and asked if I wanted to get mine done as well. The last time I had my eyes checked, I think I was around 12 or 13. It certainly was time.

The technology for this has changed quite a lot too. There were new machines to peer into, dots to follow, cameras taking pictures. Interesting. Then the optometrist saw me and we got to look at the letters on the wall and switch out varying lens things to see which is better or worse. She determined that my right eye had an insignificant prescription to it.

Then we had to do the pressure test. Uggh. I hate things touching my eyes. I can’t even watch other people doing it. The though of putting in and taking out contacts in my eyes makes my eyes water. She put some anesthetic drops in, had me sit for a sec, then used some instrument on my eyes. That was it. Completely unlike the last time I went.

The final thing she wanted to do was to put some drops in to dilate my pupil so she could see a different part of the inside of my eyes. I agreed, so in the drops went, then off to the waiting area. After the final check I was free to go. She mentioned my eyesight would be off for a while. Driving home was fine.

Once I was home I was planning on working. That didn’t happen. My eyesight was so bad that I couldn’t focus on anything withing a few feet of me. I had to wait a couple hours until I could see properly again.

I’m glad that I got my eyes checked, and I plan to go on a regular basis now.

Slipping Pumpkins

What a weekend. Sox and I had sent the kids up to my mom’s house for the weekend, since we were planning on going to Oktoberfest.

With no kids, Sox and I went out for a very nice sushi dinner and Sen Zushi. Yum.

Saturday, I did some errands, then Sox and I went for a bike ride together on the goose. The fall colors were amazing, but I was always a little concerned about slipping out on the leaves. We rode out to Langford, then back again. Simple ride. On the way back we stopped at the new Cecelia Ravine Bike Park. Great facility for kids and adults alike. After cleaning up from our ride, I worked a little while Sox napped.

Saturday night we went down to the Edelweiss Club for the final weekend of Oktoberfest. We had a great time with a bunch of our friends, drank lots of (expensive) beer, danced a bunch, and generally just enjoyed the night thanks to the S-Bahn. The downside was that we had a hard time getting home due to Halloween weekend. We called a cab around midnight, waited an hour and nothing showed up. Thanks to one of the employees at the Edelweiss, we got a ride to downtown. T&L managed to jump on a bus to get home, but Sox and I waited a bit for a taxi. Nothing. We then decided to walk. Along the way we passed the Mexican Food truck, so we stopped in for some tacos. Yum! Walking across the bridge we saw a taxi returning to downtown. We flagged for it, then ran toward it. We also saw another couple running towards us, after they had flagged it down. Turned out they were heading to the base, so we shared the cab, and got out at the boat park. It took us 2 hours to get home.

Sunday, after getting the kids home, we got ready for Halloween. I finished decorating, we carved the pumpkins, and E and I made his costume. He wanted to be a present for Halloween, so I got a box, and we cut some arm holes, and a hole for his head. He then made the wrapping paper for it. The finishing touch was a ribbon painted on his forehead. Amy dressed up as a lion.


Apples Away

I picked a bunch of apples last weekend. They are ripe, and very tasty. But very small. As in, lots of them aren’t worth the effort to eat them. I figure I picked over 100 pounds of apples, and I couldn’t even reach the highest branch which is stuffed still. I hope to get to those this weekend though.

What do you do with so many apples? Well, in the past we have made apples sauce, and frozen some of them. Since we still have a few jars of sauce, we’re going to skip that this year. Instead I’m going to dehydrate some apple slices and see how that works out. We’ve also given a whole bunch away.

Island Troupe

In the summer while the kids were off of daycare, Elliot declared that his dog stuffie named Island was having a birthday. Sue asked him if he wanted to have a party, and offered to make cupcakes. Since it was warm out, we had the cupcake party outside.

The cupcakes that I iced. Not a professional by any means.

Elliot and the guest of honor.

Some of the other guests, Jingles and Ribbit.

Amy and her troupe of guests.

At one point a neighbour was out working in her garden and smiled at us. I offered up a cupcake but she declined.

Golf Badly

Today’s adventure was a trip to Mattick’s farm. The plan was to head out and play some mini golf, eat some lunch, get an ice cream cone, then come home again.

Oh, and we wanted to ride out there. This was Elliot’s first time on a Trail-A-Bike, and we chose a long ride. He did awesome though. The ride out was about an hour and any time we got moving I could hear him hooting and hollering, and yelling wheeeee. Lots of fun. I could also feel him helping out on the uphill sections. The Trail-A-Bike was more wobbly than I was expecting which was a little unnerving at first, but I got used to it.

At the farm mini golf was fun, but the kids sure powered through the holes. Elliot did very well with his shots, and even got a hole in one. If we had kept score, I think his would have been pretty close to mine. Amy had fun too, but her style was more hockey like than golf like 😉

Lunch was yummy,but funny enough, as we were sitting down to eat, we saw some friends of ours that were at our BBQ on Friday, and whom we also saw at the fair on Saturday. They joined us in eating lunch on the grass.

After eating it was on to the cones. Amy had vanilla, Elliot chocolate chip mint, Sox had triple chocolate, and I chose the maple walnut. After I paid, I went outside to sit with everyone. Amy came running up to me, tripped (likely due to her flip flops), and hit the ground hard. She skinned her toe pretty badly, but worse was her cone. She did her best to hold on to it, but the cone itself broke in half and the ice cream bounced off my shoe and hit the ground.

Sad girl ensued. Thankfully she wasn’t hurt too bad, and the kind staff inside made us another cone free of charge. I even got a couple band aids to patch up her toe.

Fully charged up it was time to head for home. Thankfully there weren’t a lot of hills, and we made good time coming home.

Fair Friends

We headed out to the Saanich Fair today with another friend and her two children. All the kids had a blast and did well sticking close to the adults and not getting lost. There certainly were a lot of people there. On our way to the car I thought it would be cool to get a picture of the sea of cars, but after getting the kids into carseats and hading out mini donuts, I forgot. Amazing that so many people can cram into such a tiny area.

Amy and Elliot even went on a couple rides today. The Flintstone’s cars were a big hit.

The tractors were also a big hit. The kids spent a good long time climbing over many of them. Elliot even figured out how to turn the hazard lights on.

Fun with friends.

Amy spotted these people doing acrobatics on horses. Wild stuff. Sue saw three people on one horse doing tricks.

Lunch time consisted of fries and ice cream. Mmm, excellent fair food. Sue and I had some Indian food which was excellent, then snagged a bag of mini donuts for the drive home.

There were two guys walking around in body suits, one was orange, the other purple. You can see them on the elevator drop ride.

One more ride on the Flintstone’s cars. This time with no adults. How do kids grow up so fast?


Thrown Water

I was planing to go for a ride tonight after dinner. There was no Ulti tonight, and I wanted to get some exercise. I sent an email out about riding, but noone was able to make it.

Then last night happened. Around 12 Amy called me to her room because she had thrown up. We got her cleaned up and situated back in her crib, and a few minutes later she called again. Eventually Sue sent me downstairs so I could sleep, and so Amy could sleep in our bed.

In the morning Elliot threw up, meaning neither child was going to daycare. Sue couldn’t take the day off, so I had the kids all day.

With the lack of sleep, I really had no energy. I bailed on riding, and decided to go for a swim instead.

After dinner was done and the kitchen cleaned, I headed down to the pool for some lengths.

It went pretty well. I had the lane to myself, which is a bonus to swimming in the summer I guess. I knocked off 550m, but didn’t exactly feel all that smooth. I kept making mistakes with my stroke, and occasionally taking on water. It was good to get some exercise though.

Weekend Way

Weekend recap. Wow, what a jam packed long weekend, full of splendid weather.

Friday night I had my Soundgarden concert. I didn’t get back to Langley until after 1am. Saturday I slept in a bit, then met up with a friend in the afternoon for some karting at F440. What a blast. We did two rounds, the first in the slower karts. We qualified to upgrade to the next level of carts, so of course we did another race. So much fun.

Sunday we went to some friends’ house for brunch and the kids had a great playtime with their children. Back on the ferry, then home for dinner.

Today was a glorious day out so we hit the beach at Esquimalt Lagoon for some sandcastle building and a picnic lunch. We then came home and while Sox went for a ride, the kids and I played Lego.

Sox then called and invited us over to another friends house for a swim in their pool. How could we say no? On the way home we picked up some dinner supplies, and had a yummy steak, green bean, and basil & parmesan orzo dinner. Yum, yum.

Tomorrow it is back to work 🙁