The big tenth. And the girl.

Today is our 10th anniversary. Our gift was a nice relaxing day at home. Yeah, lame huh. Okay, the real gift arrived last week. The stork dropped off our dear Lily last Friday, very early in the morning.

Though two days past due, she still came sooner than we expected, and only on doctor's orders due to mom's suddenly high blood pressure.

Scrawny limbs flailing, some hollering and blubbering, but I eventually got myself in check and waited to be a dad. Then Lily was born!

She was a mere 5 lbs 9 oz; one ounce above the threshold where she would have been hospital-ridden for quite some time. When she left two days later she had lost close to half a pound already, but she's already gaining weight. Of course none of her clothes fit well, but she'll grow into them soon enough. I've hidden all the fashion magazines so she doesn't get self-conscious about her soon-to-be-chunky appearance. May she have her father's genes and never have that problem in the first place!

A few minutes old. Can Dutch babies really be this little?


Awww...


Awwwwww......


Is it just me, or does she look really big and non-newborn in this picture?


We didn't know we were having a girl; it meant buying only neutral-coloured clothes. It also meant needing to have a boy name and a girl name picked out. Girl name picking went okay and we had a short list of three names by the time she was about to be born. Our boy name short list wasn't very short at all. If we'd had a boy he'd probably still be nameless; fortunately that problem didn't materialize.

Lily, like her old man, has no middle name. However, like her mom, she will have one yet; we just haven't decided on one and have a couple of weeks to do so. My druthers were for no middle name, but I lost that battle. (Or... I've won until she actually officially has one.)

Her umbilical cord fell off yesterday already (and no, we're not keeping it... eww!). I didn't really notice it missing at first while I was changing her, but then I found it in the toe of her sleeper; now she's finally portrait-friendly, so we're getting some pictures taken on Saturday. Real pictures, rather than my point-and-shoot fuzzy off-colour failures. Hopefully they'll be worth the money.

One unhappy camper. She has a very cute little bleating cry. Buuuut... talk to me in a week.


As I type this with my left hand, my very hungry baby is sucking my pinky finger as I'm too cheap to use up the free formula we got, and mom is getting some much-needed sleep. Any future behavioural issues on Lily's part may henceforth be attributed to this episode.

Our girl seems to like water as much I do; at any rate, the reaction is exactly the same.


Daisy is very much in love. We knew she loved babies, and this one's no exception. Her tail has never wagged so much. She always wants to smell Lily, and she's taken to whining when they're not in the same room. It's gotten so we're putting the dog crate in the basement overnight so we don't hear her whining.

"Lemme at that delicious creature!"


Overweight dog, underweight kid. Daisy is at least twice as heavy. I made the dog relax for this next shot; it wasn't easy.


Oh, and I've already called my daughter Daisy a few times. Sigh... it starts already...

Camping

This year for Canada Day weekend we went to Lake St. Peter, a tiny provincial park with only 65 sites. It's a 250km drive west of Ottawa, and it's quite close to the southern tip of Algonquin Park. Our group consisted of nine adults, two kids and a dog.


Of course the first thing to do once you've set up your campsite is acquire firewood, so the guys jumped in the van and started driving. There was surprisingly little nearby in the way of homes, and after following some back roads with absolutely no luck, we pulled in at the only house we encountered in miles. The owner was home and was more than happy to sell us a weekend's worth of firewood for a pittance. Mission accomplished!

Other than an attempted sputtering, there was no rain all weekend and we didn't even bother to put up a tarp over the site. The bugs were bad enough though. Carrie and I had bought a screen tent (and some other camping gear) off Kijiji a week earlier, and it was well worth the $15.


The beach was quite nice and not very busy.


The guys spent some time throwing around my new Aerobie (frisbee thing). Couple of things about this toy. First, the hole in the middle makes it not fall from tree tops very easily; a well-aimed kick with a soccer ball eventually coaxed it down. (If you zoom in you might see it up in the tree.)


Oh, and it floats about as well as I do. This thing catches the wind like you wouldn't believe; we spent a considerable amount of time searching and snorkelling... good thing it's fluorescent pink!

The kiddies were pretty good. (Twice as many as last year... I'm afraid this increase may become a trend.) The younger one was great, being not so mobile.

The older one must be getting a little too mature: I guess she wanted to try the whole makeup thing; it really works for her, eh?


We classed it up with the occasional cigar, but royally butchered the effort with the occasional Bud Light. Not sure how we fell for that; I hang my head in shame. Yes, I guess some of us really are beer snobs.

Daisy isn't though. Happy Canada Day!


What do you do when your cigar gets too short to hold? Get out the Leatherman, of course.


A couple of guys think fishing is cool, and a couple of others think having a cigar while watching others fish is cool, so the gents spent an evening checking out nearby lakes.

They even caught something...



...while we enjoyed the sunset with a stiff drink and a Costa Rican.



Well, I suppose that's it for camping this year. May there be much more camping in the years to come.

Good return on your money

I made over 60% in a recent investment. You can do 75%.

Sounds like a Ponzi scheme pitch, eh? Allow me to explain.

ING bank started a promotion recently that lets new clients open a bank account and receive a $50 bonus. A separate promotion allowed existing clients to refer new clients and receive a $25 bonus.

The only condition is that you have to deposit at least $100 initially. Available types of accounts include savings, TFSA, RSP and GIC. I'm not sure chequing accounts qualify, but who knows.



So I opened a savings account and put my $100 in. Almost immediately the $50 bonus went into my account. I also received a referral key so I could refer other new clients.

Next I (uh, I mean Carrie) opened a new account in her name, using my referral key. With her initial $100 and her $50 new client bonus, she had $150. My account received another $25 for having referred her.

The totals: $200 of our own money and $125 in bonuses. Not bad for a bunch of paperwork.

Here's the sad part (for me): the referral bonus has now doubled to $50. Not procrastinating cost me $25. Oh well.

All you need to do now is start some ING accounts. Just use my referral key (39513191S1) when applying for your account; on the enrolment form, change the provided promo code "Post50" to my number above. Start a savings account here or choose from more account types here.

Once you have an account, use your own referral key to make money by referring your spouse. Then you'll be $150 richer. Not sure if this works for kids, although there are other promotions for kids from time to time.

Since ING has no physical branches to visit, it may not be convenient for everyday banking, but it makes a great rainy savings fund. You can bank by mail (write cheques from your main bank), by linking it online with your main bank, or with a debit card (some ATMs are free to use, some aren't).

There you have it: free money! It's a great excuse to build that 3-month-wage emergency fund you've always been planning to start.

The days are shortening...

At last, winter is on its way! It's not that summer and I don't get along, but if I'm gonna wear my slippers in the house it may as well be winter, eh? We had a very warm March, so I've been done with summer weather for quite some time now; bring on the snow! (Even though I just took the winter tires off the car only about a week ago.)

I spent last week bachelorin' it, as my babies were in Costa Rica yet again. I permitted it, since I was out of cigars. I'll definitely need a celebratory stick in, I dunno, about 7 weeks. (I'll confess this is the first pregnancy pic I've taken; I mean well, but that camera is always like eight feet away.)


Carrie returned with a suitcase full of cigars, which meant either I needed a humidor or I'd have to chain-smoke cigars for a few weeks. (Don't worry--they're not all for me.) So I ordered a humidor which I received this past week. It's currently being seasoned, so I get to wait and fidget until the humidity is nice and stable. It will be good company for the vase thingy we bought in Costa Rica in February.


Next weekend we're going camping with friends; I do look forward to that, even if it will require wearing shorts and other nonsense.