Surgery Date

We have a surgery date for Sarah and it is this Tuesday - August 4th at 11:30am at Sick Children's Hospital in Toronto. We are planning on traveling down on the Monday and staying over night at a hotel. The hospital has been very good at calling us and trying to tell us what to expect on the day of the surgery - the latest information we have is that Sarah will be in the hospital between 5 to 7 days. Once this surgery is done she will have to have a second surgery 2 to 3 weeks after the first surgery but I expect we won't know that date until this surgery is completed. We will be able to stay with Sarah the entire time and one parent can stay overnight in the room which has made us feel so much better since we haven't left her with anyone since we got her in March. We are expecting the surgery to be very hard on Mommy and Daddy - not that Sarah is going to enjoy it but Sick Kids are known for making it as easy as possible for the kids. The good part is that she most likely will not have any memory of it when she gets older.

Since Sarah may still be in the hospital and not feeling the greatest we decided to have her birthday party tomorrow so I'll post some pictures of the party before we leave for Toronto.

Catching Up

It's been a little while since my last posting and people have been asking when I will get to updating the blog - so here I am - delinquent but here. This post is going to be a bit of a mishmash of pictures.

Here is Sarah all dressed up to go to my work for her first visit - it took us a while to get ourselves organized for the visit so we were much later going than I wanted. Sarah had a great visit and really enjoyed running around the office - unfortunately I was not coordinated enough to take pictures while I was there - luckily Wes had taken this picture before we left. Once again everyone at work was so excited and supportive and a special thanks to Bev and Antonella for the gifts for Sarah - she has really been enjoying them.Sarah still loves building her towers and was especially proud of this one. Daddy had to help lift her up to complete the construction but she did all the stacking herself. Very talented little girl.

Sarah has acquired a couple more stuffed friends - doggie and monkey - they were acquired on a visit to the Hallmark store when getting Daddy's Father's Day card and she just had to have them. They have been joining us on several outings - yes all three of them and on some naps and night-time sleeps - it can get a little crowed in the crib at times, but Sarah has no problem sharing. Sarah is very much like her Daddy and is a little groggy first thing in the morning - that is until she has had a chance to read the paper. Sarah and Daddy get the paper together in the morning although it is a race to see who actually gets to it first - Sarah got the paper first on this day - Pink Kitty likes to read the paper along with Sarah.

Daddy and Sarah have an agreement - Sarah gets the car pages and Daddy gets the sports pages. As you can see - Sarah has already found the car page - it's going to be a good morning.

The Town of Whitby had a Community Day where they had all the Town and Regional Services together to show what they do and had some fun activities as well. It was held at the Fire Department Headquarters and Sarah got to pose on the antique Fire Truck.

Daddy's Platoon Chief was working that day and made sure Sarah got a Fire Hat which she gladly posed for a picture. It's a little hard to see but it says Fire Chief on the hat - that would make Sarah Daddy's boss - seems rather appropriate.

Since Uncle Greg is a Durham Regional Police Officer, Sarah had to get a picture in a police car.Here she is showing her Uncle Greg her best - "Okay, your going to get a ticket for that" face - you may want to notice that Pink Kitty is riding along as Sarah's partner for the day.
We have been taking advantage of our seasonal passes for the Zoo and Sarah really seems to enjoy it more each time we go.

Although the deer does have to wait for Sarah to point out passing cars and trucks on the road - here she make sure Daddy takes notice.

I guess Sarah thought Daddy needed lots of help this day as she helps him push the stroller onto the next animals who need feeding.

Sarah is getting better at trying to feed the animals each time we go - here she is once again helping Daddy feed the donkey.

Wes's cousin Angie got married this summer in England and had a family Garden reception when they got back. It was held at a Community Centre in Brooklin and it had a small playground outside. Wes's cousin's daughter Kiley took a shine to Sarah and they became best friends. It was so nice to see Sarah feel so comfortable with her and Kiley was just wonderful with Sarah. Kiley was so sweet with Sarah and was so attentive and looked after her like a mother hen.

Kiley had to lift Sarah up onto the teeter totter - not a small feet considering Kiley is not a whole lot bigger than Sarah.

It's a bit noisy but I just had to try and get a video of Kiley helping Sarah on the slide. Sarah just loves slides but this slide was a bit bigger than what she was used to so Kiley and Sarah worked out a great system which basically was all about Sarah. You really get to see how well Kiley looked after Sarah and how Sarah waits for her help - just so sweet.

Congratulations Angie and Matt - it was beautiful reception and we had a wonderful time.

To finish up the catch-up posting, Sarah and I went out to dinner tonight with a very close friend, Nancy. Daddy was busy working nights so we thought it was a great time to visit with Nancy. We had a great meal and lots of fun.

Sarah has her birthday party planned for next Saturday so it won't be too long until our next posting.

Happy Canada's Day

Happy Canada's Day Everyone,

We celebrated by heading out to the Oshawa Petting Zoo. This is a nice little zoo that is really close to us and Grandma joined us for some afternoon fun. Before you even go in there are some baby ducks and chicks that you can feed and actually stand in the pen. Sarah just wanted to point instead of going in.

Once we were in there were these cute ring tailed animals - I can't remember most of the names of the animals that we saw but these guys were really cute and very gentle. Sarah wasn't that keen on feeding them directly but if you dropped the food in between the wires they were very good at sticking their little hands through and fishing it out which Sarah seemed to really enjoy. There was a mother with her baby - she was very bossy about who was first in line.

Then it was off to the ducks - Sarah wasn't interested in the direct feeding of the animals but loved to look at them and direct Daddy, Mommy and Grandma to feed them on her behalf.

Sarah got a little braver with the sheep and she was able to throw the popcorn through the fence. The sheep started to get a little crazy as more and more joined in for some popcorn.

It wasn't a large zoo but it was very clean and spread out and for us it was the perfect size - they even have a little picnic area that would be great to bring lunch. Grandma was in charge of the popcorn and Sarah had to remind her to pass it over. Sarah liked to get the popcorn out of the bag then give it to Daddy to feed the animals.

With a lot of coaxing Sarah finally was brave enough to try petting the donkey - and the donkey seemed to enjoy it too.
Then it was off to see the pigs - we ended up coming along the side of their pen where there was only one pig - it wasn't long before there was two then a third one came trotting along to see what was going on. They were kind of funny the way they seemed to trot on over thinking they were possibly missing out on something.

Grandma seemed to like the goats the most. Here she is feeding the billy goat but it was the female that Grandma thought was the prettiest. The billy goat was very excited to get some popcorn and would climb up on the fence - Sarah was a little pooped out by this time and opted for the stroller but had no problem directing Grandma in the dishing out of the popcorn.When we got back to the entrance area we were lucky enough to be there at the time they were bottle feeding the baby sheep and Sarah got to help feed them.

The calves got to have bottles as well and Sarah was front and centre for that as well.

She did step aside and let another little boy have a turn but I guess she felt he needed a bit of help and since she was now experienced - who else better to help out.

Once we were back at the entrance Sarah felt a bit more confident to get into the pen with the baby chicks and ducks while Daddy found out about the season passes. Grandma was still supplying the popcorn and keeping watch over some of the more pushy baby ducks.

What better way to finish off the afternoon at the zoo than with an ice cream cone -Grandma bought all of us an ice cream and Sarah really enjoyed her's - well actually it was Daddy's as they were a little big but as you can see - Sarah took it over for a while before Daddy was allowed to finish it off.
This was a perfect sized zoo for us and I think we are going to enjoy going back again.