Erich's 3rd Birthday Party

Scheduling birthday parties for a child born on or near Christmas is always difficult. For the past two years, we have opted to do Erich's birthday party in mid-January instead of late December so as to avoid conflict with all the Christmas get togethers.

This year, we decided to host the party at our house. I experimented with sewing (by sewing each attendee an personalized apron) while all of Erich's friends from Erich's daycare and also from church came over and learned how to bake sugar cookies. Really yummy for the kids, and really messy for the parents to cleanup afterward.

Anyhow, they had a blast as you can see. Here they are in an attempted group photo. Notice Erich with his own camera too :-)


It's really funny how three year olds don't quite "get" birthdays yet though. Almost as if "bringing out the birthday cake" was synonomous with "blowing out the candles", one of Erich's friends tried to "blow the candles" when the cake came out instead of Erich! :-)

Old Treasures -- Roses

Roses are red, Violets are blue, these roses remind me of you!

Up first in our "old treasures series" is this wonderful vase of dried roses. They were given to my wife by yours truly, and she has been keeping all of them in this vase ever since she and I were dating. (That's a lot of roses!) They remind us of our courtship together, but lately they have also been accumulating a lot dust and perpetuating our allergies, so unfortunately they have to go.

Two interesting memories come to mind when I think of these roses:

The first was my practice to give her thirteen roses instead of the traditional dozen. Having started dating on Friday, October the 13th, thirteen was our "lucky" number.

The second is the most memorable time I have ever given roses to my wife: It was the day I proposed to her (May 30, 2001). On that day, I arranged for a scavenger hunt throughout the city. Along with several strategically placed friends, I handed her various clues and momentos as she criss-crossed across the city. I had the privilege of handing her a dozen roses at the site of our first date (GM Place). At that point in the scavenger hunt, there were still many places to go, but how exciting it was to hand her thirteen roses knowing that in a couple of hours I would be atop Burnaby Mountain asking for her hand in marriage!