So......memories of lazy days on the beach in Tofino are fading a wee bit and the milestones are coming thick and fast at the moment. Solid lying, sitting and eating, as well as a preschool start and a spot of mountain biking. Apart from the girls and their milestones, Andy has started and is loving his new job, granny is currently here on holidays and has brought glorious sunshine and Tom, Todd and Bertha are periodically appearing and parking up on our driveway. Me - I'm just happily mothering along.....

July and August photo update

Here are some general photos taken over the last couple of months - they include the girls (obviously!); our new canoe; the Murphy and Robinson visitors; camping in the Okanagan; Ruby's 'christening' party; our trip to Tofino and the men scaling some snowy mountains. Hope you like them!

Tofino time

Family Robinson are currently enjoying sun sand and surf on the west coast of the Island with CCTJ - it's been a busy last month, with an excellent visit from the Murphys and now the Mayfield branch of the Robinson clan.
We'll post a full update when we get back - we have stacks of photos, so we'll do some editing and load some up.

Spring has sprung......

....and the childers are growing fast. Ruby is eleven weeks now and just about still fitting into her 3-6 months sleep suits. She seems to be growing a bit faster than her big sister did. Perhaps she'll inherit some of her Uncle Chris's genes?! Lots of smiling and 'talking' these days.....especially from Holly, who is getting pretty excited about the fact that she'll be seeing lots of cousins in the next month or so. She is also pretty excited to have discovered that she can dress Ruby up as a princess playmate!


In general life is good with all in the Robinson household and apart from keeping busy with banal things like work, DIY and gardening, we've both managed a spot of climbing in the last week. The mountain bikes and kayaks have also been resurrected with the onset of summer. We are looking forward to dusting them off and to welcoming lots of visitors in the coming months. Hopefully the weather perks up a bit........

Finally......

So, things hotted up alright and a second bouncing baby girl, Ruby Maeve Ali, arrived on March 20th weighing in at a fraction under 8lbs.

She's almost 8 weeks now and has been a model baby so far, thankfully only waking her mother once a night for a feed. She's packing on the pounds and now smiling and cooing/gurgling a lot and looks just like her big sister Holly did at that age.

Holly has taken pretty well to the big sister thing, offering occasional strokes and murmurs of affection but generally getting on with things as normal and forgetting that Ruby's there most of the time.

Andy took two weeks 'paternity leave' off at the time of the birth and managed to spend 90% of that time working outside on various mammoth clearance/drainage/fence and deck building works! We now have two very cool decks and lots of cool fencing as a result. Photos of deck to follow soon. We had some crazy weather in Ruby's first couple of weeks, including heavy snowfall resulting in an electricity outage (see photo below!). We made good use of and were very grateful for our new wood stove.

Thankfully we managed to escape to Galiano Island for 6 days to celebrate Andy's birthday, Ruby's arrival and the fact that there was no DIY to do. Andy's birthday binoculars proved incredibly useful for spotting killer whales, dolphins, seals, otters, humming birds etc. from our deck and shore line. We did some gentle strolling, arsing on beaches and parents enjoyed soaking in the hottub each evening. Holly equally enjoyed the hot tub and has been asking if daddy can build a hottub at home ever since!



All in all we are finding parenthood much easier and more enjoyable second time around and we are looking forward to a summer full of sun and visitors. Thanks so much for all the good wishes and gifts we have received since Ruby's arrival. They are much appreciated. Hopefully we'll be a bit better at updating the blog now that the minor detail of birth is out of the way..........

Hotting up...

Well, it's just after five in the afternoon here, and we've had a great day for Hols' 3rd Birthday - many pink outfits, glitter sparkles and a new doll's house - sooper exciting!
I'll post photos a bit later.
Main news is that Mrs R is reporting that things are 'getting going', so we've packed Hols off to the Zawadzkis for the evening - we'll see what happens - I'll keep those people informed who would want to be kept informed of such things.......

Smith Rocks!

The weekend after OD went off for her 3 days of pampering and luxury, I decided to sit in a car with Colin for 7 hours whilst I bombarded him with melancholic singer songwriters from my ipod - serves him right for only bringing the 100 greatest handbag house tracks on his fancy music phone.

Drive down was fun actually - been a long while since I was down in deepest Seattle and central Oregon.


Portland has a lot of people who really rate god as "an all round good chap" - maybe he'll sort out their sub-prime mortgage mess for them.

Portlanders do appreciate the finer things in life though...... not bad for a corner shop.


On the way down we went boarding on Mt Hood - makes you realise just how lucky we are to have Whistler just up the road. As you can see, we were stoked. This was pre-shredding.



Post shredding on lumpy icy snow, we were a little less syked.

Col did manage a little off-piste bouldering though.....


We then spent a couple of days climbing at Smith Rocks - good to be back - it'd been nearly 10 years since I was last there - it was still fingery. Most entertaining couple of days with a bunch of reprobate vancouver climbing types.
Really cool place though - be a good spot to go back en famille in the autumn and do some camping, climbing, paddling, snake bothering etc.

OD goes to spa

OD went off with the girls for a well earned spa break to the Island - I took the Friday off work, and me and Hols spent all weekend drinking beer and eating burgers.




We also managed to hit a couple of parks, get some snowshoeing in and meet Colin and the gang up at The Bluffs - spring hit with a vengeance, and it was t-shirts all round.


Hols likes lollipops......


- still lots of snow up high though.