Halloween on a Saturday–how perfect.

It was a very busy Saturday in the Molata household. The girls had a Halloween party at their dance studio in the afternoon, so Erika busily got them ready into their costumes. It was nice, as we were able to drop them off and have 2 hours to ourselves–which involved a rather tasty lunch. After the party we picked them up and headed home where we ran around like decapitated zombies getting things ready for the evening festivities. Erika’s parents came over and we had dinner, and then once again got the kids ready for trick or treating fun.

And wow, did they have a good time. They got SO MUCH CANDY. Mountains. Really, with 3 kids going out, the piles of sugar add up shockingly fast.

Madeleine and Claire both went as fairies, and Charlotte went as Alice.

After we got the kids to bed, Erika and I started working on our own costumes as we had an “adults-only” Fangbangers party to go to, hosted by Erika’s cousin Marcy and her husband George. And what fun–er, chaos–we had!

I was originally aiming for Bon Jovi circa 1986, but ended up looking like Vince Neil circa 1987. Which was fine by me. It was fun being an out-of-control big-hair rocker. Erika went as an 80s new wave girl, complete with bangles and big hair and crazy-bright neon clothes. She looked awesome!

We made it to the party on time and proceeded to get somewhat (okay, maybe “quite”) inebriated. Marcy and George put on an awesome event, including a bottles of Type A Neg (fruit punch Gatorade), which I quickly spiked with vodka. Why not replenish your electolytes while drinking? Exactly. We ended up staying overnight (planned) as we didn’t go to bed (er, pass out) until 3:30AM.

I haven’t had this much fun on Halloween in a long time. Can’t wait for next year!

You’ll have to excuse me, I’ve been buried in laundry and unpacking since returning on Sunday from a wonderful vacation at the beach. I’ve also been swamped with getting back up to speed at the day jobbe. Both of which has kept me pretty busy and unable to blog etc.

Do know that the entire family had a wonderful time at the cottage, and the kids are all sun-kissed and happy and wishing they could go back. And they will–we’re going to take a quick trip back to the beach over the Labour Day long weekend.

But before then, I need to busy myself with writing and such. And getting caught up on some blog posts about some great books I’ve read lately.

Off to the beach later today with the family for camping, beer, books, and sandcastles. Back on Monday.

So need this.

Be good!

What an odd, depressing summer, weather-wise.

It has been nothing but frigid days mixed with rain, rain, and more rain. And like, really frigid. And if it’s not cold outside, it’s raining. Or it’s both.

I mean, come on, where is the hot and steamy July I crave all year? Where is the warm weather that I travel for in the winter months?

This weekend was of the rainy variety. So much so that the streets flooded and people were trapped in cars and homes were wrecked. Luckily we didn’t have any flooding in our basement ourselves, but a lot of people weren’t so fortunate. It was 2 days of solid rain marked by thunderstorms and lightning, with a sprinking of sun showers here and there.

In fact, the closed the highway near my place since it was flooded over, along with several city streets.

I didn’t think we lived in monsoon territory–guess I was wrong.

A week ago we went camping with the kids to our favourite summertime locale–Sauble Beach. But wow, was it cold. We had to pack blankets galore, and long-sleeved shirts and pants and hoodies. On what normally is the hottest weekend of the summer, we froze. Very surreal. The beach was empty, the usually bustling beach-town streets were pretty vacant. Almost to post-apocalyptic proportions. I’ve never seen Sauble Beach that dead in the middle of July.

To give you an idea of how cool it was on the beach, here I am trying to look excited (though that may have been the beer).

Yeah, it was that cold that I had to wear a hoodie over a t-shirt at 2 in the afternoon ON THE BEACH!

Even sacrificing seagulls and drinking their blood did not appease the sun gods.

This coming long-weekend we’re heading back up to Sauble Beach for 4 days of camping and beach fun. I hope that the weather takes a turn for the better being that August kicks off the 2009 season on Saturday. Let’s hope.

But if not, I will not let this horrid summer weather get my spirits down–and will, in fact, drink more spirits to keep me warm.

Wow. 6 years. Where has the time gone? (yes, I know, that is a repeating theme to my blog posts, the whole hey, what happened, we’re in another week theme?!)

I hope you have a wonderfully stellar day today Charlotte.

And tonight, we dine on Chinese food, by request of the birthday girl. Yummy!

Love you!

I’ve always considered myself blessed, or lucky, or both when it came to my family. Somehow, after all the silly things I’ve done in my life, after all the mistakes and missteps, I’ve ended up having the most awesome 3 daughters a Dad could wish for, and an equally amazing wife. How this all happened, I’m not totally sure.

But I know they’re always there for me, no matter what comes around the corner, or what has already happened in the past.

Yet it wasn’t until this morning that I really, truly realized how fortunate I am to have them all in my life.

Yes I know, you can file this under Sappy Post Time, but it’s true.

As Neil Gaiman mentions here in a Father’s Day post, I’ve learned more from being a father than anything else I’ve done–and the ride is just getting started.  I’m learning to find new ways to acquire patience when there doesn’t seem to be any around, new ways to listen, new ways to make pancakes. And as I look toward the future, I must say it can be a scary and daunting thing to contemplate. How to let my girls grow up safely? How to keep them from making bad choices in a dark world? How to protect them?

I know there’s no right answer to any of those questions–it’s all trial by fire. I hope they’ll be able to run across the bed of coals without falling. And knowing this doesn’t make the prospect of raising 3 girls any easier, let me tell you.

But for now, as they’re young and innocent and still love to give their Dad hugs and kisses and cuddles, I think I’ll stop worrying about the future so much and just enjoy the present. Enjoy the little drawings left around the house and the giggles and laughter. Enjoy the quiet moments while they watch Disney movies and colour. And even enjoy  the tantrums and crying–for when those are gone, and they’re off to school and shopping at the mall or hanging with their friends instead of their parents, the house will surely become more quiet. And as much as a quieter house sounds appealing, I’m not totally convinced yet that it’d be a good thing.

I can’t wait to come home from the day jobbe tonight and hear them yell “Daddy!” and listen to them stampede toward me, armed with those big welcome home hugs.

Those hugs make any horrific day turn golden.

And another week disappears into the ether…

Not quite sure where the time is going, but I’ve obviously lost control of it somewhere. I even tried pausing time yesterday, and failed.

But it was a hectic yet fun week anyways. Lots of things going on writing-wise, and lots of things going on around the home too. We hosted our annual Canada Day party on the Sunday as having it on July 1st, which was a Wednesday, didn’t make a lot of sense–meaning we didn’t want to host 30+ people and work the day before, so Sunday gave us an extra day to prepare.

Besides the weather being somewhat questionable with cloudy skies in the morning, the sun came out and gave us some warm weather when people started arriving. After dinner the clouds rolled, letting the rain fall for about an hour, but luckily enough they moved along and allowed us to light off our fireworks display without issue.

Then the week folded into day jobbery and running around here and there until Wednesday–Canada Day!

We took the kids to a local park, where a company was hosting a huge bash. We met up with some family (who got us tickets into the festivities), and had dinner and such. The kids had a blast, playing around and getting temporary tattoos. We packed up just as the rain started to fall, making a quick escape.

Here are a few pics of the girls having fun at the park.

That’s it for now. I need to go find where the sun disappeared to.

There goes another week.

I’m having a really hard time managing time right now, something I have usually been pretty good at. Day jobbe has been very busy and very stressful as of late, things at home have been very busy, writing has been busy, agent chats have been good–which means I’m busy.

Just everything is BUSY.

So excuse me while I catch my breath for a moment.

Last Sunday was Father’s Day, a day I’ve come to appreciate and look forward to since becoming, well, a father. I had a wonderful day with my kids (and wife!), where we got up early and headed out to our favourite local greasy spoon for breakfast with other family members. We then headed home where I got presents! For being a swell dad! Crazy-talk. And there were some cool things under the wrapping paper, like Depeche Mode’s new album, and a copy of Forgetting Sarah Marshall…and…and…a new mp3 adapter for my car! Something I’ve wanted for a long time. I can now listen to audio books on the way into work. Huzzah!

Then I took Charlotte to see Up. And wow, what a FUN movie. Really loved it. The story really hit home with me, how it deals with mortality, family, age, growing old, time, love, disappointment, LIFE. I think, to be honest, this may have become my most favourite of favourite Pixar films, knocking out the beloved The Incredibles.

Up is that good.

And this was the first time I was able to do something with just Charlotte, where we could go out together and talk and have fun. I mean, we’ve done lots of things before like go the the mall or the Aveda salon or whatever, but not like this. We grabbed a show, went to Starbucks, had a drink and talked and joked, and looked at books. It was fun.

After a great Father’s Day, the chaos of the week began with Charlotte’s dance recital. Monday was dress rehersal and Tuesday and Wednesday night were performances. It was crazy, and Erika did an amazing job getting Charlotte ready in time and running her here and there.

We had a bunch of family come to see Charlotte dance on the Tuesday night, which Charlotte loved. She is a real performer and adores the limelight–what a surprise! She’s been accepted into the competitive dance program next year, so she will start dancing 3 nights a week doing jazz, ballet, and tap. She’ll also continue with her gymnastics and swimming as well. She is very much looking forward to the new season–and so am I.

I really love seeing her enjoy the arts.

The rest of the week disappeared into a chaotic wash of running around, which I will get to later, once I try and get some sleep or something.

Check out more pics in the photo section.

You know those weekends that are just perfect? Those weekends you don’t want to end, that everything is just clicking along and that nothing could derail your spirit? That was last weekend. True, it happened to be a long weekend here in Canada, so that made it extra good, but still–it was just fun.

Friday night I met my brother-in-law to go look at trees for our backyard as he is a landscaping genius and did some awesome drawings for us. After trees were decided on, we headed back to my place where Erika’s sister joined us and their little guy, Owen. We put the kids to bed and ordered in Chinese food, chatted over chow mein goodness, and then watched TAKEN–an entertaining albeit short film. It could have used another 10 minutes on the end, but Liam Neeson rocked it like Jason Bourne.

Saturday I took the family to the tree farm to confirm the selections from the prior evening. It was crazy-muddy, but Charlotte liked splashing in the puddles. Then that afternoon Charlotte had a birthday party to attend in a nearby town, a town that Erika’s cousin Marcy lives in. We dropped Charlotte off at the party and went for shawarma with Claire and Madeleine. After the party we headed to Marcy and George’s so the kids could play with their kids and us adults could–well–drink and be merry. Dinner and conversation were great, even though I failed in my attempt at getting the ladies to cover themselves in green body paint so I could live out my Star Trek fantasies.

Sunday was a stay-at-home day, where we got caught up on chores, watched the Grey’s Anatomy season finale, and pretty much relaxed.

Monday we got up early (like every day) and headed to Niagara-on-the-Lake for the day–one of my most favourite places to spend a day. The weather was drop-dead gorgeous, with a perfect Spring breeze and clear blue skies. We did our usual walk of hitting all the shops, like the fudge factory, and the bakeries, jam shoppe, the Christmas Store (where it is Christmas 365-days a year), one of the countless ice cream parlours, wine stores, well, the list goes on. It’s a wonderful place.

We took a great picture of the girls standing in front of some flowers while we were walking around.

And then Charlotte volunteered to take our picture, so we gave her the camera and she took two great shots of Erika and I. All that time she has spent with her own camera has paid off. Maybe now we won’t always have single pictures of us while travelling with the kids. 

More pictures here.

After we got home from Niagara-on-the-Lake, we put the kids to bed and I fired up the BBQ. Grilled some steaks and asparagus and enjoyed some quite dining time with Erika over wine.

So that was the weekend. Fun. And one I wasn’t quite ready to let go of. Maybe next weekend will be just as entertaining.