Well another month is almost over, and I thought I should write a quick update to the old blog. I have actually just changed over all the hosting, I’m getting rid of the old photophono tag and just going with paul-lancaster.com from now on. I’ll be updating the whole site sometime soon, so keep checking back.

Well it has actually been quite a busy month, My little princess Avie turned 2 months old, she is growing so fast, it is quite shocking. Parents always talk about how fast their kids grow up and you don’t really appreciate the fact until you witness it first hand. She is so bright and bubbly, she craves attention though and she loves hanging out with Mummy and Daddy. She doesn’t like to be put to bed sometimes, I think because she doesn’t like being in her room on her own and just wants to hang out, she is definitely going to be a sociable little flower.

Crystal and I bought a car, a ‘98 Honda Civic. I have been meaning to take a photo, part of the reason I haven’t wrote a blog is because I was waiting until I had a photo of the car to post, but with the crappy weather the car has been pretty dirty and it’s too cold to go out and clean it. I’ll update with a photo soon though. It’s so nice to have a car, we don’t feel as trapped anymore, it was hard to get anywhere around here without a vehicle. It was strange getting used to driving an automatic at first though, but I have the hang of it now, although I still don’t like it as much as driving a manual car.

My temporary visa expired this month too, I can’t believe it has been a year that I have been in Canada now! It has gone by crazy fast. I have applied for an extension to visitor status, which I’m still waiting to hear back about. The lady at Immigration told me that once it is sent in the post it is taken that it is approved, until Canadian Immigration advise me otherwise. It better all go through okay!!! I took my medical examination too, for the application for permanent residency. I had to head over to Fredericton and go for a check up at the doctor and then for blood tests and a chest x-ray at the nearby hospital. It was a surprisingly smooth and fast process, I was expecting it to take all day but in fact it only took a couple of hours for the whole thing. The only dumb thing was when they asked me about average weekly alcohol intake, I didn’t take into account the weeks when I don’t drink anything at all, I was adding up the average consumption for when I actually drink, which obviously puts my average higher if I don’t take account of the zeros! I hope they don’t think I’m an alcoholic.

Crystal and Avie applied for their passports for our trip to England too. They should be arriving in April. It is so exciting to be going over to see everyone, I miss my family so much, especially since the arrival of little Avie, I can’t wait for her to meet everyone, especially her cousin Jodie who is super excited I’m sure. We also got tickets to see Modest Mouse in London, which is a band that Crystal and I both LOVE. I have a lot to sort out before the trip too, not least getting the speech ready that me an Tim will have to make at Shai and Lisa’s wedding. I haven’t even had chance to think about that yet! It will scare me too much if I do I’m sure.

Well we will be into April in a few hours! My main goal for the month is to get all my immigration forms filled in and sent off. I definitely need to get all that done and dusted before we leave for England, in fact much sooner than that. Well I better go for now. I will try my best to post more often in this coming month and update with some photos soon. Bye for now.

Well it’s been a while since I wrote a Blog …again! So here’s a little update. I’ve been back working at The Source this last month or so, although I will be finishing there soon, as my visa expires, and then I won’t be able to work while we are applying for my permanent residency. It will be nice to be home with Avie and Crystal though and it will mean we have time to work on the T-Shirts. I will hopefully be able to help Crystal out with that somewhat, while I can’t work, or at the very least look after Avie while Crystal works on it.

Avie is doing really well now, we have her on the Alimentum formula, which is a formula where the proteins are broken down to make it easier to digest. The doctor also prescribed her some baby zantac, which helps with her reflux symptoms. She is so cute! She still gets mad when she wants her milk, but most of the time now she is so pleasant and contented. She is reacting so much now too when you talk to her and it’s so much fun watching her develop little skills, like learning to get her hands in her mouth, which she is getting good at now, she is starting to take hold of things in her hands more now too. Here’s the latest photo of her, taken an hour or so ago.

She also has her very own Blog now too at www.avielancaster.com So Crystal and I will be posting lots of photos and videos of her there from now on. It’s almost all set up so keep an eye on it. I am working on my new website too and will be moving my Blog in the next couple of weeks to www.paul-lancaster.com but check back here for updates on that, as it might take me a while to actually get around to it.

LOST is back! In just a few minutes infact so I am off to watch that right now, I can’t wait, it seems like I’ve been waiting forever for it to come back.

In other news I’ve been back at work at the old source that last couple of days. It is a completely different store to what I was used to in Ottawa, it is so quiet all day. It kills me being away from Avie all day. Speaking of Avie, Crystal took her to the doctors today, to get her poor little belly checked out, he told her to buy the Alimentum formula for her to see how she takes to it and if it goes well he will give us a prescription for it. Well she had her first feed, it seemed to go down pretty well, I guess she still has the old stuff in her belly though so right now it is too early to tell.

Eeeek LOST just came on, better go.

Beautiful Avie. This is the latest photo, taken 10.18 am 2nd Feb.

Well, Our little Avie has been with us for over 2 weeks now, so I guess it is time I wrote a little blog about our little princess. So I’ll start at the beginning…

After Crystal’s water breaking on the Sunday, and after a short visit to the hospital, we were booked in for an induction at 8am the following morning (Monday 15th). The nurse that was with Crystal as we started the induction process predicted that we should be ready to go at supper time, which is the same as our tea time for my British readers, around 5-6pm. There was a snow storm forecast for that day, so I was so glad to be in the hospital at that point, much better to get snowed in there than to get snowed in at home. So as the ground outside whited over with the snowfall and the contractions started to steadily build up, we got settled in for a long day.

So the pitocin drip was bringing the contractions on nice and strong and regular, and things seemed to be progressing nicely, but when the doctors checked Crystal for the dilation a few hours into it, it seemed that little Bumpy wasn’t pushing their way down. The pain was starting to build up for poor Crystal too and at around 1.30pm she was given an epidural for the pain, this soon had her feeling more comfortable, but after further checks later on, it seemed that the epidural has slowed things down and there was still no progress on the dilation. When it got to around 5pm our doctor let us know that if there was still no progress by 8pm then we would have to go in for a C-Section. Crystal had said from day one that that was the last thing she wanted, so I was really worried for her. Over the next few hours things started to get more difficult for Crystal, as the pain of the contractions started to come back. She feared that the epidural has slipped out of her back, she kept asking me to check it, now an anesthetist I am not, so I couldn’t really tell what was going on with all the tubes in her spine, but when the nurse checked it she was confident there was nothing wrong. So poor Crystal had to grin and bear it, and the pain continued to build right up to 8PM, when our doctor came back to confirm that there had still been no progress and a C-section was going to be in order

So they came in to wheel Crystal off into the operating room, and provided me with scrubs to change into. Anxious to be by Crystal’s side I quickly got changed, but had to wait until they had her all ready before I could go into the room. They said it would only be 10 minutes but it actually took around 45 minutes before I could go in, it turned out that the epidural had become unattached, just like Crystal had thought, and the anesthetist had to give her a “spinal” I wasn’t sure exactly what that entailed when the nurse was explaining it to me, other than thinking that it sounded painful. So when I finally got into the OR with Crystal, she was pretty dazed and confused, it was pretty scary to see here all wired up to machines and all the doctors prodding and poking at her, but before we knew it there she was, little Avie Elizabeth! It hapened pretty quickly and I just remember the doctor saying “It’s a girl” and feeling so elated to see her scrunchy little face s he held her up, I was so happy for Crystal too (as I knew she secretly wanted a girl).

Poor Crystal couldn’t really see anything as she was still attached to all the machines and was being sewn back together, but I could see our little Avie as the nurses cleaned her up, I just remember telling Crystal how beautiful she looked, even with her poor little cone head. She was born at 20:53 and weighed in at 8 pounds 12 ounces. Crystal got the chance to hold her for few minutes and then the nurses passed her to me and lead me out into the recovery area, to wait for the new mummy while she was cleaned up.

So I got my first chance to bond with Avie on my own, it was amazing just sitting there alone with here, even though it was quite scary the same time, as there didn’t seem to be anyone around at all. But after a couple of minutes it felt really comfortable having her in my arms and it was so exciting when she opened her eyes, it was like she was looking right at me, even though I knew she couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t believe how much I instantly loved her, I just felt so proud.

Eventually they wheeled Crystal into the recovery area, I was pretty weirded out by her shaking, apparently due to the loss of heat from being cut open, but she said she felt good at that point. I eventually wheeled Avie off to meet Nanny Wall and Aunties Sheri and Elizabeth who had been patiently waiting the whole day with us. As poor Crystal had to wait in the recovery room, she got me to film their reaction to finding out the sex, I kept them waiting a few seconds before saying… meet Avie! They were so excited that it was a little girl, the video caught their reaction so well too.

After giving Avie her first little feed, she was taken off to the neonatal unit for the night, where the nurses could keep an eye on here overnight and Crystal and I could get a good nights rest, or at least that was the plan. We were put in a room with another patient, unfortunately we got the ghetto side of the room, and while the other girl enjoyed the window, easy access to the bathroom and plenty of space, we had the delights of a bed that didn’t adjust and being right next to the door opening onto the noisy kitchen area. It soon became apparent that we weren’t going to get the comfortable nights sleep we hoped, particularly when Crystal started to feel more and more uncomfortable. Now some pain after an operation like that is to be expected, but, poor Crystal was starting to shake again, eventually she pressed the buzzer and when the nurse replied on the intercom, Crystal asked if she would receive any pain medication, to which we got no response. I went out to find someone as I was getting pretty worried, I explained that Crystal was experiencing a lot of pain but the nurses on the floor seemed pretty unconcerned, telling me that they did not have the authority to administer any pain medication, and the nurse that could, was in the OR performing a C-section on another patient. After returning to see Crystal almost in tears of pain though, I went back out and asked if they could at least come and check her out and reassure her a little bit, something which they only half heartedly attempted, they seemed unconcerned about Crystal’s uncontrollable shaking too, telling me it was normal. Not being particularly well educated on the C-section process and the after effects of the pain medication, I naively took their word for it and patiently waited it out by Crystal’s side. Eventually a nurse did administer morphine and gave Crystal Tylenol, but it was several hours, and in fact another morphine shot later before Crystal finally felt a little relief. In the morning it was revealed that when Crystal was given her “spinal” she was given one which lasts only a couple of hours and should have been given one that lasts 24 hours, plus regular morphine shots and pain killers from the start.

So after a night of pain for poor Crystal and a night sat in a chair for me, we weren’t as refreshed as we had hoped, but when little Avie was wheeled in, we managed to put all the frustrations aside and just spend the day in awe of our beautiful little girl. Eventually we moved into a private room, where I had a cot to sleep in and things started to get easier for us, poor Avie had some mucus in her belly and wasn’t feeding too well at first, but over the next couple of days she managed to get most of it up and after 2 more nights we were able to leave the hospital. Then it was time for the moment I had been looking forward to since the day we visited the hospital a month or so before… Getting to carry Avie out of the hospital in her car seat, I have to say it was quite simply the proudest moment of my life!

Well 2007 is upon us, we are a good 5 days in before I have even got around to writing my Happy New Year Blog. Christmas and the New Year were both awesome, although it has been hard for Crystal, with not being able to drink and all, and all the parties going on.

2006 has been a crazy year, what with coming here to Canada, getting pregnant and getting engaged and all, it seems to have gone so fast! I imagine 2007 will be just as crazy. It’s going to be hard work, what with getting my paperwork sorted out for immigration before I get kicked out of the country! But love always finds a way so I am sure we will get through it.

Crystal is sooo ready to get that kid out! We both are, it is such an exciting time. We are just playing the waiting game now, we have a doctors appointment on Wednesday, at which the doctor will give us a date for induction, for if things don’t happen naturally. Hopefully they will go naturally though! Crystal is just working on the last poster for the baby’s room right now. That will be the last step in getting the apartment decorated. Today we put up some photos that I took of animals at Barcelona zoo, all in frames that we painted, they look really good and these posters that Crystal is working on will finish the room off.

We are back working on the Tee Party website too, so we will hopefully have couple of new T-shirt designs coming up soon. Go and vote for us on Survivor Tee HERE just click the vote button next to our “Recycled” T-shirt.

YAY! We are finally here in our new home in New Brunswick, with Internet set up and everything! The journey here from Ottawa was super smooth, it didn’t feel like too long at all, even though it was a good 12 hours in the van. Now we are just waiting for the last of our stuff to arrive from a shipping company, it is supposed to be here today, but it is now looking like it will be tomorrow.

The apartment is looking good already though, I painted the baby’s room last week before we moved in, it is going to be so much fun getting it all ready for the baby, Crystal is folding all the little clothes right now. We have so much stuff for the baby from the baby showers that we have had over the last few weeks. Thank you to everyone!

We had snow yesterday, it is looks so beautiful outside, here is the view from our window…

Well my pledges to be a better blogger have failed and failed again, so I’ll just have to settle for being a slack-ass. So what have I been up to eh? Well, we went to a Halloween party where I donned the fake baby bump and dressed as a pregnant nun, Crystal, sporting the REAL baby bump dressed as a stinky skunk. Last weekend we had a semi-surprise baby shower, I say semi-surprise as I already knew about it due to Crystal being so damn hard to throw a surprise party for. In the end it was still a surprise for Crystal at least. Good times were had, we drank beer, played games, sang karaoke.

Right now we are busy planning our move to New Brunswick and packing all our stuff. Crystal and I are really looking forward to getting into our new place and getting the nursery ready for the little monkey. It’s going to be so much fun setting up our new home!

Yes the T-Shirt shop is coming along really well now! We have been online 2 weeks and we have had a steady stream of visitors. Crystal and I are really excited about the way things are going. We just launched a couple of new designs last night and today we just re-edited the photos page and are now inviting all our customers to send in photos of themselves in our shirts. It will be fun to see how that develops.

Click the thumbnails to check the new designs…

Ragdoll, Hot Dog! and Sightings.

Wow I’m bad at blogging, it’s been a month since my last post, but with the day job and working on the T-Shirt website I just never get around to it. I didn’t even make a post after Crystal and I had the ultrasound at the hospital, so here is a picture from that…

Amazing Eh? Usually when I see other peoples ultrasound pics it’s hard to make out what I’m looking at, but with our little one I can see all the beautiful details. I have felt a few kicks too now which is an amazing feeling. I can’t wait to feel more as he/she gets bigger and stronger.

Work is going well, I could almost call myself a sales person now. I’ve even started selling cell phones, which feels like quite an accomplishment considering a month ago I knew almost nothing about the Canadian cellular market. It’s been so busy the last couple of days with all the back to schoolies in town, I’m so happy I wasn’t working today on Labour day, I can only imagine how crazy busy it must have been! I have tomorrow off too, it’s almost like having a weekend. YAY!

The T-shirt site is coming on strong now, we will be ready for launch any day now so keep your eyes on www.theteeparty.com We ordered our first couple of batches of shirts too. Crystal had a batch of girls shirts sent to New Brunswick and arranged a whole modeling shoot when she was back home. I have ordered some boys shirts and we will be doing a photo shoot here in Ottawa when they arrive, which will be really funny I’m sure. I can’t wait to just get it launched and see how many visitors we can attract. This time next year, Rodders, this time next year!