Firehall #15 and Dad's Day 2014

On the Friday morning before we were to pick Daddy up from the airport after his trip to Romania, Jordan's school went on a trip to the local Firehall.  Mommy and Cygni came along, as Cygni is a big fan of the animated show Fireman Sam, and she loved seeing the engines and the firefighters.

 Firefighter Mike dons all of his turnout gear.  He says it weighs about 60 lbs, all told!

 Got a great shot of J-man in the fire truck, but sadly, the one of Cygni didn't turn out.

Thank you firefighters!

Today, of course, was Father's Day!  So we let Daddy sleep in as long as he wanted, then we went for a late breakfast before driving to about 100 km to Hope to see the Othello Tunnels.  Once we got back into town we headed for Cindi and Jason's for a BBQ dinner with Cousin Isabella and her family too.  What a great day!  We hope you enjoyed it, Daddy!

 We got lucky for our walk to the tunnels, though it was partly cloudy, 

we never got more than a few drops of rain falling on us.

The Othello Tunnels were originally part of the CPR's Kettle Valley Railway built in the early 1900's and here in the Coquihalla River Gorge, these tunnels were blasted into solid granite!  The engineering mastermind behind this project, Andrew McCollough, was a bit of a Shakespeare fan and named many of the stations in the Coquihalla subdivisions after characters in the bard's plays, hence the name The Othello Tunnels.  Severe washouts in the region eventually lead to the closure of this part of the rail route in 1959 and the line was made officially defunct in 1961.  Finally, in 1986 the area became a provincial recreation area, Coquihalla Canyon Provincial Park; a perfect spot to visit on Father's Day!

 Looks like a place right out of an Indiana Jones movie!
Speaking of movies, fans of Sly Stallone's Rambo: First Blood 
might find the area familiar, as the famous helicopter scene was filmed here.

Cygni lights up!

I admit, I wasn't too sure how well the Little Dumers would do on this walk, it's just over 3 km round trip, but even 3 km is no fun with a 60 lb kid hanging off you!  I hoped that the fun darkness of the tunnels, interspersed with glimpses of the raging river and getting to play with flashlights would make the walking go by fast, and it did.  The kids walked the whole way with J-man only starting the whine to be carried just as we were finishing the tunnels and began our walk to the car.

 Dad and Jordan checking out Mommy's favourite tunnel

a hint of the old railway line 

 We love this photo, as you can see, Jordy has taken his little sister's backpack 

to carry on top of his own!  What a sweet guy!

Gotta love Jordan's grin!

Mommy by the Coquihalla River

A little brotherly affection at snack time would be okay, right!?

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!

And we hope all our other favourite Dads had a great day too!

Happy Father's Day!

I am typing this on what is officially Monday morning, but as I have yet to hit the sack, I am calling it Sunday still. We celebrated Chris' very first Father's Day with a DQ cake and stayed in to watch Gran Torino. Jordan was very obliging and we only had to pause the movie once or twice to get the Little Dumer settled again. It was, although low-key, a nice Dad's Day overall and we hope all the other Dads out there had a good day as well.
We rounded out our first week sans Papa-Bear just fine, and think we just may be okay after all. But it was great to have Daddy home this weekend and the time simply flew by us. It turns out that Chris' last VFS day until the Fall term is tomorrow, so Mondays won't be as bad after this one, and we have Mommy's friend Jen Engracio coming to spend a little time with us so this one will be pretty easy too.
Besides celebrating Father's Day and it being Summer Solstice, we also marked Jordy's 4th week with us! He's getting fairly fat and sassy! We haven't been to a clinic or doctor's office recently so we don't know how much he weighs (though I joked to Chris while we were in the grocery store's bulk food aisle that we could toss him onto one of those scales really quickly,) but his cheeks are way chubbier than they were when we brought him home and we measured him; he is now 58 centimeters (approximately 23 in.) long! That is up from 50 cm (about 20 in.) at birth -- well done little guy! Though his eyes started out a steely grey colour, we're pretty sure they have settled into being brown like his Mama's and though we originally thought he had the Espedido nose, we now think he may have gotten it from the Dumaresqs instead, for although it is cute and squat right now, you can see a bit of squareness developing on each side above the nostrils. He very clearly has his Daddy's chin and his Mommy's lips. And much to both parents' consternation it looks like the little dude will have the "Gunn Gap" in his front teeth, although to be fair it was Deb's teeth that required orthodontic work growing up, not Chris'. He has one brown almond shaped birthmark on his left flank, and two "Mongolian blue" spots on his bum. We have yet to figure out his hair colour, it looks to be a light blondish brown, but Aida and Mommy swear sometimes it looks red! So, who knows, he could have his Nanny's carrot top someday! At any rate, it appears that, in general, Chris' genes are winning out. Every time we find a new feature that's like Daddy, Daddy apologises, but right now we both think he's pretty cute and can't wait to see how everything comes together!