Goodbye Facebook, at least for now.

I spend a lot of time on computers. I have a computer from work, provided to me to do all of my work on. Three days a week I sit on a computer for at least 8 hours. 

When I am home, I live on Facebook. I also blog, watch shows, and send emails.

But I mostly sit on Facebook.

And if I am not checking Facebook every 15 minutes when I am home, I know I will check it when I come home from being out.

Facebook was ruling my life.

Not to mention I can't stand 98% of the status updates I see on the News Feed, and I rarely attend any of the "events" I am invited to- so I really don't miss out there.

I can't deny how easy it is to get in touch with anyone though. Everyone checks their Facebook about as often as me, and I can get replies from it very quickly to make plans with friends. I also love looking at the photos of people's families as they bring new babies into the world. And every so often, there is a status that is actually interesting and informative, or just makes me laugh. But that is rare. 

I am also bothered how it can be used in negative ways, making information public instantly. I am sure all of us can think of ways this happens, and a big one is cyber bullying now, especially with kids. 

But what bothered me more was that I would play Sesame Street videos for Wren in one window, and be surfing Facebook in the other window while she watched her show on my lap. It was putting Wren in front of a screen more, just because I wanted to check my Facebook...umm..can someone say deadbeat?? 

Kidding.

I am not saying Facebook is inherently evil, it's only what you make of it. I am not saying it's wrong to be on Facebook, or have a profile. Obviously. I love it for lots of reasons too. But Spring is around the corner, and the last thing I should be making time for these days is checking my News Feed when I could be out with friends, playing with Wren and going on walks...or just about a million other more satisfying and enjoyable activities out there.

Don't get me wrong, I am going to want it back in about 1 hour, I can guarantee you. However, if that is the case, can you see another reason why it was a good thing for me to get rid of it? (*coughaddictcough*)...

So, if you thought I only deleted you from my 'Friends' list, rest assured, I only deleted myself, and I still like you and can be reached by phone. :) (or email if you still do that kind of thing).

In other news, Wren loves...LOVES sitting on the ledge in the fridge, playing with the bottles of salad dressings and condiments. I don't get it, it's cold, and she doesn't seem to notice!

Black and White Stripes

I look at Wren here, and see a big kid running towards me...

I look at her here, and see the face of a baby...

Wren, don't grow up too fast!

Getting Personal...

Wren loves bras. Wren loves this turquoise polka-dot bra. If she finds it, she carries it around all day, so we thought, 'why not put it on her?'.

So we did, and she loved it and didn't want to take it off.

She wore the bra, and that was that.

The past weekend

On the weekend, family got together to say goodbye to Grandma Jeske. Kenton's Uncle Gregg and Aunty Debbie were here with their kids, and on Sunday night we all had dinner the day before the funeral.

In December, little Lucca Mateo was welcomed into the world by Dave and Lisa. Lisa is a cousin of Dean's, so Kenton's second cousin.

Here is Gregg and Lucca having a snuggle! I would just like to point out that it is not my fault that people blink when the flash goes off. We might have made fun of Gregg (okay, as in the girls made fun) because I think he blinked in every photo they took of him that night.

And Gregg's daughter, Amber-Lynn also getting a chance to hold the little sweetie. Like the good two month old he is, he barely made a peep as he was passed from person to person.

Wrennie and Nana take a peek at him, because Wrennie just can't figure out why all of the attention isn't on her! This is the Amber and Alyssa's friend, Stephanie.

Wren manages to sit for a mili-second on Debbie's lap to get a quick picture in before Wren takes off to just do...stuff.

Gregg, Amber, Alyssa and Steph hanging out before dinner.

Wren takes a look at everyone from a different perspective.

She finds it fairly funny..

Her and Amber play some peek-a-boo by the stairs.

Jordan, Grant, Brad and Kyle.

A semi-rare family photo. And how amazing, we are all smiling, even Wren!

Wrennie and her Papa...

Lisa and Alyssa.

I would also like to point out that if you are a member of the Jeske family and you are under the age of 30, when a photo is taken and you are looking down, it usually means you are on your cell phone. I won't name any names... :)

I can't forget to mention that Wren was given some golf lessons from Uncle Kyle over the weekend as well. She was a good student.

(Notice the golf channel in the background?)

First you hold it like this...

Then you hit the ball like this...

Let's fix that form. Again, we hold the club like this using both hands...

No thanks Uncle Kyle, I would just like to carry everything around instead!

Grandma J's funeral was on Monday, and it was a really nice service for her. There were tears, a few laughs, and also a great slideshow of pictures from her life.

We have all been touched by her in some way. I wish I could have known her before her Alzheimer's had really set in. But despite the disease, from the first time she met me when Kenton and I were dating, she always made me feel like I was one of the members of the family. Her love for Kenton seemed to pour right over from him to me without hesitation. 

She was always so warm, loving, and had such a good sense of humour.

A favourite story our family knows well is when I was about 8 months pregnant with Wrennie. Grandma, Judy and I were shopping at the mall, and sat down for an ice cream. I had a few bags at my feet to carry, and when we were ready to get up, Grandma looked at my bags and said, "Oh let me help you carry...the...carry the...baby!!" We all laughed, and she laughed at herself knowing that what she said didn't really make sense, but it was okay, we knew what she was trying to say.

I would knit a lot at Dean and Judy's, especially in the winters. If Grandma was there, she would talk to me about knitting, and always tell me her story of knitting a cable-knit sweater. She would recall the hole she made it in by accident, but finished it anyway. She would tell me that story almost every time, forgetting she had told it to me the last time she saw me. 

Towards the end of her time with us, she had a hard time participating in any conversation, forgetting what she was saying in the middle of a sentence. She began to sit quietly a lot at family things, and so her and I would take to looking at old photos of the boys and all of her grandkids. 

She seemed to keep Wren in her memory, even with her failing memory. Sometimes she would refer to her "great-grandson". We thought this was because in her memory she had had so many grandsons in her lifetime!

We were all so happy that Grandma could enjoy Wrennie in the time she had left, even getting a couple of changes to bring her to Grandma's bedside in the hospital.

We will miss her dearly. 

2008- Avignon, France- Pt. 1

-Avignon, France-

You will FINALLY start to see a bunch of my own pictures. Hurray!

Everything up until now has been boring in comparison to the rest of our trip. I know, hard to believe ;)

Our room in the hostel in Paris was a furnace. Not only am I sleeping with earplugs, but also a little eye cover for the light. I am probably the most high maintenance sleeper on earth, but I came prepared...except for gross boys farting in our room. Did not prepare for that.

That morning we meet some new girls staying in our room that are each travelling all by themselves. One is travelling until her money runs out. I think this is crazy, personally. I wouldn't have made it past London if it weren't for Chelsie, and now in a country where I don't speak a thing past "fromage" and "bonjour", I would have been even worse off!

We head to the train station after breakfast to catch our train to Avignon. I have never even heard of the place. Chelsie planned it, and that was fine with me. Apparently it is very beautiful and a great smaller city to take a stop in before our next country. 

We are elated that our seats on this train are facing forward for our ride there. It's also the nicest train we have been on yet. I just have to quote the next thing I read in my travel journal because it's funny: "We are happy that smelly b.o. (body odour) mental case man has stopped walking around." HA! I don't remember that, but I am really glad I wrote it down!

France's countryside is whipping by us outside our windows, and it's gorgeous. We see small villages built up on hills, and even a small castle in the distance.

We arrive safely in Avignon, and don't have a clue how to find our hostel. It's another sunny day out, and we are there in the afternoon. The language barrier totally got worse! We manage to find the local bus to get right into the city, (yes, imagine a French ETS...um..how do you know where to get off??)  Our bus driver manages to understand relatively where we want to go and he tells us to stay up at the front so he can tell us when to get off. Phewf. 

We get off at our stop...or so we think...and begin to try and find Hotel Minstral. As we walk down the street, we pass two young guys walking the opposite direction. They say something to us in French, and we make the confused face and shrug our shoulders and laugh. They try again, and we look at each other laughing again. The one boy bursts out in utter disbelief, 

"You no speaky a Frenchy??"

"No!" We laugh.

"Whaaa?!?" They look at each other and laugh and we just keep on walking!

We ask some random locals where the hotel might be...by pointing to the name on the map. They manage to point us in a direction down a side road, and we go walking some more. We somehow stumble across a small city sign high up on the lamppost pointing that the hotel is down this street, and we find it! It's quiet, clean, and cute. An older gentleman runs it himself. It seems that he does the administration and the cleaning all himself as well. 

Our room has a roll-shutter on the window (amazing), television and air conditioning (more amazing!!). We are so excited to be here!!

Avignon is a quiet place, not big-city like Paris, and we are already feeling more comfortable here despite our lack of French vocabulary. The center of the city is surrounded by a large brick wall, but the outside (where our hotel is) is quite ordinary with traffic and businesses and homes all around. 

We are ready for dinner and find some business cards for a few restaurants in the area. One of the places is called the Creperie, and is in walking distance. French crepes, yes!

The Creperie in Edmonton is classier than this place, I have to say. It's like a fast food crepe restaurant. Hilarious already. It is also empty. Totally and utterly empty. I think it's around 5pm? Apparently the French don't eat dinner until 8, 9, um..our bedtime. Seriously, they don't.

We go inside, and there are two guys working. One looks a bit older, in his 30's? The other is about our age. They have big smiles. Their smiles grow bigger when they realize we speak zero English, and we are Canadian.

The younger one of the two is our waiter. We sit on the patio because the weather is so great. We order some savoury crepes by pointing to things on the menu, hoping we know what it is we are getting. Chelsie is trying to ensure that her crepe doesn't have meat. It's super hard for us to communicate with this guy, conveniently he doesn't know a scrap of English. It's thoroughly entertaining. This is already the best dinner by far, but it gets better.

The other guy working comes out when our waiter goes back inside, and he knows a little bit of English. He comes to tell us that our waiter thinks that I am very...what is the word...(we wait paitiently for him to find the word)...very...beautiful! This news brings lots of laughter from us. The waiter has a crush on me. Oh dear.

Our very sheepish waiter comes back to get our plates and convinces us to order dessert, even though we are super full from our huge Denny's-like meal. We choose a chocolate/banana ice-cream crepe. Sure, why not. He brings it out, and his number is written in chocolate sauce on the plate! He motions that we should call him. We take down the number, and eat the massive dessert. By the way, his name is Franckie.

This is the first "real" tip that we leave at a restaurant. We tell him we will call and leave.

I wasn't kidding...the dessert was a monster!

You betcha we're gonna call...but what do you say on the voicemail that he will understand??

We head off to the shopping mall nearby that has a grocery store inside. We buy our breakfast for the next morning, and discover the huge section with the alcohol...something you don't find in a Canadian grocery store!
The mall reminds me of Bonnie Doon...or Westmount. Not big, not much going on, not many good stores.
Here is Chelsie with her purchase from the grocery store. This will be the first of a few...to take home of course!

On our walk back, sometimes a car driving by (with males in it) would flash their lights and maybe even wave a hand out the window. When we come back to our hotel, we ask our host what that means here. Apparently it's the way guys here show girls walking down the street that they like what they see.

I wish I could show you pictures of us at the start of our trip. Our expressions were usually pained from exhaustion, but trying to smile despite our discomfort. But the smiles in these photos are completely genuine, we are totally happy to be here in Avignon. We are having the best time of our trip by far.

Back in our room, we are trying to figure out what to leave on Franckie's voicemail before we make the call. We are just hoping he doesn't pick up and we can't actually have a conversation with him!

We sift through her phrasebook of French vocabulary, and decide that we will tell him that we want to meet at the movie theatre by the restaurant tomorrow night at 6pm. I can't remember who ends up leaving the message out of the two of us, but it is left, and we hope he gets it...and that he understands it. Either way, we plan on seeing a movie in French tomorrow night!

Turning on the television in our hotel room, we come across a news channel covering a story about some festival or concert thing in Rome with tons of teenagers in attendance. It's taking place outside the coliseum, and it's showing the teenagers putting on backpacks full of alcohol. There are even paramedics there specifically for the people getting wasted and blacking out. This is all in French, but it's impossible not to get the jist of what is going on. Completely entertaining television in a foreign language.



-to be continued...

Grandma J

In loving memory of Grandma Jeske. To a beautiful mother, grandmother, and great grandmother!

Big girl shoes

Wren isn't sure about these pigtails. 

And I know I always mention what a growing girl she is...but i can't even believe it, in these photos, she is wearing size 3T...for 3 year olds. Does Joe Clothing just make really small stuff or what??

I bought her a Spring jacket in size 4T just in case. I mean really now.

She is sure of the shoes though. She is so proud to be able to walk around in them!

A new tooth has popped through, and I am quite sure another one is on the way. Those poor flaming red cheeks in the morning! But today she was in a much better mood. The grape teething gel is helping a lot. When she wakes in the night from the discomfort, I rub it on her gums, pop her soother back in, and I don't hear another peep!

We are dying for Spring over here, going outside and playing and taking walks. How about you?

What a week

...from h-e-double hockey sticks!!

Kidding.

Sort of.

Over the weekend, Wren came down with a nasty fever. So that was kind of tough. Then she started to cut a new tooth. Oh my. 

This is all she did all weekend:

Poor little thing. All she ate were Goldfish crackers and milk. 

Today I was desperate and went out and bought one of those baby teething necklaces that are supposed to release something into their skin to help with sore teeth from teething. Usually I am a skeptic with this stuff, here is why:

The most "thorough" website I could find telling of the necklaces healing properties:

http://www.babyteethingnecklaces.com/

After reading the first website, I realized that my purchase was probably not a good one. Here is one site that gives me reason to doubt:

http://www.lisabarger.com/does-it-work/amber-teething-necklaces.html

And this also makes me think this necklace is a dud:

http://www.amberartisans.com/realornotamber1.html

This impulsive purchase speaks to our weekend with Wren, and she is not getting any less grumpy with those burning red cheeks!

My other big thing with the necklace. If people put them on babies at a very young age (let's say 3 months maybe), how can you compare what their teething symptoms are if you hadn't ever put the necklace on them?? You can't really. You can put it on after they have cut teeth without wearing one and maybe see a difference then. 

Anyway, I have about a million more questions about these necklaces. It sort of reminds me of the magnetic bracelet kind of stuff. 

I am a skeptic, skeptic, skeptic. :)

2008- The Most Romantic City on Earth- Paris!

-Paris-

Paris is one hour ahead of London. We are now 8 hours ahead of Edmonton.

We arrive in Paris at 11:30am, and somehow find our hotel called the Three Crowns. Yes, you read that right, hotel. Chelsie, being very wise, figured by this point in our travels, we could be very weary and in need of a private room in a hotel to really catch up on some rest. Especially after our gong-show night in the train station with no sleep. She is so smart!

The hotel is located quite close to the Arc De Triomphe. This is sort of what our view is like of it, but from farther away. We don't go see it up close. I think this had something to do with the fact that we just don't care. We don't really care about much here. I don't know why, maybe we were too worn out. But that is basically our attitude towards our time in Paris in general.

Our room is ready, and it faces into the middle of a tiny courtyard. People's homes have windows that all face into this courtyard, and lines of laundry are strung up as high as I can see out the window in the small space.

The French accents are blowing me away, just like the English ones did at first. I love hearing the people talk!

We take a huge long nap as soon as we get into the room and settle in. The curtains close and the room is black like night. This is already SO much better than a hostel! Not to mention a private bathroom. What a luxury.

It's hot in Paris, 26 Celcius today! In the next couple of days we plan to go to the Eifel Tower, the Louvres and Notre Dame.

Our long nap takes us to bed time, still exhausted, we head to bed and plan for big adventures tomorrow.

In the morning we find a high-end grocery store. It's all organic and fresh, and we are loving it. Peanut butter has become a cheap staple in our diet as well.

As we walk around, we look for a place to eat lunch, and begin to realize the difficulty of our language barrier. We try to order sandwiches (like a french Subway), and have a hard time telling them what we want on them. It's not as easy to speak to the locals anymore!

We go visit a very popular park. I don't know the name of it, it's French I'm sure. It's literally stuffed full of people covering every free piece of space. We barely manage to find a bench to sit on. The weather is incredible, and everyone is out to enjoy it. People watching has become one of our favourite pastimes. So many people to see here, lovers laying on the grass, kids running around, parents reading books, groups of young people just hanging out. There is definitely a different feel in Paris. It's romantic in so many different ways, not just the "young people in love way". It's as if life isn't real here, people just have fun, hang out, and admire the beautiful city and all it has to offer. Le sigh.

Day 2:

I have no idea what constitutes "French food". We order pizza to share at a little french restaurant.
We then spend the day doing our sightseeing.
Notre Dame...whoa! Huge! and beautiful. We get in for free, don't ask me why, I can't remember. It's so grande inside, and hard to get the feel when it's just noisy with tourists. But I loved it, the stained glass alone was so cool.
We move on to the Eiffel Tower. We jump on an RER to get there. RER= double decker train. Sounds crazy, I know. Here is a photo though so you get the idea.
Instead of walking up the tower, we sit in the park beside it and just look at it, take a few pictures- you know the kind where it looks like you are squishing it with your fingers. Like I said, we just weren't feeling the tourist vibe here. It's a beautiful sunny day again, and friggen hot. It's at least 26 Celsius. There are SO many people trying to sell you little ornaments in the shape of the tower.  They have them on huge rings around their arms with tons of little ornaments hanging off. You almost have to be flat out rude to get them to leave you alone, especially if you look like a vulnerable, white, Canadian girl. The park is crowded (unlike in the photo I show you), and we people watch some more.

Paris has a very different feel than London. It basically feels much more unsafe. (Okay, in retrospect as I read what I have written in my travel journal, I realize that we were staying in the most posh area of London, and never really hit the gnarly sides of town, which every city has- hence, felt safer.)
But I do feel like I could be more easily pick-pocketed here, or get picked up by some dude. The men here are way more flirtatious and bold!
Couples (or families too) are way more affectionate in public. In Edmonton, that kind of PDA would not be overlooked, that is for sure.
We probably should have seen the Eiffel Tower at night, it's apparently way more mesmerizing. But Chelsie and I don't really care. I think it's harder to want to do those sorts of things when you wish your significant other was there to experience it with you.

We check our emails after (still homesick), and I get an email from Kenton saying that he is emotionally in tact and hanging out with friends. Thank goodness. I knew this time away would be hard on us both. He is worried for my physical safety and I am worried for his emotional well being. He also tells me that he sold his red Volkswagen. He had been trying to for a while, so yay!

Chelsie and I go for dinner and have the BEST dessert since entering France- creme brulee! She let's me tap the top of the hardened sugar surface with my spoon to get that satisfying "crack!" to the custard underneath. You can't come here and not have that.


This is our St. Christopher's hostel that we stay at after our night in the hotel. And this is the canal. Nice view from our room!

We try to take a stroll by the canal, and it is lined with people this evening. But the many groups of "creepy" men out that night throw us off, and we opt to stay in. We are staying at a hostel tonight, another St. Christopher's, but this one is considerably nicer than the last few of it's kind.
We are in a mixed room though, and the bunk beds are assigned. I have a "moron" sleeping underneath my bed (as I quote in my journal). At the crack of dawn I hear snoring and farting, and then he is getting up and getting his stuff together with his girlfriend to take off. My bed felt like it was on a stormy sea the way it shook and flew around because of how much this guy moved. Lovely.

This is a room similar to the one we stayed in. No, the monkey-teddy bear is not mine. Obviously.

This restaurant is the main floor of the hostel. Definitely a step up from the St. Christopher's in basically every place we have been so far!

After I get over being grumpy from my rude awakening that morning, we eat and head to the Louvres. We set aside a whole day to look at this place, because it is that big. It's incredible!
We see the Mona Lisa, numerous paintings, pottery, sculptures, tapestries, artifacts, and the craziest part of the whole place (to us)- Napoleon's Apartment. It was UNREAL. The luxury of his living space is hard to believe. My digital camera stops working as soon as we enter this part of the exhibit. Why me?

It takes us several hours to go through the entire place, and even then we are sure we missed a bunch of floors. My favourites were the white sculptures. I don't know if I will ever be able to fathom how someone can create those pieces of art.
Out of all of the "toursity" things we have done so far, this one is my favourite. I never read The Davinci Code either, so I have no idea what the excitement is about in that regard.
We are worn out, but we head to Montmarte, a part of the city where the movie Amelie was filmed. We spoil ourselves with another great dinner, totally loving the pastries and bread here in France, and call it a day.

I should mention that I overdose on chocolate croissants. Every time we pass a bake shop, we need a chocolate croissant. Each one is better than the next. This is our guilty pleasure the whole trip, and it's probably why we don't lose any weight from walking 6 hours a day on foot around each city we visit. We have found the 'perfect' balance of eating whatever we want and walking it off. Yum!

Chelsie and I both agree that we are looking forward to going home, despite how much fun we are having travelling around together. The stress of finding our way around, making sure we are safe, the toll our bodies are taking on crappy sleeps, etc, is really getting to us. We did not feel one bit settled in Paris, (could be the whole language barrier too is so much harder), and are looking forward to moving on again. But it's not going to get any easier. If anything, it will be more challenging to find our way around a smaller, less commercialized French town that knows even less english than Paris.
Well, at least we have Chelsie's dictionary to help us. Right?

-

What's wrong with this photo?

I love when I walk into funny moments of Wren and actually have a chance to capture it in a photo.

Today we made a fort together, and played 'babies'. Wren loved helping me put the babies to bed for "night-nights" and then feeding them when they woke up. I thought she would be too young to do pretend play like that yet, but she got the hang of it. Andrea and I made forts as kids in the basement all the time. Today was a huge step back into my childhood for that reason, and I am really excited that Wrennie is coming into that in the near future.

SO, what IS wrong with this photo anyway?

Can you tell me?

Here's hint, it's something on Wren...

The fact that she is not wearing pants is not the answer either...

Don't you just love her cankles?? Ah so cute!!

Give up?

She is standing there watching Sesame Street on the computer, with half her diaper undone. Ha! She undid it herself of course, and I happened to notice.

Oh the simple things in life...

Okay but seriously, the line that divides her feet from her legs are so cute. No ankle, just a line. She is my favourite little chubby.