Happy Father's Day!

Gilles Father's day started off early this am with a race called "Do it for Dad". Isabelle is not really old enough yet to, as the title suggests, do it for her Dad, but Gilles was happy enough to do it for both of them, and entered the 5km event. They finished it, Chariot and all, in just over 23 minutes. Great finish, around 90th in 550 racers, and the very first stroller. As an aside, I know these stats are not all that important to most of you, but we'll be able to say, in later years, that we were once pretty good! Ahh, those were the days and so on......

In any case, they returned home triumphant and we spent the rest of the day hanging out en famille and enjoying the continued good weather. Gave the swing yet another workout, and had an afternoon siesta. We even got Isabelle in her bike helmet, which proved to be a difficult task since she kept trying to remove it, and biked around the neighbourhood. She was a natural, and seemed to really enjoy the wind through her hair, even though it's mostly under the helmet! I don't know if you can actually see my white knuckles, I had a pretty important package on board! I think you can see I'm concentrating pretty hard in the one photo - no time for smiles here!

Later, Gilles opened his gifts and was quite pleased, if I do say so myself. Isabelle gifted him with a large framed picture that said "Memories" on the bottom. In the frame were several of her best nude shots, courtesy of Auntie Meg, the photographer and photo printer champ (thanks seriously for all the work Meg). There is a pair of legs, a cute bottom, a hand and some feet, as well as a great face shot, all in black and white. I got him a digital photo frame, which, with a USB port can hold loads of photos and serves as a great way to enjoy all these shots, at the office, without turning your entire workspace over to your child. I know Gilles loves to have photos of Isabelle at work, and I thought that this would be a great way to enjoy them all, but in a classy way. He seems to really love it so, it looks like a successful day.

We're now off to enjoy some dirty rice, which was his meal of choice, and Isabelle, as if knowing we wanted to have an early dinner, actually packed it in at 7:30pm, and YES Mom, she's even in her crib! Earliest bedtime EVER. Kudos to you kiddo!

Before I leave though, a big Father's Day greeting to my own Dad, who I am happy to say will even be in Ottawa this week to visit. I admire and respect you more than you can know and, now that I am old enough, can truly appreciate the fact that you were always there for us. You taught us to love such a wide variety of things, and were so engaging that we continue to love them all. You are such a big part of who we all became, and quite frankly, I think we ROCK! I look forward to you playing an instrumental part in Isabelle's life, and know she will come to love you as much as we all do. Also, a huge shout out to my Grandfather, my Godfather, uncle Lawrence, who tolerated and loved me even through my teen years when I was, let's just say, not the burst of sunshine I am now, and to my Father-in-law, Henri who is a fabulous man and is a great Dad to my lovely, had to have learned it from someone, husband! Thanks for being that amazing example, I am reaping the benefits now!

We'll be back tomorrow as we are off to the Dr. for her 9 month checkup and immunization shots. Yesterday was the big marker; I'm a broken record at this point, but HOLY, the days and months are flying by. For the record, I'm guessing that 19 pounds, 3.5 ounces at 7 months will be about 22 pounds this time around. Let's see if we still hit the 90th percentile for weight and the 80th for height! Oh yeah, and if you click on this last photo to enlarge it, you can even see her two bottom teeth. They're THAT big now!