Hello again!!

Austin not sleeping in his crib, something he likes to do a lot. :)

Spadina Crescent at night.

I was playing around with my camera down at the Weir one night, here is one of the photos.

Austin all streached out on the couch, he is getting bigger by the day.

Looking very shocked after his bath! :)

Finally got out on the bike for about an hour today, I found several routes for getting across Circle Drive, all of them involve tunnels which I'm not crazy about, since there is a lot of muggings and such around them.

I got a sweet deal on this Lowepro Slingshot 200AW camera case. I wanted one for a long time, but $130 was too much for me to pay, I found that Blacks Photo had them on sale for $69!!! and ordered one. My old camera case had no more pockets left to offer, with this one I need to eventually get some lenses to fill all those spaces.

Some days Austin loves his bath, this was one of those days. Isn't he the cutest?

He seems to enjoy sleeping on his tummy sometimes, we started him on his back, but now his neck is pretty strong so he can sleep either way, Tina put him on the couch and we took this photo because he looks like a little bean all curled up and sleeping.

On Saturday we went to Saskatoon's largest garage sale in Montgomery. Tina put a hat on Austin because it was a little windy out, he also has a leash on his soother in case it blows away. :) We didn't find anything too good at the garage sales, or anything we really needed, so we just walked around for a long time looking at stuff.

Wow, there has been a few things happen since my last post. First of all I got a new job, I'm currently working out my last two weeks at Siemens Laserworks, and then I will be starting at Envirotec on May 12th. I will be driving and operating a vac truck in and around Saskatoon. I'm pretty excited about it because it looks like it will be a pretty enjoyable job and I think I will do well at it. The other thing that happened is my brother moved to the Phillipines. He has been actually married to a girl from there for a just about two years now and he finally moved there since she has been unable to come here. It is pretty sad for my parents and I, but I know he is pretty happy there and things seem to be going well for him there. It is weird to talk to him and he is half way around the world away, they are just entering their winter season there now, which is pretty crazy. Austin is getting bigger and with that he seems to be getting a little more moody lately. I think he gets bored sitting down or lying somewhere for a long time and he get's cranky and wants you to play with him. I guess it won't be too long now and he will be into everything. Well, until next time, ride safe and have fun!!

Hello again

There is a funny story behind this photo. Austin decided he didn't want his soother, so he took it out and put in on top his head, then he fell asleep. :)

Mommy is drying him off after his bath.

Cuddling with Daddy on the couch.

In last post I forgot to show our backyard. We do have a small backyard with our new place. It even has a small shed where the bikes can stay. There is a garden along the fence too, so I may make a second attempt at cherry tomatoes this year.

I just took this photo today when I got home from my bike ride. Tina made a bed on the couch for him. He always holds his hands up like that when he's sleeping for some reason.

How's it going? It's been a while since I put something here. Austin takes up a lot of our time during the day (and night). Today we got up to around 14 Celcius and all the snow melted and dried up so I decided to head out on the bike for a while. Whew! Am I ever out of shape, I went out for about an hour and headed down 33rd St out of town and then out on the highway I went. I took the highway over to where they are building a new school and Olympic size swimming pool just outside of Confederation area. They just threw in some new bike paths over there, so I rode around on them for a while before heading home again. Austin isn't being too bad, but he has a lot of gas for some reason so he often doesn't want to fall asleep right after he has eaten (can you blame him). He thinks it's bedtime around 12:00-2:00AM. Tina looks after him at night when I'm working and I look after him on the weekends. I'm hoping it warms up a lot more so we can take him out for walks soon. We took him to some stores today and walked around with him in the stroller a bit. Anyway keep looking here, I do post occasionally :) :) Ride safe and have fun.

Our newest family member....

Getting fed in NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit).

All hooked up in with wires in NICU.

Isn't he cute?

In the car seat waiting to go home.

The first time Mommey got to see him

Snuggling with Mommy in the hospital room.

His bed for five days.

Austin's favorite thing to do.

In the hospital room.

AUSTIN ANDREW STEPHENSON

Born: March 13th, 2oo8 at 8:57am

21" long and 6lbs 15.5 oz

Well that is all the information on Austin for those who like to know such things. Everything went really well except that he got really plugged up with mucous and had trouble breathing and feeding properly, so he had to spend a few days in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. We still got to visit and feed him in there, but he didn't get to stay with us until Monday. The first night at home was pretty intense, thankfully my parents were here and could help Tina and I out. He really didn't sleep at all that night, but since then he has slept pretty good at night. It's certainly a lot of work to look after him, but also kind of cool to think that one day he will grow up and be an adult, pretty amazing when you think about it. It's been hard because Tina had a C-section, so she isn't able to do too much right now, so I haven't been able to work too much. She is going to her Mom's house for a week so that her Mom can help her out. Anyway I will try to keep this updated more now, but with Austin here and all it took me two days just to get this in here. :) So until next time, ride safe and have fun.

Long time, no write...

Getting my bike ready for the first ride of the new year.

Leo waiting for me to get ready to go.

Heading to Delisle, we didn't make it all the way there, but it was a good ride for sure.

Look at that belly. :)

Almost ready for the baby.

Our new kitchen

This is our new living room, the laundry is on the right behind the closet doors. That is Tina's friend Louisa sitting in the chair, she actually took the two above pictures of us, they turned out really nice.

Our new bathroom

Our new bedroom, please excuse the cloths on the bed. :)

The baby's room!

Well it's been a long time since I updated this blog, I feel bad. We have had a lot going on lately. At the end of February we had to move out of our old apartment, we found a place in Confederation which is on the opposite side of Saskatoon to where we were before. We actually got a basement suite this time, complete with a yard and shed. I really like our new place and we were super lucky to get it, we looked for a long time before we found this on. Rentals are few and far between in Saskatoon these days. Moving was quite a production, I actually rented a moving van and we got it all in the new place in two trips. We had tons of help (A very big Thank you to all those who helped us out) so that made it go faster. I don't think I will ever chose to live on a third floor part of a building again. That many flights of stairs makes you realize that you have to much junk and should get rid of some of it. Another exciting bit of news is that Tina is going to be having a C-section on March 13th (tomorrow) so the baby is coming sooner the we expected. Still I think we have everything under control and are ready to have a new son or daughter. Both Tina and I will be staying at the hospital for a few days following her C-section, so I won't update this again until we are home. Look for photos of our little one then. Becoming a Dad tomorrow has made me reflect a lot on how life will possibly be when our kid gets to be my age. Lately I've heard that we are running out of iron ore to mine for metal, and we are currently experiencing shortages of oil as it can't be found fast enough to supply growing demands. Also gas prices are supposed to jump to huge levels this summer and it makes you wonder what the world will be like in ten years, or even one year. I think science will have to take over in place of natural resources that are running out fast, we will have to advance very quickly to make up for the loss of things like metals and oil. My bike is steel, it might start going up in value a lot here soon. :) Anyway food for thought, I have to go to bed soon and tomorrow will be very exciting for both Tina and I, we will need our sleep. Until next time, ride safe and have fun!

It's been a while...

Hailey Galacz, my new niece, isn't she cute?

Just thought I should write down what we've been up to. I turned another year older on Jan. 30, so now I'm 27 years old and just three short years away from being 30. I'm also a new Uncle, Tina's brother and his fiance had a baby girl on Boxing Day. We went to visit them last weekend and got to hold her, she is funny, never sits still. I haven't done any biking or skiing to speak of, right after we got back from holidays we were hit with some really, really cold weather, it got down close to -40 Celcius a few times. We also had a bunch of problems with Tina's car because a modual in the remote car starter stopped working and shorted out, which resulted in several dead batteries. We finally got it fixed last weekend and it works good now. Also we have to move out of our apartment because this is an adult only apartment, so we were looking for a new place to live. We lucked out and found something within a week or so of getting back into town. It is a two bedroom basement suite with a small yard and a storage shed. It is resonably priced too, so at least we can afford it. Also I registared for the Primary Care Paramedic program through SIAST, they put me on a the waiting list, so if someone doesn't decided to quit I will be starting that in April 2009. I've been looking into taking it part-time at a community college too, so I can get started sooner, we'll see how that works out. Anyway that's about all for now, ride safe and have fun!

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Hello Again!

Monkeying around at the San Diego Zoo.

A snake having dinner.

Tina and Tristan standing in front of a Saguaro cactus outside Quartzsite Arizona.

As skilled as I may be at riding a bike, I can't swim a stroke, it is only with large amounts of pool noodles that I managed to not drown. We were in the outdoor pool at my Grannie's place in Yuma, Arizona.

The business end of a Sherman tank at Yuma Proving Grounds. This one seen action in World War II as well as Korea and it has the bullet dents to prove it.

We went to the sand dunes by Yuma, and I was offered a ride in a sandrail, which I accepted of course. It was quite a wild ride, I had sand all over me at the end.

The Ocean Pier in San Diego, we walked to the end of it.

The beach in San Diego.

Shamu the whale, at Sea World.

Orphan Mine shaft at the Grand Canyon, in 1951 uranium was discovered in the mine, this is as close to the mine as you can get now as the whole area around the shaft is contaminated with radioactive waste. In the photo you can see the mine shaft and a lower frame work with cables going into the shaft.

The upper part of the mine.

Route 66 Motel, with the Roadkill Cafe in the background. We travelled down about 100 miles of old Route 66 between Williams, Arizona and Kingman, Arizona.

The Grand Canyon

Highway 89 south of Prescott, Arizona, is a very fun, senic highway to drive as you can see. The van isn't too sporty though, we needed Tina's car for this stretch of highway. :)

World's biggest TV screen over Fremont Street in Las Vegas, we went there to watch the graphics, they are on for about 10 mins every hour.

Words of wisdom from Caesar's Palace Casino.

A look down the Strip from our casino.

A Ford Group "B" rally car, they were banned from competition for being too dangerous. This particular one has 650HP, all wheel drive and goes from a standstill to 60mph in 2.1 seconds. We stayed at the Imperial Palace Casino and they have a impressive auto collection.

Looking over the edge down the Hoover Dam. Those are cars down there on the parking area by the water.

9133Kms, that is how far we travelled on our vacation. I really didn't want to come home when we were all done, it's cold here now. We did have some really nice weather for the vacation though, and the roads were good going there and back. Tina and I are now looking for a new apartment before the baby comes, we aren't allowed to stay here with kids and it's getting a little cramped in here now with all our stuff. Time to move up to something a little bigger. Anyway, thanks for looking, ride safe and have fun.