Day 103, 104, 105/365

Day 103 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

Josh and I went for a bike ride to Jericho beach. The whole trip was just over 9 kilometres. He was so determined to beat his previous record of trip length.

Day 104 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

This is Howard, Josh’s class bear. Howard goes home with a different child each day. The child gets to hang out with Howard and write in Howard’s journal about what they did together. On this day, Howard got to go with Josh for a photoshoot to capture the cherry blossom in Vancouver.

Day 105 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

Another day, another bike ride to the beach. I love being on two wheels, and it gives me such immense pleasure to see Josh enjoy it too.

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365 catching up

Day 87 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

My car insurance renewal notice came in the mail. I thought about our vacation plans in July, then decided to let my insurance expire. Really, I live 5 km away from the office. There is no good reason for me to drive to and from work everyday. A combination of my love for 2-wheels and my hate for the bus resulted in biking to work 100% of the time. You’ll be seeing a lot more cycling related posts coming up.

Day 88 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

About 15 years ago, a friend gave me this cycling jacket. I was getting into cycling and had no money, and she had a spare. I have used this jacket for many miles. For the past few years though, it sat in the closet while I was busy either being pregnant or having little babies to care for. I pulled the jacket out a few weeks ago, since I started biking to work. After years of wear and tear, the laminate inside started falling apart. A trail of white flakes followed me when I wear it. This week, I decided to retire this veteran jacket. Carolyn, thank you for your generosity all those years ago. The jacket had a long life.

Day 92 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

We rode our bikes together last weekend. Savanna was seated comfortably on my handlebar and enjoyed the view. Josh had to actually ride his bike. He was determined to break his previous record of a 4-km ride. We made it all the way to Earnest Ice Cream for a treat. We then rode along the seawall back to Kits. By the 9 km mark, his little legs were toast. He fell over while walking his bike to cross a busy street, skinning his knees. I kissed his teary cheeks and smiled, because I am so proud of him!

Day 94 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

One morning, I got on the bike just around 6 am to ride to work. The sky was fire-y orange with the sunrise.

Day 95 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

At the bike locker at work, there are all these locks hanging there. They are there when I arrive, and they are there when I leave. They look like poor orphans with no owners.

Day 96 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

Josh has always been super sweet. I think he is made of sugar. One day last week when I got home, I saw this envelope taped to the door. He had drawn two elephants for me (because they are my favorite animals).

Day 97 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

This is me, standing at MEC by the bike service shop. One of the screws on my cleats came loose and disappeared, causing the cleat to spin around in my pedals without disengaging. I nearly fell over at a stop because I couldn’t get my foot out. The bike tech found a spare screw in the backroom and temporarily fixed my cleats so I can ride home. He gave me a speech about how I should have checked my cleats before the ride. It’s one of those moments where I gladly accepted the speech, because, you know, he is right.

Day 98 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

At PureBread, I asked Savanna what she would like for a treat. She pointed to the ciabatta bread. I said, Don’t you want a scone or something sweet? She said, No, that one, and pointed again to the ciabatta bread. Ok, kiddo. Your choice!

Day 71-85/365 {Catching up}

In the blink of an eye, spring break is over, and I am beyond behind on my 365 post.

We spent the entire first week of spring break in Whistler. The snow this year has just be amazing. The kids both made great progress in a short time. Savanna can now tackle the entire beginner hill on her own without assistance. Josh is leading me down tree runs that scare the crap out of me.

Day 71 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

Savanna hid herself under a pile of pillows. All I can think of is she looks like she’s peeking out from a giant vagina.

Day 72 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

Savanna made a good point to me about she is the only one in the family who doesn’t have a camera, so I bought her one. It’s a small Canon point-and-shoot. She brought it with her to Whistler. We took photos of each other. She was very happy to capture me.

Day 73 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

It snowed. And snowed. And snowed. And snowed some more. So awesome.

Day 74 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

Josh and I went for a walk in the village to spend some time together. He said, “Mommy, that was good that just you and me went, so we had lots of time to spend with just each other.” Josh, you melt my heart like nobody else can.

Day 75 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

My favorite bakery in Whistler is Pure Bread. Going there for a baked treat and coffee is one of the highlights of going to Whistler for me. I prefer their original location–quiet, out of the way, small, quaint, and cozy. There is no fancy coffee here except the dripped coffee cones hanging over the shop owner’s homemade rack from pipes.

Day 76 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

Josh loves the trampoline park in Whistler. In particular, he loves the ball pit. I find the ball pit really gross and smelly, but he would jump into it over and over and over.

Day 78 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

After we came back from a week of awesome skiing in Whistler, I went for a long bike ride. Stopping here is a part of my long ride ritual.

Day 80 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

Vancouver welcomed us home with rain.

Day 81 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

When I got back to work, I found this little sticky note on my computer monitor. It was nice to know someone at work gives a rat’s ass about me.

Day 82 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

Last year during spring break, I bought Josh a challenging set of Lego to build. It took him some time, but he completed it without much trouble. He was 5 at the time, and the set was aimed at age 8 and up. This year, I got him a set of Lego Technics. It’s supposed to be quite challenging with gears and clogs. Again, he completed it with some effort and time. It was a proud mama moment for me.

Day 83 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

Jewels came with her name. We didn’t bother changing it. My guess is that her first family named her Jewels because of her gorgeous green eyes.

Day 84 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

My nephew’s birthday was this past weekend. I really wanted to make a special cake for him. When my nephew was born, he was 6 weeks early. I visited him in the NICU. When I held him, I looked at his little face with the feeding tube up his nose, and wish I could do something for him. Now he is a healthy and grown 6-year-old, and I get to feed him junk food. I made a “gravity-defying Oreo cake” because he wanted Oreo in his cake. My brother said my nephew would have been happy with just a normal cake, and my efforts were not going to bring any incremental enjoyment. I don’t really care. Nothing but the coolest cake for my special nephew!

Day 85 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

When I stayed at an AirBnB last year, the host had a big container garden with a ton of over-growing kale. She sent me home with a huge bag of it. I was so jealous of her garden. We have no space for multiple containers, but we have space for one. So since early this winter, I’ve been planning a container garden for our tiny little balcony. We finally waited till the time is right, and planted our little container garden. This planting tool tells us exactly how far to space out the seeds. It was fun getting the kids involved in the planting. We are hoping for some good home-grown vegetables this summer!

Day 68/365 {Shark}

Day 68 of 365 Angela Chang Photography

Josh asked me to play Lego with him the other night. I do love Lego, but I am just at a loss of what to build when he plopped a huge box of thousands of pieces in front of me.

I picked up a white shark and a figure, and started playing with them. Then I had this idea of building an ocean scene. I enlisted Josh’s help to make some fish with bricks, we found an octopus and some greens we used as seaweed.

At the end, I was quite pleased with the scene of a great white shark eating this poor man in the ocean.

Day 57/365 {Jewels}

10 days ago, I may have teased you a little with the photo from our visit to the SPCA.

Jewels adopted us and took us home. She’s a 4-year-old short hair and manx mix.

We have been taking our time getting to know her. We really don’t know much about cats. So far, we learned that she loves her hair brushed, she likes the bottom of her chin scratched, she runs to us when we’re eating, and she has chosen Savanna’s bed to be her own.

We are loving having Jewels as a new family member.day-57-of-365-angela-chang-photography

Day 56, 59, 60, 61 {Catch up}

I do not enjoy catching up on posts. But I don’t have anyone else to blame. So. Here we go.

You’ll notice Day 57 and 58 are missing. I’ll post Day 57 separately. I am not able to post Day 58–not because I don’t have a good photo to post. On the contrary, I quite like my photo from Day 58. But Josh didn’t have a shirt on in the photo, and he says only people in our family can see him without a shirt on. So I’ve been banned from posting that photo online. You’ll just have to take my word for that it was a good photo.

Day 56:

The last day of our girls’ weekend, I suggested to Savanna we go for a bike ride after dinner. She enthusiastically agreed. We rode to Earnest Icecream to get her a treat, and to get me some exercise. By the way, that hill coming back up Quebec from E.2nd to 10th just about killed me.

As we got into the store, I realized I had forgotten my wallet. Seriously. To disappoint a child right in front of the icecream counter–I get the crown for the worst mother in the world. Thankfully as I was explaining to Savanna that I didn’t bring any money, the lady behind the counter offered us free icecream. Yup, you heard that right. She said, Don’t worry about it; it’s on us. Savanna got her “Serious Chocolate” icecream, and I was filled with gratitude.

Thank you, Earnest lady, you saved my night.

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Day 59:

Savanna laid out a dinosaur family and asked me to play. While I have zero interest in dinosaurs, I am so glad she wants me to play with her.

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Day 60:

Savanna and I regularly play Zingo and GoFish. Josh isn’t really interested in those games. He is really interested in drawing, and unfortunately I can barely draw a stickman.

The other night, Josh said he wanted me to draw something with him. I stared at the blank piece of paper, and I have no idea what else to draw than a corporate organizational chart with rectangles and triangles.

Yes, I am that sad.

He then came up with this idea that he’ll teach me how to draw. So he gave me a lesson on how to draw a bird. I think I did pretty damn good!

day-60-of-365-angela-chang-photography

 

Day 61:

The building across the street from my office looks like a beehive to me, with little busy worker bees. I’m pretty sure they look back at me and think the same thing.

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Day 55/365 {Brownie Crisp}

day-55-of-365-angela-chang-photography

Savanna and I had a girls’ weekend together, while the boys went off to ski in Whistler.

Since we have quickly devoured the brownie crisps I brought home from Trader Joe’s, Savanna and I found a recipe to make the crisps ourselves. These taste like brownies, but they are crispy. We spent Friday afternoon baking and making a mess in the kitchen. Those are the best afternoons!

Day 54/365 {Brave}

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One day a few weeks ago, I got an email from Josh’s teacher. She said, “Dear parent, your child had signed up for the lip-sync contest at school. Here is the performance schedule…”

I figured the email came to me in error. There’s no way Josh would have signed up for a lip-sync contest. Well, he came home and told me he is going to be in the lip-sync contest and he is going to sing the Pokemon song.

Wait. What!

We don’t come from a family of performers. Where did this come from? Well, I couldn’t get to the bottom of the story. He was so excited to tell me that he already picked the song, I didn’t want to sound like a calloused bitch. I just held back my surprise and smiled and nodded.

So on Thursday, he took the stage with his cardboard guitar, and lip-sync’d to “I want to be the very best”. I ran out of a work meeting so I can attend his performance.

Being the youngest contestant, his choreography was the most basic. But I was just beaming with pride through the entire 4 minutes and 8 seconds. He signed up for this contest, learned the lyrics, and choreographed the moves himself. He got on stage, performed, and came off the stage all with his cool and calm presence. The first thing he said to me was, “That was my first lip-sync contest. I did all the moves I wanted to.” I couldn’t help but look at him and smile ear-to-ear.

He is so much more brave than me!