Author Archives: Larissa Sevenhuysen

About Larissa Sevenhuysen

Born and raised on the West Coast, I went from a single working girl there to a stay-at-home mom on the Prairies in 2.5 years. Life comes at you fast, and you just gotta go with it!

Time at the Cabin

While we were back in BC, before Tim joined us, Calvin and I were able to spend a bit of time at our family cabin on Hatzic Lake with family.

(To my family who like to refer to it as the “lake house” since the reno, I still prefer “cabin” because it doesn’t remind me of Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves.)

This place has always been a place to relax and visit. It was the destination for most of our summer holiday time that wasn’t dedicated to driving to visit Manitoba family. It has recently become the place to celebrate holidays with my mom’s side of the family. Surrounding my sister’s wedding, it hosted some extended family and was the backdrop to wedding portraits.

Hangin’ in the hammock.

Heading out on the water.

Swinging with cousins.

It’s a right of passage to ride the mower with Grandpa.

No visit is complete without some BBQ over the fire.

No visit is complete without some BBQ farmer sausage over the fire.

Chilling inside with Great Grandpa Thiessen.

Surveying the landscape.

Maybe one day I will post some pictures of our growing up years spent here. Who doesn’t love a good reminiscing?

2 Replies

Calvin Quickie: Playing

This morning Calvin has been playing so nicely on his own. Here’s a little snippet of what he’s been up to. Notice how he nods to affirm himself when he gets a piece where he wants it. Silly dude!

5 Replies

Pregnancy #2: 20 Weeks

Yep, this pregnancy is half over. It’s going too fast! I feel like my sister in law just passed the 20 week mark, and she is due almost 3 months before me! And the only reason I knew I was 20 weeks is because my cousin who is due the day before me me mentioned something about being 20 weeks.

I’m kind of symptom-less right now. Besides crying at commercials that don’t deserve it. My nasal congestion doesn’t seem to bother me these days. Oh, but I have started to use antacids occasionally. I never got really bad heartburn during my first pregnancy, just a weird feeling in my throat. I wouldn’t label it as heart burn, just really mild acid reflux or something. That’s what I’m experiencing a couple times a week right now. Not sure when it started last time. And as a public service announcement, the Pharmasave brand berry flavoured antacids taste way better than Tums. Just so you know.

I’ve felt the baby move a little bit. Nothing really strong or regular, but maybe once or twice a day I feel a little something. I’m excited to start feeling it more, and being able to see it move!

Here is my half-baked belly, compared with my 20 week belly from last time, on the right. I don’t see much difference, but it’s hard to tell when you are wearing a different shirt.

And then a photo of the baby. I feel like Calvin’s were a bit more crisp and clear, but a photo is a photo, no matter how blurry!

1 Reply

The Completed Highchair

So as you may recall, I had a wooden highchair I wanted to paint. And if you are my Facebook friend, you will know that I did just that recently. I had to wait longer than I wanted to, just because it was too cold for far too long. But the week before I went to BC I, along with a friend who brought over a coffee table to paint, got a couple coats on. Tim finished it up before he joined me, and when we got back, I sprayed it with some lacquer. The paint, a semi-gloss, didn’t feel glossy enough to me and I wanted an extra barrier between the paint and spaghetti stains.

The completed result is far from perfect. There are a few scratches in the paint. It looks like somebody dragged it across the garage floor while we were gone. Very strange, but the scratches are on the bottom of the tray and therefore out of sight, out of mind. And I don’t know if you have ever used lacquer, but it was a little more difficult to get even than I was anticipating. So some places aren’t as covered as others, but I’m okay with imperfection. I can always fix it later if necessary.

And here Calvin is, enjoying it. I have to say it was super easy to see the dirty areas that needed wiping, and super easy to wipe down. I call it a success!

Now I just wish I could paint the kitchen walls I dislike so much!

3 Replies

Calvin Quickie: Sliding

Calvin can do the playground all by himself!

1 Reply

Flying Home Updated

Updated with photos and the final leg of our journey.

I’m writing this from a rocking chair in a public bathroom in the Calgary International Airport. We were supposed to be home in our place in Edmonton over an hour ago. Why aren’t we there, you ask?

Well, we had a direct flight from Victoria to Edmonton. Our flight was almost over, and the pilot had turned on the seatbelt sign and announced our descent, when another announcement came through: the weather in Edmonton was too bad to land at the moment so we were going to maintain altitude and circle around for the time being.

Circling in the air near Edmonton. So close, but so far.

Up to this point, Calvin was doing all right. Not perfect, but not super annoying to the surrounding passengers. He was cranky during takeoff because we had to hold him against our chest with him facing us, and of course he just wanted to turn around and look at everything and move around as much as possible. I was expecting the same thing for the descent, so when the seatbelt sign went on at the end, I pulled out the Cheerios which only mildly kept him calmer. But after about 5 minutes of circling, he just instantly fell asleep on my chest which was awesome!

So next came the announcement that we would be changing course and heading down to Calgary to land there. Calvin slept through that part of the flight and even the noisy landing, and woke up again shortly after we stopped.

I think the crew originally thought we would just refuel and turn right back around, but after a couple minutes of being on Calgary turf, they announced that everybody would deboard and get a different flight to Edmonton, or other cities if Edmonton was just a connection. So we joined the line at the service desk.

After a couple minutes I standing there, a WestJet employee, Jeremy, came up to us and said, “It’s near the end of my shift, but I want to help you out since you have a kid.” You hear about the kindness of these employees on commercials, so seeing this in real life sent me into a little outburst of pregnant lady emotion. Then I laughed at myself.

Jeremy took us to the desk at an empty gate and tried to get us on another fight. There was one leaving at 6:00pm, which was about 20 minutes away. That would have been awesome, except he knew we wouldn’t have time to go down, retrieve our bags, and recheck them in time. And that would have been a hassle to have to do the whole deal over again. So he booked us on the next one which was leaving at 7:55. Seconds after he confirmed it, the flight was delayed to 9:30 (probably due to the changes with our original plane), but this was still our best option.

And then I heard that it is delayed even more, to 9:50. So we are waiting for a total of about 4 hours. Good thing Calvin is such a friendly fella. Too bad Calvin loves to run around.

But it really hasn’t been that bad. We got a $20 food voucher, so we bought a feast at Tim Hortons. I really wish I took a photo of it all. They encouraged us to use the entire voucher because it couldn’t be carried over to another food vendor. So Tim has lunch for tomorrow, and a snack, and a dessert…

So at this point we have an hour and a half until take off. Originally I had wanted to do laundry and relax this evening, but now all I can hope for is for Calvin to fall asleep soon.

Update since we arrived home:

So we finally got to board our plane. Calvin still wasn’t asleep at this time, and it was almost 10:00. We were informed that we were going to wait for a little bit for a couple passengers who checked in but hadn’t shown up yet, then were informed that we had to wait while they removed their luggage. Calvin was quite cranky this entire time, but there was an elderly lady and a middle aged man behind us to entertained him and helped make him not be annoying. As soon as we started making our way down the runway, Calvin fell asleep and stayed that way the entire time.

And then we finally got home at midnight. About 6 hours later than planned.

I want to say a big thank you to Jeremy the West Jet staff member, and also John, our ride home, who kindly stayed up late to bring us home.

3 Replies

On the Farm

This past week while we were at my parents’ house, I had fun watching Calvin enjoy chasing and “petting” the cat.

We hadn’t seen him around animals since Christmas time when he was too young to find them interesting, so it was neat! I was looking forward to seeing what he would do when we got to Tim’s parents’ place with their small hobby farm. If it wasn’t pouring rain and yucky and mucky, I probably would have let him run around the yard, but it was really wet so we just stayed in the barn in front of the gated area.

He had lots of fun watching the chickens, poking the alpacas’ noses and trying to touch the pig through the fence. He also at some point decided to pick up some hay and feed it to the animals through the fence. Clever guy!