and the winner is...

nena.  the article was about contributions by gay interest groups to politicians and their influence.  

cover

let's look at chuck sitting on a pile of cash, fishing, instead of thinking about the election, shall we?  let's get happy people.

today i volunteered at elis school all morning.  i even got to go outside and supervise at lunch time.  conclusion:  kids are nuts.  for 40 minutes all i witnessed was aimless running and screaming.  now who wouldn't want a lunch break like that?

change you can believe in

go obama go.

3

last weeks work.  

{shot #2 was for TIME magazine.  props goes to whoever can tell me what the article was about. hint: it's political and a hot button.  the picture will run in TIME in canada and the states on friday and we will see who's guess is correct.  get your noggins thinking...}

in the dead of night...

just took eli to the bus stop.  7 am here {especially in the fall/winter months} is like you have gotten up at 3 am and have decided to get dressed, eat breakfast and then go stand in an open field to wait for the bus. it is pitch black out. just like the middle of the night.  so weird.

speaking of 3 am, i did wake up last night around that time and couldn't sleep, so i started reading some blogs. after about an hour of nothing too interesting, i started reading chuck and sandras archives on their old mac blog.  

man, kids grow up fast.  their kids all looked young and chubby and innocent. 

then i happened on this:

ahhhh, what an angel! the smile, the eyes, the red hair gently, softly orbiting around her head....

then, i saw the next picture:

wha?!?  what had happened??? i started to laugh.  uncontrollably.  the kind of laughing that only happens in the middle of the night, when you are really tired.  it was just such a juxtaposition, her hair, her hair.  HER HAIR WAS, AMAZING.

all i can say is:

1.  thanks for the laugh, i hadn't belly laughed like that for a long, long time.

                and

2.  you better watch her chuck and sandra.  if that is what she looks like in the morning you better ask her what she was doing all night!  hunting prey in the forest with a pack of wolves? escaping from Alcatraz? planing a revolution? mopping the floors of the local high school gym? WITH HER HAIR?!?

i *heart* diarreha

weekend over.

highlights:  guys took little boys to a hockey game

                     dinner at friends

                     quinns birthday party

                     

halloween is this week, isn't it? do i have a costume for eli yet? no.  

he is home from school today, spending a lot of time on the toilet {if you know what i mean...} poor dude had the flu about a week and a half ago and had the same type of thing going on, for several days i might add.  i think todays problem is the grocery store sushi that was purchased on saturday, eaten on sunday night...  wow, doesn't that sound good?  eek.

back to the costume.  eli wants to be a mummy this year.  i have all the junk here to make the costume and maybe today is the day to do it with him here and all... 

c.j. and i watched "young frankenstein" the other night.  gene wilder.  the dudes hair in that movie is so awesome.  it is seriously parted right above his ear on one side and completely swooped to the other side making it the hugest comb-over you have ever seen.  he also seems to be yelling the entire film, yes, it's a classic.  

for your viewing pleasure

folks, may i introduce, "SPACED".

over the weekend we stopped in at Rogers and rented a bunch of films for the weekend.  as fans of "Hot Fuzz" and "Shaun of the Dead" c.j. had heard about a 2 season series called "Spaced" that was shot in 1999 and 2001.  basically, the show is the seed if you will of the previously mentioned films.  this series was also shot before the british "office" was a hit, which of course spun into our american version of the same show (b-rate)...  i am convinced that all that is funny hails from britain.  

all i am going to say is go rent it, go buy, go watch it.  it is really, really good. 

i found the best 30 second sample of it on youtube, but was not able to embed it, so try going here and take a taste. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJlgpozN31s

music of the day

music is always playing in our house.  

getting elis lunch ready in the kitchen this morning, one of our favourite bands began to play. the innocence mission.  c.j. knew of them long before i ever did {he is the music savvy one}. 

i remember on one of our trips down to l.a., he picked up an innocence mission album called "now the day is over" for eli.  best.  album.  ever.  so tender.  such perfectly selected songs.  just beautiful.   {go buy it}

after eli got off to school, i hopped onto youtube, looking for a perfect innocence mission tidbit to share with you.  i found this gem.  

one of my most very favourite innocence mission songs, "Rowing on the Lakes of Canada" covered by one of my very most favourite singers, Sufjan Stevens.  imagine my surprise!  i yelled up to c.j. telling him of the treasure i had found.  when he came down a few minutes later, he found me sitting at the kitchen table watching and weeping.  hope you enjoy it.

p.s.  the french fellow who filmed the video let's one slip at the very beginning, sorry...

details, pumpkins + new work

what a lovely reception! so great to hear from everybody! 

i got a few congrats and questions regarding our little girl.  i am due january 17th.  i took a picture a month ago with my iphone to send to emily and its the one of the only pics i have going on.  enjoy that... har har

c.j. has been doing some interesting work lately.  i really like what is going on with the "evening cow" shot...

last night c.j. and eli carved pumpkins.  c.j. had eli sketch possible faces for his pumpkin before they carved and the face he finally chose was the happiest of all.  good for him.  i am going to try to put together a mummy costume for eli this year.  he has been reading a book about mummies and thought it would be fun.  maybe we will all be ghoulish monsters for the occasion.  

just ate tostadas for supper = stuffed.  looking at a long night of heartburn.  party on.

coming back home

alright, i know this is lame, but after having problems and frustrations with my iweb program (sorry apple...) i have decided to come back to my original blogging home, blogger.  i was struggling with iweb and didn't want to have to click a million times to read a full entry or get to pictures.  what you see is what you'll get with this format.  easy sleazy lemon breezy.  

i am glad to be back.  it has been fun cruising through the archives of this old blog, lots of good times forgotten about.  i believe that it will be almost 2 years since i wrote here, so i hope that through the link from my mac blog i will see some of the old readers back.

around our house, we are coming to the realization that soon our little bebe will be here. clothing has been bought, the crib is up, a baby blanket has been stitched,  a blessing dress is hanging in the closet.  she is going to truly going to make us all so happy.  the kind of happy that brings tears to our eyes and be so grateful.  we were able to see her the other day via ultrasound and her little profile looks just like elis, a cute little turned up nose.  probably just like what every kid looks like in vitro, but we can start imagining.

  

moving

we are moving on from our trusty "blogger" blog.
you can find us now at web.mac.com/burtonsnorth

you can also click on the link to your right (new and improved burtons*north) and it should take you there as well!
see you soon.
happy new year!

Don't be freaked that I Hacked into your BLOG

We wanted to surprise you with this special online edition of our christmas wishes. Made exclusively for you, the Burtons, our BFF's.

The Card:



Your Gift:



Our Message:

We absolutely cannot wait for the 3 of you to be back in sunny california with us. I can see it now, sleep overs, movie nights, shopping, and the beach in the Winter time! (oh, yeah, and a whole lot of work on cj's part) We love you! Here's to 11 years of friendship.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!
love, Doug, Em, Sophie and Owen.

P.s. Owen said, "Eli, i want to you come and play xbox lego starwars with me."

cichy hitch'n

who-ho! the weekend was kicked off with a great family meal for dave and ashley cichy who got married that morning down in cardston. we had a great time, the food was good and dave and ash looked super happy. i caught just a couple of shots from the evening. caitlyn (hope that was spelled right) sang "heaven" with other cousin burns on the accoustic guitar. it was very sweet and really pretty. congratulations dave, ash and the whole cichy family!

today we hit a matinee of "night at the museum" and low and behold Prime Minister Stephen Harper was there 4 rows up from us in the same theatre with his family AND his dozen secret service men. bizzar-o! he does live in Tuscany, our neighbourhood, so i guess i shouldn't be too surprised. he must be home for the holidays from ottawa. it is just wierd to have such a very public figure in such close proximity and participate in such a uneventful event like 'going to the movies'...

after the movie, we stopped in the hallway and introduced ourselves. when he went to shake elis hand, eli was shy and was not looking up and PM Harper said, "Look up at me son!" which eli promptly did and i then informed eli he was shaking hands with one of the members of the G8 and leader of our country....

dave told audrey that the man sitting infront of us was the leader of our country and audrey said, "I thought that was President Hinckley?!" i like how you are thinking aud, keep it up...

33

today is cjs 33rd birthday.

we had a really nice small surprise party for him at nena and jeffs, under the guise that it was a after-christmas-concert-ice-cream-social for carson.
it worked.
nena said she wanted everyone to listen to carsons concert that she taped and then threw the switch on the "ghetto-blaster" to start up "birthday" by the beatles, a long standing traditional get-down-and-party-song on anybodys birthday in the family.
it worked.
we all started dancing and cj was stunned. it took him a few "today it's your birthday" riffs until he got up and started "jamming it".
we all chowed on cupcakes and treats. i asked everyone to write down something they would like to share with cj, a funny experience about him, their feelings about him, what they like about him, whatever they want to share, and we all put the notes in a container. the note he is reading in the picture was one of them. it was really nice to hear everyones feelings and thoughts. needless to say, tears flowed and good vibes were plenty. we all love cj. he is hardworking, tender, funny, sensible, loving, kind, spiritual, driven and we are all so fortunate to have him in our family.
we sang songs, nena gave a manicure to everyone there including dad and chuck, (dave was next in line but all the guys bugged out to see apocolyto). aunt lee ann cruised in and we all hung out until 11:00ish. audrey lost her front right tooth after sandra took her in the bathroom with a popsicle for awhile. put another notch on your belt sandra!
just a really fun night.

hitin' the zoo

we hit the zoo on saturday night to see the zoo lights. lots of fun, there was really no snow this year when we went as opposed to last year when it was white and fluffy and really pretty with the lights. the kids liked it though and we had a good time.

playing live

one of the nights we were in las vegas, cj, spencer and jade all performed at a local bar. cj did an acoustic set with spencer kicking in some percussion on a couple songs (you can see him on the floor in one of the shots), then spencer and jades band "the pandas" played. you can see spencer on drums and jade on tambourine. it was lots of fun and they all sounded great.

test

chase the gobbler

ok, i know that there are ALOT of pictures of cj and spencer, but as i took them, the gangster level got better and better, so i am including them all. they really need to be seen as a group instead of individually.

this morning, at 7:00am we ran the "Chase the Gobbler". i woke up with a sore throat, worser than the last 2 days, and debated for about an hour about even running the thing, but decided to do it.... i may pay for that tomorrow....
anyho, the race was really fun, spencer did it in 24 minutes or so, and cj and i pulled in around 37 minutes or so, the results will be posted online at lasvegasrunningteam.com later today or tomorrow. i came in 402th, cj came in 405th and of course spencer was about 200 people ahead of us.
in our age category (30-34) cj came in 22, i came in 33.

cj did well considering he hasn't moved that fast since he was running from the police in high school.

i went to the bathroom before the race, but as the race started and i ran by the port-o-potties for the last time for the next 5K..... i made another pitstop, and still caught up with cj at about the 2K mark......
cj will tell you he "let" me win the race between the two of us, but don't believe him.... he did a great job....

who-hoo!! we did it!!!

i was interested in seeing just how acurate my nike+ was, i was told about .36k before it was done that i had finished the 5K, so.... i think that i need to recalibrate... question: if i didn't set the weight before i calibrated for running, will that effect the distance? because after i calibrated, i noticed i hadn't set the weight....
ANYWAYS, it was a great time, a great personal challenge and we had fun!
love you all, jess

rusty hammer = tetanus shot.... and other random shots from the week

ok, weird week.
monday, we put the christmas tree up, kind of early.
tuesday, eli had an MRI on his noggin, it went well and eli was a trooper. when he woke up, the first thing he said to me was, "mom, i did it!". that is right eli you did do it! good job brave guy!
wednesday, i RAN my VERY 1st 5KM. i ran the entire thing, the first time in my life, i hadn't been so thrilled in a long time. thursday, i ran another 5KM, this time, talking to myself the last 4 minutes, telling myself NOT TO STOP, YOU CAN DO IT, blah, blah, i am sure the people on the treadmill next to me were a little worried.... got home, wanted to download my second 5K accomplishment onto the nikeplus site..... what, the nano won't work?!?!? i spent the rest of the day pushing, pleading, praying that it would start up, but alas, it wouldn't. i took it back to london drugs and a miracle occured. they took it back. so now i have a new nano, that i have to recalibrate..... OH, i almost forgot... later in the day, i was hanging a print on the wall above the sofa, and stepped back down onto the rustiest hammer claw our house owns..... i called the health link... you need a tetanus shot... nena and i went to the ER last night around 8:30, saw the doctor, froze my big toe, cleaned it out and got the shot. i am now good till 2016, what are the odds. this foot injury is really going to cramp my running style....
friday. i woke up to find my toe throbbing and 2 funny shots of cj and randy in my inbox. i guess they had to take some shots of the trees for a image, so they jumped in the set.... working hard or hardly working... ha ha