It's a bit of a quiet day here today, catching up on paper work and other details, Heather has been napping the last hour or two, letting her body heal from the surgery and preparing to go up for the 5 oclock feeding and then again maybe at 8 pm. Now I have a bit of time and since there seem to be quite a few people following this blog, I thought I would share a little piece of the Yukon with you. This is what we do for fun on a Sunday Morning...chase float planes down the lake and into the sky. :>:>:>:> Yes we are an odd lot us Yukonners, given to all kinds of mischief when we get a chance, but always there to help each other when the need arises. It would be nice if everyone reading this could come for a visit and a flight over the mountains to experience the beauty that surrounds us there, but I know that is not possible, Hopefully this little video will suffice to give you a taste of the Yukon. I think it will be a great place for Adelaide and Sarah to grow up, no lack of places to explore and things to keep young minds active and indulged. I am sure, with all the support we are getting while we are away, that they will have lots of supportive adults and friends to help see them through lifes curves and twists on those occasions when Mum and Dad don't have the answers.

Enjoy this little piece of the Yukon that we want to share with you.

Sean

Life in the Nursery

We go up to be with the babies a couple of times a day and are learning to change, bathe and feed them and although we would dearly love to be home right now, it is a good oppurtunity for us to learn as much as possible from the nurses in the Intensive care Nursery. It seems there are a million or two tricks that they know and it is hard to absorb all they try to impart. Heather and I are getting caught up on rest, which some say we should enjoy as it won't last........ The next leg of this adventure is to have the family transferred to Whitehorse General Hospital till the girls are feeding without a tube. At present they take about half of their feeding from a bottle, or Mum and the rest through a feeding tube. This is, we are assured, normal for premature babies at their stage. I see changes on what seems like a daily basis, Sarahs' chin seems to be filling out and she seems more alert and observant the last day or two. It is really fun to see their facial expressions and the way they move their arms and legs, I wonder what it must be like to be in there and have these two people come and change and feed you a few times a day. They seem like quiet, happy babies, hope that doesn't change.... well the happy part anyway:>:>:>:>:>

Cheers

Sean

Seems to me that this husband of mine is having way too much fun blogging about our new daughters that I just HAD to get in a few words of my own!! ahhhhh...he DOES have the right to be a proud daddy. These two little bundles are truely adorable & I find myself completely in love! I can hardly wait to get them home to the Yukon to show them off to Auntie Laura & Auntie Stacie along with all of our other dear friends!!

It's funny....I've been so excited about getting them home to Ontario in the spring to meet all of their cousins, Aunts, Uncles, Grandee & Grandad, but I just can't wish our days away... I'm loving every moment we have to snuiggle them while they are still tiny...everyone says that they'll be off to school & dating boys in the blink of an eye!! Look out boys, I'm one protective Mummy!!! ;)

Speaking of cousins in Ontario, Sarah Alexanda, you are sure to be pleased with your newest cousins!! Now remember, no favourites allowed ;) Sarah Grace shares you name but Adelaide Anne is just as precious! They BOTH have been asking about you & say they are really excited about taking you dog mushing with their very own team!!!!! Now THAT is a day I look forward to, having my nieces & nephews playing in the Yukon snow with their Northern Cousins!!!!!

To my Ontario friends & family.....who would have that I would ever find the love of my life & land on my feet with a family of my own? I though it was a dream that was a long time lost, yet here I sit, married to my best friend & Mummy to the two most beautiful babies ever born!!!! Though I miss you all with ever day that passes, I know that I am home now & Ontario has become a place to visit...which we'll do as soon as we can!! What better reason than to show off my family!!

To my Northern Familly.............We'll be home soon!!!! God, I miss you!!! & remember girls...have the Kilkenny on ice :):):)

Love to all! Hay....I'M A MUM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well .......Aunt Tori sent an odd phone message today, something about this site being dedicated to dogs and now all there is is baby pictures and how lifes priorities change...Well Aunt Tori, what you don't realize is that Heather and I never stop scheming about ways to keep mushing dogs. Soooooo..... the video on this post is us in serious training mode with Adelaide and Sarah's new lead dog London....that is, of course, training in between visits to the nursery to change diapers, bathe babies, read Dr Zeuss books and of course take lots of pictures:>:>:>:>

Enjoy

PS Thanks to Hans and the staff ( especially Janet, Londons personal tailor) at Duffies Pet Supplies/Tanzilla Harness in Whitehorse for Londons custom made attire.

Guess what...???

More baby pictures...what a surprise right??? I think that is a statutory right of new parents and hey you always have the option to log off this site:>:>:>

Enjoy

Sean and Heather





So, one of the nurses made this nice card for the babies as they have been cleared for being transfered to Whitehorse General Hospital, we are now just awaiting a transfer there. The nursing staff in the Intensive Care Nursery have been so helpfull and kind to us.....Thanks:>>



















Right, so here is Adelaide once again giving the world the "high five"...or is she just saying "nooooooo Daddy no more pictures, your boring people....."
Here's Mum and .... ok so that is happening, yes Adelaide and Sarah do look enough alike that occasionally if we don't look at name tags, we get them mixed up.....I doubt that is an uncommon situation for new parents of twins and I am sure if these two litle ones have much sense of humour, (which I am sure they will), they will make life interesting for us.....
No Adelaide and Sarah are not joined together by a tube , that is Sarah's feeding tube which is laying on the bed at Adelaide's head. Their hair looks to be very fair coloured, possibly even blond, I wonder if it will change colour.
Right.... so you have to entertain yourself somehow in Kamloops when you have some time on your hands and it is Christmas season...... (Well almost)We got our best presents ever.just alittle early......
No we didn't put Adelaide in a Christmas Stocking... she wouldn't fit, so we just draped it over her.








No it isn't the same picture as above, just another high five from Adelaide, which is funny as her sisters name sake dog "Sarah" at home in the kennel gives some pretty good high fives...
The rest of the card that Evelyn made for the girls...Thanks

I haven't been able to upload photo's from the computer that my sister Maureen left for us, but it has been so nice to have the use of it in our room and makes being away from family and friends at this time much more bearable. Adelaide and Sarah are doing well, very normal for babies who are 6 weeks premature. Tonight we give Sarah her first bath ( not actually her first, but the first one we will give her) Cindy, their nurse on duty last night showed us how to bathe them, so tonight we get to try it on our own. This will be one of many firsts I am sure and the difficulty for us may be disagreeing on who should be the one who gets to do it........ It is pretty amazing to hold these two little beings in our arms and dream about the day we get to take them home and all the changes they will bring to our lives. It is difficult at times to remember that they were born six weeks early and that, had things unfolded differently, we would not even be holding them just yet. Part of that difficulty is attributed to the fact that they are so healthy and big that they just do not seem like "premies or Prems" as they are called in the nursery. They sleep lots and it is difficult not to want to just hold them all the time. The nurses are pretty firm with us that they need to sleep lots as this is the time when they grow and develop. I guess we should try to look a few months down the road and appreciate the fact that they do sleep so much now, as we may wish they will at that point.

Thanks to everyone who has called, sent e-mails and looked after all the details that we are not able to at this time, you can't begin to know how much this means. I'll try to get to an internet cafe soon to put a few more photos out.

Cheers

Sean, Heather, Adelaide and Sarah

I am waiting for some computer wiz kid to recover all the photos that the other computer wiped out from the memory card of the camera, so thought I would get a few thoughts down in the meantime.





Life has changed enormously since that day in July 2005 at Icycle Sports in Whitehorse. I was waiting in line to pick up my road bike which I had screwed up royally while trying to adjust the shifters. I asked the mechanic how bad the damage was and he said "not near as bad as the woman standing behind you". I turned around to see the smiling face of an attractive blond woman who seemed very friendly. She related a tale of being rear ended in Ft Saint John BC and having her bikes and car crushed pretty badly. Well of course, being a relative neophite in the cycling world, I felt it only appropriate that I should commiserate with her and come and look at the bikes, hoping only that I could bring some comfort to this poor souls day. So out we went and sure enough her bikes were pretty smashed up as was her car. Being the friendly and later I learned, the charming sort, she quickly had me engaged in a discussion about bikes, bike races and of course dogs!!!! Her Springer Spaniel was out of the car on a leash, sporting a jaunty scarf around his neck and appeared as friendly as she was, which helped keep me somewhat...spellbound. The conversation ended after a while with me handing my contact information to her trusted travelling companion Joanne with (apparently) firm instructions to make sure that Heather got the address and an invitation for her to come out for a dog sled ride after the snow flew. Well, low and behold the phone rang a week or so later and I quickly recognized the voice of this pretty woman I had met a week earlier. I took a look out the window and reassured myself that it had indeed not started snowing in July and wondered what she could possibly want at that time of year.... When I hung up (a couple of hours later), I was struck by the ease and comfort that we had been able to chat and converse. Of course she had reassured me that she was just looking for a friend and companion, since she was lonely because Joanne had left that day. Well, she did find a friend, a lifelong one, as did I and the world has simply not been the same place since then!!!





So here is a bit of an Ode to Heather Ann FitzGerald. It isn't often that you meet someone who has the sense of adventure that Heather has. I mean really, how many women do you know that pack up their car at almost 40 and move to the Yukon pursuing a lifelong dream. She is someone who shares many of the same simple fascinations that I do, the first snow of the year and looking at the temperature each morning and marvelling at how far below zero it went last night. Or, how about this..... in the midst of labour pains (which she did not believe were labour pains) wanting me to promise to tell her when I went out to the bathroom if the northern lights were out,. so she could come out and see. To go from city person to living in a small cabin in the northern woods is no small adjustment and then top it off by not running away after the first winter, but rather, making it quite plain that there was not much choice in the matter, marriage and fatherhood would look good on me, is no small feat!!!! I don't think I need to say more, other than, in her usual style of "do it big or go home", Heather managed to conceive twins, carry them to 34 weeks, get married in the midst of all this, put up with the construction of a cabin extension and then give birth to two very beautifull baby girls. She seems to be carrying on with her determination, in the learning curve we are experiencing as new parents. If nothing else, the last two and one half years has taught me that there are surprises around every corner if I am open to experiencing them.





Here are a few more pictures to share of our newborn babies, Adelaide and Sarah. Thanks to everyone who is assisting us with everything we need at this time from the McKellars looking after the kennel and cabin to Brenda for getting our temporary home in the village all set up for us when we arrive to the Parks Canada management team for allowing us the rent of this temporary accomodation. The Haines Junction Nursing staff and the medical community in Whitehorse also deserves huge thanks for helping us get these babies into the world healthy and vibrant. I could go on forever with thanks to everyone who has supported us, but I would rather share some pictures with you and leave you with this thought. You are all very close in our hearts right now and we look forward to being back home with our new arrivals.

As you may or may not know, Heather and I have been expecting twins, their due date was to be Dec 21 2007, but they decided to come early and were born on Nov 10 2007 at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops BC at 10:57 and 58 PM. They weighed 5pounds 3 ounces and 5 pounds 8 ounces at birth and are doing extremely well. I'll write more soon, but wanted to get a few photos out to relatives and friends.

Cheers

Sean