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Last weekend we trucked down to Mount Vernon for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. It was beautiful, spectacular, wonderful and every other extraordinary adjective you can think of.

Today, we had our own little tulip festival in the backyard.

Last fall, Jen blistered up her hands trying to dig through a rocky, barren pit in a corner of our yard to fill it with yellow, white and red. These tulips have taken their time cracking through - what with the snow and ice and all. But today we were rewarded with explosions of colour normally saved for the Symphony of Fire / Celebration of Light.

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The family went looking for spring yesterday. Sick of the snow, we packed up and headed south like any good Canadian bird would do.

We stopped at Burlington and to have some snacks at Krispy Kreme.

Z didn’t actually eat any Krispy Kreme donuts in that photoshoot. It was all cleverly staged. We’re rookie parents, but not crazy! Jen was just out of the lens with a bucket of baby wipes to soak him down!

Then we went out into the flats between LaConner and Mount Vernon - the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival was in full bloom, and if you can make it down within the next week or so, this is a little bit of what you should see.

This is my favourite picture of the day (that didnt include family).

Y’know, sometimes it takes courage to be unique.

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Back in February I started to get a little itch in the back of my brain. One that said proposing to Jennifer in Paris would be absolutely perfect. It was time.

I was driving up Burrard St in Vancouver, and the next thing I was inside Spence Diamonds checking out their open showcases of cubic zirconia designs.

You’ve heard the commercials, I know you have. They’re hard to miss. Everything in them is true. The dude who reads them is annoying as hell, but the experience at Spence is second to none. Now their website needs A LOT of work, it did little to help me choose the ring and price I wanted, but once I was in the store, Michelle was a breeze to deal with.

I told her my budget, told her the style, and she pointed me in the direction where I could find settings I’d like. Then she left me alone. Once I found a style I liked, she took me into an office and gave me a complete education on diamond buying. She showed me 3 different stones under a microscope and went out of her way to really help me understand what I was about to do.

Again we went through my budget and she went into their vault to see what sort of stones were on hand.

Here’s where it gets tricky. Jen’s favourite style of diamond is an Asscher cut, or a square Emerald. Spence doesnt carry that one. So the stone Michelle came back with was a round cut. It was .65 and beautiful. Michelle told me many diamond cutters will sacrifice to get to .7, so to find an ideal cut diamond at this size was a great deal. I put a deposit down and left with a big smile on my face.

But then the second guessing. This was a round diamond. Not what Jen wants. It seemed kind of small as well. I mean it looked huge, but I was really trying to get close to 1c with my limited budget, but I wasn’t going to sacrifice colour or clarity.

Then I started to look online. Sure, I’d thought about going the eBay way, but Jen would hand me the ring right back if she ever thought it was cursed with someone else’s bad luck.

I stumbled upon BlueNile.com when I was looking for information on Asscher cuts.

It has a beautiful and easy interface that takes you through diamond and setting selection. You can go through each and every important factor in the diamond from size, to cut, to colour, clarity and budget. Sliders let you adjust the importance and range of each factor and more or less stones in the inventory show up.

You can compare a cloudy big diamond vs a colourless tiny one. It was great. The most important part of the process was BlueNile carries Asscher cut diamonds. The one Jen wanted. And guess what? For the same price I had put down for the .65 round cut at Spence, I could get a full 1c stone from BlueNile.

I chatted up some of Jen’s friends and scoured the internet forums and Twitter to get as much feedback on BlueNile as I could. It was all golden. I called the 1-800 and dumped questions on the operator, all were answered perfectly. If I got the wrong size, they would adjust it for free, it was fully guaranteed etc etc etc.

I bought the ring with the idea that if it didn’t turn out perfect, I had the Spence stone on the side. But when it arrived via FedEx, it was exactly as promised. Huge. Sparkly. Perfect.

I called Spence to drop the deposit and they were awesome again, no questions asked. I really can’t say anything bad about these guys (other than I got a ring 50% bigger for the same price)

Now while I LOVE the convenience of shopping online, the after service makes it a little tough. Had I bought from Spence, or Tiffanys I could just drop in to the store to get a clean or adjustment, I can’t really plug a USB key into Jen’s ring to get the same service. So fingers crossed nothing like that will be needed. In the meantime, I would HUGELY recommend BlueNile.com for those who trust the internets, and Spence for those who want to go the B&M way.

Hey, now that I’ve blog about Jennifer’s engagement ring, does it become a tax deduction? I mean, I do make a couple hundred dollars a year off the blog - surely that’ enough to offset the few thousand I dropped on the diamond as a legitimate business expense?

Just wondering.

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Zacharie just discovered he has a tongue. He won’t keep it in his mouth.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

Despite what our Facebook statii say, Jen and I are not married.

Yes, she wears a diamond band on her left hand, and I a gold on mine - but those are just personal commitments we’ve made to each other. Nothing formal. Truth is, I bought Jen her original diamond band with the thought of using it for a wedding band, one day. In the meantime, it was something for her to wear on her left hand and feel comfortable being pregnant with people immediately staring down at the left finger. You dont think it happens, but it does.

Jen and I joke that ours is an arranged marriage. We got pregnant soon after meeting, and even though there has never been a doubt about our commitment or relationship, it was always something that seemed chosen for us, instead of chosen by us.

I had so many things I want to say to Jen when I proposed. None of them came out but, “Do you choo choo choose me?”

It’s a joke between us, Jen loves the Ralph Wiggum clip, and it sums up what this decision is for us. It’s our choice to be together.

There is no wedding date set, although wouldnt a Hawaiian wedding and Tahitian honeymoon wrap nicely around the Team Diabetes Easter Island marathon in June 09?

We’ll see. The important thing is we choo choo choose each other.

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Nose drool.

Yes, it is cold season and guess which little bear just caught one from daddy.

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Blah.. blah .. blah .. blah. Oscars schmoscars. Do we really care?

No. But it is fun to watch. And bitch.

Best line of the night to Jon Stewart: “You know what we do in commercial breaks? Huddle together and make catty comments about what you at home are wearing.”

Nice. Perfect. Cause I know you were all like “Who?” and “Eww” when Tilda Swinton won. And when Daniel Day Lewis was interviewed on the red carpet you took a ruler up to the screen to measure his hoops and recoiled in horror when his date’s dress was fully revealed.

Okay, nastiness out of the way, we all know it’s really about the parties afterwards. My son Zacharie will do his best to demonstrate how the night will go for many of the nominees.

Outfit picked by Rachel Zoe, hair done by Ken Paves.

Damn, that LiLo knows how to show a boy a good time.

If ya want a really fun way to watch the show, get on Twitter. Everyone is randomly firing up feedback and one liners and exclamations and disappointments. They say the whole world is watching, and if you’re on twitter, it really feels like it’s true.

You know, stuff like this gem from Meg Fowler: “I’d like to accept my award for Bourne Ultimatum, but I’m busy f**king Matt Damon!”

See ya next year!

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My pal, Carolyn, loves to throw quotes up on her blog. So borrowing her inspiration, I’m dropping one on you today.

“Your children need your presence more than your presents.”
Jesse Jackson

I’ll try to remember that one around December this year.

Parent Hacks has the quote as a part of a post on how to find more time to spend with your family.

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Sunny and 11. Thank you very much.

Jen wanted to go for our usual walk around the local creek, I like taking the weekends to go and check out something different, bring a camera and take some pics. Our last photowalking adventure was January 27, so it’s been awhile.

Today, we packed Zacharie in tight with his little lion pal, Martin (pronounced the french way).

Jen and I have named ALL of Zacharie’s toys. Leonard is a frog blanket, Sylvester is a teething crab, Lawrence is a blue lion, Reid is his horse, Morrison is his bear, Dixie is a little chicken… we even named the cartoon art on his walls. It makes for interesting conversations when we’re packing up to leave.

“Where’s Eduardo (monkey)?”

“I dunno, but I’ve got Sylvia, Sonny and Cher“ (crab, starfish and clam).
Ahhh the joys of parenting.

We started near the Bayshore, walked around Lost Lagoon, past the beach and down to English Bay. We saw raccoons and ducks and took a ride on the swings. Then we headed up Denman, hit Vera’s for a burger and poutine, before strolling back to the car.

map image and distance tracking from runningmap.com

3.5km. 2hrs. Good times.

Here’s what we saw today:

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