The days just blur together...

I keep forgetting what day it is, as this week has just flown by without much regular routine; a welcome respite to relax and just be in the moment with Ariel and help around the house as much as possible before returning to work. Today was the rehearsal dinner for Mike & Jo's wedding day tomorrow, and we spent some time at a nearby park going through the motions for the wedding party. Ariel stayed behind and was passed around by other relatives until we got back to the house. I think we are certainly at that point now where we really miss her when she's not around. As much as I'm looking forward to Ottawa in a big way, part of me is really sad I'll be so far away for almost a week. There is nothing like having her curled up and snuggly...it's the most amazing feeling. The daddy gene is definitely starting to kick in and I'm getting rather hooked. Jay is a pretty hot mom, too.


Tonight I took this picture of some of the party balloons that floated away into the sky. I like it alot...it's rather poetic. I'm not sure what I think it means, so I'll leave it up to you.

Ariel, just hangin' out

Ariel is fun to watch. She just makes faces, dances around and farts a lot too. Been off work this week to help Jay recover and just spend some family time together. It's been nice.

My daughter is awesome

Oooooooooooooh! You are in my power!

Everybody dance!

There's no place like Daddy.

Ariel Priebe - LIVE!

Here she is!

Ariel Lynn Priebe

Born via c-section at 2:13am

Monday, August 14th

8 lbs 11 oz

52 cm (20.47 inches)

Coming home Thursday...

Yes!

Last Day?

Ok, so that wasn't our last day before baby, as we are still waiting after 2 trips to the hospital attempting to be induced. Jay's blog has all the details. Feeling really anxious but relatively positive and calm at the moment. Tick tock...

Last Day

Today was our last day simply as a married couple, visiting with my family around town. After the unfolding of events tomorrow, we will be our own family of 3!

We spent the day in Steveston, and at Centennial Beach, just walking around, shopping, wading through the low tide-water floor and enjoying the day, relaxing and having dinner at White Spot. It was a perfect day. Now we're preparing ourselves for tomorrow.

Here is a great picture of Jay standing on the beach in profile, which I love...it was a perfect moment where she was standing at a distance and we caught each other's gaze and instantly had the same idea for the picture. I love her so much and I'm so proud of her already...she's got a lot of hard work to do tomorrow.

Also like this picture of the dynamic duo, Mom and Jonathan. I got an incredible video about him at his workplace which I will post here once the dust settles a bit.

Stay tuned!

See You This Thursday

Ok, so today has been my first official vacation day and we went to the doctors and hospital for a non-stress-test, and we'll be going in to be induced on Thursday. So it appears that Ariel's birthday shall be August 10 or 11, depending on how long the whole process takes. Very exciting...I'm kind of in a state of shock at the moment hoping everything goes smoothly and just anticipating the event.

My family is here now and very tired from the long trip; tomorrow we'll plan some kind of outing and make it count, as it's our last day of solitude before everything changes!

Eeeeeeeee...

Another funny movie

This is kind of clever too...gee, you find some interesting things when you're bored waiting for your first born to arrive.



Anyway, better get back to animating.

An Eye for Annai

On a whim I decided to see if this brilliant film from last year's Ottawa Festival was on YouTube, and am thrilled to see it is so, so I have to share it...

Antici.....

....pation.

Still....waiting....for....baby. I have a new theory as of today though, that God is holding off until all unresolved issues at work are wrapped up in a pretty package so that I don't have to worry about them during my time off. Every few minutes I come across something else that makes me think, hmmm, better take care of that. If that is indeed the case, then it's fine. I'd like to be able to relax at least a little bit while I adjust to my new adventurous lifestyle. But after tomorrow, and possibly a Saturday of teaching, hopefully that will be it, as I'm officially on vacation as of Tuesday.

Might have the possibility of doing a public talk on stop-motion through the local Siggraph people, so that's very exciting and I hope it crystallizes. My book was officially launched at SIGGRAPH in Boston this week, so it will be neat to hear how well it did and what other opps may have come from it. Working on planning Ottawa next.

The past few days I've had a new sense of responsibility in my personality and how I react to things, as though I feel the dawn of impending fatherhood already having an affect on my life. Hard to explain, just feel more alert, more open, more in tune with what's going on and how to tackle my 'issues'....or maybe it's the calm before the storm. Overall very excited and full of a calm kind of anxiety, but a squishy confident one that is still impatient...yet grown up.

Saw Marcello today. What a neat guy...he's going to teach art in China. His life would make a good book.

And now, for no reason other than it's a free country, the obligatory random Rock-afire picture...