haggaret.com

Way back at the beginning of October, my good friends Dave and Meghan got married. I wrote a short post congratulating them and mentioning that I had the privilege of co-emceeing the event. I also mentioned that I would write a follow-up post about the experience, and this is that post.

Liam is on a roll these days. This time he wanted to send out some happy birthday wishes to Dana so I helped him create this little video. Hope you like it Dana. Oh and Happy Birthday! :)

For a larger version of this video – you can check the Flickr page directly.

On a side note, I think I may have hit the wall with respect to editing videos using iMovie. I found out while making this video that iMovie ‘08 doesn’t allow you to do slow motion (or fast motion for that matter) so I had to drop back to iMovie ‘06 to create the slow motion part of the video, then export it and finally import it into iMovie ‘08 for use with the video. That’s a lot of extra work. I’m wondering what else is out there for video editing. Would Final Cut Pro be overkill? Probably. I’ll have to do a little digging and see what I can find. If anyone out there reading this has any suggestions for video editing software for mac, let me know. Thanks.

I would be remiss if I didn’t send out some congratulations to my good friends Dave and Meghan who tied the knot this past weekend. It was a nice short ceremony and of course Meghan looked absolutely beautiful! Dave was looking pretty snazzy too, and I really liked how the bridesmaids with their black dresses and red shalls matched the groomsmen in their black suits with red ties. Well done on that Meg!

The reception was held at the Ottawa New Edinburgh Club Boathouse, which was a very cool location. Myself and Rob Sample had the honour of being MCs for the event and we had a lot of fun with it. I’m planning to write a separate post about the experience of being MC, but we’ll see if that happens or not.

So congratulations guys on your wedding – I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as your guests did. :)

Liam turned two at the end of September, on the same day that my buddy Dave turned 32 actually – it was a Friday. Earlier that week, Amy had asked me if I could work from home that day, or at the very least not go into work until a bit later as she had to pick up a friend at the airport and didn’t want to take the kids with her. I certainly didn’t have a problem with that so I hung out at home while Amy headed off to the airport early on Friday morning. She showed up back at home around 0830 – but she wasn’t alone! Turns out she had my dad with her! He had come up for the weekend to celebrate Liam’s birthday and both Liam and I were very surprised, and very happy to see him! Thanks for coming dad!

The party was a success, with Amy making a wonderful bulldozer cake to go along with her construction theme. The only snag in the decorations was one of the signs that had ‘required’ spelled incorrectly (Amy was distracted during its creation), but since the kids can’t really spell at this age, we weren’t too concerned. Funny thing is, either the adults at the party can’t spell either or else they all talk with a Boston accent and “Requied” looked like the correct spelling. ;) Since we’ve been busy with the new baby, we had hoped to keep the party small, but in the end there were 12 kids and probably just as many adults in attendance. Sadly the weather didn’t cooperate which meant the party took place inside instead of in the back yard. Oh well, it was still a lot of fun. Liam certainly got a lot gifts, including many new toys that make all sorts of annoying noises. Thanks guys! :)

The other thing that normally coincides with Liam’s birthday (or the birthday weekend anyways) is the National Police Memorial. Amy hasn’t missed going each year since she became a police officer – either marching or else going to watch. This year was no different. We met up with Shelley, who had Anthony and Isabella with her, on Parliament Hill. I tried to keeps the boys busy while Amy and Shelley watched the memorial. At one point during the ceremony, they fired off a cannon and it startled us since we weren’t expecting it. Liam commented that it had scared him, but not to the point of tears or anything. I decided that we should wander over to where the cannon was so that the boys could get a look at what made the ‘big bang’ and then maybe it wouldn’t be as scary. When we got to within about 20 feet of the cannon, I was told that they would be firing it again and that we couldn’t get any closer. I should have known better, but for some reason I thought it would be a great idea to hang around and watch the cannon being fired – that way the kids could see it in action. Bad idea. The second the thing went off, Liam and Anthony both jumped about 5 feet in the air, Liam grabbed onto me and wouldn’t let go and was crying for his mommy. I scooped them both up and started walking back to where Amy and Shelley were. Anthony was fine, trying to console Liam by telling him that it was ok and patting him on the arm. Liam eventually calmed down after I told him repeatedly that the ‘big bang’ was gone and wouldn’t be coming back. He still remembers it though, and every once in a while tells me, “big bang gone.”