On Saturday August 27 the 2nd Annual Tori Carswell Memorial Golf Tournament will be held at the Canadian Golf and Country Club to honor Tori and raise money for the Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Support Programs Inc. in Support of Candlelighters and “Tori’s Helping Hand”. Julie and I are inviting our friends and family in the Ottawa area to join us in attending this event. The Carswells are a very special family. Kim and Paul Carswell attended our fundraiser and made it an evening to remember with their presence and overwhelmingly generous donation. Tori, who was a very beautiful and courageous girl will never be forgotten. She has had a huge impact on us as we now fight the same terrible disease that the Carswells battled.

Visit the Ottawa Neuroblastoma Research Fund website for more info on this event.

On Saturday afternoon, we attended the first annual Stonewater Gate neighborhood party and barbeque. The turnout was great despite the scorching hot temperature. There was plenty of fun events for the kids including a scavenger hunt, bean-bag toss, fishing pod, face painting and water slide. Curtis really enjoyed doing the scavenger hunt and fishing pod and won some great prizes. One of our neighbors Shelley also gave Curtis and us some private time on their backyard trampoline so that Curtis could have even more fun while some of the other kids played on the water slide (as much as he wanted to try the slide, he's not supposed to get too wet because of his broviac line). All in all, it was a fun day and we got to meet many of our great new neighbors, eat plenty of food and play games with the kids.

Gotta love having your own rink right in the backyard

Another new year is upon us and it's hard to believe how quickly 2004 whizzed by with all the life altering changes taking place this past year. We knew it was going to be a challenge when we made the difficult decision to sell our house in California and move back to Canada and have another baby at the same time. More than once I was told we were crazy for attempting this, but I knew we'd get through it. Jul and I always do. Now that we're finally settled in our new house and I've had a chance to reflect, I'm so thankful for our beautiful little baby girl, our super son Curtis who has been such a trooper through all the change, to Jul's mom Gwen for putting up with us for more than half a year, to my Mom and Dad for all their love and support and of course to my amazing wife who I couldn't live without. To all our friends in California, we miss you guys and look forward to visiting California often. It's been eight months already and while we've adjusted it's been a little hard to let go of our life there.