Winter Storm Warning

I have never seen a winter storm warning like the one they currently have posted on Environment Canada's weather warnings. Here is the text from it. I am thinking that we will be housebound today as I do not want to get stuck in the storm with a 4-month old. Not a good idea...

Ottawa North - Kanata - Orléans
5:47 AM EST Sunday 16 December 2007
Winter storm warning for
Ottawa North - Kanata - Orléans continued

A crippling Major winter storm with heavy snow and blowing snow as well as some ice pellets is moving in right on schedule this morning.

This is a warning that dangerous winter weather conditions are imminent or occurring in these regions. Monitor weather conditions..Listen for updated statements.



A massive winter storm has begun over southern Ontario and the stage is set for this dangerous storm to kick into high gear over the entire forecast district today with near record snowfall amounts.

Latest analyses show a rapidly deepening low pressure centre now over northern Ohio just southwest of Cleveland this morning. This low is preceeded by an expanding area of heavy snow with some freezing rain and ice pellets having mixed in at times as far north as the Windsor London Kitchener and Toronto areas.

There have been several reports from the OPP of freezing rain and low to almost nil visibility in heavy snow over southern Ontario earlier this morning.

This intensifying winter storm centre will move towards Lake Erie then northeast across western and then northern New York state to New England by this evening. This storm track is placing southern and eastern Ontario directly under the brunt of heavy snow. A few claps of thunder along with bursts of very heavy snow are also likely and have already been reported over southeastern Michigan and possibly southwestern Ontario early this morning.

The main snow event has moved into southwestern Ontario now and will rapidly expand and envelop all regions east to Ottawa this morning. Copious amounts of snow as well as strong winds causing blowing snow are expected. The snow will be mixed at times with ice pellets and freezing rain along and south of a line from grand through the greater Toronto area to Kingston and then along the St Lawrence river Valley to Cornwall.

Widespread snowfall accumulations of 20 to 30 cm are expected in most areas by this evening. Some local amounts of 40 to 50 cm or more are quite likely in a few areas..Especially from the west end of Lake Ontario and eastwards into far eastern Ontario. Snowfall rates of 2 to 4 cm an hour are expected with low to nil visibility in sustained bursts of heavy snow likely.

Significant blowing snow is expected to accompany the heavy snow due to strong northeast winds gusting to 70 km/h whipping up the freshly fallen snow and causing whiteout conditions.

This is a dangerous winter storm. It is strongly recommended to avoid unnecessary travel during this storm. This massive snow storm has the potential to cause paralyzing conditions as road travel on any unplowed streets becomes next to impossible today. All motorists who must travel are urgently advised to use extreme caution and plan for much extra time to reach their destination.

There remains a high degree of certainty with this storm as the the latest computer model and observed trends continue to forecast this potential record setting winter storm.

The storm is expected to move out over southern Ontario by this evening with the heavy snow moving out of eastern Ontario by Monday morning as the storm centre moves away over New England into the Maritimes. However snowsqualls may form tonight to the Lee of Lake Huron resulting in a continuation of locally dangerous winter travelling conditions throughout the night.

Connor's 4th Month

Time does fly when you are having fun, or is it because I am so tired? This month seems to have gone by in such a blur. I blame it all on ultimate and the late nights that are associated with playing indoor. I think that I have to stop scheduling things for Thursday mornings because it is tough getting out of bed after playing late on Wednesday night (which is not always the case, but I always seem to get to bed later on Wednesdays). It is great fun playing ultimate again even though I feel completely out of shape. My team is now 0-4 and we are just hoping that next week will mark our first win. When I play in the earlier timeslots, Geofford and Connor try and make it out to watch, although they seem to be more interested in chatting with people than with watching me :) Connor and I try and make it out to watch Geofford play on Thursdays, but sometimes it is just nice to stay home when I am still tired from playing on Wednesday. We hope to make it out more in the new year though.

Connor had a busy month as usual. We went to Mike Laporte's 30th birthday party and celebrated his birthday and we were able to congratulate him on the newest addition to the Laporte family who will be making his/her debut in Spring 2008. I guess we are coming to that age when people are getting married and starting families. It's so exciting :)

Connor also got to visit with his paternal grandparents when they came to visit for his Baptism. Connor's Baptism was on November 17th at Good Shepherd Parish. It was an exciting event as Good Shepherd has full immersion baptisms. Connor got dunked three times in the baptismal font and he did not enjoy it one bit. As he was the third baby to get baptised, I think he knew something was up because he started crying even before he got dunked in the water. Poor dude.

After the baptism, we had a small gathering with family to celebrate his baptism. I think that it is funny that everyone is looking at the camera except Connor who is fascinated by the dining room chandelier.


Geofford and I also got a few evenings out without Connor when we went to a couple Sens games. Unfortunately the Sens lost both games that we attended, but I think my parents had a fun time babysitting Connor while we were out.

Connor also had the opportunity to meet another new friend who was also born on Damian's birthday - Lucas Frederick Lai. Lucas and his family were here in Ottawa for a short visit from Halifax. It was nice seeing Fred and Liz and meeting Lucas. Unfortunately we didn't bring our camera to the meeting, but I know that Fred (Lucas' father) did take many pictures. We will add a link to those pictures once we receive it.

The holiday season started with a bang for us. Starting on the 1st of December we were busy with many activities. We celebrated Shay Thibert's 2nd birthday at a party at his house. He was a wonderful host and although he was really good at ripping the paper off his gifts, I think he was a little upset that he couldn't play with all of his new toys right away because there were more gifts to open. I wonder how he is going to handle this Christmas?

We also attended a few cookie exchanges, so now I only a have a bit more Christmas baking to do thanks to the exchanges. Although, we ate most of the cookies from the 1st exchange because I was less organized and didn't freeze them all right away. I learned for the next two though :)

Connor is currently coping through his first cold. He caught it from me, who caught it from someone at ultimate last week when I mistakenly took a drink out of someone else's bottle thinking it was mine. He is quite stuffed up, but we have found the humidifier has been a great help during the night. On top of that, Connor had to endure his second round of immunizations today. I think that he did quite well, but he is definitely getting pampered by me today. At his appointment, he weighed 6.69 kg (14 lbs 12 oz) and measured 64 cm (25.2 in). He is in the 50th percentile for weight and just over 50th percentile in height, so he is one super cute average baby :)

We tried to do a holiday photo shoot for Connor at home so we could have a great holiday picture of him. Anyone who is ever tried to take pictures of babies can attest how difficult this could be. Below is one of the pictures where Connor was more interested in the tree and lights than he was posing for the camera. If you click on the picture, you can see more pictures from the shoot on my flickr site.


We would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and for those who don't celebrate Christmas - Happy Holidays!

Connor Smiling

Connor has been smiling for a while now, but I finally managed to capture it on video. Enjoy!

Connor's 3rd Month

Wow, it is hard to believe that Connor is already three months. I finally got him weighed today and he weighs 6.1 kg (13 lbs 7 oz), so he has gained just under 3 kg! The last time we measured him, he was approximately 60 cm (approximately because he wouldn't stay still for us to measure him).

This month has been fairly busy with many visits with new friends. John Francis Rootham's christening was this month, so we were able to celebrate with him at his open house. Although John slept for most of the visit, Connor was actually alert and was interacting with people at the open house. Connor also met some of our ultimate friends when we attended Emily Chen's Open House for her m chen wears collection. Geofford and I both bought one of her limited edition first printing t-shirts. We are hoping that Emily will soon put out a baby or kids line so that Connor can also sport some m chen wears.

Connor and I finally got to meet Tristan Xavier Hodgson who was born the same day as Damian. Geofford has yet to meet Tristan, but we are hoping that this will happen soon. This is a picture that Maria (Tristan's mom) took when we went over to their house for a visit.


We also got to meet Kahlea when she and Rachel came to Ottawa for a visit. It was so nice seeing Rachel and it was fun meeting Kahlea. Now we just have to convince them to move back to Ottawa so that we can seem them more often. If you click on the picture of the two of them, you can see the rest of the pictures that I posted on flickr.


Connor also had the opportunity to visit with his grandfather one afternoon when I wrote a test for a competition for a Human Factors Specialist with the government. Hopefully I did well enough on the test to get to the next phase of the competition. This job would be ideal as it matches my skill set to my interests. If I do get a job, Connor and Geofford will get to spend the rest of Connor's 1st year together. I know that Geofford is quite excited about this prospect.

Halloween

Connor was Winnie the Pooh this year. I think that he was pretty cute. We only went to three neighbours homes this year and he managed to get mom and dad some twix bars :)