Special Movie Night

Chance was dry in the morning all last week. Actually, more than a week, because we started counting on a Thursday. So for 9 consecutive mornings, he has not peed in his pull-up! As an incentive to keep up the effort, he was allowed to pick a movie at Blockbuster and decide on his own supper choice -- what does any nearly 4 year old want?? McDonalds, of course. He chose Ironman for a movie.

Way to go Chance, we are proud of you!

Cuties

Who wore it better, Chance or Karin?

Awwww...my babies are sooooo cute. Especially the big one, when he's all tuckered out from trying to keep up with Mommy.

New Pillows!

$10 to cover all of our living room pillows. I have done 3 so far, just need to finish the 4th one, ran out of thread on the sewing machine. Wanna bet it never gets done???

Food, Glorious Food

Rice crackers...she likes to share with Chance too.

Green beans. After this first taste, she finished the whole bowl.

"I'm still hungry!"

"Mmmmm, carrots!"

Mmmmmm....

Made this for dessert tonight. If you like brownies...you'll like these too.


Blondies (modified from How To Cook Everything)

6 tablespoons butter, melted
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla or 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
Pinch salt * important -- need to balance the sweetness out
1 cup all-purpose flour

Butter an 8×8 pan (spray with oil)
Mix melted butter with brown sugar – beat until smooth. Beat in egg and then vanilla.
Add salt, stir in flour. Mix in any additions (below).
Pour into prepared pan. Bake at 350°F 20-25 minutes, or until set in the middle. Cool on rack before cutting, a pizza cutter works well.

Further additions, use one or a combination of:

1/2 to 1 cup chopped nuts, toasting them first for even better flavor
1/2 to 1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 teaspoon mint extract in addition to or in place of the vanilla
1/2 cup mashed bananas
1/4 cup bourbon, scotch or other whiskey; increase the flour by one tablespoon
2 tablespoons of espresso powder with the vanilla
Stir 1/2 cup dried fruit, especially dried cherries, into the prepared batter

My additions tonight were 1/2 cup golden raisins, 1/4 cup sliced almonds, and 1/4 cup milk chocolate chips...which actually melted down due to the warm butter in the batter....so it made chocolate smears. Delicious chocolate smears, that is.

Happy Half Birthday, Karin!

The girl has grown a lot in the last 2 months...she now

reaches the top buttons on the rocking chair!!

Karin turned 6 months old this month. She celebrated the day in style, with a couple of naps and an evening meal of apple sauce and barley cereal. Only 6 more months and the girl can eat cake!

Vacation in Ontario & Quebec - Part 3

Our final days in sunny and warm and HUMID Ontario were spent with Cam's aunts, Sharon and Susan. We had a wonderful visit and they treated us to great meals and interesting tours and museum visits. I think they had a good time too, especially with the kids. Thank you, ladies!

Off to visit the Canadian Agriculture Museum. What a great place to stop.

Are we having fun yet? We visited cows, horses, chickens, rabbits, a donkey and a whole lot of bees!

"Maman" outside the National Art Gallery. Chance loved this sculpture. Unfortunately the museum was fairly pricy, so instead we opted to go view the Parliament Buildings from across the river.

Chance took this photo of Cam and I.

Parliament Buildings.

Nice view!

Karin snuggled in with Auntie Susan.

Susan had bought popsicles and water guns for Chance. They got into several waterfights, one including the garden hose (Susan hosing down Chance). When Chance got his hands on the garden hose, Susan ran behind the gazebo where we were sitting and Chance soaked everyone, including Karin who was sleeping! Sharon scolded Susan but we all had to admit it was pretty funny.

Sharon and Susan in their beautiful garden.

Visiting the Nature Museum. The dinosaur exhibit was sponsored by Talisman. Cameron is feeding the baby to a chasmosaurus.

Learning about being a marine biologist or other natural scientist - navigating the waters in a zodiac, just like Mommy and Daddy used to do in their geology camps up in Northern Saskatchewan.

Pushing all the buttons he can find in a replica of a submarine.

Enjoying the view at the airport.

Ready to go home. Our flight was at 6:45 PM, so Karin slept, and Chance stayed awake the entire way. So when we got home Chance hit the sack immediately and Karin stayed awake for a few hours until we got unpacked and then went back to bed no problem.

Vacation in Ontario & Quebec - Part 2

After a few days of fun in Carleton Place and a nice dinner with my cousin Barbara and her friend Roy (thanks again guys!), we collected our rented car (which turned out to be a blue SUV) and made our way to Wakefield, Quebec. We easily found our bed and breakfast, La Grange ("The Barn"), a converted barn originally built in 1898. We dumped our stuff and found a place to eat lunch. The restaurant was the old train station in town, with the rails still just a couple of feet from the patio where were seated. As we were eating lunch, the steam train that runs between Wakefield and Hull rolled by. Chance was very impressed. Karin...not so much.

Front of La Grange. Rooms are on the main floor, the owners' residence is on the second floor, and the third floor is a yoga studio. Total square footage is 8600 sq ft!!

In the evenings we would put the kids down to sleep, plug in the baby monitor and then hang out in the back yard with glasses of wine and a piece of pie from the local bakery. Yum!

Here comes the train!! It was very loud, and when it rumbled by our patio, the floorboards were vibrating!

Steam train rolling by during lunch. Chance was in awe. Karin was trying not to panic!

Delicious food! Clam and potato soup and salads of all sorts: artichoke, chickpea, broccoli, green, curried cauliflower.

After our wonderful lunch, we jumped in the car in search of the beach at nearby Lac Phillipe in Gatineau Park to cool off. It was 35° C and very very humid. The beach wasn't too hard to find, and en route we stopped at a produce stand and purchased carrots, apples, raspberries and peaches, all local. The folks selling the fruit and veggies did not speak English so I got to make use of my French...I was just glad they didn't laugh at my accent! $8 spent on yummy snacks. They offered us all the flowers we could take with us, as they were clearing out their potted basket inventory - lots of nice flowers, but of course we couldn't take them with us, too bad!! After a few more kilometres of driving and crossing a covered bridge, we made it to the beach, paid $10 to park and found a picnic table in the shade. It was gorgeous, a busy beach but not too crowded, just lots of kids for Chance to play with. He quickly befriended a little boy named Sam who was the same age. Sam was bilingual and so was a bit confusing for Chance to talk to -- he kept saying things like "here, put the poisson dans cette bucket" while they were trying to catch minnows and Chance would stop and look to me for a translation. We stayed at the beach all day, and it was only the rumbling of our tummies that made us eventually get up and go.

We spent so much time in the lake our fingers were like prunes when we came out. So amazing to wallow like hippos in the clear, cool water!

Chance asked to borrow some sand toys from a family - they were nice enough to share. I watched him play in the sand for about an hour!

Lovely beach - lots of sand and picnic tables under tall trees in the shade.

The next day we woke up and had breakfast at La Grange. The owner, Adam, made us a delicious breakfast of asparagus quiche (I think he grew the asparagus in his own garden) and toast and fruit. Chance was very impressed by the private breakfast being served to us...he commented "Wow, look it's just for us". Then we drove to Hull, and boarded the HCW (Hull Chelsea Wakefield) Steam Train. The beginning of the train ride was pretty good (when these photos were taken), but quickly deteriorated due to lack of naps and lack of interaction with other children (there were some other kids in the same car and Chance wanted to play with them SO badly, but they were loud noisy kids and we didn't want him to be creating a ruckus like they were, such a difficult situation especially because their grandparents were there and not doing a darn thing about it). Karin was hitting the 5th day of no real naps and so she was a bit fussy and when we arrived back in Wakefield an hour and a half later it was not a moment too soon. Had lunch and then rode back to Hull, the way back wasn't as bad as the way up, however those noisy kids had purchased a key chain that played electronic train noises at the gift shop and they used it the whole way back.

Little gummer. Her teeth really popped up during this vacation, must have been sore.

Chugging through the trees.

Nice views! Every now and then we would pass a road crossing and we would wave to the people in their cars, or more often than not, waiting outside their cars and waving to us.

Daddy walking Karin through the streets of Wakefield and stopping to check out the geology. You can take the geologist out of the field, but you can't take the field out of the geologist.

H.C.W. Steam Train. The fellow talking with Cam and Chance was very entertaining and when the kids started getting worked up on the way back he came by and started doing paper folding tricks (making hats, boats, etc.) to calm them down - much appreciated by the other passengers, as well as us.

After the train ride was done, it was about 3 PM and the kids fell asleep in their car seats within 10 minutes...so we just went for a drive. After a little while, Chance woke up and we pulled over and bought coffees for the grown ups and hot chocolate for him, but continued to drive as it was pretty nice. It was drizzling rain and the sky and trees seemed like they were looming over us....I joked to Cam that it seemed like at any moment a wolf would jump out in front of us -- then we passed a sign that said "Lac Des Loups" -- "Wolves Lake". Haha (nervous laughter).

Just when we thought the trees were going to close in on us, we broke out into this little field cut-away, with corn on one side and hay bales on the other. It had stopped raining, so we got out of the car and Chance got to see corn growing up close and personal. As we were driving away, it seemed to click in exactly how much corn was in the field, because he kept peeping from the back seat "That's a LOT of corn. Daddy, that's a LOTTA corn!"

Cam's dad always says corn should be knee high in July. These corn plants were as tall as Chance in July!

Our random road trip. Pretty!

I think Chance is telling Cam to smile here...whatever he said, it was making Cam crack up.

Scenic field. Loved the old worn down fence.

It was so hot and muggy, it was almost surreal. You can see the mist rising off the bush in the background.

Vacation in Ontario & Quebec - Part 1

We are back from our fantastic visit to Central Canada. It was boiling hot there but a definite success as neither kid got heat stroke/exhaustion, no sunburns, no one got lost, and no one had hives this time.

Leg 1 of the trip was spent with our good friends Aimee and Jason. Their kids have grown up so quickly, and we enjoyed watching the kids interact. Baby Karin was definitely a hit with their three children, and at first Chance was a bit put out that Karin was garnishing all the attention...but then he realized that he could play with Noah's transformers uninterupted, so it wasn't such a bad thing after all.

All the kids lined up: Emily (3), Payton (2), Karin (6 mos.), Chance (3 1/2), Noah (5 1/2)

Every morning started this way: the door would creak open and then there would be a flood of kids in our room, all pawing and fawning over Baby Karin. Note that Chance is not in the photo. He is in the next room playing with Noah's Transformers.

Everyone loved holding Baby Karin. Here is Emily!

Here is Payton patiently waiting for her turn to hold the baby.

Noah, all grown up. No longer a toddler!

We spent an awesome day out on the Mississippi River with our friends in their beautiful boat. The water was wonderful and really helped us keep cool in 35° C weather. The humidex was 43° C. Karin was happy to sit and suck on any hand she could get close to. The waves made short work of putting her to sleep for most of the day.

Here is Chance driving the boat. He loved it! He is wearing Em's pink life jacket - didn't mind the colour at all and he was safe. Thanks Emily for the loan!

Daddy and Chance out on the tube. Wheee!

Entertaining herself in the stroller while everyone else was playing in the spash park.

Jogging along, hoping to get his hands on a water sprayer.

Loving the beach - look at the sand stuck in the creases in his neck.

Sunscreen angel.

Topless beach.

Pure joy.

All played out from such busy, hot days.