Linaloo

Perfect

A perfect weekend spent with friends at their lakeside cottage in Tremblant. We hiked, kayaked, played, laughed, ate, drank and slept well.  

In real life (!) I've been finding it hard to get back into the swing of anything now that the children are back in school. Two children doing homework almost every night is totally kicking my behind and crafting projects have been put on the backburner until things hopefully settle down. 

Summer holiday blues

Hello.  No prizes for guessing where we've been lately.  I'd like to share some photos of our wonderful trip back home, but quite frankly I took a bazillion and the task of sorting through them is just too overwhelming, I'm back to work,  the children start school next week, we have an end of season soccer party to organize for the weekend and the youngest member of the family turned six yesterday.

We had a fabulous time and I'm definitely suffering from post holiday blues and jetlag - still waking at 4:30am. 

A reminder of some of the things we loved and missed about England. 

Stately homes
Legoland
Royal castles
Clotted cream
Hedgerows
Monsoon
Accessorize
Hobbs
Hob knobs
Marks and Spencers
Warm beer
Wagamamas
Stone walls
Driving on the left hand side
Roundabouts
Radio One
Flake 99s
Beach huts
Cats eyes

And of course, most of all our lovely family and friends who made the trip so special. Thank you!

Camping

This weekend we enjoyed a rather last minute camping trip by the lake with friends. Unlike our last trip, the weather was dry and the mosquitoes were far less prevalent.  Yay!  We came home thoroughly filthy, exhausted and happy.   I am not a hard core camper by any means, two or three nights at most is just about enjoyable for me, any more is just too much like hard work if I'm perfectly honest.  This year we hadn't planned to go at all but the children were quite insistent...

I'm glad they persuaded us.

Lemonaide

A perfect summer memory created this week.  My children have been plotting for a while with our lovely new neighbours to set up a lemonade stand.  I finally relented yesterday and agreed they could try it today and preparations began in earnest immediately.  Along with stand building, price negotiations and profit sharing, there was a huge marketing campaign underway at the pool during their swimming lessons this morning.  Despite nearly being rained out, they set up shop and within 5 minutes there was a steady stream of customers.  It was amazing!
 
I made a few quick phone calls to neighbours to make sure that at least they'd get a few takers, but I was staggered at the amount of people who we didn't know who stopped and supported their little enterprise.  In the end they sold out within an hour and a half and had to turn people away!  Needless to say they were elated with their success and I feel very grateful that we live in an area where people are so kind and generous.

Pool life

Much like last summer and the year before that, a large part of our summer is being spent at the local pool.  Swimming lessons, swim team, diving, synchro, water polo, let alone just hanging out with neighbourhood friends over a BBQ make this a very special community indeed.  Also perfect for cooling off when there's a heat wave - its 7pm, 33C with a humidex of 43C right now!  
If you need me, I'll be poolside...
 
 
 

The past two weeks

 Have been busy.  Crazy busy, but happy times with good friends and family. There's no sign of it letting up for a while with the last week and a bit of school to go...roll on summer holidays, we're ready!
 

That time of year again

Now that I'm into my third year of blogging I can confidently say that there are definite patterns that seemed to have emerged in our lives.  The most recognizable one for me is that May seems to be a month of huge growth by my children.   I wonder if that's just my family, or whether spring has that effect on all children?  The warmer weather seems to be the catalyst for a period of blossoming where another set of childhood milestones are reached.

Thomas learned to ride without his training wheels this weekend.  It has required much patience (not to mention running!) on the part of his Dad as although all the signs showed he was perfectly ready, he really wasn't too keen after a lot of falling to begin with.  We agreed this morning that he should try one more time and if he still felt scared we'd put the training wheels back on.  By the afternoon it all magically clicked into place and his confidence sky rocketed.

Whilst all this was going on, I was gardening and Ruby, spurred on by a successful culinary venture the night before, had made us all lunch as a surprise.  Tortillas with salami, spinach and cheddar! On Saturday evening she had made spaghetti bolognese with very little assistance from me, using ground beef, onion, carrots, courgettes diced using a pampered chef chopper and homemade canned tomatoes.  After I stopped fretting about her possibly burning herself while stirring on the stove top, I realized that with a little supervision, she was completely fine. She has begged me to let her cook for everyone on Saturdays from now on.

Now I could get used to that.

A trip to the ROM

That's the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto in case you didn't know.  We've just come back from a beautiful Easter weekend with family in Toronto.  As well as enjoying gorgeous weather and wonderful company, we also managed to squeeze in a visit to the ROM.  The children managed well over three hours of exploring before tiredness got the better of them (and us).  It's funny how you never really know what will catch their attention.  I thought the dinosaurs were impressive, but they preferred the bat cave, I liked the rocks and gems, but they were completely capitvated by the fakes and forgeries exhibition and counterfeit currency.  Really?

They're full of surprises.

Hope you had a happy Easter too!

Once in a lifetime

Yesterday's advent treat was a most likely once in a lifetime event.  The olympic torch has been making it's way through Montreal this week in preparation for the winter games in Vancouver next year, finally reaching our neck of the woods last night.   What a thrill to see it.  The children were very excited and proud to know that the torch bearer was someone who they had a connection to (the son of someone in our community).

Tommy, holding his own olympic torch:   
The children cracked open their money banks to buy some special red mittens to support the Canadian athletes.  Good job too. There's a snowstorm outside today.

Leaf peeping

In our local arboretum.  Our first visit since arrriving here more than three years ago.  We took a long afternoon stroll there with some friends today and tried out geocaching for the first time too. We found the hidden cache pretty easily and it added bit of extra drama to our adventure!

 

We've had a lovely long weekend (Thanksgiving here in Canada) which means a short week at work and school - yay!