Month: August 2011

We did our traditional grey shirt/ice cream summer time thing…here is the result.

I actually decided to make supper today from scratch. I don’t know where i got the energy, but I knew that I had to seize the moment. J was not pleased that I wanted to do things a way up high on the counter where he couldn’t see, so I had to pull a chair up for him. He L-O-V-E-D being up and able to watch. He also thought my small choppy thing was super cool, and he had a good time trying to help me chop.

Yup, he gets indulged…

So, I grow these grapes over our deck because I want the shade. This year, with the drought we had in July, grapes have been falling off the bundles almost constantly. This is very annoying to me, as it attracts bees, and just makes a mess on our deck. The other day I came out to find this little guy also contributing to the mess. He sits on the pergola, pulls up a bundle of grapes and just eats to his hearts content…

It was moving day for B&V. The kids, Oma & Opa and Aunti L were at our house, then we were off to the Golden Arches for lunch.

It was a lovely day. We started off with breakfast at our usual haunt. Breakfast was nice, the lady even remembered to bring J an empty teapot without asking! We had gotten started kind of late, so the “frog tour” (tour on an amphibious like water/road vehicle) was booked for the times we wanted. We changed plans, and wandered down “Catherine” st, which is much like Bloor St (near Bay) in TO. Our plans were to amble down to a set of shopping malls. Grandma and Grandpa decided to tour churches and meet up with us later. We set of wandering. It was nice, busy, but not a busy as the day before. One block in, and we found my absolute favourite store!! Swatch! Whoohoo! Yup, I got a new one….R was not happy though, they had a cute kid section and she REALLY REALLY wanted one too. The ladies in the store somehow thought they were ‘helping’ by asking her if she wanted to try some on, well of course she did!! We made it out with just my purchase though.
By about the 3rd block, we ran into a parade. We finally figured out that it was a parade of ‘native’ cultures. We saw “Bolivia”, “Aztec mexico,”, “Peru”, “Venezuela” and a few others. We were trying to catch up with the Natives, when we were waylayed by a CBC reporter who wanted to know what we thought of this. We proudly gave our spiel about how it is great to be in a place where we can see all these cultures, and all these cultures are accepted. We never did see if we actually made the news later. There was some sort of festival going on in a plaza a few blocks down. We got some relief from the heat in a mall, and decided to lunch there. These food courts had so much variety it is really astounding. Grandma and Grandpa met us here.
After changing R into some swimwear, and J into a swim diaper, we headed back across the street to the gathering. There were quite a few teepees, and fountains that bubbled up from the pavement, with large statues of moose, and live fir trees. It turns out we had stumbled onto a large Native dance festival. I’m guessing groups from the parade all ended up there. Anyways. The kids had a great time in the fountains, and we had a good time watching them, and swaying with the music. At one point J crawled away from the fountains, and towards some steps. R was very dutiful, and followed him closely, (also crawling ?) He really likes steps now, up, down, crawling, walking, you name it. She was also very very sweet whenever he got water sprayed in his eyes, she would wipe the drops off of his face…It made my heart melt to see it…. We dried off and headed back to the hotel.
Once here, we realized our room still wasn’t cleaned, so we went off to the pool as a family for some swimming. J is really loosing his fear of the water. He likes to be independent on the steps, going up and down. He also really REALLY enjoys “motor boat, motor boat”. He may be ready for parent/tot swimming yet. We got ready, and checked in with the grandparents. We got to sneak away, they took the kids for supper. Daddy and I took the subway back into old Montreal and found of fav restaurant from last time “Gallianos”, a lovely Italian restaurant in the old city. There were lots of weddings to watch. The food was lovely, and it was really too bad we couldn’t take it home in a doggie bag. We spend a little more time after supper wandering around, then finally made our way out of a narrow alley filled with artists and their work. There was another bride & groom about 50 meters ahead of us, and we realized their photographer was right in front of us, she stopped and asked her assistant to “Clear the way of tourists”. I must have snorted in laughter pretty loudly, because she turned and asked “well, if you could just walk to the side”….i was quite annoyed, but hey, if she really wanted to fight the hoardes, well, good luck. As we were walking (along the side just to be compliant), there was this artist who was holding up a huge piece of Bristol board and angrily waving his arms at the wedding photographer. He was annoyed that his “art” was going to be in those pictures. The arrogance of both of those ‘artists’ just astounded me!!!
We made it back to the hotel despite the oppressive heat, and stumbled into our cool room. The kids are now finally asleep, and I am sort of done the packing. Well, at least the stuff that really matters, the dirty laundry can just get shoved in without much ceremony in the morning.

J was up with daddy at 6 this morning. I got up at 7am, the playpen is right between our beds, and when J stands he can just peer over the top. He is pretty soft spoken, but still “mama”….”mama”…..then he tries to reach for various things that I’ve got on the nightstand like my ipod, Kleenex etc. Anyways. I played with him a bit, then pulled him into my bed we played some more. This was shortly before 7am. R didn’t get up until 7:30. I don’t know why, but it was unusual. Both kids gave me the `fish lips` this morning, that`s the picture above. We went to a cute little diner for breakfast, complete with booths with shiny metallic vinyl. The owner served us, and was just lovely. We tromped off after to the subway. I still can’t quite believe how ‘in-accessible’ these subways are. Escalators don’t always work, and elevators are few and far between. How do people deal with this? Anyways. We arrived and went into the biodome. It was nice like we remembered, areas divided into different ‘eco’zones. So there was a rainforest, Laurentian maple forest, st. Lawrence waterway, arctic etc. My favs were the large lake where you can watch all the fish/crabs/lobster/mantarays/sea ducks etc from the bottom, then go around and see the top of the lake too. Still, my absolute favourite were the penguins. They can swim super fast! A few of them were chasing each other in the water around the rocks, then can dive, glide, then propel themselves out of the water for an extra bit of speed. Fantastic to watch! The water level was right at Joseph’s height, so he got a kick out of watching them zoom around too. We had some lunch, and braved the gift shop. I must say, we didn’t even get anything from the shop! Sad. We went back to the hotel. J crashed in the stroller as soon as we left the biodome, and of course woke the instant our elevator made it to our floor…Still we all lay down in our beds anyway. Turns out I was the only one who fell asleep. I woke to a quiet empty room. Turns out the rest of them were at the pool. Mom met a friend for supper, so dad and us went to a little Italian restaurant around the corner. The food was really good. Daddy got a pizza with peperoni, mushroom and garlic, and for once, they took the ingredient garlic seriously. It smelled lovely. J had a good time eating his noodles, until he rubbed his eyes, then the tomato sauce must have stung, he cried. Despite that incident, he is getting more and more difficult to contain at restaurants. He ALWAYS wants to “GO”, and will willingly go walking anywhere with 2 fingers to hold. He is very unhappy in highchairs unless the food is right in front of him. At breakfasts we keep him occupied with his own teapot (empty). If you don’t get him one, he just yells to touch the hot ones, and is very crabby….sigh, life with a 2 year old.