Geese

Aren't you all lucky, another quick post to try to make September look busy.

As you know I had Sunday night insomnia yesterday, I eventually fell asleep at about 1 am which isn't so bad as there's still 6 hours left before I am roused by Tom's alarm clock and Rose's fairy footsteps on the stair.  However, at the moment we have some fall migrants inhabiting the storm retention pond (or whatever it is) at the back of the house.  Look at all the little blighters looking smug and picturesque this morning.

 Honestly the amount of noise they make all night is astonishing, it's worse than having children.  I can't wait for them to b****r off back to Florida.

A Little September Catch Up...

While it's still September.

Well long time no see, this could be a very poor month for blogging clocking up a mighty 2 posts (or is it 3?, must check and edit) and the only reason you're getting this one is because I've got Sunday night insomnia.  I'm not sure why I'm still afflicted by this as it's a good few years since I've had paid employment to get up for on Monday morning, old habits die hard I guess.

School is in full swing now and everyone has pretty much settled into the way of it again and I have 2 weekends to report so here goes.

The weekend before last (no idea what date that was) we visited Coronation Park in Oakville and I took some fabulous photos of the Toronto skyline from the waterfront.

What do you mean you can't see it? its obvious behind Jacob's right shoulder, and Rose found an unusually large stick insect on an unusually burled tree.

We've had fabulous weather over the past week with everyone back in t-shirts and shorts but the trees have decided that fall is on it's way and are starting to turn.  This afternoon we went to a big park on 16 Mile Creek to find some colour and I remembered to bring my camera (actually I forgot all about it until we arrived in the car park but my luck was in and I unearthed it in the bottom of my bag in amongst the broken hair clips, just-in-case sweets, tissues, shopping bags, plasters etc etc).

Perhaps I'll pop into Bronte Creek this week and see what our local ravine is looking like, maybe I could even attempt another Time Lapse Tuesday.  Possibly not, I seem to be a tad less organised this year (you may have noticed) as a result of which there are no photos of the sound and light installation we went to in Town last weekend or the trip we had to Grand Bend or the visit from our friends this weekend or anything else we've done recently.  C-, Kirstin shows promise in this subject but must stop mucking about and TRY HARDER.

Oh No, not that time of year again

So there it is, 42.  I won't dwell on it, just a couple of happy birthdays going out to Miranda Hart, Gwyneth Paltrow, Bubbles and all the other people with birthdays around this time.  They may look better than me but I bet they didn't have such an exciting weekend!  In fact, it was so exciting that I only took 3 photos.

On Saturday (after I took everyone to brunch and had the single worst dining experience I've had since we arrived in Canada) we went off to Hamilton to look around Dundurn Castle.  When it was built in the 1830s Dundurn Castle was the largest house in Western Canada, or what is now Ontario and I think that the single most interesting thing was how small it is, you could have fitted the entire house including the servants quarters into one of the larger ballrooms/assembly rooms in Blenheim Palace.  It was lovely and rather grand but small enough that you could imagine living in it.

Anyway, I forgot to remove my camera from my bag until we got to the military museum where Rose had a little sleep in a campaign tent.

And Jacob showed remarkable natural aptitude for playing the accordian, must be his gypsy blood.

We also took in an Art Quilt exhibition which I'd already visited and had dinner in Shoeless Joe's, which was considerably better than brunch, and ate delicious store bought cake.  Hurray for a day of no cooking - here's to many more.

On Sunday we went to Oakville to visit Lakeside Park on the historic waterfront.  It was the most perfect, quiet, hazy September morning, not even any traffic noise and standing with you back to the historic buildings looking out at the Toronto skyline was beautiful.  I didn't bother trying, my camera wouldn't have captured it.

On the way home we called in at the 50 Shades of Black exhibition which Rose and I loved and the boys were not the least impressed by.  It was 50 antique black dresses from around Ontario and Rose got so excited that she went on a bit of an overdrive and didn't calm down for hours.  Here she is with her favorite collection.  It's no surprise that she chose the sparkly ones.

Unusual weather and resulting consequences

I have 10 minutes to catch up on a very short blog before I have to fetch the horrors from school so here goes...

There was a tornado in Grand Bend at the end of July that ripped right through our old neighbourhood, it was only an EF1 but it wreaked havoc in Ontario where we're not used to that sort of thing.  When we visited Gary at the end of August I took a couple of photos of the pile of debris that's been collected so far.

So we spent Jacob's birthday in Grand Bend where we visited with people, bbq'd, went to the beach and didn't take any photos.  Jacob had a swanky new camera that he picked out himself but he didn't take any photos either, not sure what his excuse was.

This weekend September arrived properly after a late summer heatwave, it hit 32 degrees in some parts on Friday and the humid X was over 40, yuck.  Anyway, with September comes clear air, this is the kids on the waterfront at Burlington yesterday, it was so clear you could see right across to Stoney Creek and Grimsby and we watched a tanker going into Hamilton Harbour, you can see it on this photo just disappearing into Jacob's shoulder.

Even though it's September it's still about 22 degrees but Rose has a mildly inflamed ear so she had to accessorize apres ski style.

Right, got to dash, sorry about the spelling mistakes I've not noticed yet.

118

This week Rose has mostly been trying out for the 118 ads.

Sewing and Sky

No pictures of children today I'm afraid just me and the sky instead.  We had a quiet weekend, it's been a long summer (although it's gone surprisingly quickly) and I for one am running out of steam so we just did some walking and sewing.  I made this apron from an Indigo Junction pattern.

To be honest the weekend was so uninspiring that I wouldn't have bothered to blog at all if I hadn't taken this shot of the sky from the deck this morning.  I guess its the an aeroplane trail through some cirrocumulus or something but it looks like a giant sky worm to me.

And Finally...

Here's the last of the posts for this evening and don't worry, it's short.  Last weekend Gary visited and for lack of any other ideas we took him for a walk down on the waterfront,  here are the Parker boys on Burlington Pier which is cool and curly.  I'm not sure if they conferred on wardrobe choices before going out or the shades of blue and grey are a coincidence.

 We accidentally went to the Burlington Children's Festival while we were there and Rose had her first cheer leading lesson, if all cheer leaders get to wear giant, sparkly hair bows I'm sure it won't be her last.

Rapunzel and a Surprise

Last week Rose went to another elaborate Disney Princess Party.  This time she went in her Rapunzel dress so we had to recreate the hair for the occasion, if anyone ever has to do this kind of thing there's a great website called Cute Girl Hairstyles with tutorials on most of the Disney princess 'dos and if I can do them anyone can.

We also received a surprise parcel in the post from across the big sea.  Jacob is very pleased, especially with the activity science book but it's hard to photograph.  Here's Rose with her new T-shirt and bug glasses.

And she does like to share.

Does anyone watch Trailer Park Boys?

Shell Bay

This is something I thought I wouldn't do at the beginning but I'm going for a marathon 2/3 posts in one night because I've only just bothered to download a bunch of photos from the past couple of weeks.  Enthusiastic 2012 Kirstin wouldn't have done it but that was then!

So first off some photos of a really pretty little cove just in the edge of Oakville that we found the weekend before last.

Isn't it cute, it's right in the middle of an expensive suburb but obviously not visited too much as you can see by the empty beach.  The kids were up for some paddling but as I know what they're like and it would all too soon have deteriorated into "Oops, I fell all the way in so I may as well swim" I banned it.  I'm so mean.

As the post title suggests it's called Shell Bay which I rather romantically thought might be because of the shape of the cove and the fact that much of what looks like sand is half broken down shells.  However, I think Tom may be correct in surmising that it has more to do with the view out in the other direction.

This was not in use while we were there but we drove past on Sunday morning and an enormous tanker was docked and probably loading/unloading for the refinery not far inland from here.

Circus School

Every morning this week Rose has been to circus camp.  She has been juggling, hoola hooping, somersaulting over bars, trampolining, balancing on things, swinging on rings and aerial hoops, posing in the silks and a whole lot more.  Her favourite part has been the trapeze.  I tried to take some photos through the glass when I picked her up today, they don't show the expression of adrenalin-rush joy but you get the general idea.

What a cool place for an active five year old to spend the morning, even Jacob thought it looked like it might be fun.

All About Jacob

This makes a change doesn't it, Jacob usually manages to effectively avoid cameras but this week he had a long overdue haircut.

And he reached a Miller milestone.  Here he is after finishing ALL of a bacon and egg cooked breakfast (including home fries and toast) for the first time, he looks a bit bilious but I can happily report that he was not sick.

Granddad would have been proud but I'm not sure how he would have felt about bacon and egg with chocolate milk, is chocolate good with anything or is that taking breakfast beverage innovation just one step too far?

Coffee and Sundresses

Another week is nearly over, seemingly filled with nothing but very busy.  The kid's have both had play dates, the car had to go into the garage again, we spent another morning in Bronte Park and all the usual house stuff had to be done.  I have also been sewing and that's all I took photos of I'm afraid.

Last week when Rose and I were hanging out in rather pricey Oakville we came across some 'coffee cozies' designed to save you from using one of those cardboard sleeves every time you buy take out, they were $15.00 each! so I made my own for about 40c.  Here's Jacob modelling it.

Rose has a blue sundress we bought last year that she is very fond of and has worn until it is completely limp and way too small.  I had a go at copying it with some rather smashing fabric that she picked out a couple of months ago in a sale.

I'm pleased as it looks pretty much the same as the original although any details are lost on these pictures as the pattern is so busy.  It's turned out fairly big so I really hope she's still into the 'Little House on the Prairie' look next year.

Another Museum, Poor Kids

After Jacob's camp on Thursday afternoon we attempted a free afternoon in downtown Oakville and I have to say it went very well.  Here are my instructions should you find yourself at a loose end there...

Park in the FREE museum car park before it opens and have a picnic in the grounds, despite the moose they are very nice with a view out over the marina and some lovely planting.

Also the tiniest pine cones I've ever seen.

Go to the museum, there is no charge and then you are justified in using the free parking all afternoon.  They had a display on children's clothes which was quite neat  and a butler's pantry, try saying the word 'butler' to Rose without her giggling, impossible, anything with 'butt' in it is fatal these days it's quite embarrassing in public and a good job we can't afford one.  There was also one about the war of 1812, again Rose was impressed because the father of Burlington's founder fought at the Battle of Queenston Heights with Sir Isaac Brock, the Hero of the War and of Rose.  Was he naked or not? and who took his coat? we'll never know.

Also go and visit the 2 little moved and reconstructed buildings in the park next door, there's lots of stuff you can touch and I thought they were better than the museum.  We spent quite a while in the pioneer home discussing the size of beds, spinning techniques and playing with children's toys (and breaking them) then we went to Oakville's original post office, wrote with quill pens and sealed the letters with wax.

Finally we spent a hefty 50c on 2 revolting looking old fashioned candy sticks that made people's faces change colour and will probably make their teeth drop out at a later date.

So that's it, about 4 hours frittered away in a vaguely educational manner for virtually nothing, I did put a bunch of change in the donations box at the end but I doubt it would cover the parking if we'd gone in one of the municipal lots.

Half of July in One Post

What a busy couple of weeks I've had forgetting my camera left right and centre.

The kids and I went to The Royal Botanical Gardens (sans photographic equipment) where I acquired a Mojito recipe that I wasn't keen on but looked cool and inviting on a hot day, the drink that is, it's a long time since I looked cool and inviting.

 Rose had colourful nails on all extremities.

No photos of Jacob as I have been driving him to Visual Basic camp every morning for nearly 2 weeks then spending hours wandering the coffee shops and parks of downtown Oakville looking for free things to do.  Not an easy feat in Oakville believe me.  Rose was eaten by a hungry plastic lion.

 And learnt to scale the monkey bars with no assistance.

Leopard print spiders, whatever next.

Oh yes, very scary trees with strategically placed buckets of water waiting to pounce on unsuspecting 5 year olds.

At the end of this week Jacob will have completed a fully functioning game called Polar Peril based on Donkey Kong, I am hoping that we will be able to post it somehow or other.  In the meantime go to his You Tube channel (link in previous post) I think there are numerous new tutorials and also a video of Rose being tickled.  Nice.

Jacob Post: Youtube

Hi everyone! Just posting to give a link to my new YouTube channel Jacoband Ian!

Bronte Creek

Sorry, did I forget to say that we arrived back in Big Bad Burlington safe and sound? Well we did, then  we had a couple of very boing days of getting the car fixed and listening to thunderstorms so today we headed out for a little spendthrift adventure in Bronte Creek.

Bronte Creek is quite a sizable provincial park (remember endless photos of the Pinery? Like that) in the City of Burlington, I think it's where the coyotes live that keep me awake in the small hours.  Anyway, you can walk from our house to the day use area in less than 15 minutes and if you enter the park on foot it's free!

We spent most of the afternoon in various play areas including this barn.

In the Discovery Centre we learned about the animal inhabitants of the park, including this
Great grey Owl.

And we went on a bit of a walk and found this hill, look, country this way...

city that way.

No photos but we also observed some goats as research for when Jacob acquires 'Goat Simulator'.  Apparently he will be simulating a more exciting and less typical goat than the eating, sleeping, standing around ones who live in the children's farm.  Don't ask.

Well that tired everybody out for the grand total of $0.00, there's a good chance you may be seeing a lot more of it over the next 8 weeks.