Playful Platypus

Magical Monday

2011-04-11T05:47:00.002-04:00

Food Friday: Asian Chicken Salad

2011-01-28T06:04:00.000-05:00

Asian Chicken Salad

Ingredients

1 clove garlic, minced
1cm fresh ginger, minced
2 tsp sugar
⅔ c canola oil
2 T miso
¼ c rice vinegar
150g cooked chicken, shredded
½ head romaine lettuce, shredded
½ carrot, shredded
½ c Chinese cabbage, shredded
½ c cucumber, halved lengthwise and cut in thin slices

Instructions

In a food processor or blender, puree the garlic, ginger, sugar, oil, miso and vinegar until smooth.
Combine remaining ingredients. Toss with miso dressing.

Food Friday: Fish Rolls

2011-01-21T06:01:00.000-05:00

Fish Rolls

Ingredients

250g fish fillets (trout, perch, bluegill, etc.)
250g farmers sausage
1 large can tomatoes
4 potatoes, peeled and sliced
1 onion, sliced
1 sweet red or yellow pepper
1 tsp basil
1 tsp parsley flakes
1 tsp paprika
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp nutmeg

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cut fillets into strips 2 – 5 cm wide. Cut sausage into 2cm chunks. Wrap fillets around sausage chunks and secure with toothpicks. Place in a baking dish.
Drain juice from tomatoes and set aside. Pour tomatoes over the fish-sausage rolls.
Add the potatoes, onions and peppers.
Sprinkle seasonings over vegetables. Pour in ½ cup of the reserved tomato juice.
Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

Variations

omit sausage and wrap fish with bacon
sprinkle grated cheese on top
add wild rice and enough water to cover

Food Friday: Easy Skillet Noodles

2011-01-14T06:07:00.000-05:00

Skillet Noodles

Ingredients

200g medium egg noodles
6 slices bacon
½ cup chopped green bell pepper
1 tsp each basil, oregano, marjoram, garlic powder
½ tsp nutmeg
1 can tomato paste
1⅔ cup water
Parmesan cheese

Instructions

Cook noodles in boiling, salted water. Drain.
Cook bacon in cast-iron frying pan. Drain off all but 2 tsp of drippings. Remove bacon and crumble.
Add green pepper to drippings and cook until it has just lost its crunch.
Add seasonings, tomato paste, and water. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally Reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes.
Serve over cooked noodles. Sprinkle with cheese and crumbled bacon.

Food Friday: Chile Cornbread

2011-01-07T06:02:00.001-05:00

Chile Cornbread

Ingredients

¾ cup yellow cornmeal (or a mix of yellow and white)
½ cup flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ cup milk (or a mix of milk and buttermilk)
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 egg, beaten
¼ cup corn kernels, fresh or canned
2½ tablespoons green chile (like a jalapeno), roasted and roughly chopped

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a loaf or small cake pan.
Melt butter and cool.
Combine corn meal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt, in a medium mixing bowl.
In another bowl, combine milk, buttermilk, melted butter and egg. Blend thoroughly. Add to dry ingredients and mix well.
Blend in the corn kernels and green chile.
Pour batter into the greased pan and bake for 20 – 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cut into squares and serve.

Food Friday: Almendrado

2010-12-31T07:47:00.002-05:00

Almendrado

Ingredients

1 envelope unflavored gelatin
¼ cup cold water
5 egg whites
1/8 tsp salt
2/3 cup sugar
1¼ tsp almond extract
zest from one lime
green and red food coloring

for Custard Sauce

1½ cups half and half cream, scalded
5 egg yolks
1/2 cup cold half and half cream
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
¾ tsp almond extract
1/2 cup sugar
¼ tsp lemon zest
¼ cup toasted almonds

Instructions

Add the gelatine to the cold water and stir. Place this mixture in a double boiler and heat until the gelatin dissolves. Remove from heat and let it cool on the counter (or in the refrigerator for 5 or 10 minutes – make sure it doesn't harden too much).
Beat the egg whites until they start to get stiff. Gradually add the sugar (one tablespoon at a time), salt, almond extract and lime zest while mixing.
Fold in the cooled gelatine. Mix until well combined.
Divide into three separate bowls. Tint one bowl green and one red. Fold the food coloring in well to distribute the color evenly.
Layer the green egg whites in the bottom of a glass dish. Then add the white layer and last the red layer. Cover the dish and chill in the refrigerator.
Scald the 1 1/2 cups half and half in a double boiler.
Add the remaining ingredients to a medium sized bowl and whisk until well blended.
Slowly add the egg yolk mixture to the scalded cream, stirring the whole time. Cook until the mixture coats the back of a metal spoon.
Pour immediately into a bowl or glass measuring cup and place in a bowl of ice to cool. Once it's cool enough, cover and place in the refrigerator. Chill for two to three hours.

To toast the almonds, spread them on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake for 3 – 5 minutes at 325 degrees until a nice golden brown. Watch closely as they burn easily!

To serve, slice the egg white-gelatin mixture and place portions on a plate. Pour or spoon custard sauce over the top. Garnish with toasted sliced almonds.

Food Friday: Mexican Christmas Cookies

2010-12-24T07:15:00.002-05:00

Mexican Christmas Cookies (Galletas de Navidad)

Ingredients

1½ cups butter, at room temperature
⅓ cup sugar
3 cups flour
1½ tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs, separated
¾ cup sugar
1 lime, juiced
2½ cups fruit preserves
½ cup Gran Marnier
½ cup icing sugar
¾ cup chopped walnuts

Instructions

Mix the butter and sugar until well blended. Add the egg yolks and vanilla and mix well. Add the flour and mix to form a large ball.
Knead the dough 4 to 5 minutes. Dust with flour, cover with plastic and refrigerate between 30 minutes and 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease two cookie sheets.
Beat the egg whites until stiff. Lower mixer speed and gradually add ¾ cup sugar and the lime juice. Beat for 1 minute, until the mixture is shiny.
On a large, floured surface roll out the dough. Transfer it to the greased cookie sheets and continue to roll out until very thin.
Combine the preserves and the Grand Marnier and spread over the dough. Cover this with the beaten egg white mixture and sprinkle with confectioners' sugar and chopped walnuts.
Bake for 45-60 minutes or until egg whites are golden brown and crispy. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Cut into squares to serve. Makes about 2½ dozen.

Food Friday: Noodles with Peanut Sauce

2010-12-17T06:09:00.000-05:00

Noodles with Peanut Sauce

Ingredients

1 carrot, peeled
3 tsp vegetable oil, divided
2cm fresh ginger, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup chicken broth
¼ cup natural-style peanut butter
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1½ tablespoons rice vinegar or white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon chili garlic sauce
¼ teaspoon salt
1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
250g snow peas, trimmed
500g cooked linguine
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro

Instructions

Shave the carrots lengthwise into very thin strips using a vegetable peeler; set aside.
Heat 1 teaspoon of the vegetable oil over medium heat. Add the ginger and garlic; sauté, stirring, for about 30 seconds. Add chicken broth, peanut butter, soy sauce, rice vinegar, chili garlic sauce, and salt; stir until well-blended. Reduce heat and simmer 7 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat; keep warm.
Heat 2 teaspoons oil in a cast-iron frying pan over medium-high heat. Add bell peppers and snow peas and saute until tender. Remove from heat.
Combine carrot, peanut butter mixture, bell pepper mixture, and linguine in a large bowl; toss well. Sprinkle with cilantro.
Serve warm or at room temperature.

Food Friday: Awesome Fish Bake

2010-12-06T05:21:00.001-05:00

Awesome Fish Bake

Ingredients

1¼ cups ranch dressing
750g fish fillets
¾ cup cheddar cheese, shredded
potato chips or soda crackers, crushed

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°.
Pour ranch dressing in a 9” x 13” pan. Roll fillets in dressing and lay them in a single layer in the pan.
Cover with shredded cheese and top with crushed potato chips or crackers.
Bake for about 25 minutes or until fish is flaky. Then broil 2 to 3 minutes until topping is crisp.

Serve with creamy mashed potatoes and a salad.

Food Friday: Mahogany Chicken Wings

2010-12-03T05:59:00.001-05:00

Mahogany Chicken Wings

Ingredients

1.4kg chicken wings, split and tips discarded
½ cup soy sauce
½ cup honey
¼ cup molasses
2 tablespoons chile sauce
1 tsp ground ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced

Instructions

In a bowl, mix soy sauce, honey, molasses, chile sauce, ginger and garlic.
Place chicken in a shallow dish. Pour marinade over the chicken wings and let sit in the fridge for 1 hour, turning occasionally.
Preheat oven to 375°. Arrange chicken in a 9x13 baking dish in a single layer. Bake for about 50 minutes or until meat comes easily off the bones, brushing with often with marinade and turning once.

Food Friday: Tangy Fruit Salad

2010-11-26T05:05:00.000-05:00

Tangy Fruit Salad

Ingredients

2 tablespoons instant vanilla pudding mix
1 cup vanilla yogurt
1 can pineapple chunks in juice, drained
1 can mandarin oranges in juice, drained
1 cup grapes
2 medium bananas, sliced

Instructions

Combine pudding mix and yogurt.
Mix fruit in medium bowl. Stir fruit into yogurt mixture.
Refrigerate. Serve when chilled.

Magical Monday

2010-11-22T05:59:00.000-05:00

Food Friday: Fried Noodles with Egg

2010-11-19T05:05:00.001-05:00

Fried Noodles with Egg

Ingredients

4 cups flour
⅓ teaspoon salt
water
2 tablespoons butter or vegetable oil
3 eggs

Instructions

Make a dough of flour, salt and just enough water to make a stiff dough. Roll out and cut into thin strips.
Bring water to a boil with a bit of salt. Add noodles and cook about 10 minutes. Drain.
Heat butter or oil in a cast-iron frying pan. Add cooked noodles and fry until light brown.
Beat eggs. Pour over noodles and cook until eggs have set.

Food Friday: Bluegill with Pasta and Cream Cheese Casserole

2010-11-12T05:58:00.001-05:00

Bluegill with Pasta and Cream Cheese Casserole

Ingredients

75g cream cheese (at room temperatute)
1 cup dry pasta (macaroni or other shape)
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
375ml bluegill, cooked and flaked
¼ cup onion
¼ cup green pepper, chopped
2 T mustard
¼ tsp salt
60ml milk
½ cup cornflakes crumbs

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°.
Cook macaroni in boiling salted water. Drain.
Blend soup and cream cheese with an electric mixer. Stir in macaroni and remaining ingredients, except cornflake crumbs.
Place in a baking dish. Sprinkle with cornflakes crumbs and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

Food Friday: Caramelized Chicken Wings

2010-11-05T05:55:00.001-04:00

Caramelized Chicken Wings

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 cup honey
1 clove garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste
1.4kg chicken wings

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°.
Place chicken in a 9x13 baking dish.
Mix together the first six ingredients. Pour over the chicken wings.
Bake for an hour, or until sauce is caramelized.

Food Friday: Witches' Fingers

2010-10-29T06:03:00.002-04:00

Witches’ Fingers

Ingredients

40 (40) whole, blanched almond
Red icing gel, optional
1 cup (250 mL) CRISCO® Golden Shortening
1 cup (250 mL) icing sugar
1 (1) egg
1 tsp (5 mL) almond extract
1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla
2¾ cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
15-20 drops green food colouring
50 ml strawberry jam

Instructions

Using a small paint brush, paint each almond with red icing gel. Set aside to dry..
In a bowl, beat butter, icing sugar, egg, almond extract and vanilla until smooth.
Add flour, baking powder and salt and combine.
Mix in green food coloring, a few drops at a time, until color is as desired. Divide dough in two, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 325º. Spray two baking sheets with cooking spray.
Shape 1 heaping tablespoon dough into finger shape. Make slashes in several places with a sharp knife to form knuckles. Place on baking sheet and press painted “nail” in one end of finger. Continue until dough is used up.
Bake for 20 -25 minutes until golden. Remove from oven and let cool on baking sheet.
When cooled, remove nail from finger, place dab of strawberry jam on nail bed, and replace nail, pressing down lightly so that jam oozes out from beneath.

Food Friday: Beef Stroganoff with Dill

2010-10-22T06:02:00.002-04:00

Beef Stroganoff with Dill

Ingredients

200g crinkly noodles
600g lean stewing beef, cut into very thin strips (or use hamburger)
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup chopped onion
150g mushrooms, sliced
3 tablespoons flour
500ml water
4 teaspoons beef bouillon
½ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon pepper
250ml sour cream
1 teaspoon dried dill

Instructions

Cook noodles according to package directions.
While noodles are cooking, heat butter in a cast iron frying pan over medium heat. Sear meat (do it in about 3 batches, for easier stirring). Make sure it is cooked through. Set aside and keep warm.
Add onion and mushrooms to the skillet and sauté for 5 minutes, until golden brown.
Whisk in flour. Gradually add water and beef bouillon. Heat for 3 minutes, until sauce is thick and bubbly.
Stir in beef and dill. Add salt, pepper and sour cream. Heat through but do not boil.
Serve over noodles.

Food Friday: Fish Stir-fry

2010-10-15T05:59:00.000-04:00

Fish Stir-Fry

Ingredients

1½ T canola oil
5 green onions, minced
½ inch fresh ginger, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
1kg fish fillets, chopped
½ cup fresh mushrooms, sliced
½ cup fresh asparagus, diced
½ cup green pepper, diced
½ tsp fish sauce
1 T teriyaki sauce

Instructions

Heat canola oil in a wok or frying pan until lightly smoking.
Add green onion, ginger and garlic and fry for about 1 minute.
Add fish and fry until it flakes easily. Remove from pan and set aside.
Add remaining ingredients and cook until just tender but not soft.
Return fish to pan and heat through.
Serve on steamed rice.

Food Friday: Crunchy Honey Chicken Wings

2010-10-08T06:02:00.001-04:00

Crunchy Honey Chicken Wings

Ingredients

2 cups buttermilk
2 tablespoon hot pepper sauce
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1kg chicken wings, separated at joints, tips discarded
3 cups cornflakes, crushed
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup cornmeal
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup honey
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes

Directions

In a bowl, mix together the buttermilk, hot pepper sauce, salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder. Pour into a large Ziploc bag.
Add the chicken wings to the bag, seal and shake to coat. Let sit overnight in the fridge.
Preheat oven to 400°. Coat two baking sheets with cooking spray.
In a bowl, combine the crushed cornflakes, flour, cornmeal, and salt and pepper. Remove the chicken wings from the marinade, and squeeze off excess. Discard the remaining marinade. Coat the wings with the cornflake mixture and place on the baking sheets. Spray the top of the wings with nonstick cooking spray.
Bake about 30 minutes or until the meat comes easily off the bone,.
While the chicken is baking, stir together the honey and red pepper flakes in a small saucepan over medium heat until the honey thins. Keep warm until the wings are ready.
Once the wings are done, place them in a large serving bowl and drizzle with the honey sauce. Toss until evenly coated.

Food Friday: Peach Cobbler

2010-10-01T05:39:00.001-04:00

1-2-3 Peach Cobbler

Ingredients

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup peach nectar
¼ cup juice reserved from canned peaches (or more nectar)
2 16-ounce cans of peaches, packed in juice, drained, (or 1¾ pounds, fresh, sliced)
1 tablespoon tub margarine
1 cup pancake mix
⅔ cup flour
½ cup sugar
160ml evaporated milk
1 tablespoon brown sugar
½ teaspoon nutmeg

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400°.
In a saucepan, combine cinnamon, vanilla, cornstarch, peach nectar, and peach juice. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and bubbles.
Add sliced peaches. Reduce heat and simmer for 5–10 minutes.
While peaches are simmering, melt margarine in the microwave. In a bowl, combine pancake mix, flour, sugar, and melted margarine.
In a separate bowl, combine the brown sugar and nutmeg.
Lightly spray 8-inch-square cake pan with cooking spray. Pour hot peach mixture into pan.
Add milk to flour mixture and stir. Quickly spoon over the peach mixture and sprinkle the brown sugar-nutmeg over the top. Bake for 15–20 minutes or until golden brown

Magical Monday (plus a bit)

2010-09-28T00:30:00.002-04:00

Food Friday: Beef and Noodle Casserole

2010-09-24T06:01:00.000-04:00

Beef and Noodle Casserole

Ingredients

600g lean round steak, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ cup water
2 beef bouillon cubes (or equivalent powder)
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon ground cardamom
1 tablespoon lemon juice
200g medium noodles
1½ cups cooked green beans (or frozen beans, thawed and drained)
3 tomatoes, cut in wedges
dash sugar, if desired
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon chopped parsley (optional)

Instructions

Heat oil in a large frying pan, over medium-high heat. Add beef and sear.
Stir in water, bouillon, salt, pepper, cardamom, and lemon juice. Simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes or until beef is tender.
While beef is simmering, cook noodles and drain.
Place noodles in a greased 2.5L baking dish. Spoon green beans around the edge of baking dish over the noodles. Put beef mixture in the middle, then pour the juices over everything. Arrange tomato wedges over the green beans, then sprinkle with a little sugar, salt, and pepper to taste. Cover tightly and bake at 350° for 30 minutes.
Garnish with parsley before serving.

20 hours with ButtonBoy

2010-09-21T06:00:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, the kids cashed in their birthday present coupons from friend Giggles: a sleepover for Mustang, and an afternoon at the movies for ButtonBoy.

So there I was, back down to one kid at a time for a whole 20 hours!

It was a calm and quiet evening, just me and ButtonBoy, while Mustang enjoyed her sleepover. We watched a movie - with a bit of puppy-snuggling beforehand. We read some stories, then went to bed and fell asleep in short order. The next morning also passed in relative tranquility, with an orderly visit to the grocery store and library. Nothing out of the ordinary, right?

Well, except that it was calm and quiet and orderly.

The usual grocery store trip with both kids goes like this:
They take one cart, I take another. At the beginning of the rounds, I tell them they can each pick one treat and it has to be a healthy treat – no candy or junk food. I then send them off to fetch 3 jugs of Mustang’s milk and 1 bag of ButtonBoy’s. They come back with 1 jug of Mustang’s milk, 1 bag of Buttonboy’s, and 3 kinds of chips they love and absolutely must have and after all, Mommy, they’re off price and we need chips, don’t we?

I send the chips back (unless I want them and they’re on the list), then send the kids off to get the two missing cartons of Mustang’s milk and also some eggs and butter. They come back with a dozen eggs, margarine, and 4 cartons of juice that they absolutely must have because they want juice in their lunches and juice is good for you and this is off price, too, Mommy, and can’t we have some please?

I likely accept the juice because by now I’ve trained them in which varieties I will accept, and then send them off to replace the margarine with butter, find a bag of sugar, and don’t forget the two missing cartons of Mustang’s milk! They come back with butter and four boxes of cookies that are the best kind in the world and so yummy and Mommy we don’t have any cookies at home and please Mommy just this one thing?!

I tell Mustang we can keep one of the boxes of cookies as it’s relatively healthy and that will be her treat, right? She looks at the boxes, changes her mind – not quite the treat she was thinking of – and takes the cookies back, along with instructions not to forget the sugar and Mustang’s milk!!!

They come back with sugar, three boxes of crackers that are off price, and a ring of shrimp which is the best thing in the world Mommy and we can have it for movie tonight and we all love shrimp don’t we?

I tell Mustang we can keep the shrimp as her treat (and because it’s the small ring that’s not too expensive and yes, we do all like shrimp and it’s healthy) and she figures that’s an okay treat so we keep it. I tell her to return the crackers as we have lots of crackers at home, but she says nope, we’re keeping them and pops them into the cart. By then I’m at the milk counter so I pick up Mustang’s missing milk myself, and send the kids off to fetch a cucumber that I forgot back in the veggie section. While they’re fetching, I return the crackers to the shelf. Kids come back with a cucumber, a quarter watermelon, and a package of cow cheese because it’s very yummy, and watermelon is healthy, right Mommy and we love watermelon don’t we? I ask Button which he prefers to be his treat – the watermelon or the cow cheese? He rejects both as he wants a more treaty treat, but then he can’t think of what to pick so I suggest the watermelon as it will go well with the shrimp for movie snack. He ends up agreeing as he can’t think of anything else.

Compare that to this grocery store visit with just Button:
He takes one cart, I take another. I send him to pick three of his favourite kinds of fruit. He loads up with apples, oranges, and grapes. I then send him off to find 2 cartons of Mustang’s milk and one bag of his, as well as a dozen eggs. He comes back with 2 cartons of Mustang’s milk, one bag of his, and a dozen eggs. I ask him to go find 2 cartons of zoo juice and he comes back with two cartons of zoo juice. I take him to the fish counter and ask which kind of fish we should get and he suggests one that at first seems a bit expensive, but when I do the calculations to convert the price I’m given (per kg) to price per pound (the way everything else is posted) it’s not that much more than the other fish on offer, so I agree and we get one big fillet (I mean big – almost a kg!). He needs to go pee but the bathroom is out of order so I take him outside and we find some bushes with a bit of privacy and he does his business there (the advantage of being a boy!). The last thing on the list is some tea, so we head to the tea aisle together and as we go he notices that the cookies are on sale and asks if we can have some, but I say we still have lots of home-baked cookies at home, so he accepts that and doesn’t push back. We head to the check-out and are done – he’s never asked if he could pick a treat, and I never mentioned it.

If I had two kids like ButtonBoy, life would be easy.

Not nearly as interesting or exciting...

Mind you, there are days I’d pass on exciting for a little bit more easy.

Magical Monday

2010-09-20T14:12:00.004-04:00

Food Friday: Grilled Lime & Ginger Rainbow Trout

2010-09-17T05:47:00.000-04:00

Grilled Lime & Ginger Rainbow Trout

Ingredients

600g rainbow trout (4 fillets)
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2cm ginger root, minced
1 tsp grated lime peel
1 tsp crushed red pepper

Instructions

Sauté the minced ginger and grated lime peel in the oil over medium heat, until lightly browned and aromatic.
Remove from the heat and stir in the crushed red pepper. Once cooled, whisk in the lime juice. Set aside.
Heat the grill to a moderate temperature. Brush the grill with some oil to reduce sticking, and grill the trout fillets with the skin side down for about 2 minutes (or use a fish basket). Gently turn the fillets and grill for another 2 minutes or until flesh turns opaque. (Alternatively, grill under the broiler in the oven.)
Serve immediately with a dash of the ginger-lime mixture.

Magical Monday

2010-09-13T06:03:00.000-04:00

Food Friday: Chinese Chicken Wings

2010-09-10T05:39:00.000-04:00

Chinese Chicken Wings

Ingredients

1 cup soy sauce
1 cup brown sugar
2 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1 green onion, minced
2cm fresh ginger, minced
1.3kg chicken wings, split and tips discarded

Directions

Marinade: Stir the soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, green onion and ginger in a pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves completely. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
Place the chicken wings in a large bowl. Pour the marinade over the wings and coat evenly. Marinate in the fridge overnight or 8 hours.
Preheat oven to 350°.
Pour the chicken wings and marinade into a 9”x13” baking dish. Cover with aluminum foil.
Bake for about 45 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking uncovered another 15 minutes.

Back to School - already??!!?

2010-09-07T12:15:00.000-04:00

I could easily enjoy another month or two of warm summer weather, sunshine & shorts, no need for jackets, and long summer days. That’s one of the most noticeable things already – the days are growing shorter as fall approaches. It’s getting dark already before 8pm, which is a sure sign that summer is drawing to a close.

So here they are, the young scholars: Mustang entering Grade 5 and Button starting Grade 2.

Grade 5!!?!! How did that happen so fast? It seems just a short while ago I was dropping a little girl off at the school door for her first day of Kindergarten. Some days you think they grow up so fast. (These, of course, are offset by all the days you wish they’d display a lot more grown-up behaviour!)

Another cycle of life – plans for Thanksgiving, Villages season, Christmas and the winter to come and finally the burgeoning of new life once again. All in its due time…

So here it is – the beginning of another school year. I know Mustang would have loved another month – or two or three – of holidays. Button too, though he’s somewhat more academically inclined, is still not a fan of spending days at a desk.

Magical Monday

2010-09-06T06:31:00.001-04:00

The lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer

2010-09-05T05:47:00.000-04:00

Other than our big holiday and summer camps, the summer was spent with swimming lessons for the kids and just plain having fun.

True to my word, once home I gave Laoye $50 to pick up some more fishing equipment. He found a nifty collapsible rod and reel set for only about $25 at Canadian Tire, and a second set for even less at another discount store. Since then, at every opportunity Mustang has wanted to go fishing. We spent one Sunday afternoon at a park down along the river an hour’s drive from the city, where we camped one weekend last summer, and took in a pretty good catch. But we’ve also just spent the occasional hour along the banks of the canal, dropping a hook with a bit of bacon as bait. The fishing has been plentiful – in one evening the kids caught 13 fish, on another occasion 11 (those are the ones big enough to keep; it doesn’t count the little ones we tossed back)! We’ve had several rounds of fish chowder and a couple of fish frys as well. Mostly they’re catching bluegill and yellow perch, with the occasional pumpkinseed, rock bass, or sucker thrown in for good measure. I even found a slough of recipes for bluegill on the internet – apparently it’s a great sport fish in the US!

We’ve made occasional trips to the dog park with MoMo, as well as jaunts to our neighbourhood field and forest. Oh, and we took in the Shrine Circus with some young friends

Button has played soccer again all summer, including three weekend tournaments in June, August & one yet to come in September. (We missed the July tournament.) He enjoys it and we’ve missed very few practices other than when on holidays, as the weather has been quite good.

Another past-time has been fox-walks through the forest at night. A family (or two?) of foxes inhabits the neighbourhood urban forest, and if we walk there around sunset, wearing dark clothing and being as quiet as we can, we often see them wandering rhrough the meadow or along the paths as they head out of an evening’s hunt.

On the days when we’ve had time to kill, Nanny has done crafts with the kids and gone bike-riding with them, taken walks to the library and just hung out around the house. Or Laolao has engaged them in various activities, from shopping to iced caps at Timmy’s.

All in all it’s been a good summer – though never long enough.

Summer camps

2010-09-04T06:04:00.000-04:00

This summer, in addition to our holiday trip and two weeks of swimming lessons, the kids each took in three weeks of summer camps.

Mustang loves animals so when I discovered in spring that a nearby zoo offers summer “Junior Zookeeper” camps I knew she would love it. Indeed I was right – they got to meet the animals, learn about their habits and how to care for them, and participate in preparing food (chopping lots of fruit & veggies!), feeding, cleaning some of the cages, and also playing games and doing crafts. The final Friday afternoon there was a graduation ceremony after which campers could show their families around the zoo, so I took the afternoon off and we all headed out to take it in – even Button, whom we picked up early from his camp.

Unfortunately for Button, campers have to be 8 to attend the Zoo camp so he was too young to go this summer. Instead he went to a Science and Technology camp at a local museum that same week. They learned about gadgets and gizmos – made a rocket, a real working model lighthouse, and some goop – as well as the usual camp crafts and games. He enjoyed it but wants to do zoo camp next year!

The second camp they enjoyed was overnight church camp off the shores of Lake Huron. As it’s a fair distance from home – and to provide a “security blanket” for Mustang in particular – I stayed the week to volunteer in the kitchen. The kids both enjoyed themselves immensely, with evening campfires, after-supper games, archery (a hit with both), Gaga ball, Quest, and other activities. The food was also awesome (if I say so myself) – we worked hard from 7 to noon every morning and then had afternoons off before heading back for final supper prep at 4:30. MoMo came too and spent the morning relaxing on the deck while I worked, and afternoons on walks with me or resting in our cabin.

The final day-camp, back home, was the week after we returned from church camp and was again all about animals, this time at a local agricultural research station / farm. The younger kids, Button’s age, get to look after a cow and help feed and care for it all week. Mustang’s group helped to care for the rabbits and sheep. Both groups also had water games and crafts. They also spent time in the kitchen making their afternoon snacks – and getting another perspective on how the food we eat has its origin on farms, from the earth we tread.

Food Friday: Mexican Quesadillas

2010-09-03T07:07:00.001-04:00

Mexican Quesadillas
Ingredients

butter or olive oil for toasting
one 10" flour tortilla for each person
1 cup grated cheese (cheddar, Monterey jack, etc)

Optional - one or more of the following:

grilled chicken, shredded or diced
mushrooms, sliced
fresh tomatoes, diced
black olives, sliced
avocado
sweet peppers of different colors
green onions, sliced

Instructions

Heat a cast iron pan over medium heat. Add a small amount of butter and spread it evenly over the pan, then place on large tortilla in the pan. Wait ten seconds, then flip the tortilla, repeating until it begins to bubble.
Once air pockets have begun to form in the tortilla, sprinkle a small handful of grated cheese onto it, and then add a thin layer of optional ingredients. Fold the tortilla in half.
Reduce heat and cover the pan. The cheese should melt and the tortilla should brown without burning or smoking. If this occurs, remove pan from heat and reduce heat slightly before continuing.
Once cheese is melted, flip with a spatula and slightly brown the other side, then serve whole or cut into wedges, with guacamole, sour cream, and/or salsa.

Serve quesadillas with a salad to make a hearty, nutritious meal.

Puppies!!!

2010-09-02T06:11:00.000-04:00

We have puppies!!!

Four beautiful little darlings, to be precise. They arrived in the wee hours of the morning yesterday, September 1st – right on schedule.

Mo had been acting a bit antsy during the afternoon, according to Nanny & the kids, but when I got home from work she seemed a bit more settled. We even took her out to the field after supper with Pigster and played out there for an hour. But as soon as we got settled for bed, it became apparent that she was in serious labour – and that I wasn’t going to get much sleep at all.

The kids were asleep by 9:30 and I had almost fallen asleep by 10:00 when MoMo woke me with barking and scuffling. I got up and let her out to pee, after which she jumped onto the kids’ bed and settled there. That lasted for all of about 3 minutes, then she was up and pacing back and forth from kitchen to bedroom, pawing in her crate, pawing in the whelping box, jumping on my bed and off, and about a half hour later barking again. That was the pattern for the next 2½ hours. Button slept through it all, but Mustang awoke around 10:30 and couldn’t settle again what with MoMo being so unsettled. So she kept me company with MoMo until half past midnight, at which point MoMo headed straight for the whelping box and settled down to push. We saw a puppy sac begin to emerge, so Mustang rushed over to wake Button and tell him the puppies were coming. That puppy went back in, though, and it actually took another hour before the puppy finally popped out. The others followed in short order and within an hour we had four little darlings.

However, an ultrasound in late July had shown 5, maybe 6 puppies developing or so the vet said, so we were expecting another two or at least one to arrive. But MoMo didn’t seem to know that. She settled in to nurse her pups and didn’t act at all like there was anything more happening. After an hour of waiting with nothing happening I sent the kids back to bed, promising to wake them should another puppy arrive, and sat down to keep watch By 5 am nothing had happened so I headed to bed myself. Nanny arrived at 7:15 and tried to sneak into the house (I’d posted a notice at the front door to alert her we were sleeping) but MoMo barked a bit which woke me. I went back to bed for another hour, but the kids got up to show Nanny the puppies.

After breakfast I called the vet and said I wasn’t sure whether to be concerned about the lack of puppy/ies #5 and possibly #6 or not, as MoMo didn’t seem to be labouring any more. They recommended coming in for another ultrasound to be sure, so just before noon – after having taken Mustang to the dentist and slept a bit more – we bundled the pupsters into a little basket and took them with MoMo to the vet’s office. The ultrasound revealed that no, there were no more puppies in there – so four it is!!

Introducing:

Sapphire Sea Star
born at 1:48 a.m. – a lovely dark chocolate girl (the only girl of the litter) who came in weighing 175g.

Zircon Ocean Spume
born at 2:01 a.m. – a lighter chocolate boy, weighing 230g.

Carnelian High Tide
born at 2:34 a.m. – a cream-coloured fellow, who was a hefty 290g (Mo really had to push to get him out; I helped along a bit).

Jasper Jellyfish
born at 2:44 a.m. – a darker apricot-coloured guy who already seems to have the calmest personality of the lot, weighing in at a mere 174g.

Stay tuned for more pix as they grow and develop!!

Home!

2010-09-02T05:58:00.003-04:00

Sunday morning dawned clear and sultry once again. After a cool beginning to our trip we now were into a heat wave!

In mid-morning a prospective puppy purchaser came to meet us at the Sanctuaire. She’d contacted me a month or so back and I’d offered to meet her during our trip so she could see Mo and check us out, and me her. She was a very outgoing lady and likely a good dog owner, though it emerged she wasn’t necessarily looking to buy a puppy from Mo’s upcoming litter but possibly down the road, once her current dog (aged 9 and not faring well) passes on.

Button and Mustang had been fishing along the St Lawrence prior to the lady coming and, after greeting her and posing for pictures with her and MoMo, I told them to come to the bus “and don’t forget the fishing rod” which they’d been using mere moments before. But the fishing rod was nowhere to be found. Button had last had it down along the river, but had likely dropped it once the lady came in his excitement to meet her. We walked along the entire shore, looking for it, and even asked at the campground office if anyone had turned it in. Nothing. I was rather disappointed, not merely because we’d only had it less than a week and used it all of twice, but also because this was after all a Christian sanctuary and wouldn’t you expect people coming here to be honest folk? Apparently not. Although the folk along the riverbank were not necessarily pilgrims but could also have been general city folk enjoying the beach.

A final wave good-bye to the Sanctuaire and we once again boarded the bus for the final leg of our journey home.

At supper-time we finally rounded the corner to our house and gave a cheer! Home at last!

It was good holiday and an adventure for us all, but it was good to be back home.

Potato Museum, beach-time, & no-whale watching

2010-09-01T06:01:00.002-04:00

The best place in a campground to catch moths is at the toilets. In case you didn’t know.

After a leisurely breakfast, we headed back to the main road west, out of the park and towards the Saint John river valley. This is a rich and fertile area, with excellent farming and good soil for potatoes. McCains has their headquarters in the area, and a Potato Museum at which we stopped to learn more of the lowly spud.

One thing I learned is that potatoes have the highest protein content, next to soybeans, of any vegetable or legume. No wonder the Irish could, not just survive, but fare well on little more than potatoes.

Further up the river we stopped at a beach. It was a lovely hot day, near 30°, and all sunshine and blue sky. The kids played in the water for an hour, then we got out the fishing rod and wandered down to a nearby dock where they tossed the line into the water for another half hour or so, without success.

From there we crossed into Quebec and went into the city of Rivière du Loup, a bustling small metropolis. Near the centre of town is a park with a series of waterfalls (and hydro-electric works). A system of walking paths follows the gorge, and we embarked on a walkabout. The kids and I with Mo headed in one direction, while Laolao and Laoye said they’d go the opposite way. We had gone about half the distance when the heavens opened and rain began to pour down. In no time we were all soaked to the skin – so might as well keep walking! Shortly along we met Laolao and Laoye who, wisely, had read the clouds and fished out their raincoats before setting out. By the time we got back to the bus the rain had stopped and we all dried off and put on dry clothes.

That night we spent in the Zellers parking lot.

I’d said I’d pay for a whale-watching expedition for all of us – hence the stop in R-du-L. As luck would have it, the next morning dawned rather foggy, but we made our way to the cruise dock nonetheless. We had been told, after all, that there was a money-back guarantee if no whales were spotted.

No sooner had the ship left shore than Laolao and Mustang spotted a beluga. That was the first and last whale anyone saw. The riverguide / naturalist gazed through the fog non-stop and called out whenever he saw a grey seal – of which we saw, or rather glimpsed, quite a few – but no whales were to be seen, no doubt in large part owing to the fog.

Upon returning to the shore we were informed that they could not refund us our money but we were free to take the afternoon cruise at no charge, or we could take a voucher to take the cruise again at a future date this year, again at no charge. As we had no time to linger I took the voucher, with little hope of making it back out to R-du-Loup for another chance to see whales, at least not this whale-watching season.

From there we headed west again, towards Trois-Rivières, and found the Sanctuaire Notre-Dame-du-Cap, a Catholic retreat centre with a small campground for pilgrims to the Sanctuary. We took up residence there for the night and spent some time that evening exploring the lovely grounds.

Fundy National Park

2010-08-31T05:05:00.000-04:00

The next morning we drove into the town of Alma, on the edge of Fundy National Park. We picked up some sticky buns, about which we had heard rave reviews, and enjoyed our morning coffee at a small tourist pull-out stop just south of town. This was another opportunity to experience the tides in the bay. We arrived near high tide, and the water was lapping the beach not far off the viewing area, as the river flowed into the bay at little more than a metre under the bridge.

We explored the seashore, the kids wandered down to the river edge, and we checked out the small store across the bridge and picked up some wieners and marshmallows for our anticipated evening campfire. In the store Mustang spotted a fishing rod - $48 plus tax. She desperately wanted to buy it, and she’s begged all spring and summer to get fishing equipment. As I’d planned to pick some up once home and this wasn’t too expensive, I agreed to the purchase as long as Mustang and Button each contributed their saved up allowance money – some $18 – to it. They readily agreed.

After lunch we explored the bay some more. By now the tides were visibly receding, about a metre’s land width every minute, and we were able to walk out and out and out, farther and farther. We discovered little crabs and small shellfish as we walked out. After an hour or so we headed back in – Mustang first with MoMo, then Button and I sneaked towards the bridge, under it - as the river was now a mere trickle and the water level a good 10m below the bridge deck – and up to the bus from the land side.

Mustang and Button joined some people out along the river flats, discovering that they were doing research on eels – fishing them out of the water and banding them. Finally I called the kids in. As we walked to the bus, two motorcyclists drove past. We called MoMo to us, and as we approached the bus the motorcyclists walked up to the bus and knocked – it was Laolao and Laoye’s friends from their home out west, who were travelling cross-country and had stayed at our house over the Canada Day weekend while we were gone!

After a brief visit we climbed aboard the bus and headed into the Park for our second night at a real campground. The first campground right at the cross-roads did not allow fires, so that one was out as one of the reasons to stay at a campground was precisely to have a campfire. So we headed a short ways south into the park where a fire-friendly campground was to be found. After selecting our spot, we walked down to the pathway to the river into the Bay. A boardwalk along the upper cliff took us past a viewing point for peregrine falcons that nest along the cliffs on the opposite bank of the river – unfortunately the view from the telescope was obstructed by a tree! Then down a set of stairs to the river. It was, however, quite windy so despite the sun we were shivering and did not stay long.

Everyone got to bed quite late after the evening campfire feast of hot dogs and s’mores.

Magical Monday

2010-08-30T05:47:00.001-04:00

Hopewell Rocks

2010-08-29T06:04:00.001-04:00

The next morning we said good-bye to Burke (Lane had left the day before to help her daughter move) and began our onward journey. I had thought we could stay in PEI one more day to see some more of the eastern reaches of the Island, but Laolao wanted to head down along the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick, and after reviewing the map and assessing our timeline, I agreed it was a good plan.

So east we went towards the world’s longest bridge – 12km across the Northumberland Strait from PEI to NB. Along the way we stopped in Victoria-by-the-Sea, a small town filled with artisans (mostly people “from away” who have settled on the Island). I had hoped to find there some craft to purchase as my personal memento from the trip, but we had insufficient time to spend looking about and so I just picked up a few chocolates from a chocolaterie – in which we also had morning coffee break and spent some time watching the chocolate makers at their work through the viewing window. There we also found the largest tree on the Island, which the kids attempted to scale without much success as there were no lower branches to give them purchase.

The town is the setting of a novel we had read earlier in the year called Tango, which chronicles the adventures of a small ship-wrecked dog and the girl who finds him. Told primarily from the dog’s perspective, it is an interesting and heart-warming tale filled with treacherous cats, sneaky rats, and a mysterious fox. (I recommend it for ages 6 to 110.)

The drive over the bridge was an uneventful adventure, in the sense that one is conscious of being “alone” on this narrow ribbon of bridge surrounded by water on all sides. It was somewhat foggy so the view was limited, but being high up in the bus we did at least have a view over the side barriers, which would not have been the case in a car.

After a quick lunch on the NB side, we continued our route south. In mid-afternoon we arrived at the Hopewell Rocks, also known as the Flowerpot Rocks – a grouping of large columns of rock and earth near the coast topped by trees and grasses (hence the name “Flowerpot”) which become islands when the Bay of Fundy’s prodigious tides come in but around which one can walk when the tides go out. We arrived at mid-point between low and high tides, giving us about two hours in which to walk along the ocean floor.

A long metal and wooden staircase takes one down the cliff edge towards the ocean floor. As soon as one reaches the bottom one is greeted by the view of these huge looming columns, some small and round, some long and skinny, reaching skywards. I had expected to see more sealife on the bottom – starfish, mussels, crabs, clams, kelp, and so on – so was surprised when not much was in view. Perhaps the tides are too vigorous for them to take hold in that area, or perhaps they are swept out with the retreating tides.

The ground was mostly gravelly and sand, with some muddy areas and a few spots where seaweed grew. The kids had grand fun slipping and sliding in the muddy spots, getting almost totally covered in mud! We walked along investigating the rock formations, searching for ocean life, and generally enjoying the afternoon. MoMo was allowed to come down with us along as she was kept on a short leash.

Certain spots along the cliff edge were blocked off owing to danger from falling rocks or cave-ins, and ocean floor monitors patrolled the area to ensure everyone vacated the area in advance of the incoming tides. We made it back up in plenty of time, washed off at the tap & spray nozzle on the cliff-top, and browsed the gift store and museum displays for a short time before supper. (The kids each bought a lovely necklace with a small vial of some precious or semi-precious stone: Turquoise for Mustang and Obsidian for Button. We decided we’ll have to name two of the puppies with those names in honour of their coastal paternal heritage.)

We might have spent the night in the parking lot there but the management shooed us off the lot so we headed down the highway another half-hour before finding a pull-off at which to spend the night.

Anne & John

2010-08-28T07:15:00.000-04:00

The next day was sunny and warm. Our destination was Anne of Green Gables land. But first we visited a potter’s studio, a llama sanctuary (nobody home, so we just said hi to one of the llamas over the fence), and stopped to tour Lucy Maud Montgomery’s birthplace that we happened upon along the way.

By the time we reached Cavendish it was mid-afternoon. I wasn’t sure exactly which spots were the best to visit, so spent a bit of time in the Visitor’s Centre checking things out. The old post office where LMM had worked was across the road, as was the Green Gables house of the story, so we stopped in there first and spent some time reading the displays. Then I figured we’d head over the Anne of Green Gables theme park, down the road a ways. But by the time the kids and walked over it was 4:30 and the park was to close in half an hour, so we just visited the gift store as I wasn’t about to spend $50 in entrance fees for just a half-hour visit.. (Instead I spent about $80 on gifts!!)

As it turns out, the Anne of Green Gables National Park was the place we should have visited. At the end of the day I was rather disappointed by having missed out on any of the main Anne attractions, after having read the book to the kids and having built up some expectations. But they didn’t seem to mind so much, and we enjoyed a Cow’s Ice Cream (best on the Island!) and they each bought an Anne-themed t-shirt with their allowance, so the day was not all lost. And the fish chowder we enjoyed for supper was superb!

Our final day we spent exploring Charlottetown. We started with a visit to the provincial legislature, moved on to the Confederation Centre outside which we enjoyed a performance by the Young Players, paused for lunch on Victoria Row, came back along the shore boardwalk, and ended the day with my visiting the Founders Hall for a multimedia presentation about the making of Canada (which brought me a few realizations I hadn’t fully understood before!) – in which John A. MacDonald played a part - while the kids and Laolao & Laoye played along the shore.

Food Friday: Easy Crispy Cornbread

2010-08-27T06:02:00.001-04:00

Easy Crispy Cornbread

Ingredients

3 T butter
2 eggs
2 tablespoons oil
375ml milk (1½ cups)
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cups yellow cornmeal
1 tsp baking powder

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
Put the butter in an ovenproof cast iron pan and put it into the oven to melt.
Beat the eggs in a mixing bowl, add the oil, milk and sugar, and mix well.
Add the cornmeal and baking powder and stir a bit. Do not stir too much or the cornbread will come out tough.
Using oven mitts, take the pan out of the oven and shake the melted butter around to coat the pan evenly.
Spoon the cornbread batter into the hot pan, return to the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

Happy birthday-and-a-quarter, Button!

2010-08-27T05:55:00.002-04:00

This post is only three months out of date, as Button celebrated his birthday at the end of May. But we were travelling on a birthday surprise trip at the time, and I hadn’t gotten the post ready in advance. Then once we got back, end-of-school-year busyness took over, and holiday preparations… so there you go.

In the past two years Button has grown (now over 4’2”/125cm tall!), developed, matured (still a ways to go…) and been lots of fun.

The birthday surprise went like this: I walked the kids to school in the morning. I had already written a note for their teacher that someone would pick them up to come home. That someone was me!!! The note to the teachers had specified that we were heading off for a trip to Stratford to see Peter Pan and Kiss Me Kate, so the children would miss two days of school, but that it was a SURPRISE so not to say a word to either of them about it.

When I showed up at 2:30 the kids were both very surprised to see me. Button’s teacher wished them a “good weekend” which they found surprising as it was only the middle of the week, but she covered it up by saying “Well, I won’t be seeing your Mom before the weekend.” Once we got into the car I told them we were heading off on a trip!! We stopped at home just long enough to drop off their backpacks and load some food from the fridge and then we hit the road!!

It’s a long drive, and after a mere 200km I was tired and getting sleepy, as I’d gone to bed late the night before. But a bite of supper, a cup of tea, and an iced cap from Timmy’s revived me and off we set again. We stopped for the night in Toronto and stayed with a family we’d met last November when they spent a few nights with us. The next morning we took off by nine and made the rest of the journey without stopping. Our Stratford accommodation was provided by a family on an acreage outside the town – their property was lovely, complete with pond, forest, lawns, dog, cat and rabbits.

Our friend Chuckles met us there and we traveled together to see Peter Pan that afternoon. The impetus for the trip was that the Festival was offering free tickets to Peter Pan on a child’s birthday – so Button benefitted from that (as did my pocketbook). The production was excellent and we all enjoyed the acting, staging, and story. After the play we headed off to a local pizza joint for a birthday supper, complete with cake and singing.

Friday was a free day – we spent most of the day just enjoying the acreage, but headed into town in the late afternoon to do some shopping, watch the swans and geese (we saw goslings and a mama swan sitting on her next), and have a bite of supper – which mostly consisted of a huge ice cream cone for each of us!

Saturday morning we went to the neighbouring town for the Mennonite Relief Sale. This is a huge event where quilts and other items are auctioned off to help raise funds for relief and development work overseas. There are also numerous food booths, which were the main beneficiary of my funds. I gave the kids their allowances to spend there: Mustang found a nice necklace while Button purchased a lovely small pouch from Nepal. We met Chuckles there and took off after lunch for our second show, Kiss Me Kate. This one was more complex and I’m sure the kids had a bit of trouble following the storyline, but it was still fun.

On Sunday we took of fairly early for the long drive home. Chuckles was with us so she took a spell driving. We stopped twice – once for a stretch and once for lunch – and arrived home a bit before 5pm. It was a good trip all around!

Deep-sea fishing & Lobster dinner

2010-08-26T05:39:00.000-04:00

We spent the next three days exploring PEI. Saturday morning dawned somewhat cloudy and cool, but not too bad. After a joint breakfast with Burke & Lane, we laid our plans for the day – I’d promised the kids we’d go fishing in PEI and I had always wanted to go deep-sea fishing myself, so it was time to fulfill that desire on all fronts. Lane & Burke pointed us to some outfits in North Rustico and I called one up and made arrangements to go out on their afternoon expedition. Burke and Lane would join us for a lobster supper at a restaurant close to the fishing wharf.

As the Island is so small, the north shore where North Rustico is situated is only a half-hour’s drive from Charlottetown, on the south shore. So even with our leisurely breakfast and plan-making, we had time for a trip to the nearby Saturday farmers’ market before we headed across the Island.

Indeed, we made it to North Rustico by noon, found a spot to park, ate a bite of lunch, and still had time to explore the docks before sailing time. A small Fishing Museum was located right next door but the kids weren’t interested in going in.

Some seven other people joined us on the vessel, which was fairly small but equipped with sonar to assist in locating the fish. As we headed out to sea, the captain told us we would be catching cod, herring, and mackerel. Our first destination was about a kilometre off shore. We took our fishing rods and bait – supplied by the captain – and let down our lines. Within minutes Laolao caught the first fish – a good-sized herring!

Herring travel in schools, so it did not take long and everyone was pulling in herring and a few mackerel. The kids were excited as the fish piled up in the fish locker in the middle of the boat – a large tub filled with water to keep the fish fresh. Laolao caught more, then Mustang, then all of us.

After about half an hour we pulled in our lines and moved to a second location a bit further off=shore where the water was 80m deep. There we fished for cod. The cod, however, weren’t very hungry so the fishing was slower. I caught a couple, Laolao caught a couple, Mustang caught one – but there were long pauses between each catch. To provide some entertainment, the captain pulled some of the mackerel out of the fish locker and began cutting them up and tossing them into the air, to be caught by the gulls circling the boat – no doubt awaiting just such a treat. Within moments more gulls arrived, and a flock of some 20-30 birds competed for the scraps of fish, diving and circling, calling their raucous cries. After about 15 minutes without a bite I put away my rod and took out camera, snapping shot after shot of the birds. (This is where a digital camera is so nice – you can shoot a hundred pictures without worrying about wasting film and just keep the best handful!) A few gannets joined the gulls, showing off their superior flying ability and even diving into the water to catch a wayward morsel.

Soon enough our expedition was over and we headed in to shore. Laolao was the fishing champ of the day – she who has hardly ever fished before in her life! – with 11 fish in the bin. I caught 9; Mustang 7; Laoye about 5, and Button, for some reason, just 1, despite the mass of herring at our first location. (He may not have been letting his line down far enough – or spending as much time watching others as fishing himself…) Most of the fishers left with just one small bag of fish, leaving plenty extra, so we took three bags to have for breakfast next day and to make into a nice fish chowder.

Burke and Lane were waiting for us on the dock and the kids regaled them with tales of their fishing prowess. The kids, Burke and I walked with MoMo along the boardwalk that followed the shore to the lobster restaurant a kilometre away.

It was some meal! Each person received one lobster and could fill up with whatever else they desired from the buffet lines. We feasted on mussels – a large plate each – salads, fries, veggies, and more, even before the lobster came. Lobster is not something that can be eaten daintily, so we all got messy sucking the meat out of the legs and body, cracking open the claws, and slurping away. It was most delicious – and somehow we all found a bit of space for one of the yummy desserts on display.

By the time we got home it was late and we fell into bed.

Ferry rides, and Charlottetown fantastic

2010-08-25T20:52:00.000-04:00

After Mo’s final breeding, early on July 2nd, we got back in the bus, ate a quick breakfast, and headed north again towards Northumberland Strait, to catch the ferry to PEI. By early afternoon we had made it to Caribou, the ferry terminal on the Nova Scotia shore, and got into the line-up with the motorhomes. The ticket man told us they took 4 big trucks and as many motorhomes as they could fit onto the lower decks, along with all the cars on the top deck. We didn’t make it on to the next ferry so we had about an hour’s wait, during which time the kids and I wandered along the docks and observed the fishing boats tied alongside piles and piles of lobster traps, and watched the ferry as it left and the next one approached.

We made it onto the 3:30pm ferry. The day was sunny but a bit windy over the water. Still it was nice enough that we spent the bulk of the crossing above-deck, watching the land slip away, the gulls fly past, and the waves as they rolled off the boat’s keel.

After an hour’s sailing we reached the PEI shore. Then into the bus for the drive to Charlottetown where we met up with friend Burke and his new wife Lane. We’d gotten to know Burke and his first wife out west, back when I was a teen. We arrived at their house around 6pm and ate a hearty barbecue supper, with the fare provided by both house/busholds.

After supper we were in for a treat! We’d missed the Canada Day celebrations in Charlottetown (we’d taken in the fireworks in Liverpool the previous night, which weren’t bad for a small community), but festivities were continuing all weekend so we had the chance to enjoy a special performance that night by none other than the Cirque du Soleil. Tickets were a lot less expensive than for a regular Cirque show, but the performance was no less thrilling. As usual, the costumes were extravagant and wild, the acrobatics amazing, and the novelty stunning. The show ended with a “water performance” – somehow they used lights and (I think) fabric to create a sense of rippling, running water through which the circus performers danced, jumped, twirled, and spun. It was pretty awesome!

Weight loss

2010-08-24T06:01:00.001-04:00

Since the middle of March, I’ve been making a concerted effort to lose a bit of weight. Not too many people would say I look overweight, and by technical definitions I’m not, but for a while now I’ve verged on the upper edge of what is considered the “normal” range of the Body Mass Index.

In mid-winter I started feeling a few twinges in my artificial hip, and although my regular visit to the surgeon for monitoring revealed all was fine, I figured that if I managed to take off some weight it could only be good for the hip (and my knees). Previous efforts to take off weight have not been very successful, but they’ve also been rather lackadaisical and not at all methodical. So this time I vowed I would DO IT!!

The main components missing from previous weight-loss attempts were more exercise and really paying attention to what I ate. I’d try to eat a bit less and drink more water and maybe I did, maybe I didn’t, but it never amounted to much. So this time, while those two factors were also a part of the plan, I determined I WOULD get more exercise – and I would track how much I ate and pay more attention to calories.

Exercise had to be something easy. Not necessarily in terms of doing it, but easy in terms of convenience. It couldn’t be anything that would require special equipment or that I go any place special or take much, if any, of my morning or evening hours. My days are full enough already. So, my exercise component of choice was something that I could do easily, every day, right in my office building: climb stairs.

I set myself a three-part goal:
every day to beat or match my previous stair-climbing record;
if I coulnd’t manage that, then to match or exceed what I’d done the previous day (assuming it wasn’t my record); or
if I coulnd’t manage that, then to climb at least 20 flights a day.

I started on a Thursday. The first two days I surprised myself with how easily I managed to climb 24 flights both days. The following week I surprised myself yet again by climbing 42 flights on the Monday and 44 on Tuesday! Wednesday I had taken the day off, and it was likely a good thing, because on Tuesday evening I could feel my leg muscles and I was tired. But the one day rest was plenty, and the Thursday and Friday that week I did 45 and 48 flights, and started off the following Monday with … you’ll never believe it: not 50, not 60, but SEVENTY FLIGHTS!!! At that point I decided I should revise goal #3 to at least 30 flights, rather than 20.

In less than four weeks I reached 82 flights in one day, at which point I suffered a bit of a set-back. I’d been using my hands & arms to help “jerk” me up a little bit when stepping up with my right leg, which doesn’t bend as much as the left and so makes climbing a bit awkward. As a result my wrist and arm/shoulder were very sore. So for the rest of the week I gave myself a break – so to speak – by climbing “just” 60 flights each day. (At that point I revised goal #3 to 50 flights.)

By the following week I’d recovered enough that I managed to climb 100 flights on two of the five working days!! After that I revised my goal to a weekly one – to climb more stairs each week than I had the previous week, even if on any given day I didn’t exceed my previous record.

Up until we went on holidays I was keeping up an average of around 70 flights a day (and managed 100 flights on 7 occasions). When we got back – it was hot, muggy, and even inside our air-conditioned work buildings you can still feel the mugginess. So for a while the climbing slowed down significantly, but by the eight day back on the job I was feeling the lack of exercise – my leg muscles were aching from lack of use, the way they did when I first went back to work after adopting Button and spending my days on my butt instead of up and about with an active kid. That was the impetus to get going again, and since then I’ve been keeping it up, though not as intensely – I’ve averaged just 44 flights a day instead of 70, but that’s still pretty good!

On the eating front, my main strategy has been to limit what I eat at work, having just a very small lunch/snack in the middle of the day. Also, limit portions and avoid second helpings and snacks outside of meals.

So, what about the weight loss? It’s been coming along okay, although from mid-May to late June I was kind of stalled. But I’m now down to just over 110 lbs (a loss of almost 20 lbs and one pants size) and I’m aiming to lose another 5-10 by Hallowe’en if not sooner. That will give me room to gain a bit back and still be at a good, healthy weight. I don’t think I’ve seen those numbers on the scale since I was in my 20s!

Magical Monday

2010-08-23T06:07:00.001-04:00

Food Friday: Mud Cake with Worms

2010-08-20T06:10:00.002-04:00

Mud Cake with Worms

Ingredients

6 tablespoons butter
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1 package instant chocolate pudding
1 cup milk
1 cup mini marshmallows
10 chocolate cookies (Oreo or other)
gummy worms

Instructions

Heat oven to 325°. Grease and flour an 8-inch square baking pan.
Melt the butter and chocolate over low heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and let cool.
Beat the vanilla and sugar into the chocolate mixture. Whisk in eggs, one at a time.
In a small bowl, add flour, baking powder and salt. Mix well.
Stir the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture. Add the chopped nuts and mix well.
Spoon into the baking pan and spread evenly. Bake for about 25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.
While brownies are baking, prepare the instant chocolate pudding according to package directions, using the milk.
Once brownies are cool, cut them into squares and put one square into a dish – one dish per person. Add a generous dollop of chocolate pudding. Sprinkle with mini marshmallows (for rocks or gravel), crushed chocolate cookies (for dirt), and put 2 – 3 gummy worms on top.

Sunsethills Ranger and Labradoodles by Design

2010-08-18T14:31:00.002-04:00

So why the need to go to Liverpool? For there was a purpose behind this extended side trip… That purpose was to introduce MoMo to a new boyfriend, Sunsethills Ranger! She had come into heat some ten days previously and we wanted to breed her again.

I had initially been scouting out breeders in Maine as potential mates for a summer breeding, expecting her to come into heat anytime between mid-June and mid-July – and hoping it would be more the latter. But when Laolao phoned me before the kids and I even left home to say that Mo had started spotting, I knew first, that my desire had not been granted and, second, that I had to rethink.

While Maine is about halfway between the east coast and home, the timing of this occurrence meant that the breeding would have to occur right around the beginning of July, before we planned to visit PEI. Heading to Maine would have required us to spend a huge amount of time on the road – first to get there, then to backtrack to PEI, then to head west again. It would have effectively hijacked our holiday plans.

But then, as I was browsing through some old e-mails in my doodle breeder site, I came across a breeder in Nova Scotia that I’d forgotten about. She isn’t a member of the same association as me, so I hadn’t come across her in my search of their breeding stock listing. But that e-mail jogged my memory, and upon visiting her website I realized she had a beautiful lavender-coloured stud, miniature size, direct from Australia, who had the potential to be a good match. So I checked in with her, got Ranger’s pedigree, determined they were a good match (inbreeding is always a concern, so one has to check blood-lines as far back as possible), and we made arrangements.

So, once we arrived in Liverpool, after eating, dumping sewage, and picking up a few groceries, we headed out of town to Labradoodles by Design. We arrived at Ranger’s home in the early evening and made introductions all around. LBD had two litters of puppies – 15 left in all! – that were about to head to new homes. We all met them – a bunch of chocolate lovelies! – and the kids got to spend some time playing with them.

Besides their four females, LBD has one medium-sized young male, not ready yet for breeding, plus Ranger, who turned out to be even a bit smaller than MoMo. His colouring is beautiful – he started out chocolate when born, but has faded into a lovely “lavender” colour. Personally I’d call it more café-au-lait, but the term café is reserved for a slightly different shade, so lavender it is.

We attempted a mating that evening but, while Ranger was interested, Mo wasn’t willing, so we arranged to meet again in the morning for another attempt, and headed to a campground for the night.

At the campground we made a fire and roasted marshmallows for the first time this trip. As we were roasting, Mustang suddenly looked up and cried out “Deer!” Indeed, there was a deer not more than 10m from us, plain as day, watching us from the bushes. Mustang said MoMo alerted her to the deer – she looked at MoMo and saw that she was staring into the bushes with ears perked, so Mustang looked to see what Mo was looking at and voilà!

The next day’s attempted morning mating was equally unsuccessful. We figured maybe MoMo just wasn’t quite at the peak of her heat and once she reached it she’d become receptive. I’d had her progesterone levels tested in Halifax and we finally got results later that afternoon, indicating that yes, she would be at optimal breeding levels from Wednesday to Friday. This was Wednesday.

So we made plans to meet up again in the evening and then headed up the coast to a beach LBD had recommended to us. The kids played, found jellyfish, we sunbathed, and generally had lots of fun.

That evening, back at the ranch, the third attempted breeding again was unsuccessful. Mo started out snappish, not wanting Ranger’s attentions at all. He did mount her and breed, though they didn’t “tie.”

Then, lo and behold, once Ranger was off and spent with the effort (!) Mo suddently got interested! She sniffed at him playfully, “flagged” (presented her backside with tail averted) and tried to get him engaged. But he had had it – he wasn’t up to another attempt! So we took MoMo back to the bus for the night, which we spent in the country driveway – but with lifted spirits as now it looked as though Mo would accept Ranger’s advances the next time.

And indeed she did! Thursday morning – which happened to be Canada Day – the two romped together playfully before getting down to business and a successful tie.

During the day, LBD took the kids and me down the coast to one of her favourite beaches, with two of her dogs and Ranger. We left MoMo with Laolao and Laoye, to give the two lovers a chance to pine. The dogs played in the water and so kid the kids, and we feasted on fish & chips & ice cream.

We achieved a second successful tie that evening, and resolved to give it one more go early the next morning – I usually have to pee around 5:30 so I’d get up then and take MoMo down to the house, and then we’d hit the road.

That we did, and crossed our fingers that the successful matings would, indeed, produce a litter of beautiful chocolate, black, gold and red puppies!! (Stay tuned…)

Peggy's Cove

2010-08-17T13:02:00.001-04:00

After Cape Breton Island, we began the trek back to western Nova Scotia, towards Liverpool, which lies south of Halifax along the Atlantic coast. We spent the full Monday on the road, which wasn’t a horrible thing as it was a very, very rainy day and rather cold too. So the kids and I played and read and played some more. We reached Halifax in the late afternoon and found a mall parking lot to spend the night.

The next day we headed off, initially taking the coastal road to visit Peggy’s Cove.

Having experienced it once back in ’92 or ’93, I knew what to expect and so the startling landscape didn’t’ come as a surprise. But it was just as impressive as I remembered, despite the foggy day. The gigantic moon-like rocks jutted out from the barren ground forming a peak of land around a small cove dotted with houses and fishing boats, gulls screaming overhead…

We spent a good couple of hours scrambling over the rocks. The kids helped me where I needed a hand over a gap or up an incline, and Mo followed us up, down, and around. Mustang in particular wanted to investigate the various tide pools formed by waves crashing over the rocks, and she found a few little fish, crabs, and various seaweed. But I warned them to stay well back of the waves, as they were powerful and could easily drag a child or even adult into the sea, never to be found again.

As we departed, I told the children (and reminded Laolao and Laoye) that this was the site where, some ten years back or so, a Swissair jet crashed into the sea, just off the coast, and all the passengers were killed, despite the good people of the cove heading out to sea in their fishing boats to provide any help they could. After the crash, the people of Peggy’s Cove hosted investigators, journalists, relatives, and officials as they attempted to recover bodies and what of the wreckage they could to determine the cause.

We would have liked to visit Lunenberg, home of the Bluenose, as well, but after spending such a long time in Peggy’s Cove didn’t have the time as we had an evening date in Liverpool. So we headed back down the coast – eventually getting onto the main highway as it travels so much faster than the winding coastal route – and made it into Liverpool just in time for supper.

Magical Monday

2010-08-16T05:59:00.000-04:00

Glace Bay

2010-08-15T09:03:00.000-04:00

The day after visiting Louisburg, we headed to nearby Glace Bay. This was another site I’d missed on my first visit to Cape Breton Island, many years ago – but the main attraction may not have been there then, or would have been much less developed. The Miners’ Museum was started in the 90s as one response to problems in the coal mining industry. It is privately owned and operated and does a remarkable job of providing information and exhibits about the industry, the geological factors that go into creating coal, the lives of the miners, their families and communities, and both local and international political and historical events that contributed to the rise and eventual fall of the industry in the region.

The highlight of the museum, especially for the kids, was the ability to take a tour of the underground mine. They don’t take you very far in, but you do descend down one of the entry tunnels – maybe far enough to take under the ocean floor, as the literature says, though I’m not sure of that – and into the side tunnels where the miners would have worked. You get to see how hard it must have been to move around with all the low ceilings – that’s one time it helped to be short! – and to always be in the dark except for the light from your headlamp. Once upon a time they used candles – imagine how dangerous that was, what with the potential for explosive methane gas to leak from places, not to mention that coal also burns!

They even have a pony down there! Well, it’s plastic, but it serves to demonstrate the type of horse that was once used to pull the mining carts loaded with coal – strong and sturdy animals who often spent their entire lives underground, cared for by a stable-hand who would do his best to make them comfortable and treat them well. When the last horses were taken out of the mines, once rail cars started to be used exclusively, they brought them up at night and put them in a dark stable so their eyes could adjust gradually and they wouldn’t be blinded by sudden exposure to the light of day.
Another interesting feature was the underground garden. One of the miners apparently started a small garden plot in one of the underground areas, lit it well and tended it carefully, hauling down water. It provided (and still does!) a bright spot in that dark, cool, grey world.

I was surprised to learn that Glace Bay is one of the largest communities in Nova Scotia outside Halifax, with almost 20,000 inhabitants even today. It was a booming centre of trade and industry in its heyday, and it is still going strong despite the closure of coal mines.

Louisburg

2010-08-14T07:42:00.000-04:00

After leaving the SchoolHouse, we crossed the Canso Causeway to Cape Breton Island. Most of the day was spent travelling towards Louisburg, an historic site that brings to life 18th century life on the coast. When I last visited Cape Breton Island (some 18 years ago!) I hadn’t had time to visit, so this was new to me too.

We arrived around supper time and spent some time exploring the old graveyard and gun embankments, for this was a fort built by the French to safeguard the coast from the British.

The next morning, Saturday, we entered the Fort proper. After interrogation to ensure we weren’t British spies, the guard let us through.

From the battlements on the wall, one has a clear view across the bay to the lighthouse. Inside the walls, about twenty houses and business establishments, along with a church and stables, provided insight into the living conditions of the time. We enjoyed an icecream in the local pub but forewent on the period food in the restaurant next door, as it was somewhat expensive.
The highlight for the children was seeing the animals in people’s backyards – several turkeys, pigs, goats, and the like. I particularly enjoyed the Mi’qmaq interpretation centre and the house wherein two ladies were roasting a chicken – and explained to us how the mechanical spit turned with a few simple gears and a chain.

It was a fine, if cool and windy day.

Food Friday: Pasta with Spinach and Feta

2010-08-13T06:13:00.001-04:00

Pasta with Spinach and Feta

Ingredients

300g penne pasta (or other shape as desired)
2 T olive oil
1c onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 c fresh spinach, chopped
¼ c water
2 tsp lemon juice
pepper to taste
100g feta cheese, crumbled

Instructions

Cook the penne pasta in a large pot of salted water. Drain and set aside.
Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Saute onions and garlic until lightly browned. Add the spinach and water and cook for 3 more minutes.
Add the pasta and heat through. Remove from heat.
Add lemon juice, pepper, and feta cheese and toss again. Serve immediately.

To Halifax we went!

2010-08-12T05:47:00.000-04:00

Last year it only took me seven months to post about our summer holidays. This year I’m getting it done before the summer is over! (Which is still about a six-week delay, at least for our first trip, but that’s a significant improvement!)

Our holidays this year took us to the east coast (after doing the west coast two summers ago!). Laolao and Laoye had driven off eight days earlier in their camper bus, taking Mo along with them. Now the kids and I woke up early on the 24th of June and caught a ride to the airport with a good friend. The flight to Halifax was short and uneventful. We arrived to a foggy, cool day – and there were Laolao and Laoye waiting! (Mo couldn’t come into the airport…) The first thing the kids wanted to do was say hi to Mo, so after we collected the bags they raced off with Laoye to the bus.

We headed straight out of town, aiming for a town close to Antigonish where Laoye’s cousin lives, and arriving in late afternoon. By then the sun was shining. Cousin greeted us warmly when we arrived – he has lived there for over 10 years, in a school-house he renovated and turned into a lovely home less than a kilometre from the ocean. (The trailer you see below was where he lived while he was renovating the house. Now it's a shed.) His daughter and her two kids happened to be visiting from Florida, so we were able to reconnect with them and the kids had fun playing together. KK looks a lot like her mother, who passed away some 10 years ago!

Of course, the first thing Mustang wanted to do was head for the ocean, so after supper she, Button and Laoye went for a walk down to the beach where she found some nice shells and rocks – the first of many! And after a leisurely pancake breakfast the next morning, we were off for the next adventure…

Magical Monday

2010-08-09T06:04:00.000-04:00

Food Friday: Fried Bluegill Parmesan

2010-08-06T06:09:00.000-04:00

Fried Bluegill Parmesan
Ingredients

450g Bluegill, or other fish
¼ cup flour
1 egg
½ tablespoon milk
15 soda crackers, crushed
½ teaspoon parsley flakes
½ teaspoon basil
¼ teaspoon oregano
⅛ teaspoon garlic powder
½ cup parmesan cheese
½ cup butter or cooking oil

Instructions

Pat the fish fillets dry with paper towels. Dredge the fish in flour, and shake off the excess.
Mix the egg and milk in a bowl.
In a separate bowl, mix the crackers, seasonings, and cheese. Dip the fish in the egg mix, then in the cracker mix.
In a frying pan, heat the butter on medium-high. Place the breaded fish in the pan, skin side up. Fry until golden brown.

Magical Monday

2010-08-02T06:18:00.000-04:00

Food Friday: Lemon-Fried Bluegill

2010-07-30T07:01:00.002-04:00

Lemon-Fried Bluegill

Ingredients

1 cup flour
2 tsp lemon peel, grated
½ tsp salt
½ tsp lemon pepper
200ml water
50 ml lemon juice
vegetable oil (for frying)
700g bluegill fillets
flour

Instructions

Blend flour, lemon peel, salt and lemon pepper. Add water and lemon juice and mix well.
Heat 5cm of oil in a fryer to 375°.
Coat fish in flour. Dip in batter.
Fry 3 minutes. Drain on paper towels.

Magical Monday

2010-07-05T05:30:00.001-04:00

Magical Monday

2010-05-31T05:05:00.000-04:00

Welcome back, Laolao & Laoye!

2010-05-24T05:58:00.000-04:00

Laolao and Laoye flew back yesterday afternoon for another visit. Originally they were to arrive last Wednesday, but my aunt passed away a week ago so they stayed back for the funeral which delayed their trip a few days. The kids have been looking forward to them coming for several weeks now, and were disappointed at the delay (especially as it meant they missed Mustang's 10th birthday) but are happy to see them.

They’ll be with us for about two or three weeks, then take off in the bus to head east. We’ll join them in Halifax at the end of June for two weeks’ holiday as we meander back to our home city.

They brought birthday gifts for the kids which will be presented tomorrow, at a family birthday supper. Some friends will be joining us to celebrate the three family birthdays (Mustang, Button, Laolao).

Double-digit kid!

2010-05-21T16:16:00.004-04:00

Happy birthday Mustang!

We celebrated her TENTH birthday today! Can you believe it? My girl is 10!!!!!!!

She woke up before the alarm rang this morning, eager to head downstairs and see the two little presents I said I’d set out at breakfast (for both her and Button, whose birthday comes in a mere six days…). She climbed into bed beside me until the radio came on and I said she could wake her brother and go check out the prezzies: one from me (a Littlest Pet Shop critter) and one from Lovely (a ball thrower with some balls).

Nanny had baked cupcakes yesterday, at my request, so I drove the kids to school so we could carry the two huge containers into the classroom easily. Today was Jump Rope for Heart day at their school, so they had that as well as cupcakes (in Mustang’s classroom) to look forward to.

Our friend Giggles said she’d come over this evening after supper and bring Mustang her present, so there’s that to look forward to. We won’t do anything much else special, as Lovely has her training session tonight from 8-9.

Tomorrow will be the big party day – each kid invited three friends and I’ve spent the past week getting things organized. (Didn’t really start thinking of what to do until Monday, so it’s come together in short order!) It’s a joint Littlest Pet Shop-Pokemon themed party. Having a theme always helps! Kids have been helpful in getting things organized – and I decided to purchase a cake – though not the fancy custom-decorated one, just a regular $10 Happy Birthday variety.

Mustang at 7

Mustang at 8

Mustang at 9

and Mustang at 10!!!

Soccer again!

2010-05-19T05:59:00.000-04:00

Button is a keen soccer player. He plays with a group of other boys during most recesses at school (or frequently, if not most). Last fall, and even in mid-winter, when I asked him if he wanted to play soccer again this summer he wasn’t sure, but by mid-March he was keen again. So I signed him up. Of course, by the time I did so most of the spots on teams were taken, so in order to get him on a team I had to volunteer. So I am now the Manager of the Boys Under-7 team at one of the fields a short drive from home.

The managing job hasn’t been too onerous so far. The biggest hassle has been to get the volunteer coaches to respond to my e-mails! (Well, one has a good response record, one decent, and the other two – hard to reach.) I needed to pick up the uniforms to distribute, and the soccer balls another time (they were supposed to be available when I picked u the uniforms but the container from wherever – probably China – hadn’t reached us yet). And I’ll need to do a bit of coordinating for the four summer weekend “festivals” (tournaments). But it shouldn’t be too bad.

There are 13 youngsters on the team and Button is the 2nd-oldest. We had a fun time for our first practice session; the evening was relatively warm and the kids and parents were keen. So we look forward to a summer filled with goals, games, and goodies!

A day by the river

2010-05-18T05:47:00.000-04:00

Saturday May 1st I had planned to take the kids out to the season opening of a local heritage flour mill, where they would be celebrating the mill’s 150th anniversary with special activities, games, a barbecue, and so on.

But they just weren’t interested. Mustang just wanted to stick around home and play in our woods and fields, or at the most head off to a local park a short drive away where they’d caught some frogs before; Button echoed that. We also had a lot of things to do around the house, seeing as I like to spend at least part of the weekend out and about doing things with the kids, so some of the household necessities get neglected. (Thank goodness for Nanny, or nothing would happen around the house!) Plus now that we have fewer scheduled activities, I’m trying to do some sewing and cooking with the kids on a semi-regular basis.

So in the morning, after getting groceries, I got them each to do a few seams in our latest sewing project, and we made some jiaozi – Chinese pork-and-cabbage filled dumplings (other fillings are possible too, but that’s our favourite). Then it was time to tidy up the house, clean Calico’s cage, and… you get the picture. Finally, in the afternoon, we headed out to the nearby park. It was a cloudy day but not too cold, and though it had been threatening rain for most of the day none had so far arrived. The kids played with Lovely by the shore, tossing the ball into the water for her to fetch. Mostly she cooperated, but after a while she was getting cold and shivering, so I told them to stop. They caught several leopard frogs and even a bullfrog tadpole – huge little critter! Then it did start to rain. At first it was just a light rain, so we stayed out enjoying the fresh air, but after about an hour it started to get heavier so we headed home.

Nanny's birthday

2010-05-14T06:04:00.001-04:00

Our Nanny celebrated her birthday on Monday, April 26th. The day before the kids and I baked a chocolate layer cake – from scratch! They bought her a Webkinz for her birthday present. (I just gave her a bonus.) Mondays she stays with us for supper as Button has music after and she either takes him while I stay home with Mustang or vice versa. So we had a nice supper together and then brought out the cake! She was impressed that we’d made it from scratch!!

Holiday plans for 2010

2010-05-13T06:18:00.000-04:00

For the past several years I had been aiming to head to China this summer, when Mustang was 10 and Button 7. But for a variety of reasons that isn’t going to happen – not this year. One of the big reasons is that last year I had a lot of big expenses – special learning interventions for Mustang, a new car, and a dog. Lovely, at least, is sort of paying her way, though she hasn’t done so completely yet.

The other reason, just as important, is that I think a trip to China might be “wasted” on the kids at this age. Not really wasted, but mostly all they want to do still is play, swim, fish, run around and have fun. The adoption agency I used to adopt Mustang offers kid-friendly “homeland visits” and if we did go this year I’d do that, plus maybe stay a bit longer to visit a few other places. (And I would very much have liked to get to the World Expo in Shanghai – though the city’s likely to be atrociously expensive). But an organized tour like that is also quite expensive, so we’ll forego it for a year or two longer, and make the trip once the kids are at least a bit more inclined to do some real cultural exploration. (And then there’ll be a trip to Ethiopia a few years after that…)

So this year, the main holiday will be a trip to parts in eastern Canada – Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick. Laolao and Laoye left the bus here last fall, parked at a storage facility outside the city, so they’re flying back in mid-May and will spend part of the summer with us again. They’ll leave a couple of weeks earlier, in mid-June, and the kids and I will fly out to join them at the end of school. Then we’ll take a leisurely two+ weeks to wend our way back home, spending time exploring this country’s Maritime richness.

Other than that, I’ve got them booked into two different daycamps here in the city – at the Farm, which they both love, and a Science Camp for Button while Mustang will enjoy a Junior Zookeeper Camp. (Button would like to do Zookeeper too, but you have to be eight years old – maybe next year.) Then we’ll all spend a week at our church’s overnight camp in late August (I’ll help in the kitchen, like I did last summer). Maybe another weekend at the fishing campground close to home, some swimming lessons, and voilà! a summer full of fun.

Laolao and Laoye will likely start to head home to western Canada by mid-August, taking their time and enjoying the sights along the way. If they spend a month travelling the roughly 5,000km, that will give them lots of time to relax and enjoy themselves.

A visit with Garnet

2010-05-11T06:03:00.000-04:00

On the last Saturday in April we made a trip to city where Garnet lives, about an hour’s drive away. After our usual Saturday morning chores we hopped into the car, complete with a gift for Garnet (bought at Lovely’s training session the previous night), and set off. It was a great day – sunny, warm, relaxing. We arrived in time for lunch – my contribution being a lentil salad and a honeydew melon – and after tucking in for a bite, spent the afternoon having fun! Garnet’s family has a trampoline in the backyard which the kids played on most of the afternoon while Mama Garnet and I chatted about life, dogs, the nanny situation, and everything.

Garnet has grown a fair bit since we last saw her at the end of January, though she’s still a lot smaller than Lovely. Her family expressed some concern that she’s not growing faster. I think she might end up being a smaller dog at full growth, though she does still have a good six months more of growth coming. (I hope the slow weight gain is not related to the loss-of-weight spell she had when she was 2 months old. She seems now to be perfectly healthy now!)

It seems to me that Garnet has mellowed somewhat since small puppyhood. Just somewhat – she’s still quite lively and active, but didn’t seem quite so prone to bugging Lovely as when she was little. She and Lovely got on fairly well, except when Garnet tried to steal the ball Lovely was playing with! (Actually, they mostly ignored each other, but that’s an improvement from when Garnet would bug mama and Lovely would snap at her!)

Late in the afternoon we visited that city’s version of an off-leash dog park by the river, which was a first for all of us. It was quite pleasant and not nearly as crowded as the one we go to at home. Then we had a supper of barbecued hot dogs, chips, salad and fruit.

After supper we all headed off, in separate vehicles, to another town about halfway between our two cities where Mama Garnet had seen advertised that the African Children’s Choir would be performing. When we got there – just as the concert was about to start – we were both surprised at the small number of cars in the parking lot, thinking this concert would have a big draw factor. Once inside, it became apparent that we were victims of (somewhat) false advertising – it wasn’t THE African Children’s Choir, but the Canadian-African Children’s Choir from our home city. Still, we stayed to enjoy the music, which was quite good. As nine o’clock approached, however, and we less than halfway through the printed program, I decided we’d leave at the intermission as we were all getting tired and it was getting late! But as soon as I made that decision the organizers jumped to the last two items on the program, effectively cancelling intermission, so we stayed until the end of those two items. Before heading home we availed ourselves of the yummy snacks laid out in the church basement.

It was a long day but lots of fun, and so nice to visit Garnet (and her family of course!).

Magical Monday

2010-05-10T06:09:00.001-04:00

April 2010

2010-05-06T05:58:00.000-04:00

After Easter, the rest of April passed fairly uneventfully. Lovely started basic training class on Friday the 9th, for eight weeks. It’s not that intensive – I think the training is as much for the owners as the dogs. I looked into a variety of training classes and operations and decided to go with the local PetSmart class, mostly because they were kid-friendly. A few of the other places wouldn’t allow children under 8 to take part, which would cut Button our. But here, we all go into the classroom and we all take turns working with Lovely. The instructor is obviously aware that the kids need to learn how to handle her as much as anyone.

The Sunday after Easter we again had a crowd, but this time I didn’t cook up a storm, mostly just thawed things from the freezer. It was still great! What was most fun was that there were eight kids and just six grown-ups, so all but the two littlest kids got to sit at their own table to eat. After lunch we again traipsed through the woods and by the pond. It’s practically a Sunday tradition!

The kids started swimming lessons mid-month. Button’s in Level 3 and Mustang in Level 4. They haven’t had lessons since the end of summer last year, but they seem to be enjoying it and doing well. I’m so glad Mustang has lost her fear of the deep end and is now quite happy to head off there for diving and jumping fun.

We had two arts excursions in April – saw a children’s theatre show and a kids’ concert, both very fun. Friend Chuckles and I also took in a play one evening, while friend L babysat the kids.

Nanny’s birthday was near the end of the month. The kids and I baked a cake and decorated it all up for her (seeing as she would be with us for supper). Their present for her was a Webkinz ferret – since she has a real ferret for a pet! – and we made her a card.

Holiday #5 (2009) - A beautiful park

2010-05-04T06:09:00.000-04:00

Our last holiday of the summer was over the September long weekend – after school had already started. I took off a tad early from work and, about an hour and a half after the kids got home from school, we headed out, leaving Lovely and puppies – now four weeks old – once again in the care of Chuckles. This one was the longest drive away, up in the Shield area.

Actually, given the busy after-work-long-weekend traffic, we got only a couple of kilometres from home – still in the heart of the city – and pulled off the freeway to a McDonalds parking lot to have a bite of supper. Picked up some fries to complement our soup, ate in the bus, and played a bit. Finally, about an hour later, traffic had eased up the point where it was worthwhile heading out again and, tummies full, we trundled on our way.

We arrived at the campground shortly after sunset, found our campsite, and settled in for the night. This was also a fairly large campground, but not nearly so spread-out as the previous one. The kids and Laoye had their bikes and sped up and down the roadways, while even walking it went quite quickly to reach the main beachfront area. You could tell this was a well-used and serviced campground – the interpretation centre had some nice displays and talks on a daily basis, and there was both a ferry service to take you across the inlet to the path up the cliff on the opposite shore of the lake and a boat ride along the cliff edge where you could see some of the rock paintings – and observe intrepid climbers doing a technical climb up the cliff face.

We spent our time swimming, hiking, playing, and just plain having fun! The weekend was over all too soon and then – back to the city to settle into the fall routine of school, work and puppies!

Magical Monday

2010-05-03T06:04:00.001-04:00

Like mother, like daughter.

Our fantastic Easter

2010-04-29T06:18:00.000-04:00

Easter came right at the beginning of April this year. We had the most fantabulous weather you could imagine, all weekend long. The previous Wednesday evening, 31 March, the kids and I were down by the pond in shorts and shirt-sleeves, with nary a speck of snow on the ground (other than the pile in one corner by the next-door parking lot), and I’m pinching myself, thinking “Can this really be March 31st? MARCH??!!?” (Just two years ago, we still had about 2m of snow on that date!!!)

Good Friday we reached a high of about 25 degrees and sunny; Saturday hit 27 and sunny. Sunday was a tad cooler – a “mere” 20 or so with a few clouds (let’s see now, average highs for this time of year are about 5 above!), and Monday the low 20s.

It was so beautiful the kids biked while I scootered to the Good Friday service at the neighbourhood church close to their school. After the service, and a scooter ride home, we had a quick lunch and then headed off to the off-leash dog park with Lovely for a romp. The kids had been there before with Nanny, but it was my first visit. It’s quite pleasant – some wide gravelled trails, some dirt paths through the woods, some flat areas and some hilly spots. It was very fun to watch Lovely playing with the other dogs. They are all quite well behaved, and if two or three dogs “hit it off” they’ll race around playing tag and just romping for the thrill of it.

We went back there on Saturday, and again on Monday. Saturday afternoon we also played in the forest and coloured some more edible Easter eggs, to take to the special Easter breakfast at church on Sunday. The kids also were a big help, peeling potatoes, chopping bread and onions, and peeling and cutting carrots for Sunday dinner, as I’d decided to go all out and have a bunch of company over for roast turkey.

Frist thing Sunday morning we had a little Easter egg hunt. I’d hidden about 60 small chocolate eggs outside on our property. The kids had a blast running around finding them. They found all but two, and when I went around to look I couldn’t find those two either, so I just hope some neighbourhood dog doesn’t get them. I’d also picked up a large chocolate bunny for each child. (They had fancy chocolate puppies and kitties in the store that the kids would have loved, but they were about ten bucks a pop. I just got the cheap $1.99 bunnies…) We then set the table for 10 so that job would be done.

After that we headed off to church. Easter breakfast is always a treat – we had paska and spread, boiled eggs, fruit and cheese. After eating, we sang Easter hymns for about an hour, then it was time to clear the tables and chairs away, do dishes, and get ready for the service. During the service the children’s hour featured a special craft – making a little Easter basket – followed by an Easter egg hunt. They announced it was kids aged 2 to “8ish” so – given that it was to be fun – Mustang and her friend wanted to join in. I asked if a 9 and almost-10 year old could join and the leaders said sure. Since the older age group was so large, we split it into two and I took one group, helped them with their Easter baskets – not that they needed much help – and then shepherded them through the egg hunt. This egg hunt was for plastic coloured eggs filled with candy. The older kids were told to leave the really obvious ones for the little kids to find, and to look for ones that weren’t so easy to spot.

We then headed home to get dinner on. With the pressure cooker the potatoes were done in no time, and the carrots cooked quickly on the stove top. I hauled the turkey out of the oven, carved it up and made gravy. Along with the salad and dessert our friends brought, we had a feast! Everyone set to and did good work demolishing the food. Some turkey, potatoes, and gravy were left over but not much else. Between dinner and dessert we all took a walk through the forest, as it was another lovely day.

As our guests headed home, I offered to drive home the two teenagers who’d joined us while their Mom rode her bike home. My kids of course wanted to ride too, so we made a deal – the Mom would ride with them to their house while I drove the teens, then my kids would ride back home while I drove alongside them slowly down the back streets. It worked find – other than my needing to backtrack a couple of times for want of knowing which back streets offered the best connection from their place to ours. We passed by a playground on the way, so had to stop and play there for a while. The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing at home and reading stories.

Easter Monday was a bit of a work day. We started off with a jaunt to the dog park – I do like that place! Then the chores began: clean piggy’s cage, tidy the house some, and so on. Actually, it wasn’t bad, and there was even time to play in the field and forest.

All in all it was a most delectable weekend, especially with the gorgeous weather. As my camera was still misplaced I wasn't able to take any pictures, unfortunately.

Holiday #4 (2009) - another weekend camping trip

2010-04-27T05:58:00.001-04:00

On Thursday 20 August (2009), when the puppies were two weeks old, we took off for another 4-day camping weekend – leaving Lovely & puppies at home under the excellent care of friend Chuckles. This trip took us to a campground about 1.5 hours east of the city, close to the provincial border. This was a large campground and the campsite I had selected on the web-based reservation site turned out to be a good 30-minute walk from the beach. It had a bit of a pond behind it – the main reason I chose it, thinking it would be fun for frog-catching and the like. But we decided we wanted to be closer to the main area, so after the first night Laoye went to the office and we got a different site very close to the beach, which was much nicer. Again, most of the time we spent swimming, walking, playing at the playground, catching frogs and other critters, eating ice cream, and roasting marshmallows or hotdogs. We also had decent daytime weather with rain at night – the pattern that’s been pretty constant this summer.

This was a very nice campground, despite the distances, and I’d recommend it to others wanting something close to home but with lots of nature and activities.

Unfortunately, it seems like I took no pictures this weekend, for some strange reason. (Maybe out of camera battery juice?)

Magical Monday

2010-04-26T05:47:00.000-04:00

Holiday #3 (2009) - the River

2010-04-22T05:59:00.003-04:00

In late July 2009 I took a Friday off and we headed to a campground about an hour south of the city for a long weekend. Once again, it was cool and a bit rainy, though we had mostly sun and decent temps during the days and rain only at night. This was a fairly small campground with not too much to do, but we borrowed kid-sized fishing equipment from the campground office and the kids were happy just standing on the dock and fishing.

With bucket full of river water to the side, they spent hours just standing there catching sunfish after sunfish. On Saturday afternoon at one point they had 72 sunfish in the bucket. We kept five of the biggest ones and cooked them up just so we could say we’d caught supper – they were rather bony, not the most tasty things, but who cares.

Other than fishing, we spent some time walking along the river trail (not very far), playing in the little playground, catching frogs (what else!), swimming at the dog-friendly beach, and reading.

Came home Sunday aft as it was again starting to rain. A nice weekend, and close enough to the city we could easily go there for a day. (April 2010: Mustang has already asked if we could go back this summer; she wants to fish some more.)

March 2010

2010-04-20T06:13:00.005-04:00

The beginning of the month we welcomed Laolao & Laoye back from Costa Rica and other parts in Central America. They brought colourful t-shirts for the kids and some chocolate-covered macadamia nuts for all. By the time they arrived on March 2nd we had virtually no snow left in town. There was still enough on the ski slopes for the final skiing lesson on Saturday March 6th, and it wasn’t even too bad for walking. A friend came along and the kids spent the afternoon skiing with her. It was even nice enough to eat lunch outside on the ski chalet’s deck.

On Sunday 14 March we celebrated Mustang’s fifth Family Day – the time has flown! – with a turkey dinner with friends at home. The following day was the beginning of March break. Laolao and Laoye took the kids out on a walk through a woodland-march area east of the city, and to McDonald’s for a treat. The next day, Tuesday morning, we took Laolao & Laoye to the airport for their flight home. They’ll be back in May for a month or so.

During March break the kids enjoyed daily outings with Nanny. They went to the Farm, on a hike in the wilderness park across the river, a long bike ride, to the local playground, skating (at an indoor rink), swimming at the wave pool, and did a fun craft every day. Evenings I would take them for a forest walk or down by the pond. On Friday we made a birthday cake for friend L and took it to her place for dessert & tea.

Since skiing ended, I’ve been taking some time for cooking and sewing “lessons” with the kids on Saturday mornings (or other times). They each made a small patchwork quilt for one of their stuffies and I’d like to get them started on some other projects for presents for next Christmas. As for cooking, we’ve done chilli, scrambled eggs, and spaghetti sauce. These aren’t really formal lessons, but I hope they’re picking up some knowledge and practical skills!

This is the only time in recorded history that the city has had no snowfall in March. We’ve had rain, but no snow – and by the end of the month the only snow to be found was in piles where it had built up from shovelling/plowing.

March 31st we hit a high of about 20 degrees, and in the evening we were down by the pond in shorts & t-shirts. As I watch the kids run around I’m thinking “Is this really March 31st? Incredible!”

Unfortunately, I have no pictures for March. Early in the month my camera disappeared. The last I remembered seeing it was on top of the microwave - its normal home when not in use - and Button asking if he could take pictures. I was convined he'd misplaced it somewhere after taking a few pix, though he insisted he returned it to me. But just a few days ago, when I was trying to put a CD book into the pocket opening under the dashboard of my car, I put in my hand to remove something blocking it and - voila! my camera!!! I likely put it there on the last ski lesson day, as I also remember having it there - it just seemed like my memory of it on the microwave was more recent. I was very very VERY happy to have found it. I could have gone back to using my film camera, but after becoming accustomed to the digital one that would have been hard.

So there will be pix in April! (At least for the latter half of the month.)

Sorry, Button, for not believing you...

Magical Monday

2010-04-19T05:58:00.001-04:00

February 2010

2010-04-17T06:07:00.001-04:00

Okay folks, we’re getting closer to real time now!

February of this year was a pretty ordinary month. Busy with skiing, various lessons, walking Mo around the fields & forest, school and work. The most exciting things were:

celebrating Chinese New Year at a friend’s house one Sunday afternoon (it’s the Year of the Tiger – that’s me!!);
enjoying (for the kids) a 4-day weekend in the middle of the month, what with one PD day and the provincial holiday (Nanny takes them on special outings);
attending another concert on a Saturday afternoon after skiing; and
watching the Olympics and cheering for our Canadian athletes.

We also celebrated Lovely’s second birthday (and Valentine’s day) at a pampered pet store-cum-tea shop. Her birthday presents included a nice soft doggy bed – a bit on the small size, but she still enjoys sleeping in it! – a light doggy t-shirt, and a monkey pull toy – all pink and heart-covered. After all, she is a Lovely doggie, born on Valentine’s day!!

In the middle of the month we enjoyed the visit of three young ladies: two from Germany and one from Peru. They were here as part of a conference of International Visitor Exchange participants, a program operated by our church. The conference was hosted by our congregation this year. They spent four night with us and we enjoyed breakfasts together, playtime, and conversation.

The last Sunday of the month we took Lovely out for some playtime in the afternoon, accompanied by our friend Chuckles, and played in the fields near home and on the snow mountains (created by clearing the nearby office parking lot).

The last week of February we had some lovely warm weather, well above freezing, and a lot of snow melted. The days are also getting noticeably longer – a welcome break from winter’s dark. We have had hardly any snow at all since Laolao and Laoye left at the end of December. I’ve shovelled once, and it was only a couple of centimetres. Spring is just around the corner…

Holiday #2b (2009) - Silver Lake Camp

2010-04-15T05:47:00.000-04:00

Here is the next instalment of the holiday 2009 posts.

After leaving Sibbald Point and spending the night at the dog-friendly B&B, we drive on northwest towards Owen Sound. About a half hour out of the city (and after stopping for a bite of lunch at a restaurant near the beach) we arrive at a summer camp that has the reputation among several generations of teens at our church as being the best summer camp in the world. I also have fond memories of going to summer camp as a child myself, though not this one. I’d like my kids to have a similar good experiences, I’ve booked them here for a 4-day camping experience. I chose the short camp in part because Button is still pretty young and in part because Mustang still is a bit reluctant to be away from home. That’s also the reason I’m volunteering, so that I’ll be close at hand and the kids will see me from time to time.

We sign in, find the kids’ cabins, unload their gear and are introduced to their counsellors. I then find my (& Lovely’s) cabin and move our stuff in, before heading off to the kitchen to get introduced to the crew and get a sense of what my duties will be. That first evening is a campfire barbecue. The weather so far this spring (summer?) has been cool, and today is no exception, but by evening it’s not too bad (and the next four days prove to be quite nice, too, thank goodness).

My duties aren’t too onerous. We start in the kitchen around 6am to prepare breakfast. The head cook is very organized (you’d have to be!) and while some people are doing breakfast, others are getting head-start on lunch and supper. At 8:00 we break to eat and take a rest while the cabins do the dishes, then by 9 are hard at it again for lunch/supper. The menus for the week are yummy and nutritious, and there is always a vegetarian option for veggie kids/counsellors, plus some other “special orders” for kids with specific dietary needs. At noon we stop for lunch, then have the afternoon off. Around 4:30 or 5:00 we need to be back in the kitchen for the final supper prep, then evenings free. Every evening around 7:00 there’s a campfire with singing and devotions. The “devotions” at this camp seems pretty light; at the camp I went to as a child it was pretty evangelical by comparison. I don’t mind this approach; these kids are still quite young.

I walk Lovely in the mornings and then while I’m working I leave her tied to a tree close to the kitchens. There’s another dog that belongs to the camp director on site and he’s left free to wander, but I don’t want to let Lovely loose just to be safe. She’s got shade and I leave a water dish close by, and kids passing by will give her a pat or two, so she seems happy enough. In the afternoons we go for a longer wander around the camp, and she joins me and the kids by the evening campfire. At night, since we don’t have her crate, she either sleeps on a blanket on the floor or sometimes curled up by me.

Some days I bake buns, other days help chop veggies for salad or soup, cook chili or what have you. The first day I’m pretty wiped, but after that I make sure to use a stool while working and that saves my joints. The food is really good here!

On Friday I drive into town to get a haircut as my hair’s been driving me crazy. After noticing a movie theatre across from the stylist’s, checking out the movies playing and schedule, and realizing it’s not a bad drive in from camp, I decide to come back that evening for a movie. I take off right after supper, and while I’m a bit late for the show I had most wanted to see, another fun one is just starting so I catch “The Proposal” which is a lot of laughs and much better than I had anticipated.

Saturday the camp is over, and after breakfast we pack up and take to the roads. We’ve arranged to meet Laolao and Laoye near a campground just east of the big city, which will take us a few hours to get to. Actually, it takes longer than I thought, and by 5 the kids are hungry so we stop off for a bite at a Timmy’s in one of the towns we’re passing through and I call Laolao on my cell to say we’ll be late.

Finally we get to the rendez-vous point around 7pm and we all stretch our legs. Laolao takes over the car and the kids and I climb into the bus for another hour or two travel – but more comfortable this way. We stop for the night in a big parking lot off the highway (where the truckers stay), Sunday is the final leg home. It’s been fun!

Unfortunately my camera ran out of juice before we got to camp, and I don’t have a spare battery, so I have no photos of our time there.

January 2010

2010-04-12T06:13:00.004-04:00

Fri 1 Jan: Happy New Year! (Yeah, okay, I’m 3 ½ months late…)

Hard to believe that it’s been ten years since the whole world was scared the millennium computer bug was going to bring the world to a screeching halt – or at least cause some major glitches.

Sun 3 Jan: We have a tea party after church to celebrate:

Button’s second Family Day
Mustang’s “half-life” – as of the 5th she will have lived in Canada for exactly half her life!
my birthday, and
Lovely’s 22 ½ monthiversary (the kids insisted we had to include a reason to celebrate her, too).

Much of the baking over the past week has been to prepare treats for this occasion. There are plenty of desserts and some nice hors-d’oeuvres, too. We play card games, chat, and munch.

Mon 4 Jan: Back to school for the kids, back to work for me. In the evening, Button desperately does not want to go to music. I let him skip this one class, but tell him he has to go without complaining next week, and keep going until his birthday. (The classes end right after his birthday, but I’m not telling him that! Let him think he gets to stop early…) He agrees.

Tue 5 Jan: Twelfth Night. We bake a Twelfth Night-cum-birthday cake, with coins in it. Whoever gets the coin has to host next year’s Twelfth Night party. Since there’s only us, it’s not hard to guess where the party will be!

Wed 6 Jan: Epiphany. Mustang starts another round of art lessons.

Thu 7 Jan: My birthday & Ethiopian New Year! Ask Nanny to cook some Ethiopian-style food for our supper, and I buy some injera. Friend Chuckles joins us for a lovely evening. We finish off the cake.

Sat 9 Jan: First skiing lesson of the season. I walk Lovely around the ski hill. At noon, friend with the acreage home joins us and skis with the kids while I read and Lovely naps in the car. Was a bit worried that Lovely might find it cold sitting in the car so we’d brought blankets and heated some bean bags to try to keep it warm. But it’s a fairly sunny day and not too cold, so the sun through the windows actually keeps the car a relatively pleasant temperature. After skiing we drive to friend’s home on the lake and enjoy a pleasant supper and some playtime there. My birthday present to myself is a weekend away from home, being a little bit pampered.

Sun 10 Jan: Spend the day in the country, playing outside, enjoying games and colouring inside, getting some reading done. Had meant to head home in mid-aft, but some other friends from church are coming for supper, so we stay and enjoy conversation and games with them. By then it’s dark and I don’t like driving in the dark. Friend says no problem to stay an extra night, so we do, with plans to get up early to drive back in time for school.

Mon 11 Jan: Get up and going in pretty good time, but it’s still about 8:30 or so by the time we reach the school. Then I take Lovely home & unload a few things from the car before heading to work. In the evening Button goes to music without complaining. Good for him!

Sat 16 Jan: Friend Chuckles’ birthday. We invite her over for dinner and games.

Sat 23 Jan: After skiing we attend an afternoon family concert with a sports theme. Senator Nancy Greene pays a visit, some Olympic athletes are there, and a team of rhythmic gymnastics dancers is also part of the performance.

Not too much else to report. Homework, skiing, art, music, walking dog… Life’s pretty ordinary.

December 2009

2010-04-09T05:55:00.000-04:00

Tue 1 Dec: Kids start their Advent calendar. Every morning they open one of the little pockets to find a clue telling them where to look for their surprise, or a coupon for a special activity that day. They will be doing lots of activities – like going to see Christmas lights, taking a moonlight walk, getting a Christmas tree or shopping for Mommy’s present – as well as lots of baking & cooking – making shortbread cookies, rocky road bars, lemon tarts, mini quiches, layered jello desserts, etc – to make this more about fun and less about gimme.

Fri 4 Dec: Another PD Day. I go in for my surgery. There by 9, in the OR by about 10:30. Done by 11:20. Home by about 1pm. Because they’ve frozen my optic nerve I can’t see a thing. Once home, rest in the story chair while kids wait on me. (Nice!!) Gradually vision returns as the freezing wears off. But everything is veeeeery blurry (and will stay so for some time, I am told to expect.) In the evening, I try reading a few pages of my book. With three pairs of my strongest reading glasses, one on top of the other, I can manage to puzzle out the words, but it’s very slow going. After 5 minutes and about ¼ page, I give up.

Sat 5 Dec: Laolao and I take the kids shopping to buy each others’ and my Christmas present (or did we do this next Saturday? Not quite sure.) Of course, they want to give it to me right away, but we say it has to wait until last Advent, at least. At bedtime I try to read again. Slightly improved, but not much.

Sun 6 Dec: Second Advent. This year I’m giving the kids each books and a little something else for each Advent Sunday. All my gifts will be given by the time Christmas day rolls around (except for the little goodies from Santa); they get enough stuff from Laolao & Laoye and a few friends to have plenty on Christmas Day. By spreading out the gifts (from me at least), there is not such a huge pile of stuff on the Day, which can get so overwhelming that things get lost (or inadvertently thrown in the trash, as happened a few years ago to us). And I like to think that it helps to keep some of the focus on Christ, not just on “what am I getting?”

7-16 Dec: While the kids are at school (and I’m off work ‘cause I can’t read worth beans), I spend my time organizing. Put some order in the toy shelf. Put some order in the sewing room. Put some order in my office. Basement. Kids’ rooms. Loft – go through my bookshelves and pull out at least half the books to take to the second-hand store. Move some of the kids; books upstairs.

Meanwhile, Laolao is putting up the border in the kids’ rooms and rearranging furniture. In October I’d moved back into the master bedroom, but left the double bed upstairs as it’s too big for me to handle. Now Laolao & Laoye move it upstairs, move the upper bunkbed into Button’s new room, put the single bed from downstairs under the upper bunk, rearrange Mustang’s bed & bookcase.

Sat 12 Dec: Dress rehearsal for the pageant. At church from 9:00 to noon. In the afternoon we join good friends P, M & A (D is down south at university, believe it or not!) to get our Christmas tree at a local cut-your-own place. Take Lovely as we’ve seen dogs there before and friends have in the past taken their dog (and do so again), but when we get there we are told “no dogs” so Lovely has to stay in the car. Guess we’re not likely to go there again. Post-tree, go to friends’ house for Christmas fellowship and exchange gifts.

Sun 13 Dec: Third Advent. Some beading supplies for Mustang, some wooden puzzles for Button, and a homemade calendar for each. Pageant show in the evening. Kids all excited. Goes well.

Sat 19 Dec: Take Mustang to see a matinee performance of A Christmas Carol. It’s a very sombre, darkly lit staging, very effective. Mustang loves it – not too scary; helps that she knows the story. Laoye drops us off and we catch the bus home.

Sun 20 Dec: Fourth Advent. Kids get their big prezzies from me – not that huge, some scrapbooking supplies for Mustang and some K’Nex for Button, as well as a computer game for each. Along with the obligatory book.

Mon 21 Dec: Start of school break. With tons of time off, and not much homework, I get the kids to start working hard on their knitting. Gotta get those scarves done! Or at least significantly advanced. For every row they knit, I knit one too.

Wed 23 Dec: Advent treat of the day is a skiing trip with Nanny (she comes early). They spend the day on the hill where they take lessons. Not many runs are open, but enough to make it a fun day! By now my vision is much improved. I can read quite well and driving shouldn’t be an issue either. But I’m booked off for one more week. Seeing as it’s Christmas, I’ll take it; any other time I might head back and save on sick leave.

Thu 24 Dec: Christmas Eve!!! Evening service at church, followed by fellowship around the fireplace at home. Neighbours come over with gifts for the kids, we invite them to join us for some snacking & games. After kids are to bed, Santa arrives and fills the stockings – even brings treats for Lovely & our guinea pig (who each have their own stocking). In our house, Santa has very strict guidelines: he has to put into each stocking (a) something to eat, (b) something to wear, and (c) something to do.

Fri 25 Dec: Christmas!!!! Kids are eager to get up (though actually manage to sleep until 6 or so) to look in stockings. Santa has brought Mustang a book all about dog breeds, which is one of the things she was asking for. Button got a doggie cookbook (as in making treats for your dog, not cooking the dog!) and I got a book about training your dog to do tricks. That fills the “something to do” category. Also chocolate and socks all around (eat, wear). After a late breakfast of hash brown casserole (the traditional Christmas breakfast meal), we open the remaining presents. Kids each get a bunch of Lego from Laolao & Laoye, and LL/LY admire their scarves that the kids have almost finished knitting. We just didn’t quite have the energy to get them done, but they’ve done yeoman’s work this past week, adding bout 50cm to the length. It’s almost long enough – another 3 bands of colour (20 rows each) and that should do it.

In the early afternoon our friends arrive for Christmas dinner: a refugee couple from Colombia with their 6-month-old son (the grown 20-year-old son has other things going on so he doesn’t come); a couple from church; a friend who lives on a small acreage north of the city; and our good friends L&W, who were going to bring two teenage Sudanese boys but the latter learned of a Sudanese gathering and preferred to go there. We chat and play until dinner is served around 4pm – Laolao has prepared us a turkey feast, with all the trimmings! After supper there is more chatting, some games, and finally the guests go home. All in all, a fine day.

Sat 26 Dec: Kids start their “Twelve Days of Christmas” calendar. Much like the Advent calendar, but this one has little bags with treats or clues in them. I initiated it to provide a “ramping down” of the Christmas celebrations rather than an abrupt post-Christmas blah, and also – primarily – as a way to keep the festivities going until (a) Ethiopian Christmas and (b) my birthday, both on January 7.

Mon 28 Dec: Go out to our favourite Ethiopian restaurant for supper, to celebrate Button’s second Family Day.

Tue 29 Dec: Say goodbye to Laolao & Laoye, who are flying out to parts south. Starting in Cancun, then working their way down through Central America. Wish I could go too.

Thu 31 Dec: Twelve Days calendar treat is a treasure hunt to party snacks and new movie, which we enjoy in the evening. Kids stay up until about 10:30, then zonk out.

Bye-bye, 2009!

Holiday #2a (2009) - Warsaw Caves & Sibbald Point

2010-04-07T06:09:00.003-04:00

(Seeing as I had been blogging about our last year's summer holidays, before I was rudely interrputed in September [by life, the universe & everything], I'll pick that up again, too. Not that anybody cares but me, but it's a nice record to jog memories down the road...)

We were at home for Canada Day. Last summer (i.e. in 2008) we spent it in the small town of Tofino, at the north end of Long Beach on the west coast of Vancouver Island. They had a nice celebration at the town park, and we enjoyed a day of playing and watching a skateboard competition, but overall it was small potatoes compared to what we have in our home city. So this year Button experienced his first Canada Day here at home.

Actually, we didn’t head out to the festivities until the late afternoon, but we spent a couple of hours at the big park, watching a really neat performance with a variety of singers and dancers, including a lot of native-themed ones. Then we had our requisite summer fun ice cream, and headed home. After supper, as it was starting to edge towards darkness (about 8:30 or so), the kids and I headed out to our favourite fireworks viewing site, with Lovely in tow. We set up our lawn chairs, hauled out the munchies, drank tea – because it was pretty cool for a July 1st – and watched the sunset. At 10:00 on the nose, the first showers of light and sound went up and we watched, enthralled. At this location, which is at the edge of an island in the river, you can see not only the fireworks but their reflection in the river, and there are no buildings in the way to obstruct the view. Plus, being right on the edge of the water – and surprisingly the crowds there are not too huge – you generally don’t have to contend with heads blocking the view. The show lasted a good 20 minutes and then we piled into the car and headed home.

The next day, bright and early (meaning about 10 o’clock or so!) we climbed into the car to head out on our second holiday of the season. The drive out to the bus took a couple of hours, and the kids were getting a bit antsy in the cramped car (complete with dog at their feet/on their laps), but we finally got there and piled out for a coffee break. An hour later, we were again on our way, this time with the kids and me in the bus while Laoye drove, and Laolao following behind in the car.

Another couple hours later we reached our destination: Warsaw Caves campground. The campsite I’d reserved wasn’t that great, so we found a different one that was available for the two nights we would be there and settled in. It was a cool, rainy day but with jackets and trousers we were fine. The website had noted there were caves that could be explored within the conservation area. After supper, we drove over to check them out. Unfortunately, they were the kind of cave that requires equipment and technical experience, so we just meandered through the forest past the entrances and watched the wildlife (birds, squirrels, chipmunks).

The next morning, we drove in the car about 40km to Petroglyph Provincial Park, which was the main reason for coming this way. Near to the parking lot was a visitor centre, with many displays about the local Native culture and how the people’s lives changed with the seasons. We (or at least the grownups) enjoyed the displays before heading out to see the site.

The day was bright and sunny – most unlike the preceding couple of days – and we walked along the short trail to the Petroglyph site. These are carvings in stone on a sloping, flat limestone shelf. They are of sacred significance to the local First Nations people, and several of the interpreters on site were First Nation. The glyphs have been deemed to be of national historic significance, and seeing as they were beginning to degrade (and to keep them safe from vandalism), a large climate-controlled building has been built overtop the site, with a viewing platform all around, from which you can see the glyphs quite close up and get a good look. Several interpretive panels describe the glyphs and what they represent, and visitors are encouraged to respect the sacredness of the site with a quiet attitude.

On the way back to the visitor centre, the kids caught sight of a small turtle, no more than about 5cm in diameter, on the gravel pathway. We watched it for some time, first as it just sat there, then as it trundled off into the grasses by the side of the path. Later we saw another, larger turtle. So nice to see!

After viewing the site, we ate a nice picnic lunch outside in the sun, then headed down a short hiking trail for a bit of a leg-stretch and to enjoy the scenery. As usual, the kids had their nets out and chased after whatever they could: butterflies, dragonflies, frogs… By now it was close to 4pm, when the park closes, so we didn’t go far down the trail.

After a quick trip back to the campground, we had a nice supper, built a fire, roasted marshmallows, and – not forgetting evening storytime! – headed off to bed.

The next morning, Saturday July 4th, we packed up and drove a couple of hours west to Sibbald Point Provincial Park, on Lake Simcoe, where we were to spend the next two nights. This is a very large, very well-appointed park that has a long history of use, particularly as it lies within about a two-hour drive (depending on traffic) of the economic engine of Canada. I had booked our site at the last minute as my cousin, who lives near said engine, wanted to come spend a day with us. While sunny, it was also a very windy day and the level of the lake was high, owing to the significant rains that have not stopped falling since the beginning of May. The kids, dog, Laoye and I explored the beachfront – nowhere as nice Sandbanks, but acceptable!

This park has a good interpretive program. After supper we headed up to the amphitheatre and enjoyed a presentation on the park’s history, complete with ghosts and talking creatures. It was well done – the kids quite enjoyed it. Then the requisite campfire and bed.

My cousin drove out the next morning, Sunday, and spent the day with us. It’s hard to believe she is already 40 years old! She was always my “little” cousin, 6 years younger than me. (Now you know how old I am!) She is single and working in a job in the insurance industry. She has a much younger sister who is also adopted from China – adopted long after she’d left home, so she doesn’t really know her that well. We had a good time together and she enjoyed meeting my kids and playing with them. She left us in the late afternoon, to get back home and ready for work the next day.

On Monday, the kids and dog and I parted ways with Laolao and Laoye. We headed west, to the shores of Lake Huron, where the kids were signed up for a 5-day camping experience (while I volunteered in the kitchen), while Laolao and Laoye took the bus south to visit relatives. Rather than driving all the way over in one day, we stopped at a dog-friendly B&B about halfway there, where we enjoyed playing with Lovely, watching movies on the television in the room (I let them watch two!!!) and generally relaxing.

November 2009

2010-04-06T06:03:00.001-04:00

Sun 1 Nov: Kids & I attend the first of the season’s kids’ concerts. This series is targeted at young kids, ages 4-8, but Mustang (9 ½) still enjoys them.

Wed 4 Nov: Get a call from a fellow in the next province over; do we still have Diamond available? YES!!! He seems like a serious and very interested buyer. Call back, send over my questionnaire for prospective purchasers. Another visit to ophthalmologist; surgery booked for Dec 4th.

Fri 6 Nov: Review the completed questionnaire, call back & talk to the fellow. He’s actually buying as a gift for his girlfriend; yes she knows (or will) and wants a dog; she’s had her heart set on a Labradoodle but could only find breeders way out west. He came across my website from the ALAA links page and was very excited to see a breeder so close by (well, a four-hour drive, but that’s better than a five-hour flight!) with a puppy available. Can he come tomorrow to pick Diamond up? YES!!!

Volunteer at Villages in the evening. Laolao & Laoye and kids have been there since after school, preparing for the evening volunteer supper and helping out with whatever needs doing. It’s a bit too bad that Chuckles isn’t a coordinator anymore, in the sense that she had a good way of getting the young kids involved – she’d always find little jobs for them to do. This year, rather than cash I’m working at the Living Gifts table (where I can sit). The kids sometimes sit with me and work on their Christmas gifts for Laolao and Laoye. They’re knitting scarves (I can say this because Christmas is long past!!!), and it’s been going pretty slowly. Last fall we spent an hour or two every Saturday morning on our Christmas gift craft project, but this year there’s art on Saturday mornings so that doesn’t work. Other times just don’t seem to suit. So I’m hoping they can make some progress here at Villages sales. As they find the progress slow I get them to do four rows, then I do four (or six). That way they can see it growing faster and they each get a break. (After all, fingers can get sore.)

Sat 7 Nov: Head over to Villages after art to do some shopping and enjoy a borscht lunch. (Since we’re not working today we have to buy our lunch. That’s find; all tea room proceeds go to the Food Bank or another local charity.) In the afternoon we say goodbye to Diamond. It’s sad, but also a bit of a relief. Now just Garnet is left with us, and she has a home arranged with our friends, though she’ll be with us another few weeks.

Sun 8 Nov: I’m starting to work with the SS kids on the Christmas pageant. For the past few years I’ve been the assistant rather than director/organizer, which suits me fine. For this year, the director has chosen to do the sequel to the play we put on last year, which makes it easy. Generally I work on the script & staging with the kids while she rehearses the songs and does the overall coordination. Roles that suit us both.

Wed 11 Nov: Remembrance Day. I get the day off (so Nanny does too) but the kids have to go to school. Poor things. Laolao, Laoye & I go to the school for the morning assembly. Then home. Can’t remember what I spent the day doing.

Sat 14 Nov: Villages in the aft.

Fri 20 Nov: Villages in the evening.

Sun 22 Nov: Attend a dramatic reading of Jacob Two-Two and the Hooded Fang. I had expected a staged reading, but it was just a lady sitting in a chair reading. Well, not “just.” She had all the voices, drama and suspense. Very nicely done.

Wed 25 Nov: Say goodbye to Garnet at suppertime. The family’s birthdays are approaching so they come to pick her up, with son in tow. He is surprised, appears pleased. We are happy and sad at the same time. No more puppies. Wah. (No more pee and poop. Yay!) Garnet is close enough, we’ll be able to visit her from time to time.

Sat 28 Nov: Villages in the aft, and stay for pack-up. Then set up for a supper catered by WH – a fancy alternative to the pizza chow-down we have most years, or the restaurant visit or days gone by. Very yummy, very nice to sit & chat about the success of this year’s sales and the upcoming Christmas season. Kids & I leave early so’s to get to bed not too late. We miss the awards ceremony, at which they get an award for the youngest volunteers (or something like that).

Sun 29 Nov: First Advent (already!). Kids are keen to decorate; we haul out the boxes of Christmas supplies and go to town. No tree yet, but all the other trimmings.

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!

2010-04-04T06:03:00.000-04:00

And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

– Matthew 28.5–6

Christ, the Lord, is risen today, Alleluia!
Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heavens, and earth, reply, Alleluia!

Vain the stone, the watch, the seal, Alleluia!
Christ hath burst the gates of hell, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids His rise, Alleluia!
Christ hath opened paradise, Alleluia!

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once He died our souls to save, Alleluia!
Where thy victory, O grave? Alleluia!

Soar we now where Christ hath led, Alleluia!
Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!

King of glory, Soul of bliss, Alleluia!
Everlasting life is this, Alleluia!
Thee to know, Thy power to prove, Alleluia!
Thus to sing and thus to love, Alleluia!

– words by Charles Wesley, 1739
(I’ve included only 5 of the original 10 verses…)

October 2009

2010-04-03T07:07:00.002-04:00

Thu 1st Oct: Take Diamond to vet’s for snip-snip. Opal’s purchasers have arranged to do neutering at a later date (I’m only allowing it because she used to work in a vet clinic so isn’t likely to be non-compliant). And Garnet & Peridot both breeding prospects. So Diamond it is. Take him in first thing in the morning, pick up at the end of the day. His voice has gone all squeaky! (Not from the snip-snip, just because of the tube down the throat.)

1st week of October: Music, gymnastics, art, soccer continue.

Fri 8 Oct: PD Day; Nanny comes early. In the evening we take Opal to the airport to send him off to new owners. Still looking for purchasers for Garnet & Diamond. Had a few serious prospects but nothing firm yet.

Mon 12 Oct: Thanksgiving! We take puppies and Lovely for a romp in the woods. Take a rake, pile up leaves and jump in. Toss puppies in. Bury kids & puppies. Puppies jump in. Tons of fun. Supper at a friend's house. Yum!

Wed 14 Oct: Kids were to have started skating lessons today, but I cancelled. Lots of other lessons on the go and there’s homework, too. Start Mustang on a computer math program to try to get her to internalize her basic math facts. Very systematic and repetitive, which is what she needs.

Sat 17 Oct: Take Peridot to airport to ship her to breeder out west. She is such a little sweetie, I wish we could keep her. Think I’ve got someone to take Garnet, but they don’t want her until late November. I can make that work. Now just Diamond boy.

Sat 24 Oct: Go to ski show/swap. Find equipment for kids – mostly second-hand but have to buy new boots for Mustang as they don’t have any 2nd-hand in her size. Figure it will be worth it rather than renting, as then if we want to ski besides lesson days we’ll save a bundle on rent, and they will probably be able to use the skis/poles for a couple of years, if not the boots, and when Mustang outgrows her skis they might suit Button. Also go to Value Village to buy Hallowe’en costumes. (About time, says Mustang.)

Sun 25 Oct: Youth serve chilli lunch after church, then we stay to set up shelving for Ten Thousand Villages sales.

Tue 27 Oct: Go for gymnastics but building is closed & locked. Nothing on door to say why. Check phone at home but no messages. Mysterious.

Wed 28 Oct: Laolao & Laoye fly in. They’ll be here for Villages season and through Christmas. Visit the ophthalmologist – I’ve been having high pressure in my eye that’s not responding to drops, so he’s booked me with the specialist (as in, high-pressure specialist; he’s just a cornea specialist…). This guy takes a quick look and recommends a surgical procedure to create new drainage channels. Had a similar, but slightly less invasive, procedure 18 months ago but it appears to no longer be working. We all head to church after school/work to help unload the Villages delivery truck, which is quite late. Enjoy pizza after it’s all unloaded.

Thu 29 Oct: Laolao immediately sets about cooking up borscht for the Saturday unpacking session and the first Villages weekend. They’re coordinating the volunteer suppers on Friday.

Sat 31 Oct: After art class, we spend the morning unpacking at Villages. Afternoon free time. Finally it’s Hallowe’en night! Mustang is a devil; Button a fluffy cat (not black).

1-31 Oct: Still hunting for puppy purchaser. By now Diamond is 12 weeks old. Fun having him, but getting tired of puppy pee & poop in house. Starting to enforce “no puppy house-roaming” rules more strictly.

About that wedding...

2010-04-01T06:00:00.001-04:00

(This post is specifically addressed to GH - the elder and the younger…)

You may have wondered why we didn’t accept the wedding invitation last fall. Well, it all comes down to a busy mom with a leaky memory.

On that fateful September morning, as we headed off to art and soccer lessons with pups in tow, I reminded the kids that we would be attending G’s wedding after the lessons. Mustang was all keen, as she’s not attended a wedding before and wanted to see what it was all about (and admire the fancy dresses!). After the ceremony and the receiving line, the kids both asked me why we couldn’t stay for the reception.

“Because we didn’t get an invitation,” I responded (wondering why that might have been, as I had done for the past couple of weeks).

“Yes we did, Mommy!” they exclaimed. “Don’t you remember?”

And suddenly it clicked. Yes, we had! It had been in our church mailbox back in early September (or was it late August?), and I’d opened it at home and commented to the kids, “Good, we’ve received an invitation to G’s wedding; we have to be sure to respond to it.” And set it aside. But had I responded to it or not?!?!?

As everyone was chatting in the foyer, the kids and I went into fellowship hall to see the pretty tables. I noticed a seating plan/list. I surreptitiously rifled through it – maybe I had responded to the invitation and had just forgotten I’d done so… But, alas, our names were not listed, so I resigned myself to not staying for the festivities, much as we would all have loved to. (Well, maybe not the puppies. They would have gotten tired of being stuck in their crate.)

Back at home, I searched through all the likely places for the invitation – the church bag, the fridge (outside on the door, not inside!), the corner of the kitchen counter where things “to be dealt with” are placed.

Nothing.

It must have gotten tossed in the recycle bin by some inattentive soul. (Surely not me?!?) And forgotten.

Sorry about that. And no, it’s not because we don’t love you guys. (Did I mention that it had been a busy summer/fall and I’d had a lot on my mind?) Usually I’m good at keeping track of things, but every once in a while there’s just not enough head-space to go around. Even for me. (I was too embarrassed to tell you before. About forgetting, not about not having enough head-space.)

(I can hear SH laughing. Quiet, you!)

At least we made it to the shower…

September 2009

2010-03-31T06:07:00.004-04:00

Tue, 1 Sep: Back to school.

Fri 4 Sep: Beginning of long weekend. After school we head out on a camping trip to a provincial park a couple hours drive away. Chuckles will be staying with Lovely & the puppies again – now at a month old their eyes are open and they are getting mobile. Cute as all get out!

Fri 11 Sep: Ethiopian New Year. Don’t do anything particularly special. Meant to go to our fave Ethio resto, but no go.

Sat 12 Sep: Mustang starts the fall session of art lessons.

Sun 13 Sep: Button has a soccer tournament – last of the season. We miss the first game owing to church, but get there in time for the second. Lovely warm day.

Mon 14 Sep: Button starts Music for Young Children. We’ve talked about it and he’s been fine with it, but when the time comes to go he is insistent: he doesn’t want to. Refuses to come to the car. Goes into my office room and cries. (At least he hasn’t “run away,” like he is wont to do.) No amount of coaxing, bribery, threats, works. Finally I get Laoye to pick him up & put him in the car. He cries all the way over. At the studio he refuses to exit the car. I go up and explain to the teachers, one comes down and manages to coax him out and up to the lesson. He seems to enjoy it and by the time we head home he’s, if not happy, at least not crying or sulking. I’ve told him he has to go at least 3 times and then if he hates it he can stop.

1-11 Sep: Scrambling to find childcare/Nanny. I want someone to come to our home, in large part because of Lovely (& puppies) but also I just prefer that to out-care or institutional type daycare. Tried using an agency to find a live-in-caregiver already in Canada. The only available ones weren’t interested. Got onto a couple of nanny-matching websites. Found several local young people with relevant training & experience. A bit challenging because I’m only offering part-time (after-school plus some dog/puppy care and housework, meal prep). But find and interview two likely candidates. Offer job to one, who accepts. Yay! Just in time. It's been kind of stressing me - taking up a lot of head space - but it's worked out okay. The Lord provides.

Mon/Tue 14-15 Sep: New Nanny comes for “training” with Laolao & to have some time with kids before LL/LY leave. Seems like a good match.

Wed 16 Sep: Laolao & Laoye fly back out west. As they have doctor’s appts tomorrow and we holidaying until the 7th, they didn’t relish having to hurry back in the bus (slow and noisy) but decided to store it over winter, come back next spring and spend the summer travelling first east to the coast and then all the way west, taking their time and making it an enjoyable holiday.

Sat 19 Sep: Button starts six-week soccer lessons. We take two puppies to the practice; they run around the big field next to the soccer practice. Too cute! After soccer, we head to church to attend the wedding of a good friend. Put puppies in their crate in the basement. Following the service, puppies join us going through the receiving line. We don’t stay for the reception because… well, just because.

Tue 22 Sep: Kids start gymnastics.

Mon 28 Sep: The third Music for Young Children lesson. I don’t remind Button that it’s the third time; he doesn’t bring it up. Seems to be enjoying himself. Doesn’t even complain too much about practicing. I think we’re good.

1-30 Sep: Busy placing internet ads for puppies and responding to a million people who want to buy a dog for next to nothing and a handful of potentially serious purchasers. Find a home for Opal. One down, two to go! (Peridot will go to Lovely’s breeder as stud fee.) Now that the Nanny issue is solved, I can put a bit more energy/attention into this.

I'm back!

2010-03-29T17:30:00.001-04:00

Hi, folks, I’m back – after a hiatus of over seven months… Hopefully I’ll maintain consistency again (at least for several months!). Initially I didn’t blog because life was just rather hectic. Then, the longer I didn’t blog, the more there was to “catch up” on, and the feeling of needing to put an increased effort into doing so grew in tandem.

So now I figure I’ll just give you a brief review of the highlights of the past six months, and if I get around to filling in the blanks, great. If not, so be it.

Last August, when the hiatus effectively began (I know I posted once or twice about puppies after that, but that was just “filler”!), there was a lot going on.

Tuesday Aug 4 to Friday Aug 7: Kids spend the week at Farm Camp (daycamp). Laolao & Laoye get a break.

Tuesday Aug 4: Smash up the car. It happened on the way to Mustang’s horse riding lesson,. No one was injured, but the car wouldn’t go. We missed horse lessons, sat around for an hour or two waiting for police and tow truck etc. About the only lucky thing in the whole matter was that it happened within several blocks of home, so we could walk home after all was said & done.

For the next three weeks we used a rental car and most of our spare time was spent looking at replacement cars. Actually, Laolao & Laoye did most of the car hunting, occasionally with kids in tow, (yay for parents!) and just took me to view the ones they thought most promising.

Thursday Aug 6: Lovely’s puppies are born!! You can read about it on my Puppies!!! post from last August. Suffice it to say, it was an eventful day.

Aug 10-20: Kids have swimming lessons every weekday morning. Button passed his Swimmer 2 last session, so both are in Swimmer 3. Mustang passes at the end of this round, so next session –likely next spring – she’ll start Swimmer 4 while Button will still be in Swimmer 3. Frankly, watching them in the pool, I would have said Button was doing a bit better than Mustang, but I guess the instructor thought otherwise. Good for Mustang! She did Swimmer 2 about 7 times before passing, so to pass Swimmer 3 in just two gos is great.

Wed 12 Aug: Laolao & Laoye fly back to Edmonton for a long weekend, to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of some very close & special friends. I’ve rounded up kid/dog sitter for those few days.

Sun 16 Aug: We have 10-day old puppies on lawn to enjoy sun & grass. Lovely is leashed nearby, with the end of the leash draped over the hose holder on the fence, so she doesn’t get too anxious. A cyclist comes zooming around the corner at a pretty good clip, heading – as it were – straight toward her puppies, though in reality just heading to go down the alley. Lovely takes off like a bullet after him and bites him in the leg. Not a severe bite, as bites go, but she still punctures the skin. Neighbour is not willing to accept that she was just “defending” her puppies, and calls in a complaint, so now I have to deal with the bylaw officer & fine. Bother. I should have made sure she was securely tied.

Tue 18 Aug: Laolao & Laoye return. Mustang has her final horse lesson.

Thu 20 Aug: After swimming lesson, we take off for a long weekend camping trip in the bus. Good friend Chuckles comes after work & spends the weekend with Lovely & puppies. Chuckles is almost family, & Lovely loves her, so I know Lovely will be fine with her & not get too nervous.

Sun 23 Aug: Home again. Chuckles says Lovely was a bit anxious while we were gone, and definitely happy to see us home again!

Thu 27 Aug: Buy a new car. Well, a new second-hand car. Though it’s only a year old, and driven by an elderly couple who decided they should stop driving, so it only has (had) 16,000km on it. Very nice condition. It’s a Kia Spectra, hatchback (my preferred style of car), ice-blue in colour. It’ll be ready for pick-up next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Sat 29 Aug: Shop for school supplies for Mustang. As she’s now in Junior division (Grade 4) we have to buy them ourselves. Button starting Grade 1 still can get his from the school for a mere $10, so even though I anticipate it might cause a bit of a stir when Mustang gets all this new stuff and Button doesn’t, I’m too much of a skinflint (okay, I’ll be nice to myself and say frugal) to buy all his stuff too. We do get a couple of things for Button, but not nearly what Mustang got. (I’m right, it did. But we survived.)

Sun 30 Aug: Take the kids to the Fair.

Mon 31 Aug: Take the day off. Last day before school starts up again. We all head 100km down the road to a living Pioneer Village. A lovely day, a bit cool and windy but sunny. Kids love throwing bread or what have you to the carp that live in the canal. We tour the historic flour mill, lumber mill, gardens, school house, barns, hotel, etc. See the horses, cows, piggies, ducks… Buy a loaf of fresh-baked stone-ground bread from the gift shop and have that with fixings for our lunch. I’d found a book in the library that is set in part at this Village – a time-travel book, in which a modern-day girl is transported back in time to a date when the village is about to be attacked, and she helps save the day. We read it in the car on the way down & back again. Kind of cool to get a sense of the people who once lived here and some of the events that occurred over a hundred and fifty years ago.

6 – 31 Aug: working on finding puppy purchasers. No takers yet. Also working on finding fall child care. In Feb lined up a young Chinese woman to bring over as a Nanny (live-in caregiver). Thought I’d covered all the bases, but it seems her education isn’t suitable (she’s almost finished a university degree, but because it isn’t focused on child care and she doesn’t have enough full-time related work experience, she’d likely not qualify for a visa). She’s found a job at a school in China and plans to work there for fall & likely winter/spring, then try for the visa. Means I need to find someone for fall asap. Potential Ethio lady living in our city (friend of a friend) doesn’t work out; she’s studying. Okay, by end Aug things are getting sticky… school starts tomorrow & Laolao & Laoye are leaving in two weeks…

And that, dear friends, is why blogging didn’t get done in August.

Puppy update

2009-09-19T21:25:00.000-04:00

The pupsters are now a bit over six weeks old and turning into real little doggies! They had their first vet appointment today, for vaccinations, de-worming, and a general check-up, and did fairly well. No major upsets, though our little chicken-dog, Peridot, did get a bit shivery with fright.

They’re all between 1500g and 2kg now – hard to believe that a mere six weeks ago they were so small they could in my hand, whereas now they’re getting so you have to hoist a bit to pick them up in one hand and they are very, very wiggly! They are mostly weaned now, eating puppy chow two to three times a day, though they still attack Mama’s teats when they get a chance and are hungry. And attack it probably seems to Lovely, seeing as their teeth are growing in so that when they bite down you can really feel it!!

And their personalities are starting to show through:

Diamond is the big boisterous boy of the litter. The first-born and first at everything else: size, stamina, energy level, eagerness to play… He is the one to pounce on his litter-mates and start chewing ears and tails, at least until they pounce back or squeal at him to stop. Always hungry, he is first at the food dish and has been known to sneak into Mama’s food when he gets a chance.

Peridot was second-born and she is about as opposite to Diamond as opposite can be! Shy and quiet, she’s the one to hide away in the crate when the others get to rowdy, though we have caught her giving a few pounces of her own from time to time. She was born the smallest and has remained so ever since, truly earning her nickname, Petite Princes Peridot. Shy at the food dish, I often give her a dish of her own so she doesn’t have to compete with her rowdy brothers and sister. She is always ready to give you a snuggle and a kiss!

Opal, our black boy, is fairly lively though not so much as Diamond. Boy, does that pup love to run! Out on the lawn, down the street he’ll go if given half the chance. Or scoot from puppy corner to front door if we so much as crack open the gate to let him out. He loves to chew on the puppy teething ring I picked up a few weeks ago.

Garnet is the last-born. She is very much what I imagine her mother was like at that age- sleek fur just beginning to develop some soft waves, very snugly but not lacking in energy, sociable and active. She gives her brothers the run for their money in the pouncing department! She had a short stint as fattest dog of the pack, but Diamond figured that would never do (beat by a girl?!!?) and has out-eaten her ever since. Still, she’s growing well, as evidenced by her round little tummy!

You can read about the breed, Australian Labradoodles, on my breeder website: www.dragonramdoodles.com.

P.S. Anybody want to buy a puppy? Diamond and Opal are available.

Holiday #1 - Sandbanks

2009-09-18T05:55:00.000-04:00

Well, I thought I’d post a bit about what we’ve doing this summer (other than school-learning related activities!!)

This summer we stayed pretty close to home. Our first holiday, which began two days before school was out (owing to my work holiday schedule) was five days at Sandbanks Provincial Park. This is a very VERY popular park, and when I made the reservation back in late February, there were only about 3 or 4 sites available (and I had to modify out travelling dates by one day to get a site).

The kids and I, along with Lovely, drove down in our little PT Cruiser, but this time we didn’t have to pack along much of anything except our clothes, swimming gear, and a few books and toys, since Laolao and Laoye were driving from out west with their camper bus and we’d arranged for them to meet us at the campground.

We got there around 8:45pm, as dusk was settling. Laolao and Laoye had arrived a few hours earlier and were already set up in the campsite, a nice spot not too far from the beach. Although seeing as the closest beach wasn’t open to dogs, we ended up driving out to the dog beach most days.

I can see why this is a very popular place! Not only is it fairly close to a number of major cities, but more importantly it has great amenities and the beaches are fantastic. Being on a VERY large lake, we had almost ocean-like waved coming in to shore, and the shallow water extended way, way out into the lake, so the kids & dog could ride the waves and walk far far out before the water even reached their chests. The sand is magnificent, and one section of the beach has large dunes, small mountains practically, that we climbed up and down and explored. It was handy to have the car along with the bus, so we could drive to the far-away dog beach and the sand dunes, without having to move the big bus around.

The weather was quite good. Not particularly hot (not like one might expect in late June), and we had some rain, but the rain mostly fell at night and being in the bus, it didn’t affect us much at all.

The bus has sleeping capacity for 4, so one of the kids (and Lovely!) slept on the floor while the other slept with me (they took turns!). Given that it was a bit crowded inside, we mostly ate outside, and rigged up a bit of a tarp to keep the picnic table dry.

About all we did was play on the beach, sleep, eat, play some more, have ice cream, swim and play and sleep. It was great!!!

On the way home, we parked the bus at a church parking lot in a small town a few hours’ drive from home, and all climbed into the car for the rest of the trip, because in just five days we’d be coming back this way for our second summer jaunt.

At the Fair

2009-09-17T06:07:00.002-04:00

Every year the fair comes to our town during the last two weeks of August. The main attraction is the midway, with lots of rides for all ages. There are also concerts and other performances, and displays of animals that harken back to its agricultural roots. Last year, after our adventures out west (and since we’d attended a fair there), we didn’t go, so this year’s visit was Button’s first in our hometown.

We had planned to go the last Saturday of the holidays, but that was a cool and rainy, blustery day. So when Sunday dawned warmish and not too cloudy, we decided that would be day (or we'd miss our chance, as it was the last day to go!) We arrived a bit after noon, shortly after it opened, and immediately headed down to the midway. I had a coupon for one discounted “ride-all-day” bracelet and bought two more. The first few rides we went on were kiddie rides, but still lots of fun. Then we tried a few for bigger kids, and enjoyed them too. Both Mustang and – somewhat surprisingly – Button were not keen on the wilder rides like where you go upside down, but things like the ferris wheel and the house of mirrors and giant slide were favourites.

In the middle of the afternoon – during a bit of a squall – we went into the Agricultural Centre building and enjoyed seeing the animals there, then picked up some ice cream and fries for a snack.

At 5:30 Laoye picked us up after a fun-filled day and we headed home for a movie and bed.

School in the summer

2009-09-16T05:55:00.002-04:00

Everybody tells you that if kids don’t keep up with reading and other scholarly activities over the summer, they can lose as much as half of what they gained the previous year. So it is important to work at maintaining the gains made.

I’m not 100% sure I believe that completely, given my experience with Mustang. Between Grade 1 and 2 I worked hard with her on reading. She slogged, I pushed, she complained, I insisted, she resisted, I stood firm. By the end of the summer I felt she had made good progress from where she had been at the end of Grade 1. She went back to school and – bingo! – her reading level slipped back right to where it had been at the end of Grade 1, virtually overnight. The regression didn’t last that long – by the end of September she was back at end-August capabilities, at which point I told her teacher to send home harder books for her to read.

Between Grade 2 and 3 I again really focused on reading, reading, reading. (I was off work all summer, so I was able to be persistent and pull out the current book two or three times a day.) For the first few weeks it was painful – slow and resistant. But by mid-July she picked up the pace, started reading much better and saying she actually enjoyed it. She wanted to try to read one book in a day – didn’t quite make it, but did manage to read 9 chapters (out of 10) in one day once. By the end of the summer she’d read 26 chapter books, which is quite an accomplishment for a dyslexic kid. When she went back to school I was watching for signs of regression, and again saw some though not as bad as at the beginning of Grade 2.

This just makes me wonder if perhaps the “regression” comes not from not working over the summer, but is somehow affected by the return to school. Of course, this is Mustang we’re talking about, so it may just be particular to her. It will be interesting to see how things go with Button from one year to the next.

In any case, this past summer we had learning activities too. Mustang was still working on her Brain Games, so that was the emphasis for the summer. Much less time was devoted to reading practice, though she still got through 5 chapter books. I also purchased a Grade 4 science workbook, with an eye to giving her some prior exposure to the concepts and vocabulary of the Grade 4 science curriculum. We were diligent at that through to the end of July, and then some day-camps and just wanting “time off” intervened. But she managed to get through about half of the units. The book did not go into great depth, but was sufficient for my purposes. I hope to pull it out again once she starts the units we missed (or perhaps over Christmas) to help provide extra support and exposure to the materials. We also watched a whole bunch of related videos borrowed from the public library, to provide another means of consolidating learning. While Mustang is good in science and enjoys it, she benefits from “pre-teaching” of concepts and vocabulary, so I am hoping this summer work will contribute to her success in science this year.

Similarly, a review of the Grade 4 social studies curriculum showed they will be focusing on Canadian geography and the Middle Ages. I found several children’s novels and videos about the Middle Ages and we’ve watched/read several of them. It’s harder to find novels about Canadian geography, but I’ve found one series in which the heroes move around from place to place in Canada, so hopefully that will be relevant. I also picked up a wall map and some pictures of Canadian symbols (beaver, maple leaf, RCMP, etc.).

As for Button, his summer work was a lot less extensive. For a few weeks in July we worked on his sight word recognition and “reading.” He also had a Grade 1 workbook he worked in all summer long, doing 6-10 pages every day (very simple stuff, covering phonics, vocabulary, math, science, and the like). He didn’t quite make it through the workbook, but completed over half of it.

Button also played soccer all summer, two evenings a week with a local league that has a developmental program. He really enjoyed it, and at the end his coach says he shows real talent and is a super fast runner. Mustang took riding lessons again, though unfortunately she missed three of the eight lessons (one absence planned, the other two not).

As a reward for all their hard work, in July we visited the Aerial Adventure in the nearby hills, and at the end of August I took them to the Fair, at which we rode rides all afternoon, saw lots of animals, and ate ice cream and fries.

Of course, not all learning comes out of books. So I tried to make the various activities we engaged in fun and to seek learning opportunities in everything. We went camping, fishing, playing at the beach; the kids each went to two day-camps: for Mustang, farm animals and being an “emergency vet,” for Button, farm animals and soccer. And just going for walks in the woods, catching frogs at the pond, and of course, watching puppies being born and helping to care for them.

Back to School!!!

2009-09-15T14:42:00.005-04:00

The kids went back to school two weeks ago today. (Yes, I’m behind in my blogging.)

Mustang: Grade 4

Button: Grade 1 – French immersion

We’d done the back-to-school supplies and clothes shopping three weekends prior, since the previous weekend we’d had all kinds of activities (SuperEx, Upper Canada Village) and the one before that we were camping. Mustang had a list a page long of all the things she needed. Now that she’s in Grade 4, the school doesn’t provide supplies any more. I bought a few things for Button, too, though I decided I’d rather pay the $10 school fee for supplies than fork out $40-$50 to buy them myself. This made for a bit of upset later, when Mustang was glorying in all her stuff, but we got through it.

As far as clothes goes, they didn’t need much – just a couple of long-sleeved shirts each, and some trousers for Button as he’d either outgrown or worn out almost everything from last year. And some new runners – Button’s wearing the same size as Mustang, and it won’t be more than another year or so and they’ll both be able to wear my shoes!

So the fateful morning dawned, sunny and warm, and we all traipsed off to the bus stop by 7:30 to make sure we were there in good time. Took the requisite “back-to-school” photos on the front step, with the kids in their new duds. Mustang’s backpack weighed a ton, stuffed with all her new supplies, and each had a large lunch-bag as well (since Button didn’t have so much to take to school, I stuffed his lunch-bag into his backpack). They have a new driver this year, and he dutifully checked all the kids’ names off his list, then we waved good-bye and they were off!

Mustang in particular was a bit apprehensive about heading back to school – worried that the work would be a lot harder and she would have trouble keeping up. Button said he didn’t want to do French immersion because he wanted to stay with the friends he’d made last year. I said he had to go for at least a month before making a change. When they got home at the end of the day, both were happy – Button knew some of the kids in his class, and Mustang said it was easy and there wouldn’t be any homework for a few weeks.

And so a new year is launched!

Puppies !!!!

2009-08-10T15:08:00.003-04:00

Lovely, our Australian Labradoodle, is mom to four beautiful puppies, born last Thursday, 6 August 2009. The births went without a hitch, quickly and easily, and the kids got to watch the whole process and even help out a little. Lovely did not appear to be disturbed by them being “all over things” – once or twice she indicated a bit of anxiety and then I just told the kids to back off a bit and all was well. There was very little mess and most of what there was Lovely cleaned up herself. She used the whelping box that I had prepared. I wasn’t sure whether she would, as it wasn’t something she’d spent much time in, but when the moment was nigh she naturally went there and popped the babies out.

Introducing:

Diamond: born at 4:45 pm, weighing in at 230g at birth, a gorgeous apricot-coloured boy, with a white spot on his forehead and a white patch on his throat and chest. He was born just minutes after Laolao and the kids got home from daycamp, and a mere minute or two before I arrived home from work.

Peridot: born at 5:07 pm, 190g at birth, a beautiful golden girl with a tiny white spot on her forehead and hints of a few white highlights throughout her coat. Lovely required a bit of assistance breaking the sac, and at first I was scared she might not be breathing, but all turned out well and she is now growing fine.

Opal: born hard on Peridot’s heels at 5:10 pm, 192g at birth, a beautiful black boy with hair that is already looking wavy.

Garnet: the baby of the bunch, born at 5:25 pm, 191 g at birth, a black girl with – so far – a shiny smooth coat.

Mom and pups are doing well. Lovely is a good mother, concerned about her pups and their safety, feeding and snuggling them for long hours. She did go play with the kids at the park on Sunday afternoon (but had to be coerced into going at first). The first night after the birth the kids slept on the kitchen floor by mom & pups – just too exciting to go any further away!! – but since then we’ve brought the box up to my bedroom at night, mostly so I can let Lovely out to pee during the night.

The kids are already playing with the puppies – very gently of course – so they will definitely be well socialized and used to interacting with kids by the time they leave our household! So far my ads have elicited some expressions of interest, but no firm offers yet. That will come – we’ve got another two months with the little ones.

Even Laoye thinks they’re cute!

(Check out our "kennel" website at DragonRam Doodles for more pictures, info on Australian Labradoodles, how to adopt a puppy, etc.)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

2009-07-30T06:10:00.000-04:00

Last night I went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

I was rather shocked to see that there were young kids – I’d guess about 7 to 10 or 11 years old – in the audience, for two reasons: first, it was the 10:00pm show – meaning we didn’t get out of the theatre until after midnight – and I am astounded that parents would take their kids to a show that late, even in the summer; and second, I personally do not consider this instalment of the series to be a children’s movie. In my opinion, all the books from the Goblet of Fire on – and the movies beginning with the Prisoner of Azkaban – are increasingly dark, sombre, scary, and violent, and not suited to children under about age 12.

But anyhow… about the movie. I found it excellently done; in fact I’d say it’s the best of the lot to date. (And I watched the first five movies at home before going to see this one, so it’s a fresh comparison!)

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the other students are increasingly mature (although that might not be quite the right word to use for the awkward teenage sexual awakenings – nothing more than a bit of kissing, or “snogging” as they put it, but all quite embarrassingly realistic). Meanwhile, while the other students are engaging in all this teenage behaviour, Draco is holding himself apart, brooding over the task Voldemort has given him.

I found Dumbledore to be at his best – we see more of the humour that comes out so well in the books, yet at the same time get a better sense of the wizard’s muted power. The only thing I found not quite bang-on was his “Severus… please” at that fateful point on the tower – not enough pleading in his tone, combined with not enough debility following on after the journey to the lake to retrieve the horcrux.

For his part, Snape was excellent. I remember reading the book, feeling certain all the way through that somehow he had been fooling Bellatrix and Narcissa, only to be devastated at the end to find out – to all appearances – that he had been working for the Dark Lord after all. (And then, of course, being very happy at his vindication in the final book – not so much for his sake, but because it confirmed Dumbledore’s opinion of him, and at the same time revealed just what a master double-agent he had been.) In this movie we see a few sequences of his private interactions with Dumbledore which lend themselves to the development of his character in all its complexity.

Harry, while still a young wizard, appears increasingly confident in his abilities (perhaps the Half-Blood Prince’s potions book was helpful in that regard!) although we do see him struggling somewhat with getting Slughorn to reveal his true memory of Tom Riddle’s questioning about horcruxes. Hermione is, as always, brilliant and helpful, while Ron is his usual bumbling, somewhat asinine but very funny and loyal self. (I am so happy they included the “you’ve got the emotional range of a teaspoon” comment in the movie. When I read the book, it had me in stitches for a good five minutes, I’m sure!)

One thing that the movies, including this one, do superbly is bring to life the boarding school atmosphere. While it’s present in the books, it’s muted (at least I find it so), but the little extra visual and atmospheric details the movies bring to the world of Hogwarts make it feel so real: the adolescent behaviour of the students, the bonding with fellow students, the classroom note-passing behind the teacher’s back… all that makes it come to life.

All in all, I highly recommend this movie, particularly for Harry Potter fans. If you haven’t read the books or seen the previous movies, you’ll be missing half (or more!) of the story. But surely there can’t be very many of those people around, can there?

The latest on the Imagine Adoption fiasco...

2009-07-27T14:42:00.001-04:00

This article reveals that the owners/chief employees of Imagine Adoption (Kids Link) are now under investigation for fraud.

Fox!

2009-07-22T06:00:00.001-04:00

Last Sunday afternoon, the kids, our friend Chuckles, and I were on our way to the playground when we saw the fox that lives in our little urban forest sitting in the meadow. Actually, the kids and Chuckles were the first to spot two foxes, but by the time I came along a few minutes later the larger one – presumably the male – had run into the forest. But the smaller one remained, relaxing in the meadow for a while longer (we think it was the female owing to smaller size). Chuckles biked to the house to get my camera for me, and I got several pretty good shots. We’d approach it, then I’d snap a few pictures; then we’d take a few more steps forward and I’d snap a few more, until it got uncomfortable with how close we were and moved away. This happened twice before it, too, melted into the forest.

This was only the second time I have ever seen the fox, and the first time was just a quick glimpse. It was so neat to get a really good look at it, not to mention some pretty cool pictures. (I particularly like the one of it stretching!)