Category: Glenn

Santa’s Village

Katrine is rapidly reaching the end of the line in terms of belief in Santa.  This past Christmas she began questioning the physics of Santa and hinting that she has her doubts.  It seemed like a now or never moment to head up north to Santa’s Village.  Now we live so very close to Wonderland that it might seem silly to head all of this way for less rides.  The difference is that Elspeth can go on ALL of the rides which NEVER happens.  And I don’t have to go on the rides with her.  Besides, I am a bit of a rollercoaster chicken.  Plus, they have climbing ropes, go karts, batting cages and mini putt which got Katrine excited.  Then there is how excited the girls were to be wrapped up in Christmas in June (have I mentioned that Christmas is a big deal in our house?)  Throw in a beach and a boat cruise on the Muskoka river and it is a fun outing.  It also gave us the perfect excuse to visit with one of Elspeth’s China sisters.

Upon arriving the girls were given elf hats.  Now I had to bribe Katrine for the photo with candy but it was worth it.  I love my two elves.

As much as Katrine would rather have been at Wonderland, as you can see we all had fun….well maybe neither Glenn nor I did on the Jumping Stars ride.  Him because he was squished and me because I hate falling from heights.  The very idea of choosing to fall from high up makes my stomach turn.  We are dedicated and Glenn forced himself on twice while I could only man up once (this was the soul ride that the wee one couldn’t go on by herself).  He also had to take both girls on the Christmas ball ferris wheel alone while I watched from the shade.  I mean, how is riding up high in a not fully enclosed ball fun?  You lean over to far and you fall.  (I am really not a fan of falling.)

Baba was in a festive mood and let both of the girls play one of the games.  They now have matching pink alligators in their rooms named HoHo and MoMo because Elspeth is heavily into copying her sister.

While Katrine and Glenn were off doing big kid things in the Sportsland section, Elspeth and I were hanging out with one of her China sisters.  They were so very cute together.  It was very funny because Elspeth couldn’t understand that she is a year older than her meimei.  “She big like me mama!”  Nevertheless, they had a lot of fun on the various rides, playgrounds and beach.

We topped the trip off with both families having dinner together.  I love seeing the girls together with their China families.  I know that Elspeth will grow to appreciate these connections from watching Katrine.  These are kids who get what it means to be different at school, to not be a matching set in a family, to have questions or worries about their pasts but also kids who are just wonderful kids that they can have lots of fun with.  Both of our girls have been truly blessed.

Meow!

There is not a lot that our girls truly need for their birthdays.  We have been blessed with a lot of hand me downs from our older cousins – both clothes and toys.  Sooo, what do you get a nine year old for her birthday when she has a lot?  This year the family went in on theater tickets for her birthday and then did the same for mom and my niece. 

Cats is the perfect first trip to the theater.  It is fun and lively with beautiful music/singing, fabulous dancing, fun stage decorations and great costumes.  The fact that it was my first musical might also have affected the decision.  Well, both girls had a wonderful time and throughly enjoyed the whole experience.  My mom and I were honoured to share the experience with them.  Oh, and to make that little bit better the girls got to go up on stage and meet Old Deuteronomy during intermission.

While we were at the theater my dad, brother and family went swimming.  Elspeth and Glenn decided to take advantage of the sunny afternoon and go for an extended playdate at the park.  Of course she had to take her stroller with her.

 

Garden Update & The Girls

The girls have been having a blast the past few days.  In between the bouts of rain they have been exploring our small berry patch in search of ripe berries that have been left untouched by the local free range bunnies.  Below is our first haul.  Not bad.  Unfortunately they are a bit on the tart side.  I have had to break down and mix them with sugar to get the girls to eat them.

Glenn had a fun Baba’s Day.  The girls woke him up with presents in bed.  Katrine with a hand made CD case card showing him getting a goal at hockey.  She was greatly relieved that he did not think that the puck was too large for the stick (she had been worrying about that since bringing it home on Friday).  Elspeth was super proud to be able to give him her hand made card along with the popsicle stick tool box.  “Baba, you have to put tools in it when you make tools.”  Not sure which tools Glenn will end up storing in it, but he can honestly say that he does not yet own a handcrafted popsicle stick tool box! (Don’t worry, his real gift was a bottle of wine and some beer)  Then the girls made him breakfast which meant that he was able to have a nice lie in before his bacon, eggs and veggies were ready.  The rain today also left our yard too wet to mow and the garden too soggy to work in so he ended up with a relaxing day instead of the planned day of chores!  Happy Father’s Day to my hubby and my wonderful dad.

Exciting accomplishements to start the month!

Elspeth has been scared of going up inside of indoor playgrounds.  We recently went to two of these places in one weekend.  I must admit that I was a bit nervous going in that it would become a cling – on weekend instead of one full of play.  I was delighted when Elspeth allowed herself to be led into the bowels of the playground.  At first it had to be Baba or her sister (Did I mention that they are both awesome?)  but then friends were okay and then she actually tried it out by herself!!!  So very proud of her.

Katrine got to get yogurt again today and it is all the fault of her coaches. (Yes, I blame them.  They are simply too good at what they do!)  She landed her double salchow and immediately started signing to me that it was to be a frozen yogurt night.  Only this time it had to include her coaches too.  Proud of her too.

Happy Garden Season!

It is that time of the year again…garden time!  The girls were really into it this year.  They actually planted the soil around Katrine’s tree baby (with minimal parental help on spacing the seeds).  They decided that this would be a good location to plant the pumpkin seeds.  Then they used the left over room for sunflowers.  Right now, all you can see is a nice crop of weeds waiting to be pulled.

The large bed?  Cukes, tomatoes, carrots and onions.  Nothing fancy but the girls can’t get enough of home grown cukes and I am hoping for a bumper tomatoe crop because I want to try my hand at home made salsa again.

And now for just cuteness.

Our pretty eldest.

Our cute youngest now has enough hair to put into a ‘bitg girl’ ponytail.  Along with her ponytail she has also figured out how to blow the fluff off of a dandelion.

The Pandas are here

Okay, I thought that I would take a moment from uploading photos of our trip to bring you up to date on our return to reality.  Since arriving home we have tackled the normal chores (cleaning, laundry, shopping…), bought new skates for Katrine and ordered her next skating dress, planted our garden and gone to the zoo.  The last was our effort today to exhaust Elspeth so that she would maybe sleep through the night.  Katrine is mostly back to normal but the rest of us are suffering.  You see, Elspeth seems to be on an inbetween schedule which has her waking up repeatedly through the night and in the process waking both Glenn and I up.  Fingers crossed that the zoo, gardening and then outside playtime will do the trick tonight.

Anyways, the pandas are now at the zoo where they will stay for the next five years.  The girls were very excited today and danced their way in to the zoo.  Elspeth broke into fits of giggles when she saw the display of panda poop.  “Wow mommy!  That is a BIGGGG poop.”

There were a number of informational displays and interactive displays in the Panda Experience section that led into the panda enclosure.  One that amazed Katrine focused on the size of a adult panda’s hand.  “Mom!  Come see!  Baba’s hand is about the size of a panda’s.”  Who knew that I had a husband with panda sized hands?

Then it was the main event.  Their absolute cuteness did not disappoint.  I mean, just look at that face.

On the way out, the girls saw the zoo’ new panda mascots.  I was sure that Katrine would ask for a photo give that here was a walking, giant stuffed bear but Elspeth has always shyed away from any ‘character’.  Not today though.  Both girls asked to have their photo taken.  Plus, when Elspeth was done she declared, “I like the panda.  He patted my head.  He was nice.”

The final day

Yep, all good things must come to an end.  Today was a sunny and windy last day with a more relaxed pace.  We spent the whole day at Loch Lomond.  Glenn drove us up the west side of the loch to Firkin Point.  We walked along beside the loch and watched the waves.  Then the girls went splashing along the shore.  That is when we discovered that they haveworn holes in the soles of their rainboots.  I am looking at it as less to pack.  It also meant unpacking in the middle of a parking lot in order to find the dry socks and shoes.  At least they had fun while getting wet (as opposed to getting wet falling in).  I have to say that the scenery was beautiful.  It left me greatly relaxed.

After lunch we went to the Loch Lomond aquarium and thenada centplayground.  The girls loved the aquarium.  Their favorite parts were the touch tables and the tunnel tank.   We managed to see a few feelings which made it all the more interesting.  It was topped off by long play stints at the park.It  didn’t rain until we were almost at the airport.

It has been a wonderful vacation but I miss bed home, more specifically my bed.  Up early tomorrow morning .  Night.

 

Busy, busy, busy

Isn’t it funny how two girls who area falling asleep in the car are now wide awake?  I am currently hiding in the bathroom waiting for them to fall asleep so that I can start packing.  You see tomorrow is our last full day in Scotland and we will spend the night at the airport so it all has to go somewhere but I don’t want to waste time tomorrow doing it.  Sigh!

okay, yesterday morning we went to Wallace’s monument in Stirling.  While Elspeth and I worked our way up the hill looking at various plants, Glenn and Katrine not only climbed said hill but also all 246(?) steps to the top of the tower. I opted out of the climbing given that it would have involved carrying a child up the winding staircase.  We took the long way down the hill through the woodlot and were luck enough to cross paths withwe rabbit enjoying the sun.  Then we drove to the Falkirk Wheel to meet my cousin Helen.  Upon arriving Elspeth walked into the bottom of a metal sign (I thought she could see it and realized my error but not soon enough forhere to compensate).  I can now say that the Wheel hasunquiet a nice first aid room.  A bit more of a production than necessary but I understand their caution.  Once we had some ice, all was right in our world and we hit the play zone.  During lunch, the girls were super excited to see the wheel in action lifting a boat from one loch to another.  Some ice cream in the sunshinebred ore more playtime.  This time at the giant water zone (more like a giant water table than splash pad).  All of the playing left a lot of time to get caught up.

In the evening it was more family time as we celebrated a cousin’s birthday.  I think that the kids played on the trampoline for almost two hours!  Lots more smilesandbonding.  I love my family.  Have I said that before?  I am truly blessed.  My cousins wife went out of her way to make a large plate of GF sandwiches and even got me muffins so that I wouldn’t feel left out!  It was an awesome surprise and just goes to show how wonderful they are.

This morning we drove though the Trossachs.  We stopped in Aberfoyle to see rare sheep breeds for Elspeth.  Turna out that the real live sheep scare her.  She much prefers her blanket sheep.  Next stopafter a a rather lengthy yet scenic wrong turn, was Loch Katrine.  As you can guess, Katrine was beside herself with joy seeing HER loch!  To be honest, it is rather prett.  Then to see some Hei’lan Coos before lots of park time.  While the girls were at one of the parks playing with Glenn, my uncle took me in to see my grandmas house one last time.  Brought back so very many memories.  Spent many a happy visits there.

Finished the day with dinner with my uncle, a drive through town, a visit with one of my moms school chums and then another trip to the park.  I am tired writing it all down yet the girls are still wide awake”. Oh well.

Stratclyde and the seashore

I know it sounds like an unusual combination but that was our day.

This morning we joined the rest of the clan at Strathclyde Park to cheer on our cousin as she ran in the MND (Motor Neural Disease) fundraising run.  She finished in under an hour!!  Very impressed.  I think that it would have taken me double or triple that time to reach the end.  It also gave us a chance to spend more time with the family.  All of the cousins got dowon beside the water tossing in stones and laughing.  Exactly the type of memories I want the girls to have of our trip.

After a delicious lunch, it was back in to the park to visit the largeplayground.  I get some bad mommy points for forgetting to pack the girls boots and dressing them in new pink sweaters…which are now somewhat browner from the mud.  That said, neither girl stopped smiling the whole two hours we were there.  Even more important,  they consider their cousins as friends.  “you played with your cousins, right Elspeth?” “No!  I play my friend on the slide.”

It was lovely and sunny after dinner and it seemed like a waste to come back to our hotel and call it an evening so we headed out for a drive along the Firth of Forth (an inlet on the east coast of Scotland).  The girls were excited enough about having to cross a large bridge on the way over but I swear that their eyes almost popped out of their heads when the saw the even longer bridge we crossed on the way back.  We stopped between one bridge and the next in a small town.  The tide was out so we all clambered out of the car and walked along the seashore (never expected to write about being at the seaside on this trip).  Theyrustled about picking up stones and various shells.  We discovered that seaweed makes Elspeth nervous, much as grass did when we first came home.  The salt water smell in the air reminded me of out east.  As Glenn said, it was the type of Scotland that his dad would have loved to see.

 

Family Day in Callander

Today was a much slower day with the fOcus on family.  Although those we have loved and lost live on in our hearts, there are times when their memories move to the forefront.  Today was such a day. Stopping in the cemetery drove home missing the funeral and being part of the celebration of grandma’s life.  Seeing both girls giggling and bonding with some of the family reminded me of how much joy they would have brought her.  At the same time, the presence of this sorrow can also help you to recal the good times.  Upon arriving at my uncles he got us drinks and biscuits.  The same types my grandma plied us with growing up.  To visit grandma was to get spoiled with crisps and sweeties.  Hearing them laugh with their family reminded me of a birthday party I shared over here with my cousin years back as kids.  Going to Callander was very much like going home as a grown up.

The girls had none of these thoughts.  They were to busy enjoying themselves.  We hiked to the Bracklin Falls and saw the new bridge.  Then climbed down to what is left of the old one.  They threw sticks for my cousin’s dog and we all got soaked in the raibeautiful ally’s were beautiful.  Well worth the wall.

We ended the day with some shopping on mainstreet and some more visiting before driving to Thornhill for dinner.  In Thornhill, the girls got a charge out of seeing various “dummies” dressed up as part of a town celebration.  Their favorite was a mermaid although they were disturbed by its lack of facial features.