The cousins are here!

Wait, that doesn't clear anything up?!  Kate and Alice have many cousins!  I think I'm addicted to exclamation points!  Okay so really, Jon and Michelle and their three beautiful children are here.  Ken picked them up at the airport last night and after a mostly quiet day we went to visit with Mom and Dad and Auntie Wendy.

Before we went to see the Grandparents I took a couple of pictures of the cousins getting acquainted.

When we arrived Lovey and Kate were asleep.

 While the beauties slept, Seth and Marcus played...

 

...and Michelle and Alice looked cute.

 

After the beauties woke up A. Wendy brought out the fun presents from England. The paper airplanes were a huge hit.

 

Then we went to the cute park around the corner from Mom and Dad's building.  And hopefully Dad has remembered to call someone and complain because there was no wheel chair access.  There was a huge curb all around the park and sadly no curb ramp.  The kids did have fun.

We made sure to be home on time for Dad's favourite show Dora the Explorer.  Just kidding!  But I'm not sure who was more captivated by Dora, Dad...

or the kids?

 

Clearly Michelle and Lovey were not captivated.

We enjoyed a yummy pizza dinner and a nice visit with the great and grand!

How not to have a panic attack while going up a very tall tower.

Our downtown adventure began in the distillery district.  It's definitely a cool place to walk around, but perhaps not the most interesting place to take little children.  We didn't go adventuring in any galleries and I'm not sure that Auntie Wendy really enjoyed it, but we had some yummy chocolate and walked around a - I think I'd call it a gadget store, Andrew bought Kate a toy plane which she carried for the rest of the day.  However, there was something important that happened at the distillery, Auntie Wendy decided that she was ready to face her fears and go up a really tall tower!

Wendy remembers coming to visit Toronto for the first time in 1976.  She told us about coming down to the CN tower but chickening out and not going up.  Andrew, Ken and I were very excited to help her conquer her fears and finally (thirty-five years later) go up the tower!  I like this cute shot of the Wendys in the back seat of the van, driving to the really tall tower.

 

I didn't realize that I was with a bunch of scaredy cats until we were waiting for the elevator to take us up. Two summers ago was the last time I went up the CN tower.  I went with Andrew, Kate, Suzanne and her kids.  We stayed up all of about 20 minutes because Andrew had a panic attack.  In line Andrew looked slightly off as did Ken and Wendy.  Thankfully everyone was quite distracted by Kate and Alice and I even got over my own fear of the glass floor.  My children make me brave.

  After the tower we inspected the trains and the round house.

And then we went for dinner where Alice enjoyed a pickle!  We had a lovely, lovely day!

Alice and the red balloon

Watching Alice play with the red balloon... simply delightful.

I love socks

Like father...

...like daughter.

Clearly six trips to the zoo means I should stop blogging about trips to the zoo?

NEVER!

Kate loves nursery

I suppose this would be more appropriately titled that she loves her nursery leaders.  Church is three hours long. The first meeting is sacrament, this lasts about an hour and fifteen minutes.  After this first section in which families are together the rest of church is divided into classes for different age groups and as you get older classes for different genders.  When toddlers are 18 months they are old enough for nursery, so after sacrament they go to nursery and stay there (theoretically anyway) until church is over, or for an hour and forty-five minutes.  Kate has been in nursery for over a year now and there have been MANY ups and downs.

Currently she loves nursery because she loves her nursery leaders.  I need to get pictures of Bro. & Sis. Gosling, and Sis. Almedia.  I hate thinking that people get forgotten but they do and I want to remember these sweet people and how thankful I am to them for taking care of my sweet girl and for all the things they are teaching her.   Today Kate came home with this cute t-shirt.  All the nursery kids were wearing them - too cute!

Ken says we are nothing if not predictable.

On Saturday, September 4, 2010, we went to the ROM with Kate. 

Today, we went to the ROM again, exactly one year later!  I think we have unwittingly started a family tradition.  Labour day weekend = a trip to the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum).  This year our mode of transport was the van and then...

THE SUBWAY! Kate went on the subway last summer in Boston, but we had never taken her on the subway in Toronto.  It was therefore both Alice and Kate's first time on a subway in Toronto.  We parked at Wilson station and made our way to St.George station.

I think Ken was only a little bit embarrassed by all of my train-ride picture taking.

Once we reached the museum our first stop was the (about to close) exhibit on water.  The little tiny bits that I did get to read were fascinating.  I need to think more about how much water I use.  Next we went to the second floor - the everything your little kids will actually want to see floor - dinosaurs, animals, rocks and the kids discovery zone.  

Thanks for the fun museum, see you next year!

Alice can move

I put her here

and she ended up here

which is a distance of this (ignore messy room, I do!)

(This moving around business started on the 31st of August)