An Exciting Half-Birthday Day

Where does the excitement begin?! (Do we count the van being in the shop and getting two new tires? And something in the steering fixed? Maybe not!)

First of all, happy half-birthday Alice! Alice is six and a half today!

Then I tried to take the glue out of Fiona's hair with nail polish remover. And the glue got gooey. So then we just cut it out.

Then it was eclipse time... We used the colander to project the crescent sun on a piece of paper.

I also took a selfie or two. The sun is just kind of weird looking.

Now it's time to keep getting ready for camp. The girls and I are going camping for the next three days. And get cupcakes.

***

Shopping completed. Finally at 9 p.m. Tent practice done - sort of. I think I get it.  Van fixed. Ken bought cute cupcakes (delicious too) from the cupcake place around the corner from his work. I blinked and Alice snarfed her whole cupcake, so no cute pic. Bummer. It's been a long but productive day. Now to put children to bed, finish packing, pack the van and sleep. I'm trying to be excited, but I mostly just feel sick. See you on the other side with my report. Fingers crossed!

A Perfect Storybook Day

Today could have been a sad mopey day, but I didn't want it to be, and what with wanting to fill as many days as possible with as much fun as possible, we said goodbye to Suzanne and then got organized - slowly, and left to drive to London, Ontario. I had reached out to Shawn to see when we could figure out a trip to London to see them and today was picked.

On our way to London we made a fun pit stop. We stopped for lunch, but the reason we chose the exit we did, was so we could go to Krispy Kreme. Ken and I had a precursor to a first date at Krispy Kreme. Sonia and I had gone out to a movie and after the movie I told her I thought I liked Ken, so we called up Ken and took him to Krispy Kreme. The store had opened in December 2001, and in February 2002 when we went the line ups were still crazy and we ended up buying donuts from someone in the parking lot that had bought too many, because the store was closed and the drive-thru line up was around the corner and down the street. Today, we stopped for lunch at A&W then bought 1/2 dozen donuts. I thought Kate would love them - she loves timbits and I thought she'd love them, but she didn't. She thought they were okay. It was still fun to go back for the first time in 15 years!

We were awfully late getting to London, I think we barely had three hours left of Storybook Gardens being open, but it ended up being the perfect amount of time. I have weird/vague memories of going as a kid. It has changed a lot.

After we closed the place we made our way over to Shawn, Sean and Cooper's house. We had a lovely BBQ dinner, the kids played, fun was had by all, and of course we needed to take some couch pictures before we said goodbye.

Thank you Shawn for making today a special day for me! It's always worth the drive to London!

The BATES Adventure!

Saturday, August 12
The plans were originally that they were going to arrive yesterday, but they didn't! They got here today - sometime around 7 p.m. Ken got pizza, the grandparents came, it was a party! And eventually everyone went to bed.

Sunday, August 13
Grandma always wins, because why shouldn't she! She's Grandma! The cousins went to church with Grandma and took Kate with them. Ken and I had been away the past two Sundays and hadn't made arrangements to be away, otherwise we might have gone to Richmond Hill too. Suzanne and the kids went to Grandma and Grandpa's for lunch, but came back here for dinner.

Ken BBQ'd for dinner and after dinner we went for a walk down to the lake. It's the thing to do, walk to the lake. I love walking to the lake. LOVE. It was stressful when we first got there because Joey and Thomas disappeared, but we found them and we all had fun throwing rocks into the water.

Monday, August 14
Ever since we found the painted rock from Arkansas up in Manitoulin, I've wanted to paint and hide rocks in my community. On Friday Ken's sister Lisa and two of her kids - Rachael and Sarah came over for lunch and to hang out. We walked down to the beach and found rocks to paint. I washed and cleaned them, Ken and I bought the necessary supplies on our Friday night date so we were ready to go! The girls painted rocks, and the boys painted rocks, and I painted some too.

I loved watching all the big boys paint. We all commented that it was like when we used to decorate Easter Eggs once upon a time.

There was plenty of Benjamin adoration throughout the day! PLENTY!

Sometime this afternoon Suzanne, the girls, Benjamin and I left to go to Grandma and Grandpa's. I took the girls swimming and then we ate pizza and hung out.

A little after we left to go to the Grandparents, Ken came and picked up the big boys and they went to a Jays Game. They sat in the outfield and watched the Jays beat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. They took the subway down and they all had a great time.

Tuesday, August 15
Mom really wanted to do a trip to Port Perry and Tuesday looked like the day with the best forecast, so Tuesday it was. We met around noon at the Wendy's in Port Perry. Things got off to a rough start because my kids were crazy and the Wendy's was super busy.

After lunch we drove over to the boat place so the boys could rent boats. Isaac, Joey and Thomas each rented a kayak and rowed around Lake Scugog. I decided to take the girls over to the park. We were excited to play at the park, but we were really excited about hiding the rocks we made. It ended well, but it was stressful to begin with.

Each girl had one rock and they scampered around hiding them. One by one we watched people finding them and reading the instructions and taking pics. All except Kate's rock. Kate moved her rock. Then moved it again. She was very, very glum. The girls were getting hot and thirsty and I didn't bring a water bottle. I had five dollars in my pocket so we went in search of water.

We walked across the street to a pizza place that was closed, then to a pub that didn't sell bottled water. One of the people in the pub directed us to a convenience store around the corner, so off I went; complaining, hot, thirsty children in tow. We made it to the convenience store, bought water and then started walking back. Fiona had a mild melt down, and on we went. We walked straight to the van to put bathing suits on so the girls could enjoy the splash pad. Just before we got to the van Fiona tripped and fell on her knees. In the van I realized I hadn't brought Kate's swim suit. We sorted ourselves out and the girls went to the splash pad.

I was more than a little grumpy and annoyed by this point. And it was around this point that everyone came over from the boating area and joined us at the park. It wasn't the worst day ever, but it wasn't exactly fun... until later.

On the drive home we stopped at the White Feather. Suzanne let Isaac drive the van and she came with me. She popped in and grabbed some cookies and squares - yum.

The first bit of rock fun came that night when someone posted pics of three of our rocks in our Durham Region Sun Rocks page. The girls were SO excited. I was so excited!

And then two hours later another pic of Thomas' rock.

Wednesday, August 16
Canada's Wonderland with Uncle Andrew, the much anticipated day had finally arrived! To say that everyone was excited would be to state the obvious! Andrew and I were taking Isaac, Joey, Thomas, Anna, Kate, Alice and Fiona. We drove separately (we don't fit in one car), and we got there (the girl car) a little later, but the boys were awesome and they waited for us by the front gate so we could get a pic. Everyone except Fiona and I are in the pic. (FIONA!!)

After that we all walked over to the Ghoster Coaster. The plan was to get the "little" roller coasters out of the way first, then go our separate ways. We hiked all the way over and sadly, the line was so long we decided to put it off until the later. The boys left us and we started getting in lines!

Kate was excited that she felt more confident. We didn't go last summer but went two years ago. Two years ago Kate was afraid to go on Lucy's Tugboat, but this year!!! She was all smiles!

We'd had a late breakfast, and we'd had water. And when you're just go go going you don't notice that you didn't eat? Or something like that. We finally stopped to get lunch/dinner at 4/4:30. We ordered a pizza - the longest lines of the day! It was brutal. The boys were on their way to meet us after one more ride, so we decided to do one more ride.

We chose this mini-mini type roller coaster. Kate got nervous, and more nervous and by the time it was our turn had decided that she just couldn't do it. The boys had arrived by this point so she went to them in tears. After the ride Alice, and Anna went off to do some roller coasters, the Ghoster Coaster and Silver Streak.

Kate and I had a little heart to heart about the "big" rides. I confessed that I hated them when I was her age. I did the same thing the first time I went to Wonderland. I waited in line for this spinny ride for two hours and then when it was my turn I decided I just couldn't go through with it. I told her that when she was ready, when she wanted to, the rides would still be there for her to enjoy.

Kate and Fiona then enjoyed the Swings, and then the three of us enjoyed the Helicopter and the Antique Cars.

Alice re-joined us and Anna did her first loop-de-loop, Dragon Fyre. We said hi to Snoopy and went on the Swans!

Next we went on the Swings, Jumpin' Jet and Blast Off. Then we got Anna back and did one more, the balloons.

By the time we pulled out of the parking lot it was 9 p.m. We almost closed the park... just another hour!

Thursday, August 17
The boys slept over at Grandma and Grandpa's. It was very quiet this morning! I got a notification that some Mom's were meeting at the Kinsmen park around the corner from us so I took the girls and we took a few more rocks to hide.

Then we hurried home and drove to Andrew's Keg for lunch. The seating was kind of funny and I ended up not really sitting near my girls - which was nice for me because they were just a little bit silly. I thought my steak sandwich was good, but I loved my appetizer. It was like tempura cauliflower and it was delicious.

After lunch we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's for swimming. I took Joey, Thomas, Anna, Kate, Alice and Fiona. Joey and Thomas were nuts. I maybe should have stopped Joey from throwing Thomas in the pool constantly, but just when Thomas seemed like he was done, he'd go back for more. No one got hurt so that's good! The girls all took showers after so that was good too! I took a lot of photos. A lot. I put the camera on the setting where it takes lots of photos at once, so it was kind of like taking video of their jumping. It was fun.

At some point this afternoon I got another notification that the last of our Port Perry rocks was found. Anna was very, very excited! It was cool too because it was found in Downtown Port Perry and we'd left it at the park! It moved!

The boys all came back to Ajax and we had a sort of quiet evening?!


Friday, August 18
The last full day (sniff sniff). We decided to meet up at Ajax Rotary Park. It's nice because there is a splash pad, park and beach all together. Suzanne went shopping in the morning. New shoes and shirts and sweat shirts. We met up after lunch sometime but we brought snacks for the kids. We set up chairs under a tree and enjoyed chatting while the kids ran around. And we brought the last of the rocks to hide.

The parents came over and we had BBQ and Suzanne packed and did laundry. It was a busy, full, short week.

Saturday, August 19
Bye bye Bates. This is never the fun part. This is the hard part. I get this pit in my stomach and it always takes a few days to go away.  We've had two visits this summer. Previous to our trip to Connecticut, this was the first time that I'd seen my sister in a year. A year. It was so long. I'm hoping that we'll be down to see the cousins sometime over the school year, but we'll have to wait and see.

 

We really had a great time, busy, but great. The kids have so much fun together, and every once in a while Suzanne and I got to have a conversation! The highlight for me though, so many Benjamin snuggles. He is such a sweet heart. Another reason to make sure we see them before next summer!