"three tomatoes are walking down the street- a poppa tomato, a momma tomato, and a little baby tomato. baby tomato starts lagging behind. poppa tomato gets angry, goes over to the baby tomato, and smooshes him... and says, catch up!"

September already. Who knew summer would go so fast.... which is pretty much what everybody says, every year, at about this time. It was a busy one... and before we get into all things school & routine I wanted to do some "catching-up" from the summer. There are a couple of things I never got around to sharing.

Old Forge, NY

Charlebois family adventure day one. Up at 7am. The aim was to leave home by 10 and I think we actually managed to get out of the house by 10:30, which is an AMAZING feat for my family of slo-mo's. Not a bad start... But by the time we hit the 401 a whole 2kms away it was just after noon. That's more like our schedule. Taking too much time to do the simplest of errands. We managed to merge and accelerate to almost 80kms/hr before we hit traffic at a standstill. Construction. Fabulous. There's another 25 minutes tacked on to our already 90 minute, 3km voyage.

PARC SAFARI

In an attempt to make this summer fun & eventful without traveling across the country we've been trying to choose activities that don't break the bank & that we will all enjoy. I had intended to take the kids to LaRonde because we haven't been there in a few years but at the very last minute decided that waiting in lines with Sofie would REALLY suck... so I decided that Parc Safari would be a better alternative. Animals, water park & rides all in one.

We set out from my mother's... kids, Grama & I... and after Google Maps took us right through downtown Valleyfield & getting lost in farmland we eventually made it to the Parc. We decided to have lunch and wait for my sister to arrive before piling into the van to drive through the safari.

Lyn Pit

So I'd been wanting to go to Lyn Pit for a while... like since last summer. So we went today. It was cool... water was kinda grimy but the kids had fun & want to go back. We also had the place to ourselves which was great. Anyway I basically just wanted to share some photos...

I'm On A Boat.

Good times. Good times indeed. We had a long overdue visit with some good friends of ours a couple of days ago. I don't think we'd seen them in 2 years or something. Crazy how that works. You don't realize how much you enjoy a couple's company until you hang out with them after so long... then it's like geez, where did the time go?

I hadn't been to their new house since they moved in 4 years ago. We planned to get together on Monday for some fun & games but I had a brilliant idea and invited us over for a sleep over Sunday night, so we could get in an afternoon of some good 'ol fashioned drinking without worrying about who had to drive home. Lucky for us the hosts agreed that it was a good idea so we didn't have to force our way in. They welcomed us.

Adventures in Bicycling

We've picked up a new hobby... biking. My husband bought himself a bike a few months ago and said "now this is how we're getting to soccer this summer". And wouldn't you know! The kids & Papa have actually biked to every soccer practice. We have evolved, however. Or better yet, adapted. Juliet first started out in the chariot behind my husband's bike. She then graduated to actually riding her own bike which resulted in her being pushed by my husband most of the way. Most meaning all. We then got a bike attachment that trails behind my husband's bike so Juliet could be towed along. We attached the chariot to Juliet's "bike" for Sofie (see the peace train). We found Sam a sweet new bike on Kijiji cuz his bike was a tad on the small side and most recently I acquired my "everyday traveller" because my cruiser left me a good 5-7 minutes behind the family. It was either that or my husband was going to have to start pushing me.

The other day after soccer we went to the skate park, as per Sam's request, so he could show me his mad skills. It's a pretty awesome park.

oops.

After I got over my initial fear of Sam killing himself I was able to actually watch him go. My husband hopped on my cruiser because it's such a perfect skate park kinda bike. Or not...

Sam loves the park... maybe even enough for me to one day get him a trick bike so he could actually learn something.

So we've been biking all over the city. It's amazing how much you miss in the car. There is actually a bike path all throughout the city. You have to cross a lot of roads but it's otherwise pretty nice!

Not bad eh? We explored the whole thing yesterday on a 2 hour bike ride. It was great. Took us from uptown all the way to the river. Almost enough to kill me. Certainly enough to kill my ass. I think I'm going to put the cruiser's seat on my new bike. Oh and did I mention how much I love gears? Biking uphill is now a possibility and not a nightmare. AND... I was actually able to keep up with the fam. It was fun. Sofie loves the chariot & even sleeps in it so biking can run right through nap time...

... so long as my husband doesn't crash the chariot into the side of a bridge again. That kinda woke her up. Still, she didn't make a peep during our expedition yesterday. Fabulous! Oh... and look at the newest addition to the peace train...

Yep. A seat for dolly. Have we though of it all or what!

Mac J

I love fall and what I love even more is the awesome weather we've been having the past 2 weeks! What better way to enjoy the beautiful weather than walking in the Mac Johnson Conservation area. Nothing beats a walk in the woods on a warm, sunny fall afternoon....

The Vancouver Post

I'm back from my 5-day hiatus in Van-c. I spent the week there (sans enfants) visiting my dad & brother's fam. It was fabulous. 

My dad had a simple surgery last Tuesday and decided last minute that he wanted someone there in the event he needed some extra care... so he flew me out west. Ironically, the surgery couldn't have gone any better and there was no recovery so we had a nice visit.... well, as nice as 5 days with my father could go... laugh out loud. There are various idiosyncrasies when it comes to visiting my dad. Such as, I was happy to find a box of honey nut cheerios when I woke up craving cereal, but was less than thrilled to find out that it was left over from our visit last summer (yes.. 2010). That's the thing about my dad's... you can never be too sure about how long something has been sitting around. If it doesn't show signs of aging, it ain't goin' nowhere.

Par-tay!

We... the kids & I, spent the weekend in Montreal. It was fabulous. We stayed at one of my best friend's wonderful NDG pads & celebrated her daughter's 6th birthday. I love it there. I off and on wish we too lived in Montreal... but I'm not thrilled about the idea of raising kids in the city. Nevertheless, every time I'm there I get a bit nostalgic.

So our oldest kids are exactly 4 weeks apart, both turning six this year. This weekend was Lyric's 6th birthday party. I'll let the pics do most of the talking. Who said you can't have a pony in the city?

Oops...

It seems as though in madness that was my Sunday afternoon trying to put together photos of our trip, I may have left out a few. Now I wouldn't want to disappoint my band of followers and jeopardize the success of my blog so here they are...

I have also had numerous emails requesting a photo of our new couch. Well, I've had one. But I'd like to think that numerous people are reading my blog and simply choosing not to comment or follow or to let me know in any way shape or form that they enjoy it. Hello? Are you there?

And We're Done.

It's the last night of our vacation, although this will only get posted tomorrow (Friday) cuz the WiFi is across the field and I'm way too burnt out to walk there. I've (we've) spent the better part of the last few days on our feet… which isn't easy for a pregnant woman. Camping in general doesn't mesh well with pregnancy. Every night there's at least 4 trips into the bush for a pee and last night I peed on my sweater. Awesome. I'm also stuffed to the gills because of allergies, at least I think it's allergies. Either way I can't breathe out of my nose. I've used an entire box of kleenex and now am stuck using public bathroom toilet paper. My nose is loving it. I expect the skin around my nostrils, what's left of it, will peel off tomorrow. The tiresome past 4 days are catching up to me now as I sit here in front of the fire. That's one thing I love about camping… the fires. It's so nice to wake up in the morning & sit around a campfire, even more so than at night. Now if only I had a more comfortable chair. I'm joined by our resident bird that I'm thinking suffers from some kind of identity disorder. This morning, like a dog,  it ate rice crispies off the ground around Juliet while she ate (& spilled) her breakfast. Then it walked on my husband's foot. If it's not sitting about 2 feet away from us just checking out the scene it's under the picnic table looking for scraps or at the tap where we wash the dishes.  It's also very protective of it's territory and freaks at any other birds that come around. The wildlife around here seems to be a bit off. Last night the skunk that paid us a visit didn't eat the raw veggies we left in the garbage. Picked through everything else but left them in a pile. And the squirrels sit up in the trees and throw bits of branches at us. Seriously?

The Charlebois Family Adventure Mid-week Update....

So off we go on another Charlebois family adventure. Two years ago it was Tadoussac, last year we drove from Calgary to Vancouver. This year… Wasaga Beach. I wouldn't normally have picked this destination but we were meeting my best friend Steph & fam so it was a no brainer.  She would be staying with her family in a cottage and we would camp. So I booked us into the Jell-E-Bean Family Campground for 6 days & 5 nights of family fun!! … A far cry from the wilderness-y type camping we're used to, but an adventure none-the-less.