The Year In Pictures

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

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.

Beach Bums

Yesterday we hit another beach for the first time... Iroquois. It was quite nice. Packed, but nice. Geez it was 40+ degrees with the humidity... as you can see by this sweaty little nose. Nonsense.

The kids ran wild and I got to visit with a friend I hadn't seen in ages. It was good times. And we got to see a few freighters enter the locks. We'll definitely have to go back sometime and get a closer look at that.

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...

" we are all a little MAD here... And a lot disappointed."

A few weeks ago I came across an event for the kids that was being held at the Fulford Mansion.

"How neat" I thought. Even more so because it was a Mad Hatter's tea party. Fabulous. And at $40 for the kids to attend the 2 morning event (9am-noon each day) I thought why not. Let's be social.

I don't know what led me to believe that it was going to be some extravagant tea party in the Fulford garden with frilly table cloths, yummy eats and elegant tea ware... but I was WAY off. Way, way off. I guess with kids ranging in age from 5-12 plastic cups & paper plates are way more suitable... and granola bars cut into little pieces with not enough juice to go around way more cost effective. Way more disappointing, but way more age appropriate... ugh. Speaking of age appropriate... let's talk about the activities. One of the activities they did was a scavenger hunt. The kids broke off into groups and were each given a clue as to where their next clue was hidden and so on. Oh what fun! Well someone forgot to remind whoever made up the clues that the age range was 5 to 12 years. Even I couldn't understand half the clues. "We hang from the arms of the friendly giant". Oh yes that must be something hanging from the branches of the dead tree way over there on the other side of the HUGE lawn. Any 8 year old (+/- a few years) could have guessed that. Please. What ever happened to find a pine cone, a feather & a dead bug or something?? Oh and for pin the grin on the Cheshire Cat...  which Sam won btw, have you ever heard of sticking the cat to the wall so the kids could go for it instead of holding the cat in your hands and going for the kids? IS IT SO COMPLICATED??!

Boo. I had such high, albeit unreasonable, expectations... so I was a titch disappointed with the whole thing. The kids, however, had a blast. I never thought Sam could possible be THAT excited for a tea party. Here are some pictures, that undoubtedly make it look WAY MORE FUN than it actually was. Better luck next time, although next time I should probably just stay home.

On the plus side I got a free mini-tour of the mansion and took the opportunity to take a few photos of the garden statues! Yay me.

Ummmmmmm... bug orgy anyone??

let's go fly a kite!

Not only do we have a great kite flying spot... we have great kites. You absolutely CAN'T go wrong with the cheapest kites you can find (at walmart) ... And when I say you can't go wrong I mean my girlfriend's (almost) 3 year old son was flying his kite without even knowing it. He thought it crashed and when he ran over to us the kite lifted off again and he was good to go. He also flew it laying down.

It doesn't get much easier than that. Here are some more of my favourite pics from that day.

Winter Collage

It's been quite a mess of weather here lately. Rain, freezing rain, snow, rain. I've been posting some photos and I made another collage today to share. Some of the photos I've already posted but some are new. I just love these winter photos.

Winter Wonderland

If I had a winter jacket that did up... a pair of winter boots that fit and a pair of snow shoes I'd venture out to the conservation area to take some really nice winter photos. Instead you get my back yard.

ICE

Lovely January weather. Everything is covered in ice, which means but a few things: No school buses... bad driving... EXCELLENT photo ops.