abandoned

As of today I am abandoning this blog. Thank you all for visiting and reading about our family.

if the shoe fits…

…and even if they don't, Max will wear them. The boy loves running about in other peoples shoes. So if you ask him to walk a mile in your shoes, he will; literally.

The Guild

I alluded to "The Guild" in a previous post and mentioned that I would tell a little bit more about it in a future post. Well this is that future post.

I'm part of the toronto photowalk group. Basically they go out every second saturday and walk around a different part of the city taking pictures. A few weeks ago they mentioned they were going to The Guild. I wasn't able to join them, so on friday evening we went as a family. Figured we'd check out a new park. When we arrived at the park we weren't sure what it was. There are all sorts of stone monuments and building fronts scattered all over the park. It's a very bizarre thing when you aren't expecting it.

Here is just a quick sample of what we saw there:

an angle holding the earth


a massive stone wall


this is to give you some sort of scale for all this stuff


another one for scale


Ev, Max and Mom


saw this little critter running around in the woods


polar bear polar bear what do you hear?


I hear Max roaring like a lion


Ev chilling out

birthday girl

After the let down on Mother's day I knew I had to make it up to Carrie. So for a combined birthday/mother's day gift, we dropped the kids of at Nanny and Poppy's (thanks again for looking after the little ones for us) and I took her to the most romantic place on earth, the honeymoon capitol of the world, Niagara Falls. We spent the night in a neat little boutique hotel called the Giacomo and Carrie got the one thing she most wanted. A sleep in. Then we went shopping. That's how you can tell I love her. I spent the whole day shopping with her. I think I only complained once or twice (she might tell it differently) when she was looking in kid store after kid store. This day was supposed to be for her. Now on to the photos.

first up is a picture of both of us sitting in the observation deck of the Giacomo


I snuck out early to get some photos of the falls. I was a bit later then I wanted (wanted to be out at 5am but didn't manage to wake up till 6) but still enjoyed my wanna be time (as in wanna be a photographer) :)

falls pic one: this is the observation half bridge on the NY side


falls pick two: this is looking back into Canada


after crossing back into Canada we spent some time walking around the falls area.

Carrie saw these trees and wanted me to take a photo of them. then she took the camera and proceeded to take even more photos of the trees.


this little guy was just sitting so quietly on the branch I just had to take a photo of him.


still haven't done the boat but maybe someday


We were too lazy and hungry to find a way up the hill so we took the cable car. well worth the money.


while waiting for the cable car to go I got this fun little hdr shot of the falls.


Hope you had a wonderful birthday Carrie, I love you.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was a bit of a bust this year on account of me having to work. Funny how a company has no problem having their employee's work that day but they wouldn't dream of working it themselves. We did end up getting out for a bit once I got home.

at the playground in our front yard


at the playground in our backyard. Max wanted to do something by himself. Carrie's reaction is priceless


my turn to carry Ev around


down the slide we go


a little birdie

out and about

For Easter Aunt Karen, aka Mama K, gave the kiddies a kite. It took us a few times out to actually get it to fly. Really we just needed a day with more wind. Once we got the wind we were all good.



this photo is just to show how big Max is. He's taller then a 20 story building :)



We've been exploring out city a bit more. finding walking trail and parks to play in. Found a really cool yesterday evening. (that post coming soon)

Max taking his sunglasses off



Ev on my shoulders



We even got to walk under a rainbow. (there is no pot of gold at the rainbows end)



on one of our walks we actually saw Santa Clause. guess he doesn't spend his summers at the North Pole.

Easter

Just a quick post to show the kids in their Easter clothes.

Max


Ev


of course Uncle Kirk couldn't pass up the chance to feed Max full of chocolate.


this one is just because

favourite place to play

Max loves to play, and he loves to look out the window. So I suppose it should come as no surprise that his favourite place to play is at the window.

here he is in his favourite place to play


after having his evening bath he ran out to the front room when I came around the corner this is where I found him.

monkey tail beard

The other day I was playing on the internet, (as usual) visiting my regular places when I came across this web site. Well that was all the encouraging it took.

here I am with a monkey tail beard


close up :)


the tail is long gone now. no way I was going to wear it for more then a day.

blocks

Max is always after me to build a bridge for his trains. So I asked him if he wanted a small bridge or a big bridge.

he chose big


from another angle


Once he has his bridge built he doesn't want Ev to play with it

And this, is why Max didn't want Ev touching the bridge.

pointing :)

I asked Max if he wanted pictures and stories of him and Ev on FB and this was his response;

I couldn't agree more. So if you want any news from us this is where you will get it. I will try to update it at lest once every two weeks.

okay so the real story behind the pics is Max has started pointing at everything with his middle finger and I had the camera so I took some photos. I thought it was absolutely hilarious. He was doing it again this evening at dinner and it reminded me that I had some photos and yadda yadda yadda a blog post.

seriously though I'm not posting any pics or stories to FB, I just don't like FB. I feels so fake and… and… …and I'll just leave it at that.

sights of spring (and some other stuff)

After being stuck inside for the past few months because of the cold we finally got out of the house. we went for a walk down by the bluffs. Max was loving all the seagulls flying around


this is the "other stuff" just wanted to throw in these photos of Max eating his strawberry filled crepes.


and the after photo


we try to take advantage of the playground behind our place as much as possible. Max loves the slide.


not our van. last year a tree next to this one fell over just missing the cars. this time they weren't so lucky


the playground on ice.


don't you just love it when spring arrives, melting the snow and releasing all the treasures that were buried in it's icy tomb.


at the school there is an alphabet path on the ground that Max loves to run on while he says his ABC's

California with a hint of Nevada

At the end of Feb I flew out to San Francisco to meet up with some Aussie friends of mine and go snowboarding. We spent a night in SF then drove up to Lake Tahoe and the snow. The photos don't tell the whole story but the do tell of a great time had by all.

Here we have the view from our hotel in SF.


this is just a shot of that wonderful California sun.


on the first night we finally made it over the the Golden Gate Bridge for photos. of course by the time we got there the bridge was closed to pedestrians. So we didn't get to walk across it. :(


on our way out of town we did a brief stop on Treasure Island so we could get a shot of the city. here you can see The GG Bridge, the Bay Bridge, all of SF and Alcatraz.


this is a shot of our cozy little cabin in the woods.


there was about 3 feet of fresh by the time we got out on the snow the first day. add to all that the fact that it was still snowing. our welcome to Tahoe was a wonderful one. (Homewood Mtn in the background there)


Since Homewood was only 5 minutes from our cabin we drove home for lunch. On the drive there was a break in the falling snow and I snapped of this shot while driving down the road. That's the first we saw of the lake.


on the third day we drove over to Nevada to Mt Rose to ride the chutes. stopped on the side of the road when we saw this view


back at Squaw we decided to get a group shot. (Jared, Daniel, Jason) as proof that we were indeed on holiday together. We hadn't done a run together as a group for the first few days.


yes we even did our laundry. the one amenity that the cabin didn't have.


our last day at Squaw was a rainy one. it wasn't until you got above 8000 that it started to turn to snow/rain mix. needless to say we only lasted half day.


the last shot here is of the deserted patio of Squaw. guess no one wanted to sit out and enjoy the wonderful weather.