The Perfect Weekend

Some friends of ours were in PEI this last weekend at a cottage, and, seeing as we don't see them nearly often enough - and seeing as our children are apparently made to travel - we packed up the kids after I got home from work on Friday and hopped in the car.

The drive and ferry trip to the Island were pretty uneventful, and we arrived shortly after dark.  (I did discover that PEI signage leaves a lot to be desired, but that's for a different post.)  After the kids dropped off, we had a couple of drinks and some snacks and talked for a couple of hours about nothing in particular before hitting the hay.

Saturday was a day for story books.  Starting off grey and kinda drizzly, but by 10am the sun was out, the sky was the kind of blue that is huggable, and the day was actively encouraging joy.  We packed the eight of us into our cars, started the GPS and aimed for Shining Waters.  Although Rainbow Valley no longer exists (RIP), I'm pretty sure Shining Waters - which isn't actually a cult - just bought their old rides and moved them across the street.  I'll expand on our adventures at the amusement park, but suffice it for the moment to say that the kids had an absolute blast.  We were pleasantly tired when we left and stopped at a roadside ice cream stand on the way back to the cottage.  After a great supper, we headed to the beach just as the sun was setting.  We had a bonfire and roasted S'mores, and then as if that wasn't good enough, a house just down the beach had a fireworks show where they must have dropped $1500 if it was a dime.  We watched and clapped and cheered.

Back at the house, the kids dropped like stones, the ladies went to bed, and the men smoked cigars, looked at the best starfield I've seen in decades and talked about life and kids and infinity.

We headed back to the beach on a Sunday almost as nice as Saturday until lunch time.  After a quick meal back at the cottage, we headed to a local provincial park that had a great big playground.  (I've nick-named it Danger Park - more to come.)  After some supper and some frog hunting, we packed up our car and headed for the ferry home.
**sidenote**
The girl at the kiosk told us that she wasn't sure if we'd make it onto the ferry.  "When will we know?" I asked.  "When they finish boarding," she answered.  Gee, thanks.
**/sidenote**
The same gods that had been smiling the rest of the weekend were still watching us, though; we were the last car allowed on.  We clapped and cheered then, too.  They tried to squeeze one more car that actually had to back off after only fitting half on the deck.  I'm pretty sure the closing door nudged our bumper a little.

A lovely uneventful drive home, a pleasant bedtime, and a couple minutes of downtime before we headed to bed as well capped off one for the record books.

The First Lost Tooth!

I can't believe I didn't mention this already.

The first loose tooth has become the first gap in Sam's smile.  There's now a cute little gap in the bottom front space in his grin.  It came out while he was brushing his teeth; apparently, he also spat it down the drain with the toothpaste, because we couldn't find it.  We did leave the Tooth Fairy an appropriate note, though, explaining the situation.  She left Sam a note saying that she had found the tooth - she has ways, you see - and gave him $2 to boot.

The Baryonyx

Joey has a dinosaur sticker book, and one of the pages he was filling in the other day had facts about each dinosaur.  "This is the only fish-eating dinosaur that scientists know about," Mama related.  "No mama, there were a lot of them," said Joey, "and they all looked like this guy!"

The First Loose Tooth

Sam has his first loose tooth!  It's one of his bottom middle teeth.  It started wiggling last week, and you can see the grown-up tooth coming in right behind it.  He's excited; Mama and I are trying to figure out what the Tooth Fairy gives these days.

Not Getting Any Younger...

One other story from the wedding trip to Ottawa:

Unsurprisingly, the cousins got started at the wedding shower.  I, apparently, showed up to party.  This isn't that strange an affair; that's what pretty much always happens.  I also stayed out way too late.  Also not strange (though this time my wife didn't have to phone my parents at 4 in the morning to go searching the hotel for me).  It wasn't even that strange to be walking home as the sun came up - 5:50am is a beautiful time in Ottawa round this here time of year.

What was strange, at least to me, was how long it took me to recover from that kind of abuse.  Not being able to sleep in is part of it; I was up with the kids at quarter after eight.  It still quite caught me by surprise that it was more or less three days before I felt like a regular person again.  I'm going to blame it on Ottawa water...

Nerves? Yeah, right

Sam's best friend Cole has been busy over the summer - as have we, on occasion - and their schedules just haven't synched up.  We finally arranged dinner with his family tonight.  As we walking up to their door, Sam grabs my hand and whispers, "I'm a little nervous.  I haven't seen him since school ended!"

Within literally two minutes, Sam and his brother and Cole and his brother are running around the basement screaming like banshees.

Apparently, he got over it.

Super Troopers

It was my cousin Max's wedding last weekend in Ottawa.  We decided to have a cross-Canada family road trip.  (Air Canada ticket prices "helped" with that particular decision...)  Although my wife is a consummate planner and road-trip-passenger, we were still pretty concerned; she and I can do the trip in about 13 hours, but we have advantages over our children, like bladder control and stop-whining-ness.  We figured roughly 16 hours, and maybe half a bottle of Tylenol for the ensuing headaches.

We set off on Friday morning.  (I'd say "bright and early", but I don't remember if it was actually bright yet when we left.  There were probably still stars out - we definitely got the "early".)  15.5 surprisingly uneventful hours later, Sam says, "That wasn't very long."  A couple of movies, some Where's Waldo? books and a Tupperware full of Lego is about all we need, as it turns out.  The return trip - equally early, equally long - was about the same.  We had maybe one extra stop each way with a long lunch break, but no fighting, no whining, no complaining.  J and I were in shock, but didn't want to say anything out loud in case it broke the spell.  And no, it wasn't because they were sleeping; Joey had a quick afternoon nap on the way up, and neither of them slept on the way home.

Apparently we're ready to be honourary Romani.  Now if only Julie wasn't allergic to horses...

The Best Game In The World

How was I never introduced to this game?  Julie tells me that the kids occasionally play a game they call "Play-Doh In The Dark".  What kinds of crazy game is that, you ask?  Well, they play with Play-Doh.  In the dark.  It gets complicated.

The two boys set up their Play-Doh table in the basement with the lights out and a flashlight to see with.  The very best part of the game is that Julie has to "pretend to take a nap" while they play.  To be fair, I'm guessing that she doesn't do that part very well - there's probably very little pretending.  The boys made up those rules, by the way.  I'm sure that's no commentary on her.

I think I may suggest similar games in the future, possibly starting with "Lego In The Dark", where Daddy has to pretend to play video games.

THAT's what he meant!

Sam and his class went to the Discovery Centre a week ago, and while he was telling us about it, he mentioned that Alicia's mom "was their Hash Brown".  To be honest, I didn't think much of it; kid's groups use all sorts of interesting names for their supervisors, and I figured there was more story that we just weren't getting.

Julie talked with Alicia's mom today at school, and the name came up - Julie had been quite taken with the name.  Turns out it wasn't "Hash Brown".

It was "chaperone".