Sass

Memories of Summer, Len and Adara

The tent

Here's the infamous tent that Greg made for Liam and Adara when we were up there in August. Kristen and I had went back to the folkfestival for night time bands and Greg came up with this awesomeness which they all slept in. This is the morning after the sleepover.

Goodbye Summer

First Day of School

Here's Adara's first day of senior Kindergarten. We've moved her to a new class in order to try out a teacher with a little more structure, a little more seriousness. And man, is she serious! We knew that, so it's all good, but holy cow! Today she insisted on writing on Adara's backpack and outside of her shoes her name in sharpie. This was after they were already clearly marked with pretty little labels. Ayah! This lady is intense, but gets results with her kids which is why we put Adara there.

Hello, we're here

No really, we are. We just had some major technical transitions to make that have made it hard to post. I still can't do pics, really. We got rid of one computer, added one, removed a lot of software, and so on. This resulted in my blackberry not syncing for a long time. And, i've recently discovered, I only really seem to take pics on the bb, I never have the camera with me. So, Adara and I have been very busy. Poor Len has been busy working and now is out west helping to take care of his family a bit. Meanwhile Adara and I went to Owen Sound for the folkfest with the family. Adara proved to be a total trooper. She managed in one weekend to fall asleep by a campfire, in a running speedboat and under a picnic table in a very noisy beer tent. That girl parties til she drops. We also went out this week camping near Lake simcoe with some neighbours and their kids. Chaotic, but good. The camping came two days after our huge neighbourhood bbq, one day after my bday and the day that Len unexpectedly headed out west. Needless to say we've been busy. So, now I have a cold and she's asleep. More another day, someday with pics!

Canada Day and the week that followed

So, we started off our nine days of vacation with a drop off at Jenn's house for a bbq, marshmallows and fireworks, plus a good bit of flag waving!

Then it was off the next day for a week of camping at Miller Lake near Tobermory. Awesome! WE'll post pics later, but suffice it to say that it was perfect. A short list of fun goes like this swimming (lots of it) Paddleboarding ( a bit for mamma) basketball (2 games to 1 on 21, I'll get you next time Stannard!) ping pong fishing (Adara with Pappa) Ticket to ride board game ( a new thing in our lives, thanks Pablo) Adara going to the store with the big boys (three times, pretty exciting) naps (many for Adara, none for me. Adara would just fall over where she stood and sleep at all times and places) Live music at a great pub feeding the ducks in Tobermory sparklers spinning on the end of drill(super fun, thanks Dave!) and lots of glow sticks! Plus much much more. It was entirely perfect.

Visiting with Uncle Maurice

On a beautiful day in mid April Adara and I headed off to visit our 80 some year old Uncle Maurice. This says pretty much everything about the day that Uncle Maurice and Adara had.

Dufferin Grove Park

About the end of March or so we were out in the west end for a birthday party. Adara had been very patient and agreeable at the party so we wanted to give her a special treat by going to a new park. I had remembered hearing about Dufferin Grove Park with it's legendary pizza oven, play structures and the like. The description doesn't do it justice, it's a kids paradise. There's evening a whole section that's just a massive sand pit with full size shovels and huge logs for bigger kids to move around and build out of.

After an hour and a half of unexpected play, I ran across to the local grocery store and grabbed a hunk of cheese, a hunk of sausage, some bread, carrots and mini tomatoes and we stayed until the sun went down.

Cats Away

The cats (both of them) are away out west visiting Len's family this week so I am playing. I just came in from a huge run, and have the extremely exciting plans of writing an assignment for my hr class and cleaning the house up a bit. It actually makes me really happy to have a quiet moment to catch up on a few things. I also have all kinds of plans with friends this week too. Adara has been the travelling gal this month; she'll make it to school a grand total of 12 days in May. This is probably for the best as she's bored by it, unmotivated and ready for a break or a new challenge. The week before last she had a vacation with grammy and poppa in Goderich. It seemed to involve a lot of painting and drawing and dressing up, so a pretty good vacation by her standards. I was away at the professional association of Canadian Theatres conference and Len was busy replacing the main floor of the house with some new hard wood. It was a great week, Len finished his major project and I got to see some long held hopes comes to fruition at my conference. Its complex and industry involved, but suffice to say that we've been working for some new approaches in theatre making for nine years and we finally seem to be getting somewhere. So, I'm looking forward to the family rest this week, but also to them returning. In the meanwhile I run, write, read, socialize and sleep.