Poser

Adara has developed quite a penchant for posing for pictures lately. Here's some of my favourites. I have a feeling that the "poser" may become a regular feature here!

Well, we are there far too quickly: Adara's first day of school. On a lovely, far too sunny september 9th morning we made the trek half a block over to school and still managed to arrive just in time!

Last night Adara suddenly decided to wear the mermaid dress that we'd had made for her instead of her ratty old dinosaur tshirt. I'm convinced that she did it to please me even though I said nothing about the dino tshirt being ratty.

This morning she wanted to know if she wore her shoes in the school or not and if that was "rude". Obviously she's been thinking about it. With a new backpack and lunch bag and an applesauce for snack, she was off. I can't help but feel that this is the beginning of it all. Dramatic, I know, but the beginning of all choices and chances and opportunities in life. However, she's just happy that they have trucks and a play kitchen to play with. Kristen, this one was a big one, it'd better be in my blurb book at Christmas, that's all I'm saying!

Here's a couple of shots from our camping adventure the last week in august.
We all took the week off and headed to Highland Pines near Fergus, ON. We rented a wee cabin with no plumbing or anything to protect us from any rain, provide us with real beds and shelves to keep things tidy and easy to get at. It was pretty awesome, and thank heavens we were in a cabin as we had one evening and night of torrential rain, high winds, and three tornados circling us. No harm came to anyone but it was a wild night. We made two new little friends, Rachel and Brodie and their mom Jen out camping. So, the night of the tornados we had them, plus my sister and Liam, plus our friends Pablo, Carrie and their two little girls in two little huts. Quite a night, but I'm glad that we were all together.
Otherwise we spent the week looking out over an idyllic lake, swimming in the pool and playing in the playground. The only thing missing was a wee place to get coffee and tea. Making that over a campstove is time consuming!

Gluten free victory

The other day Adara and I visited a friends house where they were making muffins. I was feeling bad that between her nut allergy and Len's wheat sensitivity, I couldn't easily do the same for her.
So, with the help of the internet, several substitutions for what was on hand and a bit of ingenuity, I bring you

MY VERY FIRST WHEAT FREE, NUT FREE BANANA MUFFINS! TA DA
Beat two eggs until frothy, add 1/3 cup olive oil, 2 previously frozen bananas (sweeter this way!)\, 3/4 cup brown sugar and tsp vanilla

Mix together

Then Add 1/2 cup rice flour, 1 and 1/2 cups corn flour, 11/4 tbsp baking powder, 1 tbsp pumpkin spice (or a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice to taste) and 1tsp salt

We baked them in a cupcake pan for 22 minutes at 350 degrees F

I am inordinately proud of myself as I've been feeling pretty overwhelmed about baking for wheat free and nut free. But now, I am off and running 'cause those muffins were darn good! Even my dad would have eaten them!

The New Dress

Here's Adara's new dress made by an old highschool friend who I recently got back in contact with. Adara went online with me and chose the two fabrics for a dress. She's suddenly gotten dress crazy and we only had three, so the situation had to be rectified immediately!

Of Tornados

Many friends and family have been asking how my home town of Goderich is after the F3 tornado that ripped through last week. My parents and their properties are fine. But Goderich is pretty destroyed. Every tree in the square was felled, the 15 historic buildings on west street were decimated and will have to be pulled down and several homes were levelled. Thankfully there were very few injuries and only one death. All of the major businesses and industries in town were also decimated including the grain elevators, salt elevators and volvo factory. I won't be posting any pictures here as it's pretty upsetting but there's plenty to see online. If you want to help Goderich you can go to the Huron Perth United way website or text UCARE to the number 45678 before thursday. Thanks for all your concern.

Of haircuts and the like

For one reason or another, getting her hair cut has always for Adara been an outing with daddy. I've missed every single one of her haircuts. But, they seem to make such a fantastic day of it, that I don't begrudge them their outing! It always seems to involve some stops at cafes for cookies for some and lattes for other, a park stop or two and maybe even lunch. Here's the latest haircut outing.

Well, here it is, and what a night of family and fun it was!

These are all the pics from our neighbour on union road, Laura's wedding to the love of her life, Mark.
It was a beautiful afternoon and evening in a gorgeous old church redone as a wedding venue/restaurant. The food was amazing, everyone was gracious and lovely and it was great to get to spend time with all the adults in the family sans kids for a night, as much as we love them.
Len and I had an amazing time and were only sorry that we had to head off as early as we did to return to the wee monkey in Toronto.

I wonder how long the night went on for everyone else?

THE PICTURE OF THE YEAR

Each year at the Aunts cottage, Kristen has managed to get a picture of Adara that is in some way iconic or indicative of who she was at that moment. This year was harder because she wouldnt' hold still! Nontheless she got some good shots. I leave it to you to decide, which is the most Adara this year?

The new house

For those of you who have been asking, here's a few pics of the new house.
The renos have been going like made. In the first three weeks Len oversaw everything and did all the demolition. We replaced the plumbing, electrical, checked for termites (none), waterproofed the basement, put in a new furnace and ducting, hauled old railway ties out of the backyard, painted, refinished all the floors and put in new stairs to the third floor.
We've decided to pause here for a while and enjoy the rest of the summer. The refinish of the basement will just have to wait.