Photo of the Day August 31st

Well, I'm taking the next step in my tenuous journey of growing some of our own vegetables and am trying to save and dry the seeds from some of our favourites for planting next year. Certainly a learning experience for me! I've chosen miniature Black Zebra tomatoes for my first try, and was surprised to discover it's not as simple as de-seeding the tomatoes and washing off the seeds before laying them out to dry. Apparently they need to be fermented for several days before you begin the drying process, or they cannot germinate once planted. Everything I've read warns me that this is not the most pleasant smelling process, so wish me luck that I can get past the "yuck" factor to follow it through...

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Photo(s) of the Day August 30th

The peaches we picked up from the market yesterday are ripe, juicy and ready to eat... but with all of us enjoying them as snacks it was hard to keep enough of them around to make the peach tart we had planned! Luckily I hid a few in a bowl in the fridge, so when Sophie and I started baking this morning she was able to polish off another peach ("quality control", as Chris calls it) without putting too big a dent in our inventory - we had just enough to fill our home-made tart shell. This recipe is interesting because you leave the peaches halved instead of chopping them up, and after an initial baking of just the shell and the peach halves with some sugar, you add a custard-style mixture (Sophie is shown in the smaller picture manning the custard bowl) and bake it again. The hollowed-out peach halves hold the custard nicely as it firms up and turns golden-brown and the crispy crust is reminiscent of a cookie... but most importantly, it's simply delicious. I've posted my recipe here - if you try it please let me know how it turns out!

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Photo of the Day August 29th

I went with my friend Cheryl to see the movie "Julie and Julia" last night, and has it ever put me in the mood to cook something! I think next week I'll make Boeuf Bourguignon (proof of the power of this cooking urge: I'm a vegetarian after all), but for now it's off to the market to pick up the ingredients for broccoli cheese soup and peach tart. I rave weekly about our trips to the market so I'll try not to repeat my general "local produce is so good! The growers and sellers are so great!" and instead focus on one shop within the market I visit weekly - Jantzi's Cheese. There's often a lineup at the counter, but you're rewarded for your patience when you reach the front and get to their selection of delicious local cheeses (and a few imported favourites). Jantzi's specializes in extra old cheddar, so if you're a fan of deeply flavourful aged cheeses this is definitely the place for you. This week Rick packed me up a grated six-cheese blend (which included some of that extra-old cheddar and will be excellent for that cheese soup), our favourite hot pepper brick, and a block of Greek-style feta. I can't wait to start enjoying them in some of the recipes we've got planned for this week!

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Photo of the Day August 28th

Today's photo represents the turning over of a new leaf... I've finally joined a gym, and I'm proud to say I've gone four times a week since activating my membership three weeks ago. I know it takes six weeks of repetitive behaviour before I can say I've developed a "habit", but I'm at least half way there and feeling good about it. Finding the time to go to the gym has been made easier by the fact that they offer childcare, so on mornings when Chris is either at work or sleeping and I don't have Rhys or Rowan coming over, Sophie and I head for the gym. She plays with the other kids while I work out, and when I pick her up we often either go swimming in the gym's salt water pool together or split a fruit smoothie... it's quite the treat either way. I'm hoping that these trips to the gym combined with some positive changes to my eating habits will help me end 2009 a healthier person than I began it - wish me luck!

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Photo of the Day August 27th

Our friend Rowan was with us today, and with a spot of sunshine in the sky (rare this summer) we decided on an impromptu trip to Greenway Park to enjoy it. It's a great park, not too far and with lots to look at - our morning just flew by in a flurry of sliding, swinging, climbing and running. We were lucky that Chris had a break in his schedule and was able to join us after a couple of hours to cheer the kids on and help roll the infamous gondola back and forth some more. Here, "Captain Rowan" (as Sophie was calling him) proudly steers his pirate ship on the high seas before hitting the slide.

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Photo of the Day August 26th

Chris and Sophie enjoyed a special Daddy-Daughter "date" this morning, taking a ride on the double-decker bus and doing some sight seeing around London. The bus travels first through downtown London, then out to the east end of the city and around the Western Fair grounds. From there it heads west to Springbank Park, stops for 20 minutes at Storybook Gardens, drives through Byron and makes its way towards the University of Western Ontario via several twists and turns through the west end of the city. The ride ends back downtown about 2 hours later and is a nice way to get a quick feel for the city from a good, high vantage point. Unfortunately Chris and Sophie had a rather rainy morning for this little outing, so they didn't get very many good photos... but Chris was creative and captured this image from their bus "admission" tickets.

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Photo of the Day August 25th

Our neighbourhood has been a cacophony of noise this summer with road construction, home renovation projects up and down the street and the crazy amounts of digging that Union Gas has done in our yard (we're on the 4th ever-bigger hole they've dug in less than two weeks - I suspect we'll see a hole the size of archaeological dig next) . Our house has added to those buzzing and sawing sounds this week as our garage and the back porch of our house are being re-sided. The garage in particular has been in dire need of help for quite some time, so it was exciting for us to look outside late this afternoon and see a huge amount of progress... it looks like we have a whole new building out there!

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Photo of the Day August 24th

I've been making an effort to improve my eating habits lately... cutting out those late-night snacks, eating more whole grains, less fat, and so on. Every once in a while I hit on a truly delicious, super healthy meal which makes the whole process much easier, and today was one of those lucky days. I made myself a salad for lunch - iceberg lettuce for the base, a generous serving of freshly cut living pea shoots on top of that, followed by a crab salad I made with water chestnuts and ground white pepper, and finally topped with chopped avocado. It was super, and full of lots of healthy greens and the "right" kinds of fat... a lunch that made me feel good in lots of ways. My fingers are crossed that I can come up with more healthy and delicious lunches like this one in the weeks ahead!

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Photo of the Day August 23rd

Sophie laying on the bed of the "gondola" enjoying her ride across the playground

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We wrapped up our busy weekend with a nice, relaxing picnic supper this evening. Once Chris got home from work we packed a cooler with some fresh veggies, cold meats, salmon salad wraps, crackers and cheese and set off for Greenway Park with a blanket in hand. In addition to some lovely walking and biking trails and an off-leash dog park, Greenway also has a waterfront area with lots of ducks to look at, and a Saturn playground - it made for a great place to enjoy our picnic and then burn off some last-minute energy before bed time. Sophie's personal favourite was the gondola-style wooden raft that could be "driven" from one part of the climbers to another using hand cranks... she would climb onto it every few minutes and call out "Mommy's turn!" or "Daddy's turn!" to let us know who she thought should be in charge of the hand crank to whisk her to the other side. The girls' got a future in management, I'm telling you.

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Photo of the Day August 22nd

As mentioned in an earlier post, we've registered Sophie for a combo dance/gymnastics class at The Little Gym - her first class will be on Monday. The dance component of the class covers both ballet and tap, which means the introduction of tap shoes into Sophie's wardrobe. Last week we went to a couple of different dance shops in London to have her feet sized and to compare prices & styles, then trying to be frugal I checked several resources for second-hand tap shoes - sadly, no luck there. When Sophie was trying on the different styles of tap shoes available the best ones for fit were either a matte-finish neutral tone shoe or a shiny black patent leather shoe... not surprisingly she liked the flashier pair! So, with her first class just around the corner we finally picked up her "perfect pair" this afternoon from The London Dance Shoppe. I anticipate the several days ahead will be filled with non-stop "clickity clacking" on the hardwood floors around my house!

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Photo of the Day August 21st

Sophie and I got up bright and early this morning to make the long drive to Wallaceburg to visit my Grandmother, who lives at the Fairfield Park Nursing home there. We chose today specifically because several of our out-of-province relatives are here in Ontario for a cottage vacation and would be visiting Grandma as well... since we see them so rarely I wanted to be sure we had a chance to connect with them too. Sophie and I enjoyed visiting with Grandma for a couple of hours in her room before my Uncle Raymond and Aunt Maryam, my cousin Mark and his wife Karen, and their two children Zach and Emily arrived. With the big extended family all together we moved from Grandmas room to one of the common areas, a lovely lounge with a fireplace and a toy box... much chatting and photo-taking, great-grandchild cuddling and general visiting commenced. It was our first time meeting Emily (shown with Grandma and Sophie above), and both she and Zach are just gorgeous... some excellent genes are at work there! When our time with Grandma came to an end, our large family group went out for lunch before I started the drive back home to London. It was a long trip home (made even longer by the fact I got lost) but despite the slightly frustrating end to today's outing I'm so glad we were able to go and spend that family time together.

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Photo of the Day August 20th

Sophie pulled out what she calls her "magic markers" this morning - they're Crayola Colour Wonder markers, which look clear but when applied to the proper paper actually show up in an assortment of rainbow colours. Very cool, and with them she drew this picture of what she described as "a friendly little moose"... I thought it was so cute that I asked her permission to cut it out of her little sketch book and put it in my wallet. I told her I wanted to keep it with me so I could look at it when we weren't together and think of her, and she was so thrilled that she insisted on posing with her very important piece of art before I was allowed to put it away. There you have it: portrait of an artist, age 4.

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On a non-photo-related note, what strange weather we've had today! Threatening clouds for most of the afternoon followed by about an hour of violent storming... the rain was falling so fast that it not only made it impossible to even see across the street, but that the sewers couldn't possibly take it all in fast enough - the water flooded up over the sidewalks and across our yard in a matter of minutes! And now for the really strange part, not more than an hour later and the skies are blue, birds are singing, and if it weren't for the puddles of water on my porch and a potted morning glory that toppled because of the wind you would never know we had rain today. I guess I can go around the house blowing out the candles I had lit when I was positive that we would be loosing our power at any moment!

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Photo(s) of the Day August 19th

Cruise Night has been a Wortley Village tradition for several years, and while Chris and I had been a few times it's really been since Sophie's arrival that we started going regularly.

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It makes for a fun family night out, wandering up and down Wortley road (two blocks of which is closed to traffic for the event) checking out the vintage cars, listening to live bands perform "oldies" music and hitting the community barbeque and ice cream shop for dinner.

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Chris was working last night, but Sophie and I planned to wander over and were thrilled that at the last minute our friends Karen and Darren joined us along with their boys Rhys and Rowan. The kids walked hand-in-hand down the street looking at the cars, commenting on colours, comparing headlights and tailights (a fascination for Rhys for some reason) and reading the licence plate numbers out loud (Sophie's specialty).

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We enjoyed hotdogs while watching an Elvis Impersonator shake his hips, then debated whether to stop at The Big Scoop or Chill Ice Cream for dessert... since Sophie was in charge of that decision the closest shop won and she enjoyed Cotton Candy ice cream from Chill before we headed for home and bed. A great, summery evening - and with only a few more Cruise Nights left before the summer is over we need to make sure we enjoy it to the fullest!

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Photo of the Day August 18th

Sophie decided that she needed a "Unicorn Home" this morning, so after a quick look through our linen cupboard I found a large sheet to create the perfect cubby space under our dining room table. She and Rowan spent a large part of the morning under there, bringing in new toys to play with, bumping their heads, and jumping out to "surprise" Chris and I when we walked through pretending to wonder where the kids had gone. I have the feeling that sheet would have stayed on our dining room table all day if it weren't for needing the space to serve lunch!

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Photo of the Day August 17th

Sophie attended a birthday party at The Little Gym last month, and had such a wonderful time practicing on all the equipment and being cheered on by the Gym staff that she's been asking to go back ever since. I was pretty impressed too, both with the amenities of the facility and with the Gym's focus on gross motor skill development, which is something we've been working with Sophie to strengthen. So this evening we took in one of their free "introductory classes" and Sophie participated in the Giggle Toes Dance & Gymnastics program. The class starts in the dance studio with 15 minutes of tap followed by 15 minutes of ballet before the kids move across the hall for a half hour of gymnastics. She certainly had fun, and we had fun watching her - especially when the teachers had her trying things that neither Chris or I would have thought she could do (like the assisted feet-over-head spin she did on the uneven bars!) We tried the class at just the right time I think, because the summer semester is almost done... we were able to sign Sophie up for the last three sessions at a very reduced rate, which will give us the chance to see how she does in the classes before deciding to commit to the much more expensive Fall Semester.

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Photo of the Day August 16th

What started out today as a challenge wound up as a good thing... Sophie woke up at the ungodly hour of 5:12am and stayed awake in her room for close to an hour before I finally decided that the two of us should just get up and start our day. On the rather-obvious down side: way too little sleep for both of us. On the up side: we were able to drive Chris to work to start his 7am shift and therefor had the car for the day. We decided to make the most of it by driving to Port Stanley and going to the beach, which is something Sophie's been asking to do for the past several weeks. Today is hot and sunny, and really one of the first days we've really had of "summer weather" this year - we've spent most of the season putting up with cool, rainy days. So how could I resist granting her request now that we finally had the perfect weather for it? We were in Port Stanley on the almost empty beach before 9am and had a blast playing in the waves, rolling in the sand (okay - that was just Sophie), and partaking in all sorts of fun beachy activities. We were lucky to have picked a spot close to where a lovely couple (also from London) and their daughter set up camp, and I spent part of the morning & early afternoon chatting with the adults while the girls built sand castles and dug moats. There's nothing like the beach to bring out the fun and camaraderie!

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Photo of the Day August 15th

Sophie and I grooving to Chuck Jackson singing the blues...

After enjoying a bit of a sleep-in this morning (I checked the clock when my little angel started calling and it was close to 9am!) we enjoyed a busy day today. After breakfast Sophie and I headed for the London Farmers Market for our weekend supply run, and after dropping her and our veggies off at home I took off for my friend Cheryl's place so we could enjoy lunch together. Three hours, a yummy Under the Volcano meal, lots of great conversation and several strawberry daiquiris later we went our separate ways very satisfied. After a quick pit stop at home to freshen up, my family and I grabbed our folding chairs and wagon and wandered down to the Wortley Road Jazz & Blues Festival. Not only did we enjoy the great music (our neighbourhood really does know how to throw a street party) but we enjoyed reconnecting with some old friends as well, as we were surprised by impromptu meetings with visual artist and Fringe friend Beth, book guru and all around super-cool chick Teresa, and naturopathic doctor and world traveler Pankaj. A great gathering over some sweet guitar riffs... what more could we possibly ask for from a Saturday evening?

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Photo of the Day August 14th

We seem to have Disney on the brain around here today. It's the result of two recent events: Mary, Courtney and Brandon returning from Florida (bringing Sophie a couple of awesome Disney souvenirs) and several advertisements we've seen recently for Playhouse Disney Live on tour. As soon as these commercials started appearing she began asking if we could go see it, so I checked whether the show will be coming to our area. It turns out that Mickey and the gang will be playing the John Labatt Centre at the end of January and the show was almost sold out already, so I splurged and bought two tickets. I don't know what sort of sixth sense Sophie was born with, but she walked into the room while I was on hold with the JLC box office, and since I wanted the tickets to be a Christmas present I told her that "mommy needed privacy for a few minutes" and asked her to leave the room until I was done on the phone. Her response? "I know what yoo-ooo-ouu-uuu-u're doing... it's Disney li-iii-iii-ive!" (you really must imagine her drawing out these syllables in sing-song fashion). I denied it of course, but was left both shocked and amused at her deduction skills - I checked to make sure I didn't have anything up on the computer screen that would have given it away and I didn't... I have no idea how she came to her (completely correct) conclusion. So between that and thinking about her Aunt and Cousin's trip, for the past two days the "Mouse" has certainly been in the house. It culminated today with Sophie's desire to dress up her Mr. Potato Heads in vacation attire and have us play out their vacation to Disney World in Florida, complete with getting spit on by the camel during their ride on Aladdin's Magic Carpet. I wonder if this will last all the way through Christmas when I finally confirm that she's going to the show?

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Photo of the Day August 13th

So you already know I'm an avid reader, but my thirst for the printed word goes well beyond books... I'm also a bit of a magazine junkie. I'm especially fond of what publishers call "lifestyle" magazines: those heavy, glossy tomes full of beautifully-shot beach houses, cocktail recipes, amazingly landscaped gardens, hostessing tips and "food porn". Anything set in Maine automatically attracts my attention, as does the sight of gingham ribbon, seafood recipes listed on the front cover, or the mention of farmer's markets in an article's title. Needless to say I read Martha Stewart Living, and in the past year or so have been enjoying Country Living magazine as well... all you need to do is add Food & Drink magazine (from the LCBO) and you have my holy trinity of front porch reading fare. That makes today a great day: I picked up August's Martha Stewart Living last night at the grocery store and received the September Country Living in the mail today, along with the City of London "Spectrum" magazine. Spectrum is the complete program listing for classes being offered through our Parks & Recreation department, and when it comes out twice a year I pour over it choosing classes for Sophie to attend. There are always far more classes that appeal to me than we have the time or money for, but Sophie's enjoyed everything from ballet to craft classes in the past so I'm excited to see what's available in this issue. The only thing left: to plug in the kettle and make a cup of tea, then find a few quiet minutes so I can enjoy all this reading!

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Photo of the Day August 12th

For my birthday last month, Chris gave me two beautiful pieces of art from a local potter named Beth Turnbull Morrish. I first saw her work at the Gathering on the Green and was impressed not only by the quality of her "functional art" but by her unique designs and truly one-of-a-kind aesthetic. If you appreciate hand-crafted pottery you absolutely must click the link and visit her website; if you only have a moment to browse, her teapots are magical and not to be missed. This medium sized bowl is just begging to be filled with something delicious to be shared with friends and loved ones over dinner or drinks. I'm taking suggestions, so please feel free to post them as comments and perhaps we'll have the opportunity to share a glass of wine and some delicious little nibble together soon!

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Photo of the Day August 11th

Our friend Rhys came over today, and Sophie's been having a blast showing him all of the toys she got for her birthday. We're going to have quite the mess to clean up, since in less than an hour they've pulled out and played with her MegaBloks Cinderella Castle, her Doctor's kit, the Playmobil Horse Dressage set that was our photo-of-the-day on August 7th, and now the Polly Pocket Splash Pad. Busy kids! I think before lunch we'll have to sing the "clean up" song about twenty times to get everything put away...

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Photo of the Day August 10th

With Mary and the kids off in what I'm sure is the intense heat of Florida, we've enjoyed a house guest for the week: Courtney's fish "Bloo". It's been a neat experiment, as we've put Sophie in charge of Bloo's general health and safety. His (her?) bowl sits on the bookcase in Sophie's room and she crawls up on her stool every morning and evening to feed the fish, and checks on it's well-being periodically throughout the day. While Courtney assured me we didn't need to worry about cleaning Bloo's bowl, Sophie wants only the best for our little fishy friend so we've cleaned it twice already. I suspect part of the draw for Sophie is watching Bloo try his hardest to get away while I chase him around the bowl with the little fish net - she thinks that's pretty hysterical. I wonder how long it will be before Sophie's asking for a fish of her very own?

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Photo of the Day August 9th

Happy Birthday Mary!

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Some of the members of "How Novel" at our get-together this evening

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I was thinking about my sister-in-law Mary today, off celebrating her birthday at Disney World in Florida - what a great way to spend your special day! It turned out to be an evening of birthday celebrations for me as well, as my book club "How Novel" was meeting and three of us have birthdays in July. We shared the responsibility of blowing out candles on a lovely chocolate birthday cake before discussing the book Gods Behaving Badly by first-time author Marie Phillips - as a group we were impressed by the humour of the writing and originality of the plot. The only distraction from our great conversation came from the fierce thunderstorm that rocked London this evening... the lightning was so constant that you could see almost as well as if the sun were still out. Fascinating: almost as if Zeus himself was indeed "Behaving Badly" by throwing so as many bolts at us as he could while we talked about him and his Godly family!

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Photo of the Day August 8th

Saturday is one of my favourite days of the week: it may not really be a "weekend" for me (as I commented to my cousin recently, stay-at-home-moms don't really get weekends), but it is the day we head to our local farmers market. It's a trip I look forward to every week - I like getting to know the people who grow the fruits & veggies we buy, like the wonderful folks from Leamington who grow the mini heirloom tomatoes we often come home with. I think it's so important to give Sophie an understanding of the whole cycle of food consumption from raw ingredients to prepared dinner - it's one of the reasons we so often give her kitchen "jobs" to do when we cook. I think that it can be very easy to fall into an eating-by-convenience lifestyle disconnecting kids from pure, raw ingredients: when asked where corn comes from I just really don't want Sophie to answer "in a prepackaged container from the freezer section of the grocery store". I did face some challenges this week that I normally don't, since Chris is in the midst of a 10-day stretch of overnight shifts. Without his assistance I had to rely on the butcher not to steer me (the long-time vegetarian) wrong, and I discovered just how heavy all this fresh meat & produce can get by the end of the trip!

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Photo of the Day August 7th

Well this afternoon was extra-super-duper fun for Sophie... after a busy morning running errands I took her to The Toy Shoppe of London and let her loose with her birthday money. It's such a great store, with what feels like a hundred nooks and crannies full of interesting toys, fantastic staff, and lots of samples for the kids to get hands-on experience before you purchase something. We can spend hours in there - in fact, we did spend more than an hour there this afternoon before Sophie settled on her toys of choice. We came home with a set of 40 plastic glow-in-the-dark stars with repositionable adhesive to decorate her ceiling, the Wild Republic Bingo game (with a battery operated "caller" that makes animal sounds - you have to find the corresponding animal on your bingo card) and the fancy folks you see above. Complete with a circus ring you can rotate using a small hand crank, the Playmobil Horse Dressage set has been well used already - she especially likes to line up the horses one behind the other and send them "on parade".

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Photo of the Day August 6th

We're back from our mini-vacation and settling into old routines... unfortunately Chris worked his first of ten night shifts in a row last night, so I anticipate that our "routine" will involve a lot of me sleeping alone at night and trying to keep our house fairly quiet during the day. On the up side, our front porch garden seems to have done well while we were away... Sophie's morning glory was practically out of control when we got home, and I needed to thread it onto three more bamboo stakes just to stop it from taking over our Muskoka chairs. And how exciting: our very first red tomato, and two peppers that have finally graduated from green to crimson! I was disappointed to see that the spot in our yard that Union Gas tore up last week and then filled in isn't doing well - it seems to be sinking, and is deeply cracked in places. I've put the sprinkler on it to see what that might do to help, but I have the feeling there might have been an air pocket underground they didn't catch when filling the hole in last week. The challenges our lawn has gone through this summer, eh?

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Photo of the Day August 5th

Time to head home again... and we're making the most of our drive by making stops along the way so we enjoy the trip rather than just hurrying to our destination. Instead of heading south out of Beaverton we decided to head north into Orillia so we could go to the OPP's General Headquarters and tour the museum, hit the "Off Duty Shopp" and grab some lunch at "The Stakeout", GHQ's in-house restaurant/cafeteria. The museum has been updated for the OPP's recent 100th anniversary so there were lots of new exhibits to see since our last visit, and Sophie loved colouring in all sorts of police-inspired pictures (the OPP helicopter! Police Dogs!) while we wandered around. That stop combined with popping into markets for veggies and picking up wild blueberries made the trip home a nice one, helping the 4+ hours go by much faster.

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Photo of the Day August 4th

Day three in Beaverton, and a tradition continues...

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Whenever my family gets together our shared love of card and board games often appears - it's long been a tradition that "the girls" spend at least a couple of hours playing games one evening while the boys head to Unca Wayne's basement bar for a beer (or two), some interesting conversation, and whatever game happens to be on television. While we're well-versed in several games (and willing to try pretty much anything that comes our way) one of our group favourites is Scattergories... this evening we spent a while at the table trying to outdo each other with our crazy alphabet inspired answers (I came in second behind my cousin Sandy, as usual). After Scattergories part of our group had to leave, but Sandy and I stuck around to beat our moms in Euchre... which meant that this evening was my version of a pretty-much perfect games night. Go girls!

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Photo of the Day August 3rd

What a great day... we spent the whole day with my mom enjoying some of the special sights and sounds of Orillia, a town just a bit north of where my family lives. We started our outing shortly after lunch with a trip to Gambridge, which gave Sophie the opportunity to see the locks in action as boats travelled down the Trent-Severn waterway. We were lucky enough to be watching from right where one of the boats was tethered in the lock, and in true "Sophie fashion" my little red-head started engaging the boaters in conversation from the minute she could see them. After a great conversation about life aboard a cabin cruiser, we were off for our own boat ride with a 2 1/2 hour cruise of Lake Couchiching aboard the Island Princess. Beautiful scenery, lots of interesting stories from the captain, and great company. After disembarking we enjoyed a lovely dinner aboard the Ossawippi Express (a restaurant housed aboard a now-retired train) then finished the day with ice cream and a walking tour of the marina. A true "vacation day"... lots of sightseeing, relaxing and special events - what a treat!

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Photo of the Day August 2nd

We took off to Beaverton today for a long-overdue visit with my mom, grandpa, aunt, uncle and cousins. I swear, my family is like medicine to me: whatever ails me always feels better after a dose of them! Since August has only just begun it seemed like the perfect time for a family birthday celebration - many of us share that month for our birthdays, and my cousin Sandy and I even share the same date. The "girls" (our next-to-youngest generation, seeing as how the youngest generation are still too little to be allowed free rein in the kitchen) decided to put on a pot-luck dinner complete with a special dessert created by my cousin Sandy. As you can see by her super-cute calendar cake, July is a busy month for us!

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Photo of the Day August 1st

Oh, I can't believe it's August already. When we were at Tecumseh yesterday playing with the kids I had the sudden realization that in less than five weeks Sophie will start JK there... it's shocking how quickly the summer has gone! Most of today was taken up with preparations for our upcoming (and long overdue) trip to Beaverton... we went to the market for the supplies needed to make pulled pork on a bun for a family dinner on Sunday night and then hit the drug store, grocery store, and pet store before running two final (fun) errands. The first was to Max and Oskars, the place where Sophie gets her hair cut, where she enjoyed a Dora the Explorer DVD as she got her bangs trimmed. We topped the visit off by getting some colour streaks in her hair (one orange, one pink) as a special treat - she's very excited to show them to Grandma. Then just before heading home we stopped at the London Ice Cream Company for a 2L tub of one of their home-made ice creams, which will be making the long trek to Beaverton as well. We've become the first "ice cream couriers" that I've heard of - this is the second time we've hand-delivered London Ice Cream Company tubs out of town (last time to satisfy the craving of a very pregnant friend in Bowmanville Ontario). Well travelled ice cream is our specialty it seems!

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Photo of the Day July 31st

Happy Birthday Aunt Kathy!

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With the yard still dug up, the sun shining and energy to burn we decided to take Sophie and our friend Rowan down to Tecumseh to play this morning. I think it's so much more fun for Sophie to go to the Tecumseh playground now that she knows she'll be attending school there in the fall... she has a real sense of "ownership" about the whole thing. After a good round of monkey-bar climbing and sliding we decided to check out the hopscotch area beside the school for the first time... after a few "lessons" on how to jump hopscotch I had two very willing participants leaping around the tarmac.

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One last update for the day... Union Gas filled in the hole (yay!) but is apparently not going to be putting sod down to cover the damage (boo!). They did at least put down nutrient-rich soil in the yard and mixed in what looked like five pounds of grass seed... so now we're back to turning on the sprinkler and hoping for the best with that darned lawn. Sigh!

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Photo of the Day July 30th

Another sunny day - two in a row, is that some sort of record? Unfortunately playing out in the yard is off the agenda for today, as the folks from Union Gas are here and digging up about half of our front yard. I know that summer time and construction go hand in hand, but it has been truly mind-boggling this year. Not only has our street been ripped up for sewer and water pipe replacement (for the third summer running, might I add) but most of our neighbours have embarked on some major home renovation or another this year. A new front porch being built next door, trees being cut down, a driveway ripped up and replaced two doors down, and a home across the street getting a complete backyard makeover complete with gazebo and some amazing landscaping. I'm all for improving the neighbourhood... but good gracious it's loud. The giant hole in the yard is especially ironic to me because just before the snow flew last fall the water pipes leading to our home were replaced - a project that involved tearing up the front and side yards almost to the foundation. This spring/early summer new sod was put down to cover the turned-up soil and after a few weeks of careful watering and overseeding the bald patches we finally had a lawn that was a pleasure to both look at and (for the kids) roll around on. And it's all gone... back to mountains of dirt and a hole with a man in a hard hat inside. I can't wait for autumn...

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Photo of the Day July 29th

Another busy day, especially for Sophie. In between a play date with her friend Maya and our evening "Messy Madness" class we spent time out in the yard enjoying the return of the summer sun. Bring on the Vitamin D (after a liberal dose of sunscreen, of course)! We've been told that Union Gas will be coming to dig a trench in our yard some time tomorrow, so we wanted to take advantage of enjoying the grass before it's over-run with guys in orange vests with loud machinery again...

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