Photo of the Day March 28th

My little helper and I had quite a busy day in the kitchen today... we woke up early, and in between bouts of crafting (we made a train out of a cereal bar box, a toilet paper tube and cupcake papers) and the odd computer game, we made a lovely Greek-inspired meal. We started with making a marinade for two chicken breasts that I had butterflied, which you see Sophie working on here - she's using a wooden lemon reamer to juice a small lemon over a strainer. The marinade was simple and fragrant - lemon, olive oil, fresh garlic, white pepper, and dried oregano, and she took the lead on making the whole thing. After the chicken breasts had marinated for a few hours I stuffed them with kalamata olives and feta cheese and pinned them together with wooden toothpicks so they could be roasted in the oven along with our planned potato dish. The potatoes came out soft and rich thanks to the vegetable broth, olive oil, garlic and fresh thyme we cooked them in, and we brightened the whole meal up with a simple salad of chopped grape tomatoes, diced buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil. Spreading the work throughout the day made it both easier and more fun for both of us, and it was especially nice to have dinner ready to put on the table by shortly after 5pm so we could enjoy a leisurely meal as a family before Chris had to leave at 6:25pm for work.

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Photo of the Day March 27th

Shedding a little light on Earth Hour from our front porch

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I got the gift of a slow start to the day this morning thanks to Sophie, who crawled into bed with Chris and I around 7am, then got herself up about a half hour later, fed her fish, played with her stuffed animals, drew a few pictures and turned on the computer so she could play games until she got bored and woke me up around 10:30am. It was lovely, although it did throw off my game plan for the day, which had involved showers for both Sophie and I, a nice breakfast, going to the Farmer's Market, working out at the gym, and grocery shopping before meeting my friend Cheryl for coffee at 3pm. It was a bit of a stretch even before I lost two and a half hours to sleep (which I'm not complaining about, mind you.) As it turned out I did manage to get to both the market and the grocery store, but I skidded into the driveway a couple minutes after 3pm to find Cheryl already waiting for me... time management on Saturdays is not one of my strong suits. One time I did manage to stick to was 8:30pm - 9:30pm, Earth Hour. As with previous years, and in conjunction with millions of people around the world, I powered down all my electrical appliances (except for the fridge and freezer, for obvious reasons) and turned off my lights for the hour. I had enough time after settling Sophie in to bed to go around the house and light candles, including some in the lanterns on my front porch, which acted as a defacto front porch light for the hour. It was quite pretty and while I would really rather have shared it with Chris, who's at work tonight, I poured a glass of wine, grabbed a book and read by candle light for much of the hour. I also went outside on the front porch a couple times to check out the neighbourhood and see how many other houses went dark for the hour - some of them did but I was surprised that there weren't more. I think of our neighbourhood as a real tree-hugging place, very eco-centric, so I was surprised to see the houses both to the left and right of mine had lights shining as always. Baby steps I suppose - and four houses directly across the street, one of which seems to have the TV on 24 hours a day, were candle-lit and peaceful. It's lovely really - I wouldn't object to having Earth Hour once a month instead of once a year.

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Photo of the Day March 26th

Sophie's first baby tooth to fall out

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Oh my goodness, as if I didn't have enough proof that my little girl is growing up - Sophie lost her first baby tooth today!!! She's had mixed emotions about the entire process... now that it's fallen out she's pretty proud of it, but leading up to loosing the tooth was an emotional roller coaster. She was scared at first, saying "I think there's something wrong with me" - we did our best to reassure her and talk about how it was a sign of getting bigger, growing up, that we were proud of her, etc. but she still seemed uncomfortable with it. When I wanted to check the tooth to see how wobbly it was half the time she wouldn't let me - she'd cover her mouth and run away. And getting her interested in showing off her wobbly tooth to other people was a complete miss - she took off the moment I suggested it. Then just a few nights ago she started crying at the supper table when I asked her about her tooth, saying "I don't want to get bigger... I want to stay just the way I am" - it broke my heart. We had a big long conversation about how no matter how she changes and grows she'll always be our little girl, and that we'll love her no matter what. Chris read her the Robert Munsch classic I'll Love You Forever as a bedtime story that night to help reinforce the point. Now that the tooth is out and the Tooth Fairy is reportedly on her way, Sophie's feeling much better about the whole thing. It's interesting to see how children handle situations like these differently - she didn't react the way I think most kids do, always in a rush to grow up and get bigger. I'm okay with however she needs to deal with the anxiety and stress of growing up, as long as she keeps coming to me with those fears... after all, "as long as I'm living my baby she'll be."

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Photo of the Day March 25th

I finished up a typically busy day doing something new, which I thought would be both good for me and partially relaxing. Har har har. After doing some work at the school, driving Chris to work, taking Sophie and one of her friends to the Children's Museum, racing home to make dinner and then picking Chris up from work, I took my first-ever Bikram Yoga class. Check that, I took my first ever yoga class period, which happened to be Bikram Yoga. For those that may not have heard of it, it's more commonly known as "hot yoga", it involves a series of 26 traditional yoga moves done in a special studio that's heated to 105 degrees and extremely humid - it's like doing a work out in a sauna. I knew I was in for it when I was required to sign a waiver to participate, and when the instructors opening remarks included what to do if you feel lightheaded, nauseous, or like you're going to pass out - all common side effects of doing this class. I stuck it out anyway, although there were times throughout when I needed to take breaks and just suck back some water to combat the lightheadedness and try to calm the sound of the blood banging in my ears. By the time I was done I was moving very cautiously, not only because I had stretched, twisted and pulled myself into a stupor, but because I wasn't sure if moving from the 105 degree heat and extreme humidity of the yoga room into the regularly air conditioned gym might give me a heart attack. No harm done - I both survived and remained conscious, although I looked like I'd just stumbled out of the desert after being lost for a few days (to paraphrase Chris upon seeing me - "Woah... *clears throat*... wow. So, um, how are you?")

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Lesson #1: I know the very basics of yoga (as in, I've seen both the warrior pose and downward dog) but putting them together with 20+ other moves I do not know in quick succession while being barraged by heat and humidity... not so much fun. Lesson #2: my body has sweat glands where I didn't even realize they existed. Did you know that sweat can bubble up from places like your wrists and the backs of your hand? Not trickling down to these places mind you, but actually rising up out of the skin. I've seen it - it's odd. Lesson #3: I need to be in better shape before I try this again. Perhaps take a beginners yoga class. Actually know what the sun salutation is before I'm trying to do it six times in quick succession in that kind of heat.

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At the end of the day I'm glad I did it - as I've often said, I'll try almost anything once... but Hot Yoga may end up being a one-shot-deal - stay tuned.

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Photo of the Day March 24th

As mentioned in an earlier post, we took a family trip to the Fanshawe sugar bush over March Break, which set Sophie up quite nicely for today's school field trip to a different sugar bush north of London. She was so excited to ride the big yellow school bus with her friends, and I was regretting that I couldn't go with the group as a parent chaperone - watching the bus pull away without me made me a bit sad! She returned home with a critique of the trip (she didn't like the Jaffa sugar bush as much as Fanshawe), a maple sucker, and a new colouring book that tells the story of how maple sap is gathered and turned into maple syrup. Here she is, doing some mapley colouring shortly before her pancake lunch, which was another issue she had with the trip. Apparently she got one very small, very unsatisfying pancake at the end of the tour, so between that and the fact that this sugar bush did not offer a horse-drawn wagon ride she was most unimpressed. Thank goodness mommy has maple syrup in the fridge and can whip up pancakes on a moments notice!

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Photo of the Day March 23rd

I was a warrior this morning - a viking - a samurai. I may be playing it up a bit - the truth is that after going to the gym yesterday for a rather unsatisfying water aerobics class I motivated myself through one heck of a workout this morning. There have been some major renovations at my gym lately, which have resulted in a lot of new weight machines being added, and I decided to push myself by doing each and every one of them today. I'm sick of being intimidated by machines that other people seem to know how to use while I hang back contemplating how much they look like devices found at a local S&M shop... so today: no fear. I climbed on and twisted myself around about 20 weight machines, working biceps, triceps, glutes, roots and shoots - even getting over my intimidation and hopping on the new assisted pull-up machine for two sets of reps. I was exhausted by the end, but felt really good having both made up for yesterday and overcome my intimidation. Following the gym theme, I took Sophie to The Little Gym this evening for her gymnastics class, where she did her own version of climbing and twisting... here's to a healthy and active day!

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Photo of the Day March 22nd

Mary Jane helps adjust my little Jedi's helmet during after-lunch play time

Bouncing around, running left and right today... in the midst of the chaos I enjoyed lunch at my School Council Co-Chairs home so we could prepare for tonight's Council meeting - it was a great opportunity for us to connect face to face while our children entertained each other. We got done what we needed to and enjoyed some uninterrupted conversation as well - it was a nice quiet pocket in the otherwise busy day. School Council meeting, coffee with my friend Valeeta, grocery shopping and more rounded out my day, and a good solid night of sleep followed. I think part of the reason the day felt so busy was that we had settled into the lovely lack of routine that March Break offered, and today was the first day back at school... I'm sure in a few days we'll be back to the old routines without any problem, but for now I'm just glad the day is done.

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Photo(s) of the Day March 21st

Hay ride, here we come!

Sophie contemplating nature

We finished off March Break in truly Canadian fashion today with a trip to the Sugar Bush. I have many memories of trouping through the sugar maples as a child, and excitedly making our way to the rustic pancake house for a treat after some educational fun. We chose the Fanshawe Sugar Bush as our destination because while there are several of them close to London we're most familiar with it and knew for sure they would have a horse-drawn buggy ride, which is a huge draw for Sophie. Since it was our only real event planned for the day we took our time and did much of the official tour twice... we enjoyed the buggy ride four times actually, twice before hitting the pancake house and twice after. It was a great little trip, delicious and educational... it was so nice to be outside walking through the woods as a family that we were inspired to continue our walk out at the Fanshawe Conservation Area. It's a beautiful day to be outdoors - we even fired up the barbecue and grilled burgers for dinner to really complete our outside-inspired day. Perfect.

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Photo of the Day March 20th

Georgie inspects our take from the Farmer's Market

It looks like our warm weather is behind us... we had such a lovely few days there, breaking temperature records and everything. I wore my flip flops outside when I took Sophie to the park - life was good. Today we're back in our winter coats and boots and we'll be lucky if it cracks 2 degrees in the sunshine... the cruel reality of springtime in Canada. As usual we went to the market this morning for fresh veggies, meats and our favourite tortillas - I'm disappointed that we're not seeing our preferred veggie farmers there lately though. We've been shopping for veggies from the Joyce family since we first began going to the Western Fair Farmer's Market, and they've not been there since shortly after Christmas. We knew they were going away on an extended family vacation somewhere warm (three generations, it was going to be lovely) but thought certainly they'd be back by now. Perhaps they loved the tropical weather so much they decided to leave tomato growing behind and start a new life as beach bums? I don't know, but we miss them... perhaps I could be persuaded to buy tropical fruit from them instead of tomatoes, if we could afford the flights!

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Photo of the Day March 19th

Sophie's suit hanging on the wardrobe is her cue that it's a swimming day

Today was a perfect March Break day for us... beautiful weather and a day full of fun events. I had promised Sophie I would take her swimming today, so after a nice pancake breakfast we headed to Goodlife to use the pool. We were treated to a surprise when we ran into one of the other moms from our neighbourhood, who's son is in Sophie's class - she was at the pool with her youngest son and we enjoyed a swim and a chat together. Sophie's doing ever better with her swimming - she's not to the point that she can swim on her own yet, but is relying less and less on flotation devices all the time - she can maneuver around the pool quite well with just a pool noodle for guidance. After swimming we whipped home for lunch and then Nanny and Aunt Laura came by to pick Sophie up for a drive to see a huge flock of swans that's landed just outside London... their road trip progressed somehow to a trip to the beach in Port Stanley and dinner at McDonalds, so Sophie got to enjoy just about all her favourite things in one day. She was also thrilled because by going out with Nanny and Aunt Laura Sophie missed grocery shopping day, which she wasn't looking forward to... going to the Farmer's Market on Saturdays is great fun, but spending an afternoon going from grocery store to grocery store isn't her idea of a good time (gee, wonder why?). So while she was off on her road trip I got us all stocked up on groceries without having to answer "Are we done yet? Can we just go home?" about four hundred times. Win win!

Photo of the Day March 18th

Rowan was with us today and we had several bouts of creativity throughout the afternoon. Sophie's big on drawing - loves to use her markers so much in fact that they're all pretty much worn out. Today I discovered that I have some vibrant and still-juicy flip chart markers tucked away in one of my craft boxes, probably from my previous job as a Corporate Trainer where flip chars were a large part of my daily life. A celebration by the kids ensued - they can colour with markers again instead of being relegated to those boring crayons and pencil crayons! Now that art time is done however, I'm reminded that flip chart markers are not washable... which means that my dining room table will wear the evidence of their colouring for a while, and Rowan may return home with much more festive looking hands than when he arrived today!

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Photo of the Day March 17th

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

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It was nice to share part of St. Patrick's Day with Sandy and Madison... I was tempted to try my hand at making green eggs and ham for them for breakfast but settled on green milk, bagels and kiwi for breakfast instead. It's a sure sign of where you are in life when the green beer of St. Patrick's Day is replaced by green milk in a plastic tumbler, isn't it? Sandy got an additional dose of green from the green garbage bags she took down to my basement and filled with things that needed to be thrown out - Sandy's an uber-organizer, and loves getting her hands on cluttered and/or messy spaces. I have one heck of a disorganized and messy space in my basement, and Sandy's been asking to get at it for years... during this visit she actually had a crack at it. It's one of those things that would take days of concentrated effort to really organize, but she (apparently) had a good time making a little dent in it, and has agreed to come back later in the spring or early in the summer to help us get organized for a yard sale. I've wanted to have a yard sale for years, but am overwhelmed by the amount of stuff we have tucked away in the basement... I can't figure out where to start. Thank God for Sandy, who seems to have a knack at cutting past the overwhelming nature of projects like this - I'm so grateful for her help, and I think she'd do well if she started a business helping others organize their lives... I see shows on TLC about people decluttering other's homes, helping horders sort out their lives, etc. and I'm sure that Sandy would kick butt doing that for people. Where do I go to pitch a television show idea about her skills?

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Photo of the Day March 16th

Sophie, Madison and Rhys wrap up their investigation of what's living near the compost bin (shiver)

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Sophie's in heaven today: she not only has her cousin Madison here but Rhys came over too - she woke up this morning practically glowing with excitement. She and Rhys got a special treat as the result of Madison being here, because when the kids were playing out in the yard she asked me if she could help them find bugs and worms. We got out rubber gloves for everyone and off around the garden they went, pulling up rocks and looking underneath, overturning logs, digging around by the compost bin and pulling out all manner of squiggly and squirmy things to "ooh!" and "ahh!" over. If you know anything about me at all, you'll know that this is an activity I will never do with the kids. You want to make a caterpillar out of an egg carton, I'm your girl - you want to create a spider out of pompoms and pipe cleaners I can help you out... but the real thing? Forget about it. I did manage to act excited when they brought "the biggest worm ever!!!" over so I could look at it... I even suggested they give it a cool name before sending it back to it's family. Of course, then I shivered and ran inside to wash my hands and say "blech!" without them noticing... but I played my part.

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Photo of the Day March 15th

Yes, I really did use that many bandaids...

Are you reading this world? Cause if so, here's what I need: I need someone to take our cat Georgie out of my house and give her a new home before I loose my mind. As I'm sure I've mentioned before, this cat and I do not get along... we rescued her from a farm when she was just a stone's throw from dying and bottle fed her back to health - you would think she'd be grateful. But she simply has it out for me - she's forever jumping out at me from behind things and sinking her claws into my leg, sitting on my chest while I'm sleeping and biting my face, etc. She loves Chris mind you - snuggles up to him any chance she can get... perhaps she thinks if she drives me out of the house she can have him all to herself. I've got to figure out a way to make her understand that there's only one Alpha female around this house and it isn't her... and I'd like to do it with as little bloodshed as possible. Clearly that won't happen today, as she's drawn some serious blood already: when the fire inspector arrived this morning I went to pick her up so she wouldn't scoot out the door and she went ballistic - claws shredding in every which direction. I've got three deep scratches on the backs of my arms and a lovely puncture wound in the palm of my hand - it made quite the impression when I answered the door holding blood-spotted paper towels on both my wrists I'm sure. "No sir, I'm no suicidal - homicidal perhaps, if that's what you call it when you want to kill a cat."

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Free to a good home: one very annoying cat who hates my guts. 1 year old and in possession of claws she knows how to use. Has the potential to be used as a weapon of mass destruction, but if you get on her good side you're laughing. Must be willing to keep cat alive, as the guilt of sending her away to "the big farmhouse in the sky" is too much for our family to handle. Serious inquiries only please - if you get my hopes up and then don't take her I'll have a nervous breakdown.

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Photo of the Day March 14th

We enjoyed dinner and a concert this evening, albeit an online concert instead of an in-person one. A friend of mine is a member of a fantastic Blue Rodeo tribute band called Blue Radio, and they performed a live show on Imagefm.ca tonight... so we set the table for dinner, browsed on over and pulled up the video feed, then ate our pasta while watching Greg and the band sing and play their hearts out. Great concert - the only downside was that I couldn't tell them in person how much we enjoyed it... applauding at the computer screen just didn't seem to work!

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After dinner we excitedly welcomed my cousin Sandy and her daughter Madison for a March Break visit... they can only stay a few days but we've been so looking forward to it - I anticipate many late-night conversations and card games for Sandy and I and lots of adventures for the kids. Certainly there are bound to be many more story times like the one shown above over the next couple of days... ah, March Break!

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Photo of the Day March 13th

I wonder if I could get him to sweep the dining room if I tossed him the broom and yelled "hurry hard!"?

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Chris went to St. Mary's to go curling this evening with a bunch of his coworkers, and had a blast. Two members of the group are experienced curlers and the rest are somewhere between novice-level and "what's that big puck thing?"... Chris has curled once before and enjoyed it, so he and his buddies had a great time figuring out how to make the rock go where they wanted while not falling over. There were reports of several curling injuries, including Chris's quite bruised knee from his gripper leg hitting the ice too hard while delivering the rock, but it won't stop him - he's already started looking up curling club memberships for next year.

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On another note, I had my first wine tasting for Luma events today! I was scheduled to run tastings for [yellowtail], offering samples of both their Chardonnay and Shiraz, and once I overcame a couple of minor challenges at setup everything went quite well. Apparently the LCBO had the 750ml size of the [yellowtail] Chardonnay on sale and as a result the location I was running the tasting at had sold out. I decided to put the 750ml of the Shiraz and the large size (1.5L) of the Chardonnay on the bar - and after sampling the wine customers purchased about 6 of each, so I suppose it worked out. I would be curious to know how the numbers would have changed if I had the 750ml available in the Chardonnay though. I'll be very interested to see how my next tasting goes since it's scheduled for later in the day - 11:30am is a bit early for most people to want to sample wine I think... I didn't get many positive responses until well after noon. Clientèle at the LCBO I was at seemed to be a roughly 65/35 mix of the 55+ crowd and college students, one of whom asked me if you "shoot" wine or not... it made for several interesting conversations!

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Photo of the Day March 12th

I spent quite a bit of time at Tecumseh today as there were several events going on that we wanted to include in our next newsletter. The last day of school before March Break is a good excuse to have some fun, so a movie day was scheduled as a fundraiser for the Me to We club, all the students were invited to dress as "tacky tourists" for March's spirit day, and a presentation was held in the library all about fossils. I've met the gentleman who ran the fossil presentation before, as he's done events at the local library that I've brought Sophie and some of my friend's children to. He has an amazing collection of very striking fossils (including the fish shown above) and is very knowledgeable about all things fossil related. It was a fascinating presentation, so it turns out I had an educational last-day of school before March Break too!

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Photo of the Day March 11th

After a busy day we spent the evening at Chris's sister Mary's place celebrating Ross's birthday. He's turning the big 9-0, although he certainly doesn't act it (a complement, I promise I'm not calling him immature!) We had a blast watching the kids play hide & seek around the house before singing the big song and watching Ross blow out his candles with a bit of help from Sophie - I caught them above having a serious conversation about blowing strategy shortly before the big moment.

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Photo of the Day March 10th

Chris and I purchased a "commemorative DVD" on the MSC cruise we took when I was pregnant with Sophie - it was this very silly collection of video shot of passengers around the ship combined with stock footage of the islands we visited. Although we've watched it several times since the trip we often laugh at the cheesy graphics and strange collection of ship-board events they included... although most of the on board events were kind of odd so I guess that couldn't be avoided. Instead of shelling out the $29.95 that RCI wanted for this trip's DVD, Chris decided to make a personalized version with a bunch of our cruise photos set to music... it's quite cute, and nice to see a "cruise in review" DVD that's full of things we actually saw and did. I'm looking forward to when Chris gets the chance to put together something similar for all the videos we took when we were away too!

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Photo of the Day March 9th

Chris made my day by fixing our scanner this afternoon... I've been struggling without access to one, especially having just started my Wine Tasting position with Luma events. I have to scan and send forms as part of the job and have been slipping over to my friend Julie's place to use her scanner, which while greatly appreciated is also a bit of a pain. Also waiting to be scanned is a small pile of photos we had taken professionally while on vacation - two of them we purchased for Chris's mom but have been holding onto so we could scan them. So now we can finally give Chris's mom her photos and I can get ready for my first Tasting on Saturday with less stress: thank you honey!

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Given the choice I would have posted a different "photo of the day" today, but I forgot to bring my camera this evening... it was bring a friend night at The Little Gym, and Sophie asked her best friend Rhys to join her. It was so much fun watching Sophie introduce him and show him off to her teachers and the other kids in her class - they walked hand-in-hand into the gym and Sophie kept her hand on Rhys's back almost possessively for the first few minutes of class.

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Photo of the Day March 8th

Rowan was with us today and when we walked down to the school to pick up Sophie he did something a bit out of character: he decided to go into the school yard to hang out with Sophie and her friends. Normally he stays with me, holding my hand and not moving from my side the whole time we're there, but perhaps with the number of times we've picked Sophie up he's starting to feel more comfortable and therefor adventurous. I know, the picture above may not look like that big an adventure, but it's all relative - I think his little bout of independence was pretty impressive.

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Photo of the Day March 7th

This pretty little dish is one of the souvenirs that I brought back from our recent vacation... when we were in Curacao we saw an amazing selection of Delft Blue China in the shops that line the little streets. Curacao is an island strong in Dutch culture and as it's part of the Netherland Antilles the import and export laws allow Dutch produced goods to be sold at incredibly reasonable prices. We brought home both this little candy dish and a wheel of Dutch cheese, which we've got tucked away for a special treat some time soon... perhaps we'll cube it up and serve it in the candy dish for a real taste of Holland.

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Photo of the Day March 6th

Boy oh boy, do I feel humble. I'm working this weekend on the Firebird newsletter, which is the monthly publication we put together for Tecumseh Public School... myself and my co-editor Julie write articles, take photos, edit other people's work and create the newsletter's layout each month in an effort to celebrate the school and communicate with Tecumseh's families. One of the articles we do each month is called "Spotlight on Volunteers", where we highlight one of the folks who give their time around the school running events, helping teachers, and doing a lot of other "background stuff" that doesn't always get noticed. Julie offered to handle this month's volunteer page, and much to my surprise she's just sent me the article shown above. Turns out that three of the other volunteers I work with got together and nominated me for the "volunteer of the month" without my knowing, and wrote some truly lovely things about me for inclusion in the newsletter. I was blown away - I had no idea that they were planning this and I was just so touched... I've always believed in the importance of thanking those who give their time to the school, but didn't expect to see myself recognized here too!

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Note: if you'd like to take a peek at the Firebird newsletter, we've posted several months worth on the Tecumseh website here - check it out!

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Photo of the Day March 5th

Yippee for another sign of spring! I’ve got a busy day ahead including time with our friend Rowan, a School Council meeting, a visit with a friend, and a euchre night & potluck with about 20 other women from our neighbourhood. Needless to say I tried to get some of my running around done yesterday, including a stop to the LCBO to pick up a bottle of wine for a get-together tonight. I’m always pleased when I see the new copy of Food & Drink arrive at the liquor store, but the beautiful cupcake on the cover of this issue made me feel especially happy... cupcakes just make me smile, and the lavender accents bring spring instantly to mind, as do the little sugared flowers balanced on the icing. So along with my bottle of wine I got several excellent new recipes to try out and a great desire to bake some cupcakes for all of us to enjoy. Now I just need to get my hands on some edible flowers...

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Photo of the Day March 4th

As you can see, a new condiment made an appearance on our dinner table tonight. This morning we picked up hot dogs from The Butcher's Blend at the Farmer's Market (as of today they're open on Thursdays, which is fantastic!) and decided to break in one of our vacation souvenirs: Banana Ketchup. We picked it up at a spice shop in Old San Juan that Chris had heard about, and it's really quite nice... you have to remove the expectation that it tastes anything like the tomato ketchup we're used to, and then loose yourself in the slightly sweet flavour and subtle spice of it. Just lovely, and a great way to kick a simple hot dog up a notch (apologies to Emeril Lagasse for borrowing his catch phrase)!

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Photo of the Day March 3rd

Happy Birthday Grandma Jones!

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We're slowly working our way through the unpacking process, with Chris taking the lead (God bless him) on the mountain of laundry that just keeps spilling out of our suitcases. If you can overlook the laundry aspect of unpacking it's actually kind of fun - we keep finding little treasures tucked in amongst the clothing... crafts that Sophie did in the Adventure Ocean program, a Dutch candy dish from Curacao, spices from several of our island stops, a wooden honey pot from Dominica, a silly light-up glass from the "drink of the day" I ordered one evening, the matching Mommy-Daughter bracelets we bought as a special reminder of Sophie's first cruise, and a couple bottles of rum. Actually, sampling a bit of that rum also takes the edge off the unpacking process... now all we need is to play some Caribbean music and we can complete the vacation flashback!

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Photo(s) of the Day March 2nd

Goodbye blue skies and rolling waves...

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Hello shovel, waiting in the darkened snowbank by our front door

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Home sweet... who am I kidding? Whahhhh! Where's my balcony? Where are Rolvino and Sidney to make my meals and clean up after me? And where, oh where, is the warmth I was so enjoying? At least we had blue skies today, so despite the very large snow banks unshoveled driveway and sidewalk we came home to I could look up and remember that the skies just a couple of days ago looked much like these ones. And really, I can feel a touch of spring in the air... if you listen closely you can hear the sound of running water as icicles melt, and the sound of birds chirping in far-off trees. It's a start...

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Photo of the Day March 1st

One last look at the blue skies and palm trees before we're back to looking at snow and... well, more snow

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Chris, Courtney and Sophie enjoy a final swim in the pool before getting ready to depart San Juan

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Sophie enjoying every last minute of sun she can get...

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We wore our bathing suites under our clothes when we went down for breakfast this morning so we could get right out to the pool with as little time wasted as possible this morning... the reality that we'll be home surrounded by snow is inspiring us to get every last second of sun and warmth that we can. After much swimming and lounging by the pool we checked on our flight and discovered that it had been delayed by two hours... it was expected to leave before three and was now set to depart at almost 5pm. We were lucky that the hotel agreed to let us stay for an extra couple of hours so we had time to grab some lunch without having to bring all our suitcases, and we headed for the airport around 2:15pm. Turns out we needn't have rushed, as our plane was further delayed until 6:30pm. That gave us plenty of time to fight with Delta Airlines about baggage fees (I came out victorious and didn't pay for our checked luggage), wait in a very long lineup to get through security, and then spend a few hours thinking of ways to keep Sophie entertained before trapping her on an airplane for 4+ hours. Thank goodness I had downloaded a few new movies and TV shows onto my netbook, because we were able to set her up with it and some earphones and she spent over an hour happily catching up with Blues Clues and the adventures of Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure - good foresight Mommy! The flight, when we finally got on it, was uneventful but I certainly won't be going out of my way to fly with Delta again... aside from my baggage issues, the plane we were on was very, very cramped and they didn't offer movies or earphones or anything to keep the masses entertained, so after such a long delay at the airport combined with the four hour flight passengers were getting pretty crusty. We arrived in Detroit, changed into our cold-weather clothing, grabbed our bags and headed for Canada, finally arriving home just after 2:30am. Long day of travelling = very sleepy vacationers.

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Photo(s) of the Day February 28th

One of our new little friends - Sophie was charmed when she said "Ola!" to him and he said it right back...

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The colour and beauty of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

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One happy family, hanging out in the pool in Isla Verde... and yes, that really IS Chris in the pool!

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Well, if a vacation has to end this is the way to end it. Our disembarkation tags had us leaving the ship around 10:30am so we had plenty of time for breakfast and one last leisurely chat on the balcony before grabbing our carry-off bags and heading for our departure point, the Lyric lounge. We didn't even get inside before our group was told they could leave the ship, and the actual disembarkation process was smooth and uneventful. We grabbed a taxi and headed for Old San Juan, where there's a small restaurant & shopping area called Barrachina Village which offers a baggage-check service for tourists wishing to unload their luggage if they have time to kill before catching their flights home. Bags checked, we wandered around Old San Juan for a while peeking into little shops and enjoying the sights and sounds - which for some reason involved a lot of Boy Scouts, as they seemed to be having some sort of rally in Old San Juan today. We saw literally thousands of Scouts in their troupes as we walked just a five or six block area... it was a bit surreal. We also saw some beautiful art work, the smallest Chihuahua puppy I've ever seen, two talking parrots, a wonderful spice shop and a central square full of pigeons just right for sneaking up on (at least, if you're Sophie.) We eventually caught another cab to the Embassy Suites in Isla Verde, where although we were a couple hours early for check-in they allowed us to store our bags and use the amenities until our rooms were ready. We had our bathing suits on and were pool-side in a matter of minutes. The hotel was nice but the pool was especially lovely, and after a couple hours of swimming we checked into our room, enjoyed a few cocktails at the "Manager's Reception", grabbed a bite to eat, and settled in to watch the Olympic Men's Gold Medal Hockey Game. We had more than a few moments of homesickness when the US team scored the goal that tied the game with only seconds left in the third period and the entire crowd around us went wild - Chris involuntarily yelped "Awe F*ck!" and got a whole lot of frosty looks from the largely American crowd. That's alright - we Canadian's got the last laugh when our guys took the Gold in overtime, and we hooted and hollered then (the American guests were strangely quiet then - go figure.)

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Photo(s) of the Day February 27th

Some of the amazing yachts docked in St. Thomas - note that the one half cut-off on the right side of the frame has a helicopter on top!

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The absolutely beautiful Megan's Bay... we enjoyed a couple of hours but could easily have stayed all day

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Sophie and Daddy hard at work on a sandcastle

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Sophie saying goodbye to Rolvino, our waiter each night in the formal dining room

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I cannot believe that we’re on the last day of our cruise already. This week has been so lovely that it’s just flown by, and I hate knowing that it’s almost over... especially when we lost half our day to the fact that Sophie was feeling under-the-weather this morning. She was complaining of a “bubbling feeling” in her throat and ended up throwing up a few times before settling into bed for some rest – although she still had the strength to fight me tooth and nail when I tried to get some anti-nausea medication into her. So, we missed out on our plan to take the Sky Ride up the mountain here in St. Thomas... but luckily she bounced back after a quiet morning and was able to enjoy an afternoon at Megan’s Bay beach. The beach is simply spectacular, with green mountains sheltering the sandy shore on three sides and the ocean stretching out in front. The ride to get to Megan’s Bay is something else too... with driving on the left hand side and some amazingly steep and twisty inclines it’s certainly not a road I would like to be responsible for driving on. Sophie was back to looking ill part way through the drive, and I think many of the other passengers on the bus had that slightly-green look too, just from the wildness of the ride. It’s a good thing the beach was worth the journey! We swam and made sand castles, and Chris even got in on the action and went into the ocean, which for someone who isn’t a water-lover is a pretty big step. It was a great afternoon, and such a relief after Sophie’s rough morning. I was glad that she held her own through the evening as well – I was worried that she wouldn’t be well enough to come to our last dinner in the formal dining room to see Rolvino and Andy one last time, or have the chance to say goodbye to the staff at Adventure Ocean who made such a positive impression on her... she so wanted the opportunity to give big hugs (and our little home-made thank you card) to “Goofy Goober Gabby”, “Nemo” and “Raspberry Roberta”. And we can’t forget the high-fives and big hugs owed to Cabin Steward Sidney – there really was such a big team of folks that worked so hard to make our vacation a special one. So with thank you cards in hand we made our rounds, then packed our bags and drifted off for our last night of being rocked to sleep by the waves... sigh.

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Photo(s) of the Day February 26th

Sophie is right at home on the sea, it seems

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One very happy Whale Watching family!

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Victory!

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Today started in tears for me, as we almost lost our opportunity to do the one thing that I was most looking forward to during this vacation. Our whale watching excursion in Dominica was set to be one of the absolute highlights of the trip for me, and it was certainly the event that I had spent the most time researching to make “just right”. Based on comments from other Cruise Critic members and reviews in Trip Advisor we chose to book a private Whale Watching charter with Island Style Fishing and Whale Watching, and disembarked the ship in the morning to meet Captain Jerry at the Fort Young Hotel. When we met him he looked pretty unhappy, and we soon found out it was because a gasket had blown in his boats engine and he wasn’t able to take us on our excursion after all. I was devastated, having so looked forward to our private tour of the area where sperm whales give birth and raise their young... thanks to Chris’s quick thinking we headed back to our ship and straight to the excursion desk, where with 10 minutes to spare we managed to slip onto the cruise line’s official Whale Watching tour. It may not have been exactly what I had envisioned, but what I had most hoped for came to pass anyway... throughout our three hour trip we saw three groups of sperm whales, including at least one with a baby. The whole thing was incredibly beautiful – the whales were silent and graceful despite their enormous size, and we were lucky that our guides knew enough about the whale’s movements that they were able to let us know exactly when they were going to surface and dive. One pod we saw was lunching on a giant squid, which while slightly macabre also made for some interesting viewing – all in all it was a success, despite the day’s rocky beginning.

Other Vacation notes for today:

Sophie has become quite the little celebrity in some circles on the ship... the other day when we were walking through the Grand Promenade the Cruise Director Mercedes spotted Sophie from across the hall and called "Hello my little star!", prompting Sophie to run over and give her a big hug. Now, Sophie had told us that she "made a video" in Adventure Ocean the other day, where she answered some questions about herself - we assumed that it was one of the activities they were doing to prepare for the kid's talent show. Turns out she was actually chosen to be interviewed by the cruise director, and her interview was shown on the on board television channel for all to see - what a hoot! Our favourite moment was when the Cruise Director asked her if she had or wanted a boyfriend, to which Sophie answered "no" and then volunteered that her cat Georgie at home really wanted a boyfriend though (she was in heat shortly before we left for vacation.) We video taped the interview when we saw it on the television in our room, and I'm pretty sure our hoots of laughter drowned out the next question that Mercedes asked her!

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Photo(s) of the Day February 25th

The kids take to the Adventure's ice skating rink

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Taking a tour of the ship is a great way to spend an at-sea day - what's out this window?

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Chris basks in the excitement of seeing Charo in concert - LOL!

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We spent the day at sea today – no island stops and plenty of time to explore the ship and all of the amenities it has to offer. When you’re presented with so very much to do, it’s almost hard to decide what to choose... but considering that (as mentioned in a previous post) the Adventure of the Seas is one of the very few ships with an on-board ice rink, we just had to take Sophie ice skating. What a surreal experience – to go from outside on deck where the sky is blue and the sun is shining to the indoor ice rink just a moment later. Sophie skated several laps with Courtney and Brandon and then impressed all of us by deciding that she wanted to skate on her own for a bit instead of holding one of her cousin’s hands – the first time she’s been brave enough to do so. Another “first” for our cruise!

Other vacation notes for today:

Last night when we returned to our cabin we found an invitation on our bed to a special luncheon hosted by the Captain and the Executive Chef, but no explanation of why we had been invited... naturally we were curious and decided to attend. It turns out that the Captain of the ship is Canadian, and that he hosts a lunch especially for the Canadian passengers during each sailing... it was quite a surprise when we sat down at our shared lunch table and discovered that our table mates were from London and Waterloo respectively!

The Charo mystery has been solved... in today’s Cruise Compass (the daily newsletter of the ship) it was announced that the cruise director was presenting a special one-night-only appearance by Charo at the Lyric Theatre tonight. It was quite the topic of conversation between Chris, Mary, Courteny and Brandon today... and presented a significant generation-gap, as both of the kids looked at us blankly while the adults tried to explain who Charo was. I think we lost them when we said that she was a sex symbol, and was about the age of their Grandmother... the whole thing became one big joke from that point on (hence the photo shown above). It didn’t stop Chris and I from attending the show that evening and cheering our hearts out though... in fact, in the afternoon we “accidentally” broke into her rehearsal after lunch and watched her “Coochie Coochie” her way through half a song before the Stage Manager kicked us out, and we ended the evening buy buying a signed CD of Charo’s flamenco guitar music as a souvenir. This is really the exact sort of thing that Chris and I thrive on... good, campy fun all around!