Weekend in Gananoque

It only took us 2 and a half years! Now we wonder why we didn't do this sooner. ;)

Last weekend, we met up with the Szollosy family in Gananoque -midway between Toronto and Montreal. We had a blast. We purposely picked a hotel with an indoor pool. We walked along 'main street', found a playground, had supper in Kingston (20 minutes west) and of course swam in the pool!

We all has a blast and are already planning our next trip!

1500ième KM!

Cet été, Eric prenait son vélo pour se rendre au travail. C’est 52 km aller/retour et le trajet l’amenait dans les sentiers des parcs le long du Don Valley. Pendant ces voyages, il a vu un renard, des chevreuils, des lièvres et plusieurs beaux levés de soleil. Vendredi (hier) Eric a complété son 1500^ième km en vélo cet été! Félicitations mon amour! On t'aime beaucoup!!

Thanksgiving at the Market

Since it was just the 4 of us for Thanksgiving this year, we decided not to do a turkey. It would have been a lot of work with lots of leftovers. We decided to do something different. Eric created the weekend menu and our holiday weekend started off with a trip to the market.

We love going to St. Lawrence Market. We went last year only to discover it is closed on Sundays! Luckily the Buskerfest was on that weekend so it wasn’t a wasted trip. (Funny, the girls still talk about the Fireguy!) Late this summer, we started going back every couple of weekends. It’s always fun to go early Saturday morning to buy our breakfast pastries and coffee. There are always tons of people and every week, there is something new to see!

This weekend, some musicians were playing at the tables were we usually eat our breakfast, just next to the bakery and Italian coffee shop! Since there was no place to sit and eat, we walked a little further and found a small table tucked into a corner just outside the Ukrainian deli!

Ukranian fruit juice! Yum!!

We bought some coffee, vegetables for supper and went upstairs to the meat market and cheese store. There were a lot of people there (but we were also there a little later than usual). We bought bagels at St. Urbain Bagels. But the only thing they have in common is the wood stove. They don’t taste like Montreal bagels (not even close). The only thing going for them is that any baked item tastes good warm and fresh out of an oven. But they are definitely not Montreal bagels!

Raspberry danish

Usually we would take a walk across the street, the north building, were they have more farmers and produce vendors. We didn’t go this week since we found everything we were looking for in the south building.

Eric’s dinner menu for this weekend:

Pork tenderloin with port/hazelnut/blue cheese sauce, sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts. Homemade crème brulée for dessert.

The view from the DVP!

Chicken Paprika with fresh pasta, fresh yellow beans and homemade chocolate pudding for dessert.

Homework

Well, it has begun. Alia has her first project. And on a long weekend too! Actually, it's not all bad since she does have next week as well and it doesn't seem to involve too much writing. We will have to go over the concept of "you can't print a page off of the Internet and hand it in!"

She's not the only one with homework this weekend. I'm doing my FSL AQ course right now and have some assignments to catch up on. Online courses are not a piece of cake as some might think. Everyone I've talked to has said that 'online' was more demanding than 'face-to-face' courses. On top of it, the quality of written French by my classmates is sad. It sometimes seems like I spend more time trying to read what they've written because the mistakes are so bas the meaning of the sentence changes!

Au travail!

La Natation

Voici quelques photos d'Alia et Kyra à la piscine!

Les filles nagent deux fois par semaine avec l'équipe de natation Mallards. Elles aiment beaucoup nager! Les pommes ne tombent pas loin des arbres!! ;)

Swimming is in the Genes!

Alia and Kyra went to their first swimming session on Monday. After talking with some friends and family reflection, Eric and I decided to register the girls with Mallard Swim Team. Both girls surprised us with their successful tryout session (we had never seen them swim like that before since they usually 'bob' or play in a pool). We calculated it would be cheaper that registering for swimming lessons and, frankly, we were not too impressed with the local swimming lessons the girls took last year. Can't learn to swim in a bathtub folks! Poor Alia would take two strokes and then reach the wall. No wonder she could never swim farther than two or three arm pulls!

Since I was busy with taiko practice (big concert on Sunday), Eric took the girls to the pool. He came home and recounted how impressed and proud he was of both girls. They swam for an hour, did several lengths of the pool and even started to learn how to dive. The girls loved it. They got to use their fins for part of the session. (Yes, we were asked to provide pull-buoys and fins for training purposes!)  Alia and Kyra also got to see their friends from school (who's parents introduced us to Mallards). They swim with a different group but were in the lane next to their group.

I can't wait until Friday when I get the chance to go and watch the girls swim.

The Kids are Growing! More Tacos Please!

When we meet up with family and friends whom we haven't seen in a while, the first comment is always "My, how the kids have grown!" I am guilty of this cliché and proud of it. But when we live with our children and see them on a daily basis, we don't notice these changes. What we do notice are the milestones. Like...

"Why didn't you tell me that the shoes were too tight?!! I would have replaced them 3 months ago!"(usually heard after seeing the 'indoor school shoes' at the end of a school year.)

Four toddlers plowing through a complete family lasagna on their own!! Remember this one Aunty Rhi/Uncle David? What are the adults going to eat for supper?

Pants too short or too tight, long sleeve shirts that are now 'fashionable 3/4 length' tops and the list goes on!

Tonight, our family can check off another milestone. We finished off a 'hard/soft taco kit' (the El Paso kind) in one meal!!!! Both girls ate the same as Eric and I, which means we each had three each! So much for having leftovers for lunch tomorrow (which probably is a good thing since packing and transporting all the dressings is not so practical for school lunches.)