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Showing posts from July, 2014

Ontario 2014 -- "I drove all niiiii-eee-iiight..."

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If you "missed out" on the first two posts related to this vacation... Here is  Our trip out and some early adventures  in Waterloo. There are a few items left on our vacation agenda that I would like to discuss. Stratford is less than an hour from Waterloo. We made a lovely afternoon trip out to see Alice: Through the Looking Glass . Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are childhood favourites of mine and I have read them both to Leora and Anwyn. So, while Gus worked and Darwyn stayed with Joanne (the current au pair), Wendy and the girls and I went with Greta and Max. We arrived with enough time to enjoy some amazing chocolates (for Wendy, Anwyn, Greta and Max) from Rheo Thompson Candies and coffee/cheesecake (for Me and Leora) from Coffee Culture . They were both quite close to the Avon Theatre. We all enjoyed the show, but Greta and Max thought the story was a bit impenetrable. That sounds about right for Lewis Carroll ;) I found the visuals qui

Ontario 2014 -- The "Ultimate" Visit

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Greta loves me, so there was pizza on the day of our arrival. One with meat (boo!) and three vegetarian options (yaa!). Like our family, they like to eat outside nearly exclusively in the summer. They have a wonderful, sheltered deck with burgeoning grape vines and a peach tree surrounding it with vibrant leaves. Max knows how to get attention and is incredibly full of energy. The first thing he wanted to show me was his room. At this point, he was called "Super Bat." He was only too happy to continue throwing himself off his dresser until I got the perfect shot with my camera. Darwyn was pretty shy of me at first. Her reluctance to smile, despite my strategic sulking, was heartbreaking (if typical). I'm used to this response from my work at the library and managed to persevere in short order. Success!!! I got to tell them a bedtime story. We made up a lengthy story about Super Bat Max and Fairy Princess Darwyn. We also sang to guitar:  Pete the Cat Loves His W

Ontario 2014 -- The Way Out

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We've been planning this trip to visit Greta, Gus, Max and Darwyn for 6-8 months. As departure drew near, our darling 8 month old cat, Lylah, got very sick. We still don't know what exactly is wrong with her. But, a recent remission in symptoms and an offer of help from  +James Diakuw  meant we were able to leave nearly on schedule. Of course, there was an immediate detour due to some of the recent flooding in Saskatchewan. The upside is that we were treated to many new lakes spilling their banks and covered with a fine mesh of pelicans. Much less used to human interaction, none of them wanted to pose for a photograph. I won't take it personally. They didn't seem to want to be very close to one another, either. The detour lead us to Wadena, which meant a mandatory stop at the bakery there https://goo.gl/maps/oZIQx . That made me think of Great Granny. We stopped at the same bakery last year as we all drove to lay her remains to rest. She WAS great . We pressed