At The Beach

It was a beautiful day today.
About 27 degrees (as opposed to the previous week's 40 plus temps), sunny and only a little windy. We decided to return to a little beach we spied briefly during the week and check it out. The wind was so much stronger down on the lake, making actual waves and choppy water. We kept having to move our gear as the waves chased us up the beach! It's such an enormous lake, which makes it easy to forget it's not the ocean. If the air had contained a whiff of salt and the sand had been white we'd have felt like we were back home in Oz.
The beach was littered with debris from yet another storm on Friday night and the water was way too crazy for swimming, not to mention brown and muddy, but Poppet had a great time nonetheless.
Much squealing at the waves and digging of soggy brown holes ensued...

When we'd had enough of the wind we wandered through the park and arrived at an awesome splashpad and playground. Plonking our stuff on the Muskoka chairs kindly provided we had some lunch and did our best to ignore the wasps.
Not sure if I've mentioned the wasps in Toronto. They linger, like flies. One of them took a particular liking to me or my hat or my lunch or something and gave very good chase. Tried to keep my squeals to a minimum, not sure if I succeeded. Nothing like a wasp an inch from your face to put you off your lunch!
A gorgeous place to visit and about a 15 minute drive from our place.
And we were home in time to watch Mr Bean's Holiday and have some pizza on the deck. Husband is just making me a cocktail...

A Poppet Pretending to be an Astronaut

It feels like it's been the year of the Astronaut.

Shall we listen to some Billie while we ponder...

We have followed Col. Chris Hadfield's incredible time on the space station with delight. He has inspired so many children to think big, to be curious about the world they live in and to believe in themselves.
If you don't follow him on Facebook, here is his page...

image via pinterest

We had our first visit to the Natural History Museum in NYC this year, in which Poppet discovered the planets. We are still fascinated by the subject, there is just so much to learn!
We are planning trips to various museums in town over the coming summer to extend our learning. (I need to learn about it all too, don't remember being particularly engaged on the subject as a child)

image via pinterest

And it was lovely to receive a custom order request for an astronaut. Here is the finished Poppet, doing his best to dress up a la Col. Hadfield. And he was posted to Australia today, on the 44th anniversary of the moon landing.

Everything seems to move in circles...

In Which She Sings

And sings. And sings. And sings.
I wouldn't mind ordinarily, Poppet usually spends her time making up little ditties but she's having a Selena Gomez phase. I really don't care whether even Angelina Jolie has something about herself she doesn't like.
(If you are blissfully unaware of this lyric I suggest you remain that way)

And then there's this funny little song...


"Silent Poo, Holy Poo
All is Poo, All is Poo"...

I'll spare you the rest. But I heard it in the car today at least ten times.

image via pinterest

It's so goddamn hot in Toronto this week and we have pathetic A/C in the house so I am really a very cranky lady. Next week the weather will return to normal summer temps and then we have a little journey up to Montreal to look forward to. Hotel has a pool. Repeat. Hotel has a pool.

I'm getting some stitching done, sloooooowly. Three pirates should be finished by the time the next Ice Age arrives. MMMM ice....

image via pinterest

And you know what? If I have to put up with the rest of that song then I think it's only fair that you share the pain...


"Round yon Poo-oo-oo, Mother of Poo,
Holy Poo so tender and Poo,
Sleep in Heavenly Poo-oo!
Slee-eep in Heavenly Poo....."


Have a nice day!

Parenting Gold Star

We're not doing a lot of travelling this summer. Phew.
What we are doing instead is having a Toronto 'staycation'. We're still tourists in this city, after all.
First cab off the rank was Canada's Wonderland. What a lame name for such a great theme park.
The park is divided between terrifying grown-up rides, mid-sized stuff for tweens and kiddy-friendly rides. Then there's an enormous waterpark filled with waterslides of all shapes and sizes, splashpads and even a wave pool
Husband took the day off work (we would never visit this place on a weekend!) and off we went.
Poppet started off on the smaller rides but eventually worked her way up to some fairly scary ones. She loved it!
I even went on a couple of rides, but days like this make me lament the loss of a stroller in our lives to lug all the bags and gear. Oh well, at least there were lockers at the waterpark for a mere $16 a day! We squished everything we had into one tiny locker. Ridiculous!
Here are the shots. I lifted shots from elsewhere to show you what the waterpark was like as we only had our towels for that part of the afternoon...

Ready to go.

Pretty awesome diving display.

Apparently very fast for a kid's ride.

My turn.

Spinning.

Legs akimbo!

They went on again, second from the back this time.

Loved it!

The wave pool, underneath and insane rollercoaster. We enjoyed the sounds of riders' screams whilst we swam. BTW, it would appear that no one in Canada can swim. Even adults were wearing floaties... Picture via here.

We did the big slides at the back...Picture via here.

This was such a fun water playground. The big bucket filled to the brim then tipped over us at intervals. Freezing
water!...Picture via here

So there you have it. We did seven long hours and had an awesome day. Toronto put on some perfect weather for us and we climbed into bed at 9pm. Weary but happy. Gold stars all round!

Haven't decided where our next outing will be yet. Stay tuned...

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