We've found 3 different ice-cream/gelato options in our little nearby Oak Bay Village. We go daily. The Tudor Sweet Shop has a mint ice cream with chunks of mint chocolates in it, and it cools as it goes down my throat. Yummy! They use these crunchy, tasty mini waffle cones made by a fellow in Duncan (love the local-ness!). The kids are lovers of mango gelato from Ambrosio grocery around the corner from Nicholas Randall.
Our first ice cream journey we stopped in at our local toy store (Timeless Toys, independant and carries no electronic toys) and nabbed some great things: a book on balloon animals that we hope I can master in time for next week's block party (we'll keep you posted); stained-glass colouring books of dragons and flowers; these cool colouring crayons that are like lipsticks, you draw and then smudge them, like pastels but lighter-weight.
The next day we nabbed a cool little garden wind chime from the local hardware store (they're going out of business, retirement beckons, everything's on sale!). I love it because it's subtle, makes a wee tinkling but is not crazy-annoying to our neighbours. Four bucks! Oh, and I got the kids water guns. Yes, a decade after I vowed I wouldn't, and taught the kids war was not something you *played* at, my thinking has shifted. Ivy has two little ones and the other two have a big one each. Kit is hoping for his own Daddy-sized super-soaker, but I'm not so down with that just yet.
We stay in a lot, where it's cool and shady, colouring stained-glass windows, watching season 6 of Road to Avonlea and the World Cup. What happened to Ghana really pissed me off. I know, I know, it's how the game is played, and I'd have likely hand-balled it too. But still, it sucks. As I type this, they are all in the livingroom building train tracks and watching Winnie-The-Pooh. Awesome.
We went down to Seattle this past weekend. Kit was in a huge Ultimate tourney (1000 players, yikes!) and we were way overdue on our Ashley/Virginia and Mike/Gail visits. It was great. I was worrried we'd be overwhelmed by crowds in a big city on a holiday weekend, but we scored. On our first day we checked out Gasworks Park, then stumbled upon a kids carnival ride scene, and it was awesome! Rides were cheap and the right size, lines were non-existant and the caramel corn was delicious. We stayed for hours and garnered a parking ticket for our troubles. :) Aubrey came along with Ashley to meet us, and he did his first foray into the fun world of carny rides. Sorry guys, no pics. They we hit the playground and the kids joined in a game of baseball, then off to Ashley and Virginia's for some fab homemade pizza. They always feed us well.
The next day we set out for the Woodlands Park Zoo. Such a cool zoo (but fyi their caramel corn isn't so fab). We were there for hours and only covered half of it. Here's a bunch of pics because yes, it was a bring-the-camera-kind-of-day.
First, they have the coolest feature. A room full of birds that are trained to eat of a stick. They landed all over Hannah and gave Ivy the scratchy-on-your-skin-creepies. It was so cool!
Here are the girls (Hannah, Mike and Gail's daughter Amelia and Ivy) on the komodo dragon statue. Why not right?
My girls on a blue ball statue thingy. (A memorial to an elephant that died at the zoo).
The boy on the ball.
Leif and Ivy LOVED this way cool slide-inside-a-fake-tree thingy.
We are definitly repeating both activities on our next trip South. We may take in some concerts and do a Portland road trip ater this year, and Seattle will be one of our stops. I will have a new neice or nephew to say hello to by then! Woohooo!
Hannah was happiest when she got to hold this little cutie:
That's Mike and Gail's wee boy Finnegan Henry (such a cool name huh?). Leif and Hannah fought over him most of the time, and asked again why we can't have more babies. We've explained the mechanics, and while the guilt of denying them this joy weighs on me, the thought of never being pregnant again makes me one happy mama. It's all good kiddos.
Now, when we are not eating ice cream or having water fights, we are tidying house for a visit from Shona and the girls this weekend. The kids have already helped in the layout department:
For the record, Shona does not smoke, I don't know where that came from, and don't care. I'll take any help offered.
I hope you're relaxing, wherever you are. :)
kisses
C
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