Chilly but Fun Sunday

Today was a chilly but sunny Sunday. The kids started out the day by going and playing with friends while C mowed the lawn. I enjoyed a little time knitting and then I sat out in the sun and read for a while.

For lunch we headed out to our favourite seafood place. Surprisingly it wasn't busy but that may have been because it was chilly and windy. I had the lobster roll and it was good. C got the fish and chips and I have to say, their fish and chips are the best I've had. They use potato flakes in their breading and it makes the coating light and crispy. J had a lobster burger which is lobster with warm butter on a roll. S won't eat seafood so she had the chicken tenders. I stole some of her chicken and it was very tender and used the same coating as the fish. It was a delicious lunch.

After lunch we came back and the kids disappeared. J went off to play with his friends (who apparently were coming by every 5 minutes looking for him while we were gone) and S went out to ride her bike with her friends. C and I spent some time sitting in the backyard reading. Okay, maybe I did a little snoozing. Then we came inside and C snoozed while I got more knitting done. Every now and then I'd see S go by the house with her friends.

At one point S came bursting into the house, begging to go to the neighbour's pool. Now, it was around 53F (11C) outside but she insisted on going. The pool is heated which is awesome when you're in it but getting out is cold! S went immediately into a hot shower when she was finished swimming. She decided to put on her PJs even though it was only like 5:00. I guess she thought she was ready for bed but of course after she ate supper she saw her friends outside riding their bikes and wanted to join them.

We spent a good hour outside while the kids rode their bikes and the parents chatted. Some parents that aren't out often actually came out to socialize. I feel very grateful that we live in such a friendly community where there are so many kids.

Now we need to decide if we're going to watch Game of Thrones tonight or have a fire in the fire pit. It's a hard decision because the fire pit is really nice but it is GoT. Decisions, decisions!

Go Take a Hike!

Today was yet another beautiful day. When spring finally makes up its mind to arrive, the weather here is awesome. It was a little windy and cool but the sun was out (for the most part). We decided to take advantage of this beautiful weather and headed out for a hike at a pond we discovered over the winter. There's a trail, Peggy's Trail, that goes around Mooney's Pond which was our destination.

On the way to the pond, we saw this guy on the side of the road:

I tried to get a better picture of him but he kept scooting off as we drove closer to him. At least you can see that he is a pheasant. It was the first one I've seen on the island.

Once we reached the pond, we started exploring.

An old beaver dam that is now a fishing area

We started out at what is called Anderson's Pool, which looks like it was once a beaver pond but is now a fishing area. There is a nice ramp and a fishing deck here to allow easy access to the water for everyone. We continued to follow the path to the main pond. Along the way I saw definite signs of spring...

Look! Leaves are coming out!

When we arrived at Mooney's Pond, we found a very nice fishing dock. No one was fishing at the time but later we saw a few people giving it a go here.

Fishing dock at Mooney's Pond

We started on a nice, fairly level gravel path that lead around the pond. There were a few bridges along the way. This was the view from one of the bridges:

There were also quite a few overlook/fishing docks along the path that provided nice views of the pond.

Look! There's no snow on the ground! Hiking through the woods is so much easier when the trail is free of snow.

A snow free path!

There's a fungus among us! :-)

As we walked along, there was a lot of Spanish moss all over the ground. S had picked some up to play with as she hiked. She decided that it looked like Big Foot's snot. Yup. Her story: Big Foot ate a moose and it made him catch a cold. So he sneezed snot all over the woods. Ooookay.

Big Foot snot...according to the 6 year old.

There was a nice bridge at the far side of the pond. This is looking back up towards where the fishing dock is located. The view was really pretty.

We stopped at another overlook on our way back up to the start of the trail. J wasn't feeling his best today and decided to take a short nap on the overlook railing.

There's a story that goes with the next picture. In upstate NY where my in-laws live, there's a nice walking path that we like to take the kids on. Along the path there is an old tree that has been ravaged by woodpeckers. Every time we are on the path with my father-in-law he points out the "woodpecker tree". As we were hiking today I saw this tree and it made me think of the woodpecker tree in NY. So this picture is for my father-in-law and his favourite tree.

After hiking the entire trail we headed back to the car to get the fishing rods that we brought along. As we walked down the trail, I managed to snap this picture of cuteness. C was holding J's hand and it was adorable (at least to me it was).

C did some digging under some rocks and managed to find some worms for bait. He got the fishing poles set up for the kids and they gave it a go. J was trying very hard to wait patiently for something to nibble his hook.

S had a good time too. She kept hoping a fish would come nibble on her hook too but no luck!

I managed to get a picture of J casting. He only put it in the tree once so I think that's pretty good.

We didn't have any luck at this spot so we headed back up to the fishing dock at the main pond. Still no luck there! It was really windy at the pond and the current was strong. We'll try to find a better place to go fishing next time!

We came home after fishing and had some lunch and then some quiet time. Then we decided that today needed ice cream. So we headed down to a dairy bar. Hot fudge sundae - yum! This little guy decided he wanted to hang out near us. In the almost two years we've lived here I've only seen a handful of these cute little red squirrels.

We finished off the day with a yummy meal done on the grill. All in all it was a great day!

Happy Easter (to those that celebrate it)...

...and to those that don't, happy Sunday!

It was a fairly quiet day for us today. All our family lives far away, so we just had a quiet day with the four of us. I baked some blueberry muffins this morning which are the kids favourite. I tried a mix this time instead of making them from scratch and they came out pretty good. Not as good as my made from scratch ones but good enough for the kids to gobble them up.

The kids had fun looking for their baskets this morning and searching the house for eggs. S opened up a Kinder Egg and liked the prize inside. I really don't see why they are banned in the US. Silliness! She also enjoyed the mini Lego set she got and the Creeper that the Easter Bunny left for her. J liked his Halo figures and his Enderman stuffie that the EB left him. Yeah, the EB knows what the kids like!

The kids played outside with the neighbours for a while and later in the day we went for a drive through the countryside. The snow is slowly melting although Mother Nature keeps sending snow squalls to try to stop spring from arriving. Maybe one day we'll be snow-free. We'll see.

Supper went well because I kept it simple. We had ham, asparagus, peas, scalloped potatoes, mac-n-cheese for S who doesn't like the potatoes, homemade biscuits, and our holiday tradition of lime jello salad. People always look at me weird when I tell them about it. But once you try it you'll see that it's actually really good. What's not to like about jello, cream cheese, cool whip, marshmallows, and pineapple? Exactly! For dessert we had some cheesecake because cheesecake is good.

I did take pictures of the eggs the kids decorated but since I was on my way to bed and realized I hadn't done my blog, I will save those for tomorrow. I was busy working on my Snow Queen shawl and forgot about my blog entry for today. I'm so close to being finished with my shawl. I'm working on the bind-off but with over 600 stitches to bind off it takes a while. I'll finish it tomorrow and weave in all my ends. I'll take a pre-blocking picture of it to share. Of course I'll get post-blocking pictures too, but it will be a few days for those. I'm glad it's almost done because I want to get back to working on my Solar Flare shawl. But now I'm getting sleepy so all the knitting projects have been put to bed and that's where I'm heading now. Good night!

A Sunny Sunday

Today was a nice, relaxing, sunny Sunday. We took it easy this morning - S watched some TV, I worked on finishing up my clue for the Snow Queen Shawl, and C and J played a game. When we got tired of being lazy, we headed downtown for lunch. I enjoyed some tasty, spicy halibut tacos and a half-pint of blueberry ale. I was worried about the beer making me sleepy, but after lunch we went to a local park and strolled along the ice-covered boardwalk by the harbour.

The harbour is still mostly frozen - there are a few areas where the ice has melted and there are definite cracks in the ice. I have a feeling a few more weeks of warm weather and the ice will be broken up and floating out to sea. The sun was warm and the walk was pleasant. The kids wanted to go to the playground but considering the entire playground was buried under about 3 feet of snow, we said no. Again, with the way things are melting, in a few weeks it should be a big, muddy mess of fun. I'll make sure the kids are in very old clothes before we go down there post-meltdown.

After our walk, we headed home. S decided to get out some of the presents she received yesterday at her party. She started with one of those melty bead kits where you put these little plastic tubes on pegs to make a picture. Then you cover the beads and iron them so they melt together and make a solid object. She's about 2/3 of the way done with a Hello Kitty picture. It's definitely a time consuming activity. After that she took a break for a while and watched J and his friend L play video games until they started being mean to her (yeah, they got in trouble for that).

Since the boys weren't being very nice, she asked if I could teach her how to use her Rainbow Loom. For those not familiar with the Rainbow Loom, it is a matrix of plastic pegs that you stretch rubber bands over then loop them in such a way it makes a chain. Connect the ends and you have yourself a little bracelet. She made one that is purple and black and began one that is pink, blue, and white for the classmate that gave her the loom.

Once she was done with the loom, it was time to start decorating the pony she received from our neighbour. It's a stuffed animal that you can colour on then wash it off and start again. It's soft and squishy and she had a fantastic time decorating it. She gave it a flaming mask, horseshoes, and lots of flowers. She received a lot of crafty type presents this year. In addition to the things I've already listed she got a friendship bracelet kit, a paper doll fairy kit, and a 3D kit that you build into a stage with ballerinas. And for her birthday from her grandma she got a potholder loom. She is her mother's daughter when it comes to crafts. :-)

And speaking of crafts, I finished this week's clue for the Snow Queen shawl. I'm getting very excited about it because this coming Friday's clue will be the last clue and it will tell me how to finish the shawl. I can't wait to see it all stretched out. This is one wedge of it, since it's too big to photograph it all at the moment.

I love how it transitions from the blue tones to the gray. The final skein of yarn will be mostly gray with just a tiny hint of blue. I really like how it is coming out.

I haven't taken a picture of the Solar Flare shawl I'm working on. The first two clues are out already and clue 3 comes out tomorrow. I'm a bit behind since I'm still working on clue 1, which covers skeins 1 and 2 out of 6; clue 2 uses skein 3. I'm guessing that tomorrow's clue will cover skein 4. I better get working fast this week if I'm going to get finished by April 22. The designer is going to have people vote for their favourites and the one with the most votes will win first prize, second most gets 2nd prize, etc. I think she's giving out 3 or 4 prizes but you have to have your shawl done by April 22. I should be able to get caught up this week since the kids will have 4 full days of school this week - Friday is a scheduled holiday for Easter. Yikes! Easter is coming up and I don't have anything ready for it. I guess I know what else I'll be doing this week!

Single Mom Sunday

I want to begin today's blog by sending out a big eff you to Daylight Savings Time. Why yes, my kids got up an hour later (according to the clock) but to their little bodies it was the same time they usually get up. And now, according to the clock, it will soon be their bedtime. But their bodies are like WTF Mom? It's not time for bed. But they need to go to bed according to the clock time because they have to get up for school tomorrow and it will feel like 5:15 to all of us. And they looked at me like I was crazy when I told them it was suppertime earlier and it was still daylight out. So yeah, eff you DST. I doubt there is any parent out there who is happy about the time change.

Second thing - to all the single parents out there - you have my respect! I don't know how you do it day in and day out. I've entered the realm of single parenthood for the next 4 days since C has gone on a business trip. And like most of his business trips, something always seems to happen at home when he's gone. Last time it was me having a raging sinus infection that made it damn near impossible to function. This time J decided he needed to be the sick one.

He woke up this morning and said his stomach hurt. In probably too much detail he told us about his stomach (I won't do that to you). He barely ate any breakfast so I know he wasn't just playing around. The boy loves food and for him to not eat means that something is wrong. We drove C to the airport and along the way J said he felt like he was going to throw-up. Joy! Thankfully I have taken to keeping plastic grocery bags in the pockets of the seats for this very reason. There was a messy incident after Christmas...again, I won't gross you with details. Sure enough, he needed the bag.

We managed to make it to the airport and back with only the one incident but that was enough. He said his stomach was still feeling funny when it was time to leave for hockey so we decided to skip it today. If the game had just been at the local rink 15 minutes down the road I probably would have made him go. But today's game was 1 1/2 hours away and I don't know if you've been in a car with a sick kid before but it is Not Fun. So yeah, we skipped hockey. J ate some supper tonight and seems okay so he should be fine for tomorrow's game.

This week shouldn't be too bad. The weather gods have decided to be kind and not send us any serious snow this week so the kids will be going to school all week! There is a chance of flurries tomorrow evening of course. It's soccer night so that means it needs to either be raining and/or snowing. But they aren't calling for any accumulation so we should be fine. And temperature wise it's suppose to be mild (just below freezing). I'd like to thank the weather gods for the nice weather this week.

I'm sure we'll run into some bumps this week but all in all it should be a decent week. I'll keep thinking that way and maybe it will happen!

Back to Normal Sunday!

The kids have school tomorrow! And there was much rejoicing! The weather today wasn't nearly as bad as expected - a little rain, a little snow, some melting, but nothing that will stop them from going to school tomorrow. And honestly, the kids are ready to be back in school. Both went to birthday parties today and saw kids from their schools. I think it made them realize they missed their school friends. It will be good for things to get back to normal. I don't know how long we'll be back to normal given the weather around here, but I will take each normal day I can get.

I was on bedtime duty for J, which means I have a bit of free time while he reads before bed. I pulled up my Kilynn story and realized I hadn't worked on it since Feb 9. Yikes! So I did get a tiny bit of writing done tonight and I will get more done tomorrow after I do normal things like the grocery store run and buying warmer boots. Yes, it will feel good to get out and do normal things. I realized tonight as I was writing how much I have missed working on my story. I am sure we will have more snow days coming so I'll have to try to find a better balance between being mommy and writing when my kids are home.

Also, I am finally feeling better - this cold is finally going away. It is so much easier to be creative when your head doesn't feel like it's stuffed with cotton. I will enjoy feeling better until the next cold comes home with one of the kids. Let's hope they give me a few weeks before that happens again!

As it is Sunday night, that means it is Walking Dead night. Yay for zombies! Now to choose a knitting project to work on while I'm watching it. I can't work on complicated things like my Snow Queen mystery shawl (I finished clue 1 today!) while watching TV because I will screw them up. Tonight will be a simple project that I can do without having to keep checking the pattern. I'm working on a cowl made with baby alpaca yarn that feels so soft and warm. I should probably finish that up tonight so I have it to wear for the extreme cold (-35C) wind chill we are suppose to get on Tuesday. Yeah, that cold may upset our normal week, but I'm going to keep thinking positive and hope this turns out to be just a normal week!

Short Sunday

I'm back from our weekend hockey tournament. J and his team did well - they won 2 out of 3 regular games which was enough to send them to the crossovers (aka playoffs). Unfortunately they lost the crossover game. It was a tough game and they played hard but the other team was just a little better. J had a good weekend - he scored 3 goals and had a bunch of assists. We survived heading out to games during a snow storm on Saturday. I swear the only people crazy enough to be out on the road Saturday were hockey parents.

Now we're back home - just in time for another snow storm Monday night into Tuesday. I'm just hoping it holds off until we're home from S's soccer lesson tomorrow. And there's the potential for another storm on Thursday....ah February in Canada!

It was a great weekend and we had a lot of fun. I'm going to keep this short because I'm tired from a long weekend with not a lot of sleep - our hotel was filled with at least 3 hockey teams and it was really noisy at times. I'll do a longer post tomorrow. My goal is to get some time to actually work on the Kilynn story tomorrow since Tuesday may just be a snow day and it's hard to focus with two kids and possibly a hubby home. But first I need to hit the grocery store. Nothing like having no food in the house when there's a storm a-comin'! So go enjoy the Superbowl (if you're into that) and have a good evening!