Wednesday 29 February 2012

10 Things I am going to invent for parents....

1.  A vaccum cleaner that can suck up lego, sort it from the rubbish and spit it back out, pre sorted into each colour.
2.  A toilet that shouts, don't forget to flush and wipe your butt, enough said.
3.  Magic sleeping dust, enought said again.
4.  Toys that pack themselves up at night, without protesting.  Since getting kids to do it will take a miricle and that is beyond my talents.
5.  Clothes that never need cleaning or ironing.
6.  Item 5 to be further defined that they fold and put themselves away.
7.  Kids shows that are watchable by all three kids.
8.  Self cleaning balconies and front steps, shovelling snow is hard work.
9.  A pantry and fridge that fill themselves with food and other general supplies without me having to get them.
10.  A method to read your kids mind and then mess with it to get them to do what you want!

Tuesday 28 February 2012

Guess where we are staying for Easter?????

Naigara Falls!  Yep cross that off the bucket list.  Can't wait.  It will be Johns birthday then as well.


This is the link to the website

Montreal Biodome

Not to be confused with the biosphere (that's for another outing), last weekend we went here.  I hope the link works.  It is another of Montreal's museums - they have over 30!  Easily accessed by the Metro, didn't loose anyone this time.  It was one of the stadiums that was built for the 1976 Olympics, got to love what they come up with for white elephants (Gold Coast/Queensland/Anna Bligh are you listening?  I am still pissed at you wasting my tax dollars).

After taking over half an hour to line up and get our tickets (yay we got locals prices!), the first section is a tropical rainforest's.  Rhys had not been keen on going until we walked in and then his inner Harry Butler came out.  There were macaws, just like in the movie Rio (you'd love it Aunty Kursty), capyburas (giant guinea pigs - that smell worse than pigs!), a yellow anaconda - you should have seen Rhys move past that one and he didn't like the bats either.  There was a two toed sloth who was actually moving pretty fast.  They are very ugly.  Even Piranhas, I did wonder about the safety of the other fish in the tank. 

Then it was into a Laurentian Forest.  We were really looking forward to seeing beavers.  They had a massive stick dam built on the display but no beavers, the bloody slugs were asleep.  A camera is set up in the burrow and all you could see as two fat beavers sleeping.  The most movement we saw was when one rolled over and scratched.  The otters didn't disappoint and were lots of fun.

The kids favourite part was the penguins and other sea birds.  They even had puffins, I had always wanted to see one after those puffin books you read as a kid.  Bella lay on the ground (yuck, my kids are all class) and talked penguin to them, actually she was talking to a puffin but she said it understood penguin.  We tried to get them to do the Happy Feet dance for us but they wouldn't embarrass themselves.  That's the kids and the penguins and I wasn't dancing alone.

There was a massive display of birds eggs, they have lots of really pretty ones (specked, blue - I still want one of those chooks that lay blue eggs, a la Martha Stewart) and even some real dinosaur eggs!

The only problem we encountered was I forgot to charge the camera, yep not one photo, much to Rhys disgust.  He wanted more photos for his animal collection.

At the end I remembered we had our phones and took this one of the kids in a giant penguin egg.  Every kid was lined up to have their picture taken in here and a few adults, who need to learn how to wait their turn! 



Anyway it was a pretty good day until a meltdown at the end!  No it was not me!

What am I eating while updating the blogs (and surfing the net for travel deals)

We are BACK on line!

Sorry had a few problems with the blog so I catch up this week. 

Here is something really great about Montreal....


This was for when we were celebrating something special a few weeks ago, can anyone guess what it was????

Wednesday 8 February 2012

Fete de Neige or something like that

It means snow festival and thats what we went to last weekend.  No it was the weekend after we lost the kid on the metro.
 
Thursday night John got home early enough for us to head up to our local park to see our first ice hockey game.  In winter they build an outdoor ice rink in Prince Albert Park.  Pretty cool, in another park a few streets away they make a tobogganing hill, we haven't done that as it has been a bit dangerous due to the lack of snow.

The game was one between two local kids teams.  Gosh they are good but it is a bit freaky to be told to stand back and watch for flying pucks....what the puck????

It was super cold, but the council had thought of that and had built a bonfire and provided free hot chocolate and cookies.

Saturday was the main day and we were up early and after breaky headed down to Westmount Park.  This place is full of parks! 

First on the agenda was to see the ice skating demo, we knew Bella would be keen on that.  However we needed to get through the park to get to the Arena.  Now do you know how hard it is to get threee little kids through a snow covered park that has a million, kazillion squirrels in it? 

Bella learnt that slides with ice on the go really fast, so she did it again and again!
She is the one who will be doing stunts on mini bikes, not her brothers!

Of course Rhys found a train.

Bella and her bloody squirrels. 


Going for a sleigh ride with Dad.

Mum, Hayden and Bella already had a turn.  No pics as the camera was too cold.  I had to warm it up to take these!

So much snow that even Bellas legs drag on the ground!!!



Cute kid!

Thats all three of them taking over the slide!

Oh no, we lost a kid...on the Metro

I wondered if I should tell you about this but why not - Mum knows!  It was two weekends ago.  Last weekend we are happy to say we didn't loose anyone!

Well the thought had only just crossed my mind, two stops before it actually happened.  We decided to go to the RESO and the Jean Talon Market on Sunday.  We changed Metro lines on the way over and did some shopping in the RESO and went to the XBOX store before jumping back on the Metro and going over to the market.  Well on the way back we just had to stay on the same line to get to our station.  Simple.

Except....

Rhys jumped off at the station we changed over at.  We didn't even see it.  I had a lady speaking to me in French when I noticed John had jumped off.  All I saw was the doors closing and John holding on to Rhys hand.  Someone saw him to it and told John.  We were very lucky.

Plan is now in place on what to do if it ever happens again


This is before, obviously as we are all in the same place!