Trinity's 15th Birthday

Well this year, my teenager (wahhhh) wanted to have her OWN party with her friends WITHOUT her Mummy, Daddy and sister on the day of her actual birthday - which happened to fall on a Friday! I am having a huge problem with having a teenager - I still want to have her completely under my thumb but my daughter is quite the social butterfly.  We allowed her to have a party with adult supervision - she had about nine girls over for a sleepover party. 

There were a "few" boys that arrived to visit (arrrgghhh).  We also had an incident around 11pm where three older boys from a different high school that absolutely nobody knew, rang  the front doorbell and were very upset when told they couldn't join the party. We thought perhaps through Facebook they had learned - but found it very odd.  They destroyed some things on the front lawn and made a bit of a mess, swearing as they left, but Trinity handled it well being firm and telling them that they were not welcome at her party.  (We learned later that there was a party down the road with kids from their high school, so perhaps it was just a coincidence.) 

We also took Trinity out to Montana's for her birthday dinner - which was so awesome because there was a magician that walked around all the tables and put on a show that really entertained us! 

Canada's Wonderland

We had seasons passes to the amusement park Canada's Wonderland located above Toronto, about 70 minutes from our house.  They have a great big water park that Avalon especially enjoyed.  The above picture is of her in the wave pool.

My sisters' youngest child, Freya, also enjoyed the edges of the wave pool.

When I think of Avalon, this is how I think of her - she is always giggling and silly! Trinity didn't want to get her hair wet, so she spent a bit of time on a lounger.  We then went off to the rides and dried of quickly because it was such a hot day!

My niece and nephew having pure fun on one of the rides (in above picture) on one of our trips toward the end of the season in October, actually this was the last trip this season to the Park.  It was a bit chilly - we needed gloves and scarves but didn't bring any - we soldiered on.  There were no waiting lines - the kids were able to walk right on the rides and go on them over and over.  For Halloween Haunt they had the kids "trick or treat" throughout various stations set up throughout the park (I helped them eat the candy!)

They also have "Dinosaurs Alive" - robotic true to life sized dino park! Freya (who is four) was pretty terrified of them - she spent the whole time in the park cowering behind my legs - I managed to coax her to run over to her brother for a picture - but she didn't make it over to him before a loud "roar" could be heard and she ducked from the dino and ran back to me! ha ha Always a good time at Canada's Wonderland!  The only thing that spoils it is that they don't allow outside food or drinks - they used to allow it - but they then decided to ban all food and drink and put their food/drink prices through the roof.  Example: about $10.00 for a sub.  So, a day at a park costs about a hundred dollars for the day!

Kilman Zoo

The Kilman Zoo is a small family owned zoo located in Caledonia, Ontario.  We have been here several times over the year and actually I think I will suggest another trip there tomorrow to the fam!.  The owners of the zoo really love their animals - they have hand fed many of the lions, jaguars and tigers when they were babies.  One of the black jaguars (named Grumpy) was 20 yrs old and Mark, the owner, was telling us that they only live to about 11 yrs old in the wild.  We were lucky enough to run into this owner petting the jaguar at his cage where he reminisced about playing football in the fields with Grumpy in his youth. He got a bit choked up when he told us that he didn't think "old Grump" would make it through the winter - due to the fact that he was really "getting on" in age.  I know there is quite the controversy over zoos in general, and especially the smaller ones, but we personally have never seen anything disturbing at this zoo.  I love the set up of the zoo being that you get so up close to the animals - enough that there are signs everywhere to warn the visitors that the "cats" can spray 15 feet, which would make the visitor the target!

Avalon's 12th Birthday

Our little Avalon turned 12 on April 1st - yes, she is our April Fool's baby!  She is our "wild child", creative, theatrical, dramatic and goofy all the time.  She makes us laugh with her little "booty dances" and we would not be surprised if she ended up being an actress one day!

We went to Tucker's Marketplace - the meal is complimentary for the birthday person.  It's a higher end, all-you-can-eat buffet.  Unfortunately, my kids don't eat that much on the menu - we were dissapointed to find absolutely no veggies at all.  There were lots of offerrings of meat, but since I am vegetarian, that option was out - the kids loaded up with the ice cream bar at the end of the meal.  My hubby wasn't too impressed with the selection either. At the end of the evening, in the past, the servers would all come over to the table with a lit piece of birthday cake for the person and sing a long rendition of "Happy Birthday".  Well, not anymore, they didn't even bring a cake at all!  They simply came over a sang a shortened version of "Happy Birthday".  So, for a meal that cost us $120.00, we decided that this might be the last visit there.

Europe: You can keep the Winter - Ontario is enjoying the "Spring"!

(photo credit: Studiolit)
The Purty Northern Lights in Canada! I really don't want to jinx anything but who can't help think that we are so lucky to have had such a mild "winter" thus far.  We have not even had to use our snow shovel once! It snowed sparsely a few times in January, but the rain washed it away the next day.  Douglas and Trinity have yet to even wear a winter jacket! (I ran out the other day in flip flops!Okay, so I'm pushing it - but my little piggies were just fine! ) Europe - you can keep the winter with you! Pretty soon it will be March time - which is pretty much the end of "our" winter anyway!

New York City Road Trip

Our summer was so crazy and stressful here in Ontario (one day I may therapeutically write about it) that I took 5 weeks off work and took the girls on a roadtrip to New York Cty! Wow! What a city! We absolutely loved it!!  We stayed on Staten Island, drove to the ferry (which was a short 5 minute drive) and then took the ferry over to Lower Manhattan!

We took a bus tour of the city which was all encompassing - so many landmarks were covered.  We went to all the different boroughs of the city, saw where some famous and infamous people lived, site of the twin towers, the beautiful architecture of the most famous buildings - everything you could imagine and I am sure we only scratched the surface.

We loved Times square the best and spent a great deal of time there.

We drove there in my sister's Toyota Yaris - it took 10 hours to drive there.  Guess how much it cost in fuel to get there? UNDER $40.00!! So, my next vehicle is going to be a Yaris! It was a beautiful drive, the roads were straightforward and in excellent condition.

We walked and walked from 8am until after midnight. 

We were so impressed with the city we are making plans to definately return in the future with my hubby - just have to work on getting him a Visa!