So here’s the thing about kites. If you have one this big, it’s never really going to get up into the air. I ran A LOT of times to try and get it up and it may have got up a few feet.
Enjoying some hot chocolate from the cup that Matante Vero dropped off for her birthday
A couple of days later the wind conditions were perfect to try out a kite another time. Luckily this time we had another kite that she got from Uncle Ben and Aunt Krista. This was a $3 kite and was light as a feather! It went up with no issues. After this day I promptly deposited my giant jet of a kite into the trash. Funny enough, Sierra got the line all tangled up on the $3 kite that I had to go and fish out the old kite from the trash can and get the line off of it a few days later!
I’m not entirely sure why I took a photo of a smoked meat brisket that I did in the Instant Pot, but I’m pretty sure it was to send to Mom and make her jealous!
In the mornings when Ezra takes a nap I am always trying to think of an activity to do with Sierra. I find that, along with figuring out what to make for meals is the hardest part because I’m not exactly planning ahead. Luckily she received a necklace craft set for her birthday so we made a bunch of necklaces.
“Here’s Johnny!”
I had a good laugh when Sierra came up the stairs one morning and asked me what this was!
This is what it is! Yeah baby, yeah! I loved Austin Powers years ago. I should rewatch them.
If the pandemic wasn’t around, we would probably have Sierra in some sort of dance classes. But when that isn’t available, then a Frozen themed dance class on YouTube does just the trick!
Sierra quite likes the board game Trouble that she received for her birthday. We realized that it’s a lot easier to just play with two pieces at a time instead of the standard four. Here is her butterfly Alex playing with us.
Hanging out around the campfire
This is what I like to see when I come in after an hour of quiet time. However, there have also been cases of crayon markings on the window and walls that I’m less impressed with!
Getting a drink on a hot, hot day. This was probably taken during an early heat wave of +40 degree weather. You can’t have Ezra out in that weather for more than 15 minutes. But Sierra quite likes it. However, she decided she prefers this smaller sprinkler than the regular one.
Sierra can’t finish a cup of water if her life depended on it, but somehow she managed to gulp this entire smoothie down after running around in +40 degrees! Smoothies remind me of Brazil. There were tons of smoothie bars on the streets in Rio because it’s just so hot.
This must be some sort of butterfly superhero!
Sierra is quite helpful in the garden. Here she is planting potatoes with Maman.
Here are the two gardeners for the summer of 2020.
Vero decided to plant one tomato plant in the middle of our yard because in theory it will get a lot more sunlight. If it results in a substantial difference we may make raised beds the next year and put them in the yard instead of our fairly shady garden.
There is a fantastic forest in Russell that we go a couple of times a week. Vero gets to come out with us on weekends when she is not working.
Pretty sure this creature is more annoying than a mosquito when you’re trying to take a nap!
Hanging out
I’ll have to remember to take a video of our storytime routine but it goes like this. I read Sierra a story, generally something from Frog and Toad. Then Mr. Froggy joins us for question time. I do the voice of Mr. Froggy who somehow sounds like Kermit the Frog. Generally Sierra’s questions are “What do you want to do tomorrow?” and “What did you do today?”. I then ask her things like “What was the most fun thing you did today?” and she replies with “Sleep.” I then have to prompt her (as Mr. Froggy) to tell me about her bike rides, or her times playing with Ezra. Then when Mr. Froggy goes to sleep she somehow has the same questions for Dad and I have to answer them before leaving the room. Sometimes these questions go on for 30 minutes! She is quite conniving when she wants to delay her bed time.
What a shot Maman took! This was probably the day that we didn’t teach Sierra that she needs to hold onto the line and the kite went flying over into the trees in the park! The neighbours across the street witnessed me hightailing it across the field trying to catch this kite! Because the wind was so strong I did manage to get it out of the tree but it took about a half hour. What an adventure!
I love this photo Vero took just because you can see the immense joy she is having. Kite flying should be a mandatory class for all kids.
The same day we had high winds, a giant wind gust caught our sun shade and snapped one of the posts! Sierra was on the deck and Maman had her run away in time. Pretty scary stuff! Luckily we had a spare post in the shed so it didn’t take too much work to repair it. Nowadays, if there is a storm coming we take this shade down.
I was very excited to see that my favourite spot in Hull reopened!
Sierra insisted that Red Rooster comes to bed with me because my eye was hurting. Vero wanted to use this photo as blackmail.
Another windy day, another kite adventure!
Checking out some worms
Sierra likes to go in the front lawn with Maman. I believe they wait for the ice cream truck to pass by. They’ll be waiting a long time! But I did show up with a couple of bowls of ice cream one evening.
The new water pistols are working great!
With the hot tub broken Vero kept asking for us to buy a pool. In my mind pools were a couple of hundred dollars. Little did I know that a kiddy pool this size was $15! This was the best $15 we have ever spent. We had another heat wave and we went into this thing every day.
First swim of the year!
We found a bird house on our adventures to the Tweed forest. It seems to move its spot each time we visit.
We had to ask Nanny Sybil how to make a cucumber sandwich. It came out quite good!
Fun in the pool. You will see that there’s a little more shade. We just hung the tarp up over us which is great for the kids in the early afternoon when the sun is coming down.
Learning how to eat a Mr. Freeze
Piggyback!
Photoshoot for all the Christmas calendars this year!
Vero recreated some favourite photos of her Dad and her for father’s day
When Sierra heard it was Father’s Day she thought “Well that’s the birthday of fathers so we need a cake!”
You can’t say no to cake on Father’s Day!
Milk and Bananas is destined to be a great song.
Early morning walk
Sierra has a good songwriting talent. Here is her ‘Bumblebee song’. I think it’s about the time when Vero was a kid and walked into a bush and a bumblebee stung her.
Sierra was very lucky to see one of the daycare providers when we were out biking one day. She just happened to be visiting her sister in Vars! We had not seen anyone from the daycare since early March. Sierra was shy at first but asked some questions later on.
Just hanging out in a princess costume
Is this a dance routine or an exercise routine?
Enjoying a drumstick
Sierra received a funny video from her grandparents for her birthday. So for Grandpapa’s birthday Sierra did another video which was a copy of exactly what happened in the the video they sent her. She was really great at listening to direction and she did all of the parts in one take! We were very impressed. Vero did a great job editing it together. The end part of alternate endings happened because Sierra thought it was so funny to have all of us be in the greenhouse at the end.