Vero’s parents came up on Tuesday for a visit to see us. Let’s be honest, they came to see Sierra and if Vero and I weren’t home at the same time, it really wouldn’t have mattered!
On Friday, we brought them to the St-Albert Cheese Factory, a great little spot to get a poutine.
I had never realized that if you go upstairs, you can see the cheese factory in full operation. It was quite interesting.
I am glad I got to return to St-Albert to rectify a mistake I made the last time I went…I ordered an Italian Poutine thinking the sign said ‘regular poutine but with Italian sausage!”. But I ended up with a real Italian poutine which consists of fries, curds and cold spaghetti sauce. Blech! Luckily I tried the St Albert house poutine which has some veggies and ground beef. Add some mustard in there and MMM BOY!
We met up with Oncle Claude, Mary, Antoine and André as well and we all ate our poutine on a beautiful summer night where there weren’t a lot of flies out. I brought Sierra on some trips up and down the parking lot and I’m not sure if she enjoyed them or not. In my mind, if the kid doesn’t cry, she’s ok with it!
I LOVE the look on the cow’s face!
On Saturday, I was itching to go to a beach. Specifically, I just wanted my body to touch water this summer. On a sunny day. Preferably lake water. But it was just too hot all summer long to bring Sierra out for long periods of time. So that dream kept slowly fading.
But lo and behold, Saturday turned out to be a really nice day where we could bring Sierra out for a longer period of time and it was decided…we were heading to Petrie Island! Trish had invited us to another beach further out of town which I’m sure would have been the nicer beach of the two, but it was a little far to travel for the baby’s first trip to the beach. For all we knew, it would have lasted ten minutes and we would have went home.
Alas, the e.coli levels at Petrie Island were around 101 per 100ml of water and the website said that if they were that high for two days in a row, they shut the beach down. Considering it could be a matter of 24 hours before e.coli levels spiked up, we decided against visiting the beach.
But with the hot tub pump out of commission, what’s a guy going to do? In swoops Mike with an invite to come into the ‘cool’ tub, which was the hot tub set at 91 degrees. It was a fantastic afternoon hanging out with Melanie, Max and Mike and Sierra got her first taste of swimming! She quite enjoyed it and we can’t wait to introduce her to more!
Smiley McSmilerson
I have to admit I was pretty pumped that she was having a great time in the water.
https://goo.gl/photos/cxwhhBAAzN7ayvGo7
Best men
Time to start burning some of the brush we accumulated over the past six years!
This summer, the Aviation museum was hosting the Starfleet Academy Experience in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Star Trek. Rakhi and her family, Christine, Trish and I all embarked on this wonderful trek into the academy.
Much like the Indiana Jones and Star Wars exhibits in the past few years, it consists of a hangar of movie/tv props, coupled with information about the tv show and interactive displays where you, the young (well, old?) Starfleet Academy cadet walk in and test your strengths in various arenas and at the end, they let you know what career would be best suited for you in Starfleet.
Borg costume
My favourite parts of these exhibits are the movie props as you can take a closer look at how costumes were built (and in some cases, how ridiculous they actually are!). They had some uniforms and Borg costumes and tricorders and various props on hand to peruse.
Trish doing her best Data impression. Pretty good!
At the end of the exhibit, they have a full replica of a Starship bridge which was awesome!
Look at all that makeup! I feel bad for Michael Dorn.
Beam me up Scotty!
I have to admit I’m quite fetching as an alien!
There were a bunch of areas where we had to test our worth in the academy:
Klingon 101: Where they taught you some Klingon phrases and you had to recite them back. Trish failed MISERABLY on this task.
Emergency Landing: You have a scenario where your ship is going to explode so you need to shuttle your crew to a planet which will allow you survive. You had to choose an M class planet (spoiler!)
Plot Your Course: This was an awesome scenario where you had your ship on the left hand side of a screen. You had to get it to the right hand side of the screen by plotting navigation points from one side to the other. But there are obstacles in the way (like Klingon cruisers, suns, etc.) so you had to make sure to avoid getting too close those things.
Phaser Shootout: A screen full of targets popping up had to be taken out with your trusty phaser. I would like to thank Duck Hunt for my score of 44 out of 50.
Kobayashi Maru: The greatest simulation of all time…the no-win scenario, the Kobayashi Maru! It was a cool computer game where you had to save members from the crippled starship the Kobayashi Maru before the Klingons took them out completely.
Here is the certificate showing that I had Command potential and a side interest in Science
Overall, I have to say that this, along with my purchase of the Next Generation on Blu-Ray, was the greatest way to experience 50 years of Trek!
Anne-Marie dropped by for the weekend to go to a workshop surrounding refugees. She works for the University of Hearst and is responsible for a few refugees coming to Hearst in the next few weeks. The workshop sounded interesting on paper in that she would learn about refugees experiences in Canada over the past year and figure out what are some things she can do to improve on their stay. That being said, I didn’t get the debrief on the final day of the workshop so who knows if the thing was actually useful or not!
Hanging out with Pops.
We did all get to go out to the Etienne Brulé Brewpub in Embrun for a bite to eat. MAN I love their beer. It’s top notch. I can’t get enough of that citrale. As you may know, I myself dabble in the homebrewing world and have been trying to create something very similar to the citrale over the past few years. I believe it’s now my life’s mission to try and replicate this concoction.
I really like the Etienne Brulé brewpub because it checks off a few things on my list of what I like in a restaurant…great service, tasty beers, no crazy overpriced meals, tasty food. I have been ordering the smoked meat panini and the greek salad and it is pretty tasty. I think if they would add some sauerkraut to the smoked meat panini (or offer it as an option?), it would create the greatest smoked meat panini ever. Maybe I can bring my own in the next time? Is that bad?
I might go check out their grand opening next month as our friend Marie-Claude is the cousin of the owner and they seem to be performing there that night which should be a fun gig!
On Saturday while I was trying to figure out the electrical in the kitchen (and getting quite frustrated with it…I don’t think I have ever worked on a single electrical plug so much in my life!) we had some visitors with license plates from Manitoba drop by for a surprise…Aunt Mariette and Uncle Greg! They were driving back through to Le Pas from Gaspé and dropped by to meet Sierra. It was great to see them both and give them a tour of the house as it was their first time there. Sierra seemed to enjoy their company as photos show!
I’m pretty sure they were THIS close to taking Sierra back home with them.
I was cleaning up around the house and I thought I would give this baby carrying device a try. Great success!
Corn moustache!
Lads, here is my goof off of a sister-in-law if you are interested!
Hanging out in the gym. Mike mentioned how Sierra might have the tendency to put her head to one side so we’re trying our best to position her the other way on the floor so she can watch TV the other way. Currently, she doesn’t really change her head position and just stares at the wall instead!
Sierra sometimes enjoys tummy time and this is one of those rare moments.
Whatchoo lookin’ at?
This was taken the day she got her first vaccinations. She was a champ through the whole ordeal! She cried a little but Vero fed her and she settled down. CHAMP!
I was getting suspicious when Vero left me with a stockpile of frozen milk and went out to dinner looking like this! Meow.
After nearly three months in the house with Sierra, the moment had arrived where Vero could out for a few hours on her own! She had been pumping milk so this day could come. Chantal and her went out for supper and left me with Sierra. This was a challenge that could be conquered, yet it was a little daunting.
Sure, I can handle my own kid, but it’s way easier with a friend in tow. I asked Krista and Ethan to come over for supper in case I ran into trouble. It was reassuring to have her there as the concept of bottles were fairly new to me and Lord knows I might have messed something up. We had some burgers on the BBQ and watched something called Pepe the Pig. Krista has ‘the touch’ and Sierra slept most of the time after being in Krista’s arms. I need to mimic her movements!
It’s always great to see Ethan run around and play the drums. We had some fun together that night and Sierra was still alive after the experience so I would consider it a great success! Thanks to Krista and Ethan for dropping by!
I love how Google Photos does NOT have red eye reduction. Ethan looks like the devil incarnate!
Mom and Dad dropped by for a quick visit while on their way to Kapuskasing. Dad and I got to work on the jet pump for the hot tub as it was making a screeching noise. Turns out the bearings needed some replacing so he took them home to fix them up. I have to tell you, that hot tub has something happening to it every year. It’s not the end of the world but it’s a learning curve!
Mom feeding Sierra like a pro!
Check out that smile!!
This was basically three weeks of Sierra’s life in August 2016…watching the summer Olympics!
