Month: September 2020

One morning I popped Yellow Submarine in for her and I to watch.  Full disclosure:  I think I purchased this years ago and still have yet to watch the entire film!  This felt like the first time.  We didn’t get too far into it…30 minutes and then every time we went to rewatch it Sierra wanted to see the Blue Meanies take over Pepperland again.

Sierra hanging out with some pals on a rainy day

Check out those mud puddles!

Sierra is quite the jokester.  Here she is putting her pull up on outside her pyjamas.  It was nice to have someone making me laugh as I was in the middle of taking care of the kids for the week on my own when Vero went back home!

Hanging out on the rocks.  I find her shadow interesting in this photo.  It’s almost like it’s doing more movements than Sierra actually is?

Muffins from back home

Someone (Tante Andreane?) sent down a unicorn drying cloth which never really ended up in the bathroom but is now amongst the land of stuff toys in her bed.

A beautiful sunset

Watching the sunset on the front porch

When getting a custom order puzzle for someone, keep in mind how hard it might be to finish off the all-black section on the top!

Wow, I don’t even remember this moment!  Did Sierra and Maman hit up the ice cream stand while I was working in the basement?’

A typical morning snack 

Sierra was VERY happy to be able to go to the neighbour’s pool on Labour Day.  It was a wee bit chilly but I don’t think kids sense their legs going numb as much as I did.

The next day I was smart enough to hang out on the floating mattress instead of venturing in!

Grandma has an embroidery machine that she can do neat things like this on!

Fetching some apples!

As the summer wore on, we had to keep extending the length of this apple picking pole!

I’m not sure where she got the idea from but she wanted to inspect some insects. 

First day of class!  I’ve already written more on the subject elsewhere on the blog but we’re excited to see that Sierra has been enjoying her time.

Part of virtual schooling involves us taking photos of her accomplishments and sending them to the teacher.  While time consuming, I have to say that I really enjoy seeing what Sierra learns in school every day.  I don’t think we will get the same experience when she goes to a different school.  She will get home and I will ask “What did you do in school today?”  “Nothing.”

Nice stroll at Larose Forest.  We had never gone on this trail which I now dub the “Big Log Trail”.  Supposedly this log has been there forever.  Hilariously we went to the end of the trail thinking it would loop but nope, we had to backtrack all the way.  Not easy with a bunch of kids!

I can’t remember what Jon was trying to do but it’s too hilarious not to put here.

Sierra showing me how to play the song

Boy, I hope that didn’t end up in supper one night!

After the Yoda cake ‘icing is melting on his face!’ debacle, we smarted up and made a cake for Maman’s birthday a few days before!

I went down a rabbit hole of research one night when I found out that Jimi Hendrix played in Ottawa one night and immediately after, he ran over to a spot called Le Hibou to record Joni Mitchell.  It was incredible to me to find out that some musicians of this calibre had hit up Ottawa back in the late 60s.  I then stumbled upon a book written about Le Hibou.  It is quite interesting so far.  I believe it must have been written by a local fellow as the book was ordered from Amazon but the postmark came from Cumberland!

BIRTHDAY CAKEEEEE!!!!

Yum in my tum!

Sierra and Ezra made a photo book for Maman to remind her of her two week vacation this summer

Reading some very important literature about a bear named Pooh

Learning how to draw lines

My favourite time of year with my favourite beer!

Lot of apples to be picked up

A glorious moment in any child’s life…the first time they play Legend of Zelda!

Bring me to the drummer’s circle at Mont Royal

It was nice to see some folks that we hadn’t seen for a few months.  Vero kept that fire roaring hot.  I also remember this was my first time really listening to Neil Young’s After The Gold Rush as it was it’s 50th anniversary.  What a killer album.

Ha ha, here it is!  The extended apple picker!

What other toy does a kid need when there is an empty box?

Might need a bigger box?

I had a good laugh at this

Never do this in a Tetris truck!

S for…super?

Our neighbour’s tree has the uncanny ability of being the first in the neighbourhood to drop some beautiful leaves

I walked into a time capsule when I entered my office building six months after I left back in March.  It was an odd experience…everyone’s stuff was just sitting there.  I did chat with Maria who was stuck there cleaning our offices for the past six months but is a pretty boring job when there’s no one there to clean up after!  I had WAY too much stuff to bring back home with me…imagine 15 years of moving offices in the same building.  I rarely brought anything home.  I even had some paystubs from 2001!  

I did manage to sneak in a walk with my two walking buddies who met up with me when I was visiting the office.  I truly miss our walks along the river.

What’s that on your head?  It must be Franco-Ontario day!

Oh baby.  They have arrived!  Super7 has the Thundercats license and are churning out some great products.  This Lion-O was part of Wave 1 and they are already four waves I have pre-ordered.  It’s a costly venture at $50 a figure but I love this series so I’m going to support them in any way I can.  

Look at the size of that thing!

Some days we have lions riding cars

A rare moment without the kids!  It was nice to take a walk with Vero in a part of the Glebe I had never been to before.  The area near Dr. Weiss’s offices are quite nice!

Tandreane was nice enough to come for a visit to help us out for the first few days after my operation.  Here is Sierra and her taking in the Castor River.

More apples!

 

 

 

I was getting annoyed that there wasn’t a search feature at the top of the page when I needed to search for ‘instant pot’ so I decided it was time to update my website.

Of note:

• Still playing around with text colours.  I’m not sure if Red colour font works on red colour background!
• I am moving the music section to a timeline based style which is in ‘Music Archive’ which I’m quite fond of
• Check out the music archive for a new song hot off the presses in time for Troy’s 50th birthday!

We decided to try out virtual learning when Sierra started her maternelle class this year.  There were many questions on top of mind but the most poignant one was “Will this even work for our four year old?”

In our case, virtual learning consists of having Sierra sit in front of an iPad for most of the day.  But let’s get into the actual details of her schedule:

8:30 – 9:15am (recommended exercise videos and meditation videos which I’m assuming any parent can just blatantly skip since it’s not like anyone is monitoring us) – While I’ve never checked out the meditation videos, I have to say that I’ve been checking out the exercise videos for ten minutes and then let Sierra do whatever she wants until 9:15.  Vero sometimes even joins us in the living room to get some aerobics in!

9:15 – 9:45 – school time!  Sierra has learned how to mute the microphone when she is not using it and she knows how to connect to the classroom via Google Meet when we are not around. Actually, a week into this, she INSISTS that she does this herself.  Generally around this time there is O Canada, the Lord’s Prayer, and some other things that I don’t pay too much attention to.

9:45 – 10:00am – Break

10-11am – School time

11am – 12:15am – lunch break where I try and get Sierra outside doing stuff for awhile and then go back in and make lunch

12:15 – 1pm – school time

1-1:15pm – break

1:15 – 2Pm – school time

Then it’s all done for the day.

It’s taken some work to adjust our schedules (our household generally ate around noon), but these are minor points to adjust to.

After the first day, we felt comfortable that this wasn’t an utter trainwreck for our household.  Sierra generally had enough interest to listen and do some activities.  On the first couple of days, Vero and I (mostly Vero) were paying close attention via a monitor to understand what is happening and to help her understand what she needs to do.  But here we are at the end of the first week and while I do have the monitor on, it’s mainly to hear if she is calling for help…sometimes she has touched the wrong button on Google Meet and her camera has flipped, or something like that.

School activities range from singing songs, playing with blocks or play-dough, finding an object on an image on the screen, coming up with stories surrounding an image.  I find the most fun Sierra has are with the activities that has her running around the house.  “Go and get a red object and come back and show the class!”  “Now go get a blue one!”  I was on the way to the bathroom one afternoon and Sierra zoomed by me and I said “Whoa, what’s going on?” and she said “I need to get the toilet paper!” and I thought “Boy, I’m glad I wasn’t sitting down and she came in and stole the toilet paper!”

I’m sitting here writing this on a Thursday and I’m not sure if it’s because it’s a Thursday and everyone feels like the week has dragged on after four days, but I noticed that Sierra completely missed an entire activity and read a magazine instead.  I was furious in my head but then I realized that at the end of the day, this is maternelle, it’s not like she is going to fail out of this program, and if anything, she stayed in front of the iPad and read a magazine in front of her teachers so I just have to remove myself from the situation more and more.  If she was in regular school, I wouldn’t even realized that this stuff happened.

Vero and I are experiencing something that doesn’t happen all too often…it’s like we are sitting inside the classroom while the teachers teach.  We can’t help to want to give assistance to Sierra in understanding the activity or not to get lost sometimes, but I have to learn to pull myself away and just let Sierra and the teachers figure out how to do this whole virtual learning thing.  I can only imagine how hard it is for the teachers to try and keep an eye on 30 four year olds via a video conference.  It’s wild.

After the first week, I think Sierra is enjoying class, and she does seem to pay attention to most of the class.  There are a few days where she will come out and show us stuff she is making and we prompt her to return and listen to what the teacher is telling her, but we can’t really complain about this virtual learning experiment.  In our household, it’s going good.

Yesterday I heard Sierra singing an original song she came up with.  The lyrics were something like “The sunnnnn…in the skyyyy!”

Later on when she was getting dressed for bed she was singing another tune and singing it quite well and I thought “Wow, what does the future have in store for her?  Will I be traipsing her back and forth to Montreal for singing gigs?  Will she be the next Céline Dion?”

Then she proceeded to sing ‘MACARONIIII, MACARONIII, MACARONIIII!” For twenty minutes and I thought “Yeah, there goes that idea.”

Enjoying a snack near the Castor River

Enjoying some sun

It’s always funny to watch Ezra walk around with this little elephant.  He always does it sideways!

I think he got the hang of it

I love how he already knew how to put the guitar on over his neck!  This is the gift that keeps on giving in our house.  Thanks Matante Vero et Uncle Marty!

I’m now realizing that Ezra is becoming the master of all instruments in the house

Hanging out with the dinosaurs.  No big deal.

I always crack up when I see Ezra’s face in this photo.

Enjoying some tunes before camping out

Hanging out in the tent one afternoon.  Tents are AMAZING.  Kids can’t easily get hurt and they can’t escape either.

Dance party!

 

Matante Anne-Marie sent up this neat piano that you can play on the floor.  He quite likes it.

When his sister gets tired of scootering, Ezra carries the load.

I’m pretty sure I never got to eat a tomato off of this particular plant because the kids loved having a snack from it all summer long!

Tent time!

Tickle time!

Strumming away

It’s fun when I’m preparing lunch and I spy these two playing together and having fun without me prompting them to do so

This bird loves his bath

This might have been the first corn of his life!

Hanging out at the Castor River

It’s always nice when Grandmaman comes for a visit

Reach for the stars kid!

Maman trying to get Ezra to take a few more steps

Playing with Grandpapa at the park

These two LOVED their ice cream treat

Enjoying a summer supper outside

My pickling partner

The final sprinkler of the summer

Grandpapa

I love how Sierra brought the Mr. Freeze in for the photo

Tickle time!

Swinging with the sister

Always fun to have some lasagna!  You can see that Ezra is really getting the hang of using a spoon and a bowl.  Most days he will launch the bowl when he is done which is frustrating.  As long as you can sense the “I’m done eating” cues, you can grab that bowl before he throws it!

We really enjoyed going to the Limoges park at the end of the summer.  It was one of the parks that were closed longer due to the pandemic so we only went at the end of the summer.

Maman likes dressing as a princess for supper most nights

It must have been raining one morning so Sierra got to choose which game she wanted to play on the Nintendo.  Here is Batman!  I had never played it before.  Quite hard.

Whenever the music comes on, Ezra likes to dance around in his seat

Rainy day

 

The last days of summer

I didn’t realize the tent had a ‘no pants’ policy in effect

Mom went home for Grandmaman for the majority of the week so it was three three jokers on their own.  The first day was pretty hard because it was raining!  You can see that Ezra was in his sock feet…this was because his boots were too big and kept falling off!

You know you have good friends when they ask if you can bring anything and I ask for chicken wings and beer and they show up with what you asked for!

Proof that kids don’t care if it’s raining outside.  They just want to have fun!

The garden had a good haul of veggies!

Maman enjoying some time up North

A common sight in the mornings during the summer of 2020

Sierra is getting really good at taking photos!

Going from a ride

I think this was the day I realized that Ezra was ticklish

On August 31st, the birth of the duck face!

Near the end of the summer we were getting more comfortable letting the kids play at the playground.  Here was Ezra’s first climb up to the slide.

I’m not sure if he liked the Lion King shirt Maman brought back?

Seeing how life in the front seat is like

We got a little adventurous with a birthday video for Troy

I find it funny that kids like raw corn

The new Costco gets my seal of approval based on this item alone

The neighbours were super nice to offer up their pool on the Labour Day weekend.  We were floating in style!  The water was quite cold as I remember.  Much like the lake water around Labour Day!  We went both Saturday and Sunday and Vero suggested on the Sunday that I spend more time on this floating raft instead of in the water.  This may have been the highlight of the summer!

I think near the end of the summer the tent was getting a little ridiculous.  I was always cold in it and they started bringing large toys inside!

One last swing before the end of summer!

The amount of apples from our tree is ridiculous!  Next year we will need to devise a netting system to catch all of them before they fall down.  Ezra and Sierra do like grabbing an apple from the ground and eating them.  You just need to check them in case they were already eaten by an animal.

 

 

Vero started noticing some water coming out from under the dishwasher so one day we took a look at what it could be.

Note for future reference: don’t forget to disconnect the actual electrical cable from the dishwasher!  We were hauling on the dishwasher for a good hour after taking out the screws and realized that it’s a really short electrical cable so it just wasn’t letting go without it being disconnected!  Rookie mistake.

Once we got it out, we turned it over and took a look around and figured out that the leak was coming from something called a diverter and that research showed that it was probably a seal that had gone bad over time and needed to be replaced.

What should probably cost in the $5 range to purchase ended up looking like a hundreds of dollars purchase from Kenmore because they didn’t sell you just the seal, they sold you the entire assembly that you would have to re-install.

We were a little upset at this and so I got onto Ebay and did some digging around and found this listing:

For $30 I was willing to take the risk.  A few reviews said it worked on their Kenmore dishwasher (which I found out is really manufactured by Whirlpool so if you’re looking for parts, you can add that to your search query.

The instructions with this seal even told us we didn’t have to take out the dishwasher, we just had to take a screwdriver to the seal from within the dishwasher and then put some lubricant on the new seal and shaft, and bam, it should be good.

As I type this it doesn’t look like we have any leaks so we’ll let it run for an entire cycle and see what happens!

For $30 I am a happy camper and for future reference, I don’t even need to disconnect or pull out the dishwasher to replace this seal.