I literally just finished up the 27th month blog post yesterday and here is another post to write! Clearly I am lacking time to properly keep these posts up to date.
With the fall arriving, we have pulled things out of storage and I stumbled upon a box of toys for 2 year olds. I cracked it open and Sierra is really enjoying Mr. Potato Heads lately. She calls them ta-ta.
Unfortunately Sierra was quite sick with an ear infection earlier in the month. We noticed a fever which resulted in sleepless nights until four days later when Vero brought her to the doctor and gave her some antibiotics. Let me tell you, antibiotics may be the greatest scientific discovery ever! I think the next time we suspect something is wrong, we may not wait the four days that Telehealth recommends and just go after two days. It definitely felt like having a newborn baby all over again!
I think the transition from summer to fall will be hard on Sierra as she can’t play outside as much as she used to (or at least play with the water toys she enjoys so much). Ah well kid, the change of seasons make you appreciate when they come back again the next year!
We’ve started to leave the baby gate open to downstairs as she is quite stable going up and down the stairs on her own. Sure, accidents will happen, but for the most part she is good to move around on her own. Of course, this just adds a new level to the game where I have to think “What trouble is she getting into downstairs?” We don’t tend to leave her alone down there for more than a few minutes. It is hilarious how I will be watching her one minute and she disappears and I find her upstairs with Maman.
This is a classic scene when dropping Sierra off at daycare. She insists on opening and closing the door.
We had Madame Butterfly over for breakfast one morning.
Sierra is becoming a photographer. Slowly.
Admiring her painting.
One last slide of the summer.
I think this may be the first time Sierra went on the tire swing.
Brown Thunder meets White Lightning
A nice Labour Day breakfast at Jon and Chantal’s house.
Bedroom party!!
Sierra is basically a fish now at the end of the summer. Shawn and Kim invited us for a dip in the afternoon. I predict Sierra may be jumping into the neighbour’s pool in the many years to come!
Sierra is loving her new sunglasses!
On the road again with some playdough!
We stopped into Haileybury for the evening on our way back up home for Grandmaman Cantin’s 90th birthday party. For supper we stopped into Gilly’s Truck Stop in New Liskeard. I quite liked how they had reusable cups of milk for the kid. We smartly don’t order much of anything for Sierra, we just let her munch on our food.
There’s always fun to be had outside a truck stop!
Sierra enjoyed the company of the dog at the motel we stayed at. I believe he enjoyed her company as well!
Having fun at Grandpapa and Grandmaman’s place in Hearst!
Slow motion trampoline madness!
Practising the Superman flight move!
Having fun in Amelie’s driveway. I took this photo after collapsing a lung when the kids were playing tag with me. While I think I’m in shape from going on the elliptical, playing tag is a whole other game.
So I don’t know much about hockey, but I know it’s a big deal when Evan gets into this travelling team in Hearst. It’s the talk of the town if these guys get onto the Lumber Kings! We went down in the afternoon to check out an exhibition game vs. Kapuskasing. Of course we all know what team I was cheering for! Unfortunately Kapuskasing lost by quite a large margin which supposedly was a big upset considering Kap is known to be a killer team. No longer now that Evan is on the ice! Evan and Antoine also both scored a goal which was awesome to see.
Of course he is going to give this puck to his Uncle at Christmas.
Mae’s only goal in life was to play with Sierra this weekend. I’m not sure if she was disappointed that Sierra doesn’t play well with others at first…especially if they are trying ot make her smile for a photo!
A great tent setup for the 90th birthday party for Grandmaman Cantin
Vero worked really hard on compiling all of everyone’s photos of Grandmaman over the years into this video. It was a packed house inside the gazebo where they were watching it so I got to watch it from outside.
Playing ball at the breakfast the next morning. It’s important to note that this was morning after we spent the evening outside in what felt like zero degrees. I should have brought my parka up! I had to borrow a jacket from Gaetan. I even took my guitar out for a songs and a string snapped two songs in and the guitar was just twisting from fear of the cold in my own cold hands. Unsurprisingly, we all came down with colds this weekend.
I had a good laugh when I saw this person’s parking job.
Super Cantin Bros.
That afternoon we headed out to Vero’s family cabin in the woods. While Sierra took a nap, Andreane, Vero and I headed out on the four wheelers which was a fun time.
I have to say September may be my favourite time of the year to visit up North. No flies!
Evan and the others found us out by the river. Here’s Sierra hanging out with her cousin.
Francis was nice enough to lend us the side by side for the ride back. I have to say that I think side by sides are great when you have a good trail to follow, but I didn’t really care for it when you’re going at slow speeds through the woods. It’s almost like it wasn’t built for that and you have to really feather the gas pedal to find a good constant speed.
Only took a few dozen photos to get a good one of Sierra and her aunts!
“You listen when I talk to you!”
Sierra really liked playing with Buddy (or is it Rolo? I can’t remember which dog is which of Andreane’s!)
Someone REALLY enjoyed going on the four wheeler with Grandpapa!
We had a nice pizza supper (Danielle had this interesting pizza oven that you put on the BBQ) with all the family. That was the end of the festivities for Grandmaman’s 90th birthday!
Torpedo!
Someone hid Sierra’s shoes in Grandpapa’s shoes!
Supposedly this is THE toy to play with Grandmaman’s. It was one of her son’s and Vero remembers growing up and playing with at her place and now her daughter can play with it also (here’s a photo of a rare moment where Vero wasn’t hogging it from Sierra).
We sneaked in a quick visit to Grandmaman’s place before we hit the road that afternoon! Bonne fete!
This dog is going to miss Sierra.
Thumbs up for one last ride before we headed out of town.
I love this picture because Abbey has mastered the look of laughing in a photo. She wasn’t even laughing…she was just holding her face like this for when I snapped the shot! The results are quite hilarious.
Oh look, it’s some girls with a creepy doll!
Good times were had at the Kapuskasing piano recital.
We stayed in North Bay for the evening on the way back to Ottawa and across the street was the bay! I hadn’t even planned it. Sierra yelled ‘BEACHAAAA!’ as soon as we saw it!
Pretty nice spot!
Here’s a proud moment in my life as a geek dad. Andreane had purchased a book of Star Wars sounds that Sierra was quite enamoured with. It has pictures of Luke and Leia and Darth Vader and all the characters so when I’m reading the story, at various points I stop talking when it’s time to press the button. One morning she was playing with the book and I asked “Would you like to see the movie that these characters are from?” “Yeah.” I loaded up A New Hope faster than the Millenium Falcon doing the Kessel Run! As you can see, she was quite excited by the intro music. She was having a good time when R2-D2 or C-3PO came on the screen. “Dad. DAD!” she would yell, pointing at the screen. I have been watching the movie with her in 15 minute intervals as that’s about the amount of interest she has in sitting down for.
Maman’s birthday party woo!
Trish made this fantastic cake and you can see that I tried to make it hard for Vero to blow out the candles.
Poor Sierra came down with a fever the night of Vero’s birthday party and it lasted four days until we started giving her antibiotics for an ear infection.
Check out that corpse pose!
Luckily Papa and Grandma showed up make Sierra feel better.
Mom and Dad were nice enough to babysit for an evening so Vero and I could go to Montreal to see Paul McCartney! I messed up and didn’t book a hotel soon enough so we ended up at Hotel des Arts which I had assumed would be a pretty bad hotel but we were pleasantly surprised when we showed up!
I’m not sure who the woman at the back of the photo is, but Vero told me she is some sort of TV celebrity.
Waiting for the legend to grace the stage.
I don’t know many 76 year olds that can put on a three hour show like Paul McCartney and his band put on! It was fantastic as always. I quite enjoyed the stripped down set of older Beatles tunes in the middle of the concert. And Live and Let Die is always so over the top that it makes me laugh every time. Thanks to Mom and Dad for letting us out for the night.
I couldn’t get over the amount of pigeons on this roof!
One last visit to the Casse-Croute in Embrun before the winter hits.
