August – exhausting

Somehow, although July was the month in which we had scheduled vacation, our August has been a month kicked into high gear – with no end in sight. Since I’ve been such a slack poster, I’m doing a 2 week update, so it’s long, but full of pictures and fun.

I’ll cheat a bit here and include July 31st, the day we travelled to Iroquois to see if we could catch a ship going through the locks. Sadly, the ships were off-schedule, but we enjoyed a wonderful drive, picnic and a short visit to the grounds of Upper Canada Village (no we didn’t visit the village, our timeline didn’t allow it):

Anxiously awaiting the big boats

But the ships were off schedule so all we got were these ‘small’ boats.

Oh wait, we’ll pretend this was an educational trip:

Turns out that even the gift shop at Upper Canada Village can be educational (as a kid I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that ‘Upper’ Canada Village was south of where we lived *g*). They had a woodcarving exhibit in the store:

Seemed the guy knew what he was talking about:

And he gave V a little rough-carved flat cardinal for her to sand and paint at home. In other words, they’re now best buds.

We figured we hadn’t done enough that day so we biked up to our local rec centre and V and hubby went swimming while I lapsed into a coma on a rock outside.

Next up was a family picnic at my aunt and uncle’s. Chet joined us at this one and met his…uh, cousin? Sammy (pic is from last fall):

And the two of them promptly set about terrorizing my niece and nephew by plopping their geriatric bones down and taking a nap.

Once I could convince Chet that he wasn’t in hell (it was a crazy hot day), I spent a bit of time strolling around the neighbourhood taking goofy pics of the construction on their road (I knew there were tunnels!):

No really, that’s a fricken big hole!

I have absolutely no recollection of what we did on the 2nd and 3rd, other than that there was pizza involved. The fourth was the first of Stittsville’s Concert in the Park series, and that week’s act was Eddy and the Stingrays. We met a fellow knitwit and her family at the park and V spent the night horsing around with her twin boys:

(I believe the little dude seen here later declared to his mother that V was his girlfriend *g*)

Also keeping me on my toes? V’s daredevil side:

Saturday found us in Manotick, where we stopped to smell the flowers:

Oh, and eat some icecream!

We then decided to check out the local (to us not Manotick) splash pad. I think we can call it a success:

Monday we hit the wave pool, which is really sort of like spending an hour at the brink of drowning, with a 3yo clinging to your back. Needless to say I was asleep by 8:30 that night!

Tuesday was a long, long, long overdue pedicure, and my fellow knitwit and I hit the Mahogany Spa in Carleton Place. If you haven’t been yet, and the drive is reasonable you really should. This place is INCREDIBLE.

Thursday found us again at the Stittsville Village Square park, this time listening to the Mick Armitage Band. V ran in to a little guy from her daycare and they were inseparable.

Well, until my child decide to lead E and his little brother over towards the sidewalk. E’s parents scooped them up and dragged them home. She’s a bad influence already! V then carried on ‘dancing’ (I’m sure that’s what she called it) on her own:

Friday’s sunset saw us at Parliament Hill for Fortissimo:

The sunset was very tempting, but as I raced behind the Centre Block to get a better view I was stopped by a soldier who suggested I take a different path…as they were about to fire the big guns!

It was doubly worth it:

Followed by the earth-shattering kabooms:

(really I tried not to flinch!)

We decided to hang around for Mosaika, and I’m not sure why we haven’t been going every year! I’m just sad that my battery flaked out on me at this point, the iPhone just didn’t do it justice. Check out the website, and if you’re in Ottawa, I highly recommend it, it runs until Sept 5th I believe.

Saturday we were up at the butt-crack of dawn, executing the harebrained travelling garage sale scheme hatched by my SIL. Saturday we were in her laneway, Sunday we were in ours (woohoo for getting rid of junk – also a whole day hanging around your front lawn shooting the shit).

Saturday afternoon V convinced us to (surprise, surprise) take her to the wading pool:

Where both mom and Auntie got thoroughly soaked. Somehow.

Whew, I need a nap. And if you’ve made it this far, thank you, and I promise not to go that long between updates again! The rest of the month is jam packed with fun events for V including:

A Company of Fools
The Evening of Light
Sound of Light
Mont Cascades
Biking on the Parkway
Making pickles, corn relish, strawberry jam

And whatever else catches our fancy.