Rainwater Rambling Archive

Happy Victoria Day!

Happy Victoria Day, we had a fire in our chiminea and the girls roasted marshmallows. Or as a guy at work called them "sweetened cotton balls", this guy is originally from Bulgaria, he had his first marshmallow recently and he is 25.

The girls had friends over to roast marshmallows.

As with all good fires, there comes a little smoke with it.

Sue and Mike brought over some sparklers for the girls.

Claudia.

Gillian making circles.

Camp Weekend

It was camp weekend for all three girls. Angela had her year end Guide camp at Mountsberg Conservation Area. Gillian and Claudia were at Valens Conservation Area near Freelton with Pathfinders and Brownies. Our first drop off was Angela.

They had to wait for all the girls in their tent to arrive before they could set up their tent.

Gillian and Claudia blowing dandelions.

Next year they'll be camping together.

Next it was on to Valens to drop off Claudia and Gillian. While we were there it started to rain, we helped Gillian get settled in and got soaked in the process. On our way home there was an amazing rainbow, super bright and it spanned the whole sky. By the time I could pull off the 401 at Campbellville Rd, it wasn't as spectacular.

Baby Bird

The baby bird is still hiding out on our lawn, it goes from our evergreen to the other and back. There is a robin's nest in the one evergreen, so whenever the mother comes to feed the bird on the ground the robins start squawking and try to chase away the mother bird.

Feeding time.

Around The Backyard

We have a couple of rabbits that have been hanging out in the neighbourhood.

Some of the flowers around the yard.

Our inukshuk is getting lost in the plants.

We have a bunch of maple trees taking root around the yard.

Claudia jumping off the swing.

Bumble Bees

Some pictures of the bumble bee that was hanging around our lilac bush.

Claudia showing us her yoyo skills.

Angela.

One more bee shot.

How Did You Fare?

How did you fare in the storm that brought tornado watches and warnings from Environment Canada. We only the got the heavy rain and some brief periods of high winds. Our power went out briefly, just long enough to mess up the digital clocks. Here is a picture out the front door.

Within a couple of hours, the sun was out and the worst was heading to Vaughn.

Air Show

Gillian went down to the CNE Air Show on Saturday and she said it was really good. I was down at Spadina and Adelaide on Friday afternoon for a meeting and saw and heard them practising. Over the weekend we saw a few planes from our backyard, but I didn't get any pictures until Monday afternoon. Here is Fat Albert, the US Navy C130 Hercules that travels with the Blue Angels.

Here are the Blue Angels, they are like the Snowbirds. The Blue Angels are based out of Pensacola Florida.

A couple of fighter jets flew over the backyard as well. They were routing most of the commercial airliners to the south East-West runway during the airshow, so it was pretty quiet for most of the afternoon.

Outdoor Movie Night

What was planned for a few weeks ago as a back to school/end of summer event , finally came together. Our next door neighbour Lars and I wanted to put together a barbeque and movie night for the girls. We started with a barbeque in Lars and Julie's backyard. That is Lily in the middle, looking for a handout.

Here are the girls with Mady and Sarah.

A little bit of excitment after Chloe fell through a hole in their deck. They have cutouts in the deck for a cedar tree and when she was playing with Bella she fell through and disappeared.

Once it got dark, we moved to the front and set-up the projector and screen that I had borrowed from one of the guys at work.

We watched "17 Again". It turned out well, other than the odd plane going overhead. By the end of the movie, the temperature had dipped, it would have been a lot warmer back in August. The kids all had blankets. There were about 20 of us there for the movie. If we get an Indian Summer, we'll try and do another one.

Backyard Fun

We took advantage of another good weekend and the girls rake up the last of the leaves in the backyard. First they all had to try on the yard waster bag. Can you tell who is who?

Chloe going crazy for the broom. It looks like she is stuck to the broom.

She kind of looks like a little ewok.

A little more calm.

Chloe and the Snow

Chloe is still adjusting to the snow. The first morning it really snowed she spent a lot of time running around trying to catch the snowflakes. She digs, she eats the snow and she pees wherever she wants. We shovelled off the deck and some of the grass area for her. Since there is still snow on the deck she hasn't quite figured out that under the snow is the deck. Next time it snows we'll have to shovel just a trail for her to get out to the grass. Claudia shovelled the deck and more of the deck is showing, so now she goes right out to the grass.

She comes in from the outside and she has snow all stuck to her beard.

Angela and Chloe.

Chloe likes to look out the window, especially when someone goes out the door.

Chloe and the Snowman

The girls built a snowman on the back deck and Chloe sat there and barked at it for awhile.

Eventually she stopped barking and decided she was going to chew on his arm.

Waiting for the Snow.

The girls got snowshoes for Christmas, but no snow to go with it. Here are Angela and Claudia trying them out in the backyard.

Claudia and Angela with Claudia's marble race.

Angela on Streetview

Angela discovered that she and some of her friends were on Googlemaps Streetview. Of course my first response was why she wasn't walking on the sidewalk?

Signs of Spring

Some of the signs of spring around the house today. The lilac bush is starting to bud. Temperature got up to 17ºC today.

Claudia playing catch. Look at the concentration on her face.

Ladybug on the boxwood out front.

A little bee in the same shrub.

Claudia relaxing with Chloe out on the front lawn.

Let's Go Fly A Kite!

Angela's most recent project was to build a kite and fly it. She had the choice of making a Scott Sled kite or a Diamond kite. She was being marked not on the actual making of the kite, but the scientific journal documenting the building process and the test trials and her presentation. We started last night cutting out the shape and putting it together.

We used some vapour barrier plastic for the kite, some wooden dowels and some yellow duct tape.

Angela decorated it this afternoon with paint and Sharpies. After dinner we headed over to the test field (school yard) for our flight trials. Here is Angela with her decorated kite.

On the first trial, it got up in the air briefly.

But it needed some adjustments.

Claudia was flying a store bought kite that Susan picked up at Zellers today. It worked pretty well for $6.

After some tweaks, it was on to trial two.

It was staying up a little longer.

It was up in the air and going pretty good.

Angela discovered afterwards that our vent was upside down, the text book instructions were wrong, but I don't think it would make much difference.

I don't think it was as high in the sky as it looks in the picture.

A nice picture of Gillian.

Gillian and her friend Sarah jumping.

Haircuts and Badminton

The girls got their haircut this month. Here are the three of them showing their do's.

Chloe enjoys playing with Loki and Lily from next door.

The girls playing badminton.

Soccer Season Begins

Soccer season started last night with Claudia's first game. After some initial confusion with her uniform and coach-less team, things came together for her first game.

Here is Claudia in some action shots.

Claudia is playing in the U10 age group, as you can see she is on the smaller size, but she wasn't afraid of the ball.

This is Claudia's first time playing organized soccer. She enjoyed it and played well.

Claudia's Quarter Final Soccer Game

Claudia had her quarter final soccer game on Tuesday night, her team went 0-12 during the season. This being house league, everyone makes the playoffs and how you do in the regular season doesn't determine who you meet in the playoffs. Her team had a few close games where they were either tied or leading late in the game and somehow it went the other way. Claudia started the season on defence, but was moved to forward and lately has been playing both positions. This was her night, her team won 4-1 and SHE SCORED 2 GOALS! I had to get the play by play via e-mail, as Angela and I could only watch about 20 minutes before having to leave for Angela's practice. I don't have any pictures but here are some from her previous game where she came close on a couple of occasions.

Way to go Claudia! The team they beat was from the Tuesday night teams, they do a cross-over of nights. We think the other Tuesday night team won their quarter-final, so she plays them this Tuesday, probably better they play a team they haven't seen before.

Angela's Quarter Final Soccer Game

On Thursday night Angela had her quarter-final game for soccer. Their team was 1-11 this season, they played every Wednesday night since May and their first win came in game eleven. For their first playoff game they played a team from the Thursday night teams, fortunately it is a random draw that is decided at the beginning of the season. They won the game 2-0. Next week they play a team they were unable to beat all season in the semi-final game. They played a really good game this week and that was without two of their better forwards.

Angela played defence for most of the season.

Over the course of the season she had a few spills and bruises, but kept on going.

She is getting better at chasing down the opponent and taking the ball away. Even the ones that are about two feet taller than her.

If they win this Thursday they play again on Saturday in the finals. Go Angela!

Back to Blogging

I am finally getting around to updating the blog for this summer, it's not that we haven't been doing things, if anything, we have been doing too much. It will take a while to get this complete, I've taken close to 2000 photos since the last post back in May. Last night we watched "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" outside in the backyard with the Carr's. This has been our 4th or 5th movie this summer that we have done outside. Last Sunday we watched "Get Smart". I've gotten the set-up to the point where it only takes 10-15 minutes and we now have four locations we can mount or makeshift screen between our house and our neighbours.

On Friday morning, Angela, Claudia, Chloe and I were up early to head over to the Leash-free dog park. It is about five minutes from the house. Claudia and I went last Saturday morning, but it was after 9:00 am when we got there and there had to be over 30 dogs at the park. Chloe has quite figured out what she is suppose to do. She barks at the big dogs, sometimes running towards them, but as soon as they turn, she high tails it back to us. Friday she would run under one of the picnic tables. Here is Angela doing some scooping after Chloe did her business.

The girls managed to find a caterpillar while they were in the woods with Chloe.

The girls have been looking after Lily and Loki, the two pugs that live next door, for the past couple of weeks. They have been feeding, playing and walking them while our neighbours are away. Their oldest is home, but not always around. They have been watering the plants and veggies as well. Here is Lily trying to get in our house.

Chloe has been playing with the pugs everyday, her and Loki run laps around the backyards. By the evening she is pooped. Here she is kind of in and out of her bed.