Drive-by Birthday

This past weekend we celebrated my husband's birthday.  The weekend started off wonderfully.  K got home early on Friday which meant that he was able to take Prima to catch the bus for her orienteering competition.  It's so nice when I don't need to get all the kids in the van just to take one where they need to go.

So, on Saturday Prima was away for the whole day at an orienteering competition.  We figured that this was the perfect time for K to take Secundus to the city to see a movie.  Secundus had indicated earlier that he would really like to see Frankenweenie.  As it turned out though, he decided to see Hotel Transylvania instead.  It ended up being a great birthday treat for K because Secundus took his own money and treated them both to popcorn and candy.




On Sunday the girls and I made a truck birthday cake.  I had to be a little creative with how to make it into a decent truck but I think it turned out alright, especially for a somewhat last-minute design idea.  














The cake itself was butter pecan with brown sugar frosting, a family favourite.  I just make the cake from a mix but the icing is from scratch.  Someday I'll just put the icing in a pan and make it into fudge, it tastes so good.








Speaking of fudge, the absolute best place to buy fudge is The Market Cafe and Fudge Factory in Bancroft, Ontario.  It's made on-site and it's absolutely amazing - creamy, rich and sweet.  They have lots of flavours also.  My personal favourite is penuche - a fudge made with brown sugar.  They don't always have penuche made up since it's not one of their big sellers.  They usually have it in the summer though.  My other favourite is chewy praline.  One of my sisters loves it so much that when she buys a box (which will normally hold four flavours) she just gets all chewy praline.  They also often have seasonal flavours - pumpkin in autumn, candy cane at Christmas.  

If you can't stop by the Market Cafe in Bancroft another option is The Madawaska Art Shop in Maynooth (which is part of Hastings Highlands municipality).  They are owned by the same people so the fudge is the same.  There's not as big of a selection but the store and gallery itself is really cool to explore.  Plus, there are a lot of other neat shops in Maynooth.  If you're there on Saturdays in the summer, you can even stop by the farmer's market held at the old community centre from 8am - 1pm.  Last year they also started having an indoor market one Saturday per month in the winter.  I'm not sure what the plan is for this year though.

Digging In

This past week I've been getting the house in order from our visit to family.  Sometimes I wonder why I go away since it's always so much work when I get back.

This week I was fortunate in that the man got back from work early enough so that I didn't have to go pick up the rental car - yay!  Unfortunately, his work was having the annual employee breakfast meeting on Saturday so he wasn't around for the whole morning.  It would be so nice if he could just be home for one whole weekend, is that really too much to ask?

One of the exciting things that happened this weekend is that Prima had her first official horse riding lesson.  I really like the barn where she's taking lessons.  She has been to a couple horse camps before but not actual lessons so I can't really compare the lessons to those at other barns.  One thing I love though, is that Prima is learning how to safely get the horse from the field (without letting the other horses our too).  She's learning how to properly tack the horse and lead the horse and all kinds of other things about handling horses.  Prima really enjoyed her lesson and is excited to go back in two weeks.

I've been focused on getting the yard work finished before the ground freezes and the snow falls.  I like to get everything tidied up before it gets covered in snow.  I have a few plants from my sister's house that I still need to get in the ground plus some of my own plants that still need to be moved around.  I had hoped to order some fall bulbs this year but I think that will have to wait for next year.  I'm so excited about my garden next year though.  It will be fun to see all the plants from this year come up in the spring.  My goal is to never have to mow our front lawn and it's so nice to see the progress.

Whirlwind Weekend, Putting Things Away

This post will be much shorter than planned.  I am in dire need of getting the house in order.  We went away for Thanksgiving weekend.  It was really nice to visit family (and get a bunch of plants from my sister's overflowing garden).  Now it's time to tidy up, get some groceries and get all those plants in my garden.

Making a Schedule

You'll be happy to hear that I spent yesterday making a schedule.  No longer will you have to wait two or more weeks between blog posts because I have now scheduled them in.  I plan to post every Monday.  We'll see how that works out, I may change the day but I am committing to post every week. 

Summer Camp, Making a Splash

I'll be spending the next few days catching up with the posts that should have happened during the summer.  In August Prima attended a sea cadet summer camp for two weeks.  I was so excited for her.  I went to cadet camp when I was a teen and had a great time.  I hoped that she would really enjoy her time there.

She went to HMCS Ontario in Kingston.  Normally, this is the site for the Royal Military College (RMC).  However, in the summer the sea cadets get to use the facilities for their summer camp.  Some of the different courses offered there are basic seamanship, boatswain, sailing, gunnery/drill and band.  The courses range from two weeks to six weeks in length.  The two-week course is a general training course geared towards first-time campers.  This is the one that Primus attended.  She got to do some sailing, play sports, tour Old Fort Henry, go swimming and all kinds of other things.

August 16 was the day of the whole camp's graduation parade.  Families were invited to attend so I decided to make the trip down.  I took my parents as well.  My dad actually used to work as an officer for the summer camp at HMCS Ontario.  He also worked at HMCS Acadia, located in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia as well.  Anyway, I thought that it might be a small trip down memory lane for him.  His short-term memory is going but his long-term memory is still quite sharp.  I was a little surprised that he didn't remember his time at HMCS Ontario.  I wonder if he would remember HMCS Acadia.

 Anyway, since my parents went with me that meant that I had to take the rest of the kids too.  We decided to make a day of it and left early enough that we could stop off in Madoc at the spash park.  My niece works at the snack bar there but unfortunately, she wasn't working while we were there.  We got some fries, nachos, hotdogs and slushies for lunch and then spashed away.  The kids had a blast (literally) in the water.  It's also very fitting that it was a nautical theme.

I have to say that I'm so impressed with the centre that Madoc has.  If you read the article linked above you'll notice that it and the buildings around it are quite unique.  The bathroom was built with the straw bale technique.  Also, the splash pad, itself, is very low in its water water usage.  Its playground is also amazing and it has a skate park with a place to rent skateboards.

My only complaint about the park is that it has a boat named HMS Waterplay.  Since it's a Canadian boat it should be named HMCS Waterplay.  (HMS = Her Magesty's Ship, HMCS = Her Magesty's Canadian Ship.)  The irony for us is that we were on our way to a sea cadet graduation at HMCS Ontario.

One of the first things you learn when you have anything to do with any military organization is "hurry up and wait".  When we arrived at HMCS Ontario we found out that there had been a mistake in the instructions.  The instructions had listed the parade as starting at 1600 hours which is 4:00 pm.  Someone doesn't know how to add 12 because the parade actually didn't start until 1800 hours or 6:00 pm.  We ended up leaving so we could get something to eat.




Since Prima was in the back row of the farthest back division, I really only had one chance to get a picture of her.  In this picture the parade is doing a march past where they each, in turn, march past the reviewing party.  Since she was in the back row of her division, when they wheeled around to the front of the parade square, she wound up in the front row.

During the march past, the band played along to keep everyone in step and impress the visitors.

I was somewhat apprehensive about the graduation parade.  I really didn't want my kids to be distracting.  Especially adding to the fact that they had already been in the car for well over 4 hours due to our extra early arrival.  We were fortunate that close to the parade square, behind the bleachers was the best sandbox the kids could have asked for.  They had a great time!  I wish that I had taken our beach toys.
This picture was taken while waiting for the parade to start, the bleachers were full by the time the parade started.

Letting Go of History

First things first, I have got to get on some kind of schedule for posting.  It's so easy to procrastinate.  Unfortunately, then all these things that I want to blog about pile up and/or get outdated.

So the first thing I wanted to post about is more of a public service announcement.  Did you know that in Ontario when you return licence plates for a refund, they keep your plates!?  Perhaps it should have been common sense to me but I didn't realize that.  At first I wasn't sure that the $10 refund I received was worth letting go of our old plates.  However, I was able to put things in perspective - the paint on the plates was peeling, they weren't our first ever set of plates (we lost those), and I'm supposed to betting rid of things we don't need.  I'm suppressing my hoarding tendencies and feeling the freedom from letting things go.  The biggest regret I have is that the plates had a really cool big stack of renewal stickers on it.

So why was I returning my plates?  That's a whole other story.  Our car broke down on Hwy 401 near Cambridge about a month ago, thank goodness it wasn't the van.  My husband and I were both returning home from his brother's wedding.  We had gone separately due to my husband's work schedule.  When he asked if I wanted to drive the car instead of the van (with our four children and a niece inside) I politely declined.  I've never trusted that car and we wouldn't have bought it if not for the fact that he insisted on a manual transmission.  While I prefer manual, there's more selection for a used car if you're willing to go automatic.

Anyway, shortly into our trip home the car broke down.  Fortunately, he was close behind me at the time so I noticed him pull off in my rear-view mirror.  I went to the next exit, turned around and drove back.  I had our cell phone with us at the time but since we have just the one phone, it's not like he could call me or anything.  The whole way back I was thinking, "I hope that wasn't someone else and now I'm going back for nothing."  In retrospect, that was kind of a dumb thing to think.  If it was him, it meant bad news for us.  As it is, it was, indeed, him.

So I pulled off, gave him the phone so he could call Canadian Tire Roadside Assistance.  There was some debate about where to get the car towed but we ended up just getting it towed to Canadian Tire in Cambridge.  Now, I will say right off, under normal circumstances I will not take a car to get serviced at Canadian Tire.  I've had horrible experiences with Canadian Tire garages in the past (I love their roadside assistance though).  If I had thought about it more, I would have had the car towed to my sister's mechanic in Waterloo or the mechanic we used to deal with when we lived in Kitchener.  I wasn't thinking so to Canadian Tire it went.

One cool thing that happened is that the tow truck dispatcher called the cell phone for some info.  In doing so she recognized the number as one that belonged to someone from where she grew up.  I asked her name and it turns out we went to school together.  The last time I saw her, she was taking pictures of one of my kids at the Sears Portait Studio.

A second cool thing is that while we were on the phone and the kids were in the van Tertia lost a tooth.  This was her second lost tooth.  A couple weeks prior to this lost tooth she noticed her adult tooth growing in behind the baby tooth.  After some internet research to determine how serious it was I learned that this is fairly common and is called shark teeth.  I figured that I'd just wait and see what happened.  Fortunately, her baby tooth loosened on it's own and came out.

Another cool thing that happened is that where the car broke down was quite close to an old rest stop so I pulled up there and let the kids out without worrying about them being on the side of a major highway.  My husband and I were very impressed with the picnic tables.  We would love picnic tables like this at our house.

So the car got picked up and we went on our merry way home.  Our church picnic had been scheduled for that afternoon.  While we didn't make it for the beginning of the picnic, we made it for the food.

Since I returned the plates, it should be obvious that the car was a write-off.  The garage determined that the timing belt had gone.  Considering that the car had over 300K km on it, I'm not that surprised.  Once the timing belt goes it's so likely that there's engine damage that there's no point repairing it.  While speaking with the garage I asked him if he could just send it to a wrecker.  He responded, "What about the wood?"  Oh yeah,  my sister had just bought a house and the previous owner had left a lot of cedar rails that they didn't want.  I had filled the car with the ones that would fit in it, figuring that I'd pick up the longer ones at a later date.  So now I had a car full of wood.  The question was whether it was worth the trip. 

I called the wrecker and he needed the ownership signed over to him anyway so I planned to go on a Tuesday.  This worked out perfectly since my husband, who is usually gone Monday to Friday with his job, ended up with Tuesday off.  We went down Tuesday with the van, cleaned out the car then continued to my sister's and picked up the remainder of the rails since they would fit in the van.  Of course, they pawned off some other stuff on us that they didn't want.  I'm a sucker for stuff.

We were planning on getting another car.  My husband's work is an hour and a half away and while he generally just needs to be dropped of Monday and picked up Friday, it's a hassle.  What we realized though, is that it's just as cheap for him to rent a car every weekend.  He gets a much better car, we don't have to pay insurance for a second vehicle (our insurance covers rentals with zero deductible), we have no maintenance or repairs on it and if we need a truck some weekend, he'll just rent one.  We'll see how it goes over the next few months.  Currently we're getting the car from Discount Car and Truck Rental.  We get it for $9.99 per day for one driver or $19.99 for two drivers - not bad.

Starting out . . . again.

I've started a few blogs over the past couple of years.  I'm usually good about posting near the beginning but then they peter off.  I've never been completely satisfied with them because I've found them somewhat confining.  Each of the blogs I've started has had a fairly specific topic.  While this approach works wonderfully for some people, it doesn't fit me.  I'm interested in all kinds of different things and I'd like to post about many of them.  So how do I make them all fit together.

My husband recently started a blog of his own.  It was inspired due to his recent career change.  He is now a professional truck driver and his blog shows a little glimpse into some of his experiences.  The title for his blog is simply, "I'm Driving a Truck Now".  Building on his theme, I've entitled mine, "I'm Driving a Van Now".  I figured that the fact that I drive a van pretty much sums up what a lot of my life is currently about.

We purchased our mini-van when our fourth child was born.  Up until that time we drove cars and, for a time, we were car-less.  We also drove a snowmobile too.  The birth of our fourth child was a cross-roads for us.  We would no longer all fit in a car.  (I would have really liked a Volvo with the rear-facing seats in the back but those things are super-hard to find.)  Most SUV's are built to haul stuff and not people so we settled for a 2004 Ford Freestar.  I wanted roof racks and a rear seat that folded flat.  Flat-folding middle seats would have been nice too but I also wanted to pay cash and those options seemed to be mutually exclusive at the time.

Anyway, the point is, I drive a minivan.  Why?  Because I have four children.  Not everything on this blog will be about my children but many of the things will be inspired by them.  For example, I would have been interested in things like healthy eating even if I had never had children but the desire to feed my children well has increased my interest in healthy eating.

The last little bit of introduction will be introducing my family.  While nothing on the internet should be treated as all that private and I'm sure people could find out their names if they really wanted to, I'm not comfortable calling my children by their names on a public blog.  Honestly, trying to come up with a blog name and screen-names for my children are the main reasons I've been putting off this blog for so long.  I have taken inspiration from the movie Stardust for the screen-names for my children.  My oldest will be Prima, the next will be Secundus, the third will be Tertia and the fourth will be Quatrus.  (If you haven't figured it out, it goes girl - boy - girl - boy.  I still have to come up with a name for my husband.