Witch with her stick. For future reference our lawn looked quite horrible after leaving the leaves on it all winter. This was in the backyard only.
Fredo still gets some love
I’m on the best at maintaining my property but with parental leave and it being nice out, there’s a lot more time on my hands to chip away at it every day.
This hot tub hasn’t worked in a few years. Here’s a photo of what it looks like two years later and just about to leave as we are ordering a new one.
I had a good laugh when this appeared while I was changing Ezra’s diaper!
Before the leaves came in
What kid doesn’t like playing with the hose?
I get dizzy if I dance with Sierra like a normal person would so this is my new go-to move to avoid dizziness!
Star Wars Day was an exciting time for us. We went all out and it started with watching A New Hope.
Sierra and I attempted to make a Yoda cake
Was it the most beautiful Yoda cake in the world? No. But Maman was surprised when she came upstairs for lunch! Note for next time: I need to let the cake cool before icing it!
Yummy, I look
We started introducing a quiet time hour instead of a nap in the afternoon. I was very proud to see her re-enacting some lightsaber fights during her quiet time on Star Wars Day!
I noticed this buildup getting larger and the boiler guy told me just to scrub it off and keep an eye on it. For the moment I have let it as is but will keep taking photos to see if it spreads.
Learning a skill that Nanny Ruth would be proud of…writing and mailing a letter!
We drove out to Russell because I wanted to teach Sierra that you can mail a letter from any mailbox but you can only receive mail at your own mailbox. In this particular case, we had written a thank you note to some neighbours who gave Sierra a stormtrooper clock for her bedroom and a few days later we happened to be at the mailbox with those very same neighbours when they received Sierra’s letter! What are the odds?
Sierra’s new clock. She has been fascinated with asking to look at my watch each night before going to bed so we figured this was a good time to get her a clock. I spoke with a teacher friend and she said that digital is an easier concept for kids that age to understand.
That’s a LOT of brush to burn. Good thing the burn ban is finally over!
A good muddy cause and effect lesson!
An autograph from James Doohan (aka Scotty!)
Maple leaves are pretty neat when they are first growing. I have to say that I have paid a lot more attention to my environment when on parental leave.
CAN YOU DIG IT?!?!
WARRIORS! COME OUT AND PLAYAYYYYYAYYYYY
Some good slo-mo dance moves!
Flip!
I must have messed up the edit points on this slo-mo video but the ending is great
We try and get the campfire going every night to burn down some brush!
Sometimes in the mornings we like our story time. We were reading Cinderella here and then I introduced her to the movie.
Sierra was a great help at washing all the windows. Unfortunately she hasn’t realized that touching the windows with her face and hands gets them dirty all over again!
I haven’t counted the number of rocks in the park parking lot but…there’s a lot!
We hit a snag at one point with ordering a new hot tub because our air conditioning unit looked to be too close to the hot tub to be safe. Bummer! We had to get an electrician in to see what can be done. In the end, we had to order a GFCI breaker for the air conditioning unit. I will take that over having to move the AC unit any day!
I was running low on kegs of beer so it was time to support some craft breweries. I tried my best to support the Ottawa breweries but they were always sold out of their product! That made me realize that they really aren’t hurting so I decided to make an order from Cowbell Brewery which have fantastic beer. Upon my second order they even emailed me to thank me for being a repeat customer! Love these guys.
After a long day with the kids Vero usually comes out and gives me a break. At one point my break took me onto the floor of the deck for a rest.
Look who came for a quick visit! This was our first visitor in two months. It felt strange and exhilirating.
Marking our territory
Exercise time! I also love how she put on my ballcap that I usually wear when on the elliptical
I think Sierra was eating some Cranberries and it made me realize that she might like to see some videos by The Cranberries! You will also see that we were playing a modified game of Splendour. She wants to play board games but they are too complex for her so I have to come up with some new rules. I believe in this version, we each have a stack of cards, then we flip them and whoever has the largest number wins a coloured gem. Then, when we are done with our cards, we pit all the coloured gems against each other in a battle arena. If she has more red gems than I do, bam, mine get beaten and she gets a point. If there is a tie we try rock paper scissors which she finds is hilarious.
Clearly Sierra is excited that we can run in the park again as pandemic restrictions have been eased
Special thanks goes to Jasco Games for this board game! I kickstarted an Evil Dead 2 board game years ago and the company stole our money and ran off somewhere with millions of dollars raised. I was personally out $100! A few years later Jasco Games comes around and says they want to make a board game and will give a copy free to all the people who got screwed over with the original Kickstarter. All we had to do was pay the shipping. It looks like a neat game. Too bad I need three players minimum to play it! That doesn’t happen during a pandemic.
The scene: It’s a Saturday, I haven’t had a beer yet and I’m chasing Sierra around the yard with a water gun. I see the neighbour bike by and I know it’s her birthday so I run to the road to spray her. Somehow my mind didn’t account for the ditch and I trip coming out of it. At one point I had flashbacks of 8th grade when I fell off my bicycle onto my face. This time I had a choice…my hands or my face? My hands got some bad roadrash. Two weeks later as I type this I would say it’s 95% healed. It was a hard first week trying to handle the baby with this war wound! I would say the neighbour will always remember this birthday greeting when I was lying on my back groaning and saying Happy Birthday!
Living with a toddler who is going to the toilet themselves sometimes has things like this happen
Stuff like this happens as well!
A neat photo of my grandfather and his friends
Look at how high she goes!
Inspecting the magnolias
After two months I finally got the secret weapon to a great sandwich!
Preparing the butterflies for Sierra’s birthday butterfly hunt
I remember this being a very hot day. Vero was attempting to work outside but I’m not sure if it worked all that well.
She was complaining she couldn’t see the laptop screen so I offered her a solution!
Here she is taking a break from work! For historical note, this was the summer where I decided to be that overweight guy walking around his yard without a shirt on, hence where Vero got her excellent shade from. It’s a freeing experience!
Vero decided she wanted the garden again so we cleaned it all up (especially after yanking out the vines that were growing near the dog house that we took down the year before) and here is Sierra helping out with the plants.
This thing took me 30 minutes to blow up!
Sierra playing Mixed Up Mother Goose. It’s a really good kids game because there are no enemies or ways for your character to perish. She’s pretty good at walking around on her own and clicking things.
Look who found Maman’s glasses.
Break time
We had a heat wave at the end of May which brought out the sprinkler!
Superfast Sierra!
For historical reference, my eyelid really took a beating during the heat wave. I can’t tell if it was the heat or the bug spray that had a weird effect on it. There was definitely a build up of pus in it before this. Something to keep my EYE on.
I can’t stop laughing at how excited Sierra was to dance to this ‘Olaf’s Frozen Adventure’ soundtrack. I love when she starts dancing with the measuring tape!
Special thanks to Etienne for getting me this piri piri sauce for a Christmas gift! It’s the same stuff they serve at St Hubert.
I dropped off a tiller at Mike and Melanie’s place and got to chat with them over a beer. I also got to play some soccer with Max. I can’t remember if this was pre or post me sacking him with the soccer ball. We were both a little surprised by it! He survived!
All our garden is currently missing are eight crucifixes
The piggy back ride made an appearance! It was a really hot day so we didn’t make it that far.
I pressure washed the deck for the first time. For reference, I had purchased brown tinted wood and the year after, I applied some Thompson’s clear water seal advanced edition. After working really hard on a few boards I talked with Vero and she made me realize that I may actually be stripping off the brown tint of the board. Sure enough, I think that was what I did to a few boards which is a bummer. It made the rest of my job a lot easier as I probably went through 10 boards over two hours in the morning and another 25 in about 20 minutes after lunch once I realized my mistake. I have also noticed that when it rains, these particular boards don’t have the water drops bead any longer. I may have to apply some water seal on these boards again. It was a great day to be out with the washer though…40 degrees!
Vero loves this video
Sprinkler time!
It’s too hot in the house to use the stove!