Month: September 2011

Playing in the Dirt

When we changed the front of our house we took down the deck that ran the entire width of our house. This left an area 10 by 14 ft that I have been planning on turning into garden space. My load of soil came yesterday and so I and the kids spent the entire day outside moving dirt around. I’m not finished yet, but I think that I have made significant progress.

Where are my kids?

Having a blast on their own “soil slide”. Well at least we all had a a good day. I just closed my eyes to how dirty they were getting.

A Day in Morden Manitoba

We visited the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre last Saturday. It had been planned to spend the day at Grand Beach with friends, but the forecast was for cold and rainy weather. I had a great time anyway which is good since it was my birthday.

We learned alot about the marine reptiles (not dinosaurs) that lived in Lake Agassiz and we met Bruce, the largest mosasaur remains discovered. The museum is very proud of Bruce and happy to have him housed inside a real museum instead of the old figure skating rink.

It takes about an hour and a half to make your way through the exhibits, after we checked out the grounds of the Morden Research Station. The kids burnt off some energy with the boys…

and the ladies checked out the roses.

We had supper at J&S’s complete with chocolate chocolate birthday cake. Thanks guys! L has been all talk of dinosaurs again. Today was his meet the teacher for school. He was supposed to draw a self-portrait for the first page of his portfolio he wanted to draw a dinosaur. Finally Lowell talked him into drawing himself beside the T-rex. When we got home he decided to draw more dinosaurs like he wanted to at school.

The Ichthyosaurs and the Elasmosaurs fighting over food.


Paleontologists believe that the Ichthyosaurs gave birth to live young, so here is Mama ichthyosaurs and her young.

Happy Birthday Philosopher!

Our birthdays and anniversaries come close together so Lowell and I also celebrated our anniversary last week. Thank you to our babysitter, we appreciated it. I am not sure who Socrates had in mind with the following quote but regardless Happy Anniversary honey!

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.

– Socrates

Tinkertown

On Friday, we went to spend some time (and money!) at Tinkertown together with cousins L, C, and T. L looked a little worried when we arrived. The rides all looked “too fast” for him. He quickly found out that the small cars were just his thing. K went along without a fuss, but it took her a while to become confident that nothing bad was going to happen to her.

The adults had to hold on to the small people on the merry-go-round. We’re not sure who got more dizzy on the ride, the adults or the kids. K wasn’t really a fan. She wanted to go down.

I suggested to L, not thinking that he would be up for it, that we should check out the roller coaster. To my great surprise, he was enthusiastic. I guess he had had enough time to get comfortable with the place. I expected him to change his mind when we had our first go-round, but I think the roller coaster turned out to be his favourite ride.
We ended the evening by going on the ferris wheel together. I think the experience may have changed K forever. She was definitely not a fan. Every time we came over the top, she cringed and cried. Then later, between 4 and 6 AM, she had nightmares. We’re hoping the emotional scars aren’t very big ones.