Act Three

Lowell had a great idea of getting bunk beds for L’s big boy bed, the second bunk would provide a great storage space for our ever shrinking apartment. L has had no trouble getting used to sleeping in his new bed. He only tried the second night to delay sleeping by getting out of bed and even then only twice. We still haven’t been willing to give up our TV/computer/spare room, (actually I am not sure if we could even if we wanted to) so the bunk beds were added to the bedroom too. For those of you who doubted that we had room for another bed I took a picture. Both Lowell and I agree that even with the addition of the new bed the current arrangement is a better use of space.

Last Sunday, we decided to go for an afternoon drive to Turners Falls. We caught a glimpse of the town from the highway earlier this summer and thought we should go back to visit. We were somewhat disappointed when we got there–Turners Falls turned out to be one of those towns that looks more inviting from the highway than it does from Main Street–but we enjoyed ourselves nevertheless.

Snapfish.com had a sale on ordering photos last week; so I spent some time sorting through picture files. I realized that in the general busyness of life and blogging about traveling there were several photos of L’s development and personality that family might find of interest.

Lowell dug his guitar out of the closet one night when I was at work for 2 reasons; L might find it fun to pluck the strings and Lowell who is without means to indulge his previous hobbies was looking for something besides reading to do.

Sometimes the only way to get any work done around here is to find a way to let L “help”. Now cleaning the bathroom is so much fun that when Dad asks him what he would like to do he requests cleaning the bathroom. You can imagine how thrilled Lowell is about that, well it was Lowell’s idea in the first place.

IMAGINATION! “I’m the greatest boxer I have ever seen.” There is some truth to that.

Yesterday L was lining up shells and counting, he does well until 12 then he skips 13 and 15 makes it all the way to 20 and then says 11 followed by any other number that comes to mind.

We headed up to New Brunswick this past weekend to visit some family and hoped to do some camping along the Bay of Fundy. It rained and rained and rained some more. We did have a good time even if we cut it short. We spent Friday evening and Saturday with my cousins A & V at their new home. They gave us the tour around Centreville and took us to the Potato Museum.

Sunday morning we took a chance and drove to the Bay of Fundy. Sunday afternoon turned out to be nice; we spent some time in St John walking around the old part of the city and watched the Reversing Falls when the tide came in. Then we headed to Hopewell Rocks for high tide. The Bay of Fundy has the biggest tides in the world a 7m difference on average. Hopewell Rocks are sandstone sculptures made by these tides.

We wanted to sea the rocks again at low tide in order to appreciate the difference in the tide. At low tide you are also able to walk on the beach around these “flower pots”. Monday morning we woke up to rain, but we were determined. We packed a change of clothes in the car for the ride home and headed out.

Thankfully it stopped raining soon after we reached the beach, but during the rain I think L had it the best of all.

This is the same view at low tide as above at high tide, amazing.

Complete with halved cupcakes,

and a small gift.

L and I picked strawberries on Monday, it worked really well actually. L was busy piling the berries into towers in the containers instead of eating them or wandering away until 2/3 of the way through. Then he snacked on a couple and played with his toys for a few minutes while I finished up.

I don’t have much freezer room, but I did want to preserve the yummyness for later on in the year. We are not big jam eaters, but a syrup for ice cream or waffles would be good. I used 1 cup of sugar to 4 cups of berries instead of the 7:4 ratio that jam recipes call for, resulting in something I will call Strawberry syrup.

I know that strawberries are not ready in Manitoba yet, so here is a photo sampling of the desserts we have been enjoying to tempt your tastebuds.

Up until about a month ago, I thought L was a different kind of kid. We didn’t have any horror stories that had to do with L getting into something he wasn’t supposed to and wreaking havoc with it. I began to think that we had lucked out. Maybe there was something about L’s temperament that kept him out of such trouble. I was wrong. He just hadn’t reached the right age yet. Last week he discovered how fun it was to give the toilet paper roll a good spin and watch it unravel, a discovery that has landed him on the naughty chair several times. Yesterday, while Pam was at work and L was having his bath, he decided that it would be fun to take the water that was in the tub and dump it out beside the tub. I’m surprised the neighbours downstairs didn’t have water leaking from their ceiling. This morning, while I was working in the kitchen, L came from the other room carrying a spool of thread he had found near Pam’s sewing machine and announced that he was putting “a string around the house.” Sigh.

We took a drive yesterday to the summit of Mount Greylock, highest peak in Massachusetts at 3491 ft. We spent some time admiring the view and then enjoyed a cookout. L liked being taller than the trees. I liked looking down on the rainbow.