Wonderland!

Took Charley out of school yesterday to visit Canada's Wonderland.  It was super-duper great!

Charley has been having a rough time in school lately and really needed a fun day to recover from the 'torture chamber', ie: time spent with 25 peers.  Give that kid a half dozen adults and a room of science experiments and he would be in his glory.  Don't think that's going to happen though...

So!  In the spirit of my always practical mother, we did the mid-week, spring Wonderland outing.  No lines, no crowds, no waits!  The only way to go.  Weather was perfect and the kids were in heaven.

Uncle Phil was with us too, celebrating his birthday week.  We had the best visit and we were super-sad to see him leave this morning.  He's just part of our family.

Here are a few shots of the revelry. 

Some parts of the park are exactly the same as my last visit.  (It's been over 20 years since I was there!)

 Our first stop: the train ride.

 A classic CW tradition

 Charley meets Charlie

Fear and anticipation before riding the new roller coaster, Leviathan.  It has some pretty impressive statistics!

There's Chris and Phil about to do a 306 foot drop over the edge.  Complete insanity.  They adored it.

I managed to get my 4 boys home safely after a busy day, but no one was up very late last night!

I can't imagine going during the summer... The boys must have been on close to 30 rides yesterday and that would never happen during the summer rush.  We certainly got our money's worth.

The day the Cup came to town

We sure had an interesting day around here yesterday.  It was a once-in-a-lifetime kinda afternoon, to say the least.

 Gee, I wish we'd finished re-doing the front porch before I took these shots!

 Two of my favourite guys made a mad-drive from Ottawa to document our adventure.

 Our main street looked even better than usual!

Nothing beats a reaction like this.  Really, really fun times!

Uncle Phil's igloo

Oh, Uncle Phil!  It seems like months since you were here!  Please come back and visit us soon.

And if my words don't work, just look at these faces!  (Looking at you, no less.)

Sparkly!

Magical Uncle Phil is visiting us for a portion of this Thanksgiving weekend.  These boys faces were almost as bright as their sparklers upon seeing him arrive.  The joy of being a little boy.

Canada Day = Evy Day

Miss Evy's birthday falls on July 1st, so there's always a big celebration.  She will grow up thinking the fireworks and parades are just for her!

Yesterday, the boys and I went up to Stoney Lake to visit Evy and her gang for the day.  It was one of those perfect, hot, sunny, summer days that just cry out 'cottage! cottage!'.  Phil is here this weekend so he got to come along too.

Redrox (the name of the Jackson family island) is perfection: an old-school cottage, an island to themselves and charm galore.  The boys had about as much fun as they ever have and Kismet tried to stay forever. 

 Charley learns to drive the boat with Uncle Rob.

 Sam tries to look cool in his life-jacket.

 That's quality uncle-ing, don't you think?

 Evy reacts to the cake I made her (and drove to the lake, and transported by boat).  It was THE most ghetto cake ever.  There were multiple cake-disasters the night before and this was the salvaged part.   Feel free to click the image to appreciate the quality detailing work I did.  mmm mmm good.  I don't think I'll be opening a cake decorating business anytime soon.

Not to be left out, the little man got lots of lovin' too.  He's a yummy pork-chop these days.  All rolls and smiles.

That was Canada Day.  No royals here, but some joyful folk nonetheless.