doors open

Guelph celebrated its 190th birthday on the weekend. There were a lot of great activities happening around the city, and we chose to check out Doors Open. One of the first stops was the Petrie Building on Wyndham Street downtown. The building has been undergoing reno's for a number of years now, and is slightly behind schedule, but once complete it will be amazing. There is a brewery going in the basement, as well as our neighbour Donna's wedding dress store on two of the upper floors. The upper portion of the building has been vacant for years, with a greek restaurant occupying the bottom floor since the 1970's. They are bringing it back to its original look with tin exterior, as well as keeping many of the autographed walls and wallpaper from the 1930's.

We also went into the Church of Our Lady, which after living and walking by it so many times, we wanted to see the inside. It was an incredible tour, and after a $12 million dollar reno that took almost 10 years, the building and details are stunning. It can hold close to 1300 people for mass and the organ itself has 2500 pipes. All of the limestone was found in the Guelph area, and many of the same stone carvers were used to create the family fountain in St. George's square. If anyone is coming to Guelph, we highly recommend their free tours which are held one Sunday a month.

in the hay (and straw)

A few pictures from our Easter weekend at the farm. These guys were playing and working hard each morning and night. They love peeling off the layers on each bale and moving it around with the pitch forks. Almost as much fun as climbing up to the hay mow and pushing a big bale down. Anna is pictured with Spring here. She's really grown since we saw her last month - Anna spent a lot of time in her calf hutch just hanging out. I think this calf will forever have a place in her heart.

it's spring!

The weather has turned to this lovely feeling of warmth. We are shedding coats, mitts and hats, and this week we've seen a real shift everywhere. Henry is still wearing Christmas pj's, but Anna wore just a sweater to school the other day. I loved her outfit the other morning and had to take a picture. She was going on a field trip to the River Run Centre to see a play about clown's. Her solar system headband was a purchase from the ROM.

The backpack dump at the end of the day is no joke. I counted 13 pieces of paper in one day - newsletters, worksheets, fundraising, clothing swap details, Earth Day songs, Easter hat projects, field trip forms, and that's only for two kids in very small grades. By the way, that Esio Trot book by Roald Dahl Anna got at the library, it was by far our favourite one yet.

Checking on the train at Riverside Park, a few more weeks until it opens.

First family bike ride out, wow, everyone is much stronger, it only took us 24 minutes to get to Riverside Park from our house.

Henry is on Anna's old bike - check out this photo of Anna on it! The two dollars I paid for it six years ago and still holding up.

Henry and I ate lunch outside the other day, so nice, although he doesn't like flies landing on his plate.

Sam's excited about his chick hat, I promise - he had to make a hat for his class Easter parade today and it was cute.

My resident Easter decorator - he put all the eggs on the twigs and then I walked by and knocked it down, he was not happy, so I moved it up to the piano.

And speaking of our piano, it is tuned....the gods have saved us! My ears have never heard such beautiful sounds, I can't believe I waited this long to have it tuned. Wow, the best $130 dollars I ever spent to save my sanity. It gets played daily, mostly by Anna, but I have been playing more now and you don't realize how bad it sounded. Not to mention the satisfaction I got when Alanna our piano tuner vacuumed out the inside, two inches of dust, no wonder it sounds so much better.

over the weekend

We got a big package from Edmonton...Grandma and Grandpa sent us cereal! Actually a great package filled with lots of souvenirs from their recent trip to Mexico. 

We got these beautiful woven rugs, the kids got a magnet and Sam received his stuffed spider. He requested one, and ta-da, Grandma delivers in record time. He's cute and totally custom made for Sam, thank you Grandma, he's been slept with every night since.

Anna has been learning all about what sinks and what floats. On Friday at school she made a boat out of tinfoil and was able to have it hold 45 pennies before it sank. She loved this activity and recreated it at home for us to see using quarters and different sizes of boats.

Sam made brown 'e's for April Fool's - ha!

The first flowers up in my garden...the beautiful spring crocus, I'm so happy!

Andy recently returned from a trip to San Diego, and we missed him over March break, so it feels like we haven't seen him in ages. He came over for supper with Craig on Saturday night.

Tompa and Grammy came for supper too, and I think Tompa read every kid book in our house.

Playing UNO. Anna and Sam can play this game on their own together, love that!

We need a bigger couch.

Henry was the last kid to go to bed that night, he loved being able to spend one on one time reading with Grammy.