"I still can't believe that's not the sea"

I know I said I wouldn't talk about the school bus but OMG, this morning.  I shouted that it was time to get ready.  Smallest burst into tears because he thought he had more time, then he got a nose bleed, HB rushed to get him a new top.  They ran to get the bus as it was at the end of the drive before they got there. Small got on and obviously never mentioned the fact that his brother was on the way!  Smallest was just about to cross the road when the bus started. Aaarggggghhhhh don't run over my Smallest!  The driver saw him luckily and stopped and let him on.  Blimey, that was close!

If you look really closely on the left, you can see Smallest running for the bus

HB and I had a nice quiet breakfast before getting ready to go to the Beach.  At the mention of beach you think swimsuits, towels, flip flops.  Oh no, we had hats, scarves, gloves, thermals, flask and blanket.  I didn't know whether the blanket would be to wrap ourselves in or to put down to sit on.
HB had a walk down the garden before we left to see whether she needed a coat or not.  The sun was out and shining brightly but it was -4. So we donned all of our winter stuff and packed our picnic and off we went.

Look at those bloomin' leggings!

When we got there (HB navigated beautifully, not a wrong turn!), we put our money into the parking machine but no ticket came out.  HB was talking to a woman who was telling her that her leggings were Jazzy!  The woman told me the ticket machine wasn't printing and that we could put a note in our car and hope we didn't get a ticket.  There wasn't much we could do about it so we left the car with a note in it and off we went.
The lake at the start of the walk was frozen over and the Canadian Geese were ice skating.

Ice skating geese

HB and her jazzy legs

After a brisk walk of half an hour we were wowed by Lake Otario.  (although I have already been here, it still amazed me that this beautiful lake and beach could be at the end of this lovely walk).  HB loved it and kept saying "I still can't believe this is a lake and not the sea" and every time I said Lake, she said Sea!


We took our coats and hats off and sat on the blanket.  It was just lovely.  We couldn't believe how warm it was and yet there was still snow on the sand and there were icicles hanging from the trees.
The waves were Flicking the tree branches and the water held there was freezing into icicles.  It was quite magical looking.

Icicles on a branch

More icicles

...and some more

The lovely HB (without her coat)

Looking along the beach 

The swans

Jazzy legs looking at the swans

We walked as far as we could one way and then turned around and went as far as we could the other way.  Then we walked back to where we came in, sat on a bench in the sun and had our picnic lunch.  We were hoping someone would be on Skype so we could show them how lovely it was but no-one was on.

Beach/Snow picnic 

Uncle Grump wink

Beautiful

Lovely

Great

Super

Smashing

Ooh a treeeeeee.

When we were here last time we thought we could see the mist from Niagara Falls but today we couldn't.  HB said that maybe they had turned it off!!!!!!!!!!  She was emailing her mum on the phone and I went investigating the stones very close to the water's edge.  I wasn't really looking at the water and didn't notice that it had formed an island around me.  HB shouted "FAMFA" and I quickly ran up the bank and into a tree.  She thought it was funny, she also had my phone so managed to take a photo of me.

Arrrrggggghhhhhhh I'm stuck

Soooo sunny

We didn't see any little birds today.  Only seagulls, Canadian geese and a couple of swans.  On the walk back the red dogwood was beautiful.  Ten minutes into our walk and we were skyped by Grandma who told us that Aunt Pear was trying to Skype us.  So we walked back to the beach and waited for a call.  Aunt Pear had trouble connecting so after about half and hour we started the walk back.

There's the legs again

Geese

This is the picture I was taking when I got stuck - worth it

Gorgeous red

We found a tee pee (the same one we photo'd Small in), and then watched the Canadian Geese fly onto the lake and then HB tried to see how close she could get to one.  She was scared and thought they were going peck her.  I think they ran away as soon as they saw her 'jazzy leggings'.

A pee in a tee?

Treees

Tree and frozen lake

"Would you like to be my Mother Goose?  I can't find mine!"

Landing geese

Snowy logs - not legs!

We drove back and popped into a store to buy valentine cards for the boys to take to school.  Apparently, here they send cards to everyone in their class - MAD!  While we were in there we passed the Easter egg aisle.  WOW.  I have never seen such an array of Easter eggs.  They were quite frightening.  At the checkout the lady who served us said "Wow, do you wear anything under those?" pointing at HB's leggings. She said yes she had her thermals on but back home she wouldn't normally.  "Where do you get those from?" she asked.  HB told her England and then the lady started telling us which members of her family had died (some were English) but we are not sure why she was telling us, I think she was saying that she had no-one to buy her those in England and bring them back - at which point HB started to pick up the things we had bought and started to walk away.  The lady looked at her leggings again said "Crazy, you're WILD".

A whole aisle of huge Easter eggs

Scary Bob Le Ponge

Scary my little pony

We took photos of the huge snow piles in the car parks and then pretended to Aunt Pear that we had had that much snowfall he he he.

A snow plough pile

We drove home.  Skyped Grandma, Aunt and Unc Pear.

Aunt Pear (she is saying "what's she doing?, oh I bet this will appear on her blog!")

Unc Pear (looks like a vampire)

We waited for the boys to come home and then we played in the snow on the front till dinner time.

We made a SnowHB - I even made her leggings - perhaps not jazzy enough!

Smallest came home with a bag full of sweets, valentines and chocs.  Small informed me that he needed to take something in to school for tomorrow so we started making gingerbread hearts.

HB making valentine gingerbread - she made one for you GP but we ate it!

After dinner Small wrote his valentines to his friends.

How very Canadian

HB arrives

We awoke this morning to horizontal snow and -12 with windchill -17.  The extractor fans were going mad in the wind.  We had a Skype message from Grandma and Grandad who told us that HB got on her flight on time and was due to be with us at 3pm our time.

The boys made sure their signs for the airport were okay.

And worked out which way to turn the sign to make sense.

 We put HB's picture up so she would know which her room was.

 We put the bunting up

Huffle hoovered (vacuumed) everywhere.  The boys had baths.  The bathrooms were cleaned.  The toys were put away.  All is spick and span.  Anyone would think the Queen was visiting!

We went off to the airport about 2:30 after checking on her flight (it was delayed slightly).  It was a cold drive with "lovely dancing snow on the highway" so says Huffle.  The salt on the road kept getting onto the windscreen and the sun was so bright, it made driving conditions very difficult.

We waited for ages with our flags and our banner.  We kept getting in a muddle and putting our banner in the wrong order.

Small lost his flag through the viewing window.

HB finally arrived about 4pm.  The boys were very excited.  We spent ages trying to contact her family to let them know she arrived safely but no-one was online, texts weren't getting through.  Hopefully someone got the message.  SHE IS HERE, SHE IS FINE, WE HAVE FED HER, SHE HAS SET UP THE PENGUIN GAME!

Her flight was good and she sat next to a Canadian woman who was nice until she started throwing up (Canadian not HB!).

Some of HB's photos from the plane.  WOW!

 

Cool photos.

On the way home we stopped at a pizza place and took some pizzas home.  This is the first time we have had takeaway pizza since we moved here.  It was lovely.

The boys showed HB around and showed her where she was sleeping.

 The Penguin Racer

Aunt Pear bought Grandad a scanner that puts the old slides into a digital format and sent them with HB.  We sat and looked at them all, mainly of Huffle when he was little.  This was my favourite one.

He looks scared.  Is he saying "why is that Beaver dressed as a fireman?" or "I 'ain't never gonna live in a country where the animals have teeth that big!".   Awwwww what a cutie!

We finally got a message through and skyped Aunt & Unc Pear, Grandad, Betty Brownie, Mr Moose, Mr&MrsB and Cookie.  We had a silly chat (I think they were all drunk!!!!).  Don't worry, we will look after HB for you, we won't feed her to the Bears!