Airshow

At the end of last week, I brought the boys to Hamilton to stay with Mom and Dad M so I could help Mike with his report cards and some year-end cleaning up and organizing in his classroom.  Thursday night I joined some other ladies in a workshop Mom was hosting, building easels and creating living artwork.  Lots of fun!  I like how it turned out and I think it makes a unique focal point in its new home in our garden.  

As a bonus, the Hamilton Airshow was taking place on the weekend, and the planes were out practicing on Thursday and Friday.  The boys definitely enjoyed watching and we all appreciated seeing some spectacular aeronautical displays!  We discovered that the trick to encouraging more airplane action over the house was to send someone inside to get drinks or answer the phone or something.  As soon as someone went inside, planes would fly over the house.  Here, Peter is getting personal airplane identification lessons from Opa the day before the show.  Dad worked as a marshall at the airport for the actual airshow on Saturday, one of his duties as a volunteer at the museum there.  

Getting botany lessons from Oma.  He is constantly impressing us with his perception and memory - he'll make a good biologist some day.  The other day he saw an overhead screen and the background image was a faded photo of a locust tree.  He pointed that out as being the same kind of tree that we have in our front yard.  I certainly didn't notice it before he pointed it out. 

I believe this is FiFi, a Boeing B29 Superfortress, but I could be wrong.  Actually I'm probably wrong about most of the following airplane identifications, but I'm sure Opa can help me out with some of the names?  Opa? 

Harvards doing some formation flying - got to love the sound of those engines!

The Snowbirds in action, what an absolute treat to watch them fly

The DC-3 on the left, and the Canso on the right

It was hard to catch a photo of this one, the CF-18 Hornet

Mom and Dad's Visit

Mom and Dad VD brought their RV to the Niagara region for a few days last week, and we enjoyed spending some time with them.  Wednesday evening we went to the beach for a walk and to watch the rain clouds roll in across the lake. 

On Thursday evening, we headed out to Mom and Dad's RV and enjoyed dinner and a campfire there.  The two older boys were very excited to sleep over in the RV, although they were a little disappointed that Grandpa wasn't going to drive it somewhere once they were tucked into bed. 

Breakfast in the morning

The next morning we all headed out to Safari Niagara to enjoy the animals for the day.  What a lot of fun!  The big cats were not as active as when we visited on a cooler day last fall, but the monkeys gave us a good show!  We first heard them hooting when we were in a wooded area, and Grandma told Aaron that the noise was a boy getting squished.  He spent the rest of the day trying to find the elusive "boy who is getting squished" and at the end of the day declared it to be his favourite animal. 

Conquering the fireman pole!

Those little boys were having so much fun "hanging around" 

that Daddy just had to join them!

Cooling off in the pool when we got back home.  After dinner we brought out the bikes and went for a 14 km ride down some of the trails close to our house.  We were all pretty tired by the end of the day, but we had an enjoyable time together, and it was really good to spend some time with Mom and Dad.   

Around the house

One sure sign that your three-year-old likes to dress himself: 

(Actually, the other day he insisted on wearing socks-and-crocs to school to drop off his brother.  He had his left sock on inside out, and the right sock was one from his Daddy that he pulled out of the laundry pile and it came up to his thigh.  I've got some pretty fashionable kids!)

This little one is usually quite liberal with his smiles! 

Intricate designs on the deck

Daddy's latest fun-creation for the boys - double-barreled elastic shot guns.  They have lots of fun with them, especially when they're not snapping the elastics back on their own fingers or shooting each other in the head

Someone was somewhat enamoured with the number five the other day.  Can you tell?

I picked up lion costume at a garage sale, and the boys can produce 

some pretty terrific "Aslan" roars when they've got it on

Outside on a rainy day

Three sweet boys on the porch

Growing Up

Aaron tip toes up to me this afternoon, tugs on my shirt sleeve and whispers, "Someday, I'm going to be bigger than Daddy, and stronger than Daddy.  And then I can wash the dishes, and cut the grass, and whippersnip!"
"That sounds like great fun, Aaron - what else will you do?"
"I will ride Daddy's bike, and Peter and Nate can go in the trailer and I will pull them.  You can ride your bike, and Daddy can walk.  Or he can ride Peter's bike, he can fit and it's not dangerous."
Sounds like being all grown up is going to be tons of fun!