There's no monsters

At least that's what he was telling himself when all the bigger kids came around with the Scream masks and skulls and stuff.

I was more scared of the kids that didn't get dressed up. I thought they would do something to me like kick my pumpkin in or something.

But monsters do exist! This is the cousin of Sasquatch. We found him moving at a great rate of speed. Then stopped, to look for food.

So that's a dragon head on the left and on the right is my attempt at making a Thomas the tank engine jack-o-lantern. The tanks on the sides were letting in a lot of wind so the candle kept blowing out. But I did my best. I was trying to be really useful.


Trick or Cheese! This is what he was saying for a while, since I had been taking a lot of photos. We even gave him some of our own candy to practice. But it came out as "Trick or Cheese".
I thought someone was going to give us some havarti or a slice of processed cheese. As long as it was wrapped I was okay. Gotta be safety conscious you know.

There was one house on our street that had the tombstones and scary music. Kieran stopped in his tracks across the street from the house. Then made it up halfway up the walkway to the house before turning around running back to the safety of the middle of the street under the lamplight.

Not even his partner in crime for the evening was going to help. Our next door neighbour Yahvi helped ease his fear of the big "trick or treaters" but this house was an exception, but the girl giving out candy was nice to come out to the sidewalk to give Kieran and Yahvi some treats, knowing they were more than just a little frightened.

And so we hit a couple of the same houses a few times. We hit Jessie's house about 4 times. As well as other kids houses that we knew. So that was fun, and the night was really nice so we even made it to the street next to us and I wished I'd brought my camera cuz there was one little girl giving out candy that was a duckling.


Click for more not so scary fotos...

Circus is in town.

It's like the running of the bulls.

More Apples....again

It's that time of year again.
The end of the apple picking season.
And what a beautiful day to end it on.

The apples at Chudleigh's farm may not be organic but some of them are so big they have their own gravity.

I think last year we went to Avalon Orchards but I found that the apples didn't last as long after we picked them, and some had worms. But that's the drawbacks of not using pesticides. Ever notice that milk seems to last for sometimes more than a month? Gotta wonder what's in the milk.

So we took a tractor ride around the orchard.
Dropped us off at the Russett and Mutsu apples, other than yellow delicious, that was pretty much the last apples left for the season.

You can buy bags of the other varieties, but we found that they were a little on the bruised side. So we stuck with these two.

Getting off the tractor was a lot tougher than getting on. All Kieran wanted to do was ride the tractor. The ride was a little too short for him. But after shedding a few tears he marched on and helped us pick a few. Some apples were almost the size of his head. The beauty on non-organic produce. Unnatural size.
You could feed an African village for 2 days with 1 Mutsu apple.

After we dropped off our bags at the car in order to beat the crush of people in the afternoon, we headed back so that we could go to the hay maze, the animal farm and eat something too. I was hungry for some food as long as it wasn't apples.

It was a beautiful day for picking, or sitting in your car in traffic trying to get into Chudleigh's. This is the road leading up to the farm at about 1:30pm. I guess most of these folks don't think ahead. Cuz they all had the same idea. The place was a zoo when we were leaving.

The line of cars almost stretched back to the highway.

Click for more apples and fotos

My First Race: The Zoo Run

Kieran's first race ever.
And my first race in over 2 years.

This was the Zoo Run.
I hadn't been to the Metro Toronto Zoo in over a decade.




And Tresa had never been. Being in Scarborough, we drive by the exit that is literally about 2 mins from the 401. And 10 mins from the heart of Scarberia.

This would be a great place to take someone who's only seen Scarbourough-hood, let alone the inside of 1 house and also never seen Lake Ontario in real life.

The Zoo Run was a good way to accomplish 2 things at the same time. Do a race and bring Kieran to the Zoo.

It was a chilly morning. I was debating on whether I should wear shorts and a t-shirt, cuz I knew I get warm during the run. I wasn't warmed up, before the run, I was just trying not to get tired.

As I was going around the zoo I was looking to see which animals were out.

I saw cheetahs, but I couldn't remember exactly where they were after I finished, this run kinda goes this way and that around the zoo. In the end I was just looking for someplace warm to go.

The cub run was a fun a free for all run with 200 kiddies in t-shirts 20 sizes too big.
Kieran did run for most of it, but he was running around before the race started so I think he peaked too soon. Cuz he was trying hard to get in front of mamma to get her to pick him up to carry the rest of the way.





But did run for at least half of the race and crossed the finish line on his own.
All the kids were numero Uno.
But this is Mama's new number one track star.





Click for more zoo run photos...

Zoo Run site and photos

Pic from Zoo Run Gallery




The Race


The Sprint for the Finish Line

This is my Haliburton Shirt

There was a tie-dyed shirt I had seen at the Midnight Madness sale in Haliburton Village that had "This is my Haliburton shirt" written on it. I guess you'd have to be mad to have bought it. I did see an older Filipino woman with a heavy accent that I figured would have bought it.
I was thankful no one bought one for me to wear. I do know someone who has some bright orange Pac-man shirts.

Fall has certainly arrived in cottage country.
We were up here for Thanksgiving dinner with Tresa's parents.

While it was sunny, warm and beautiful in the city. It was pouring rain, chilly and damp in cottage country.
I was thankful we made it in one piece. Thank God.

With a 22lb turkey to split between 6 adults and a little person, we were in for some hard labour. My stomach muscles were aching from digesting too much food. That's what happens when breakfast turns to lunch then to dinner with no breaks except to go get some more wine from the basement.
I was thankful that I didn't have any intestinal bugs.

But some of us did take a break to go for a walk in order to stay awake and not pass out on the couch. It was a passing of the torch. The younger generation needed to pull or push their weight now.

Dedek was thankful he had a helper.
Sort of like Santa and his elf.



It was also a day of a missing nap. Not sure where it went, but this guy (the 2-1/2 yr old, not the retired dude) fell asleep just after dinner at about 6:49pm. We were hoping he'd be out for the night. He woke up once about an hour after putting him down, but after tucking him under the blanket, he was out for the rest of the night.
We were thankful.


I put up a lot of photos. Lots of duplicates.
I'm sure Carmen is thankful.

We got home on a single tank of gas. I actually only used 32L of gas for the 550km round trip.
I was thankful for a fuel efficient car.

It was otherwise a nice & quiet, uneventful Thanksgiving. And we were all thankful to be with family.


Click me for more turkey, gravy and more turkey...

Fall Sidewalk Sale

Our junk could be someone else's treasure. At least that's what we're hoping. To unload all the 'no longer' used stuff.

Armed with a 3 large coffee's (1 cream, triple milk, and single milk single sugar), a hot chocolate and a large box of timbits, we were ready to set up for another High Park garage sale.

This is our 3rd garage sale, the second at the Daycare ladies' house.
Even with the low traffic, we were able to get rid of a lot of stuff. We're thinking that 1 more garage sale in the spring should do it. The spring seems to be a much better time to do a garage sale.

This time we had Kieran with us. I did my same old trick of looking like a potential buyer in order to lure real buyers into the land of junk and old kid's clothing. It felt like Goodwill was having a 6 hour 25 cent sidewalk sale.

The morning went by pretty quick. Some of Kieran's daycare friends came by for a visit and to pick up some smoking red hot deals. Sienna came by (these two are smiling now, but if she touches any of the Thomas books at daycare, she's crossed the line), Erin too and then Emma visited as well.

Marika and Slauvka's kids were there too to keep Kieran occupied. The kitties were also around trying not to stay motionless for too long otherwise Kieran was picking them up by the base of their heads.


Click here for a deal on some kids clothing and more junk

Mar-T phone home

So there is life in the New World. With hair like that he should be able to receive signals from outer space. Maybe even Digital TV signals over the air. Or conduct electricity from thunder clouds. Martin and Andrea came for a visit in September and instead of hitting malls, which we did anyways, or restaurants or driving around waiting for someone to fall asleep in the back seat with their mouths open like a venus flytrap waiting for prey.

We went for a easy walk down to the Bloor West Village, bike ride and a run around High Park. The Bloor West is/was/still a collection of European shops. And you can get all sorts of different things in the village. And we rode along Lake Ontario. This lake is bigger than any sea that's in Europe. And we did an easy run around High Park and down to the lake again. It was a beautiful weekend. Click for more photos