30th Terry Fox run

It was the 30th anniversary of the Terry Fox run.
Can't believe it's been 30 years. I remember as a kid that he was coming through town and all the excitement and admiration for this guy with one leg running across Canada.


We ran into Marina at the Uke Fest on Saturday and I decided to run it. I wasn't planning on running it because my left leg has been injured since late April. But I thought I'd give it a shot.
That's her waving. She's finally got new shoes.
The guy in the tux is a magician. He's no David Blaine.

So Marina brought her entourage with her too. Hubby, daughter and two friends.
Kieran and I ran with Bruce and Emma. And when Emma got tired of doing cartwheels while she was running, she joined Kieran in the jogger. And they shared their treats together.

And I got to share the job of pushing the two kids with Bruce. I left him with the last uphill.


This was the line up for the after run freebies.
It started off like the usual stuff. Bananas, bagels, apples, energy bars, granola bars. And then it got interesting.


Skittles, Snickers bars, Three Musketeers, Bounty, Mounds, M&Ms.

You know what the kiddies were choosing.
It was an early Halloween.

The adults were in there too, battling the little bloodhounds who can sniff out candy buried in a cellar.


They had face painting and stick on tattoos.
More candy.
Z103.5 was there giving out more candy and t-shirts and lanyards.




It kinda made my morning. Even though I was feeling a little sore from not running in months.

And more importantly I got to pledge a donation and have a good and meaningful workout at the same time.

At least I didn't have to run home. Tresa was continuing her spinning and although the instructor wasn't Blair and the bikes weren't the Kieser M3's.
She was there at RPM and working up a sweat.



So we folded up the K's trailer/jogger/stroller that has been well used, and packed it in the car before heading to the farmers market. It's going to need a new set of tires soon. I'm hoping they last until I get to sell it, next year.

The two Ukes

It was the Ukrainian festival this weekend down in the bloor west village.
This is the primary nationality in this area, or was. It'll be asian soon.
It's a great festival, Not as large as say the Taste of the Danforth, but it's more kid friendly, with rides and slides.







We even ran into one of Kieran's friends from school and camp.
On the first ride they went on they sat in the same car. It was so nice that they were hanging out together.




But as soon as Evelyn's tickets ran out. Kieran was off to the next play thing. The jumpy castle.
The last ride was this smallish ferris wheel that looked more like a bunch rotating animal cages.
After that we headed to the playground behind the Bloor West Village and hung out there until it was nearly time to go home. And we even saw Max.

Colour my world

After many days of Liam begging. We finally made it to the Crayola factory in Easton Pennsylvania. We were under the impression it was closer than it was.
Just like the Thomas train place that's also in Pennsylvania. But we made it and it was a quaint little town.


It's not really a factory, but more like a play place for kids and a museum, in a town for artists.
However in this place they do show you how they make the crayons and the markers. It's only a 30 minute demo.
In 10 mins, they can make 1200 crayons.
I think the demonstrator said they make 3 billion a year!
That's almost as many big macs Americans eat every year!
And did you know that they renamed 'orange' to 'mac n cheese'.


Check this out.
Retired colours.
They retired 'flesh', because not everyone's skin colour is the caucasian, although in some places in the world (HK) they spend lots of money trying.
They retired 'prussian blue' because kids could not relate to Prussia.
Then there's 'indian red'. Guess because it wasn't brown enough?


And of course they sell tokens to buy stuff here. The kids just like seeing it come out of the machines.

There are 4 floors in this building. Nothing on the first, just entrance, and a place to hang out and eat some McD's from next door. The 2nd has the demo and where you redeem all the tokens for crayola stuff. There's this clay stuff that feels like a marshmallow and if you roll it into a ball it's bouncing. I was expecting it to behave like plasticine and just splat on the table. Instead it bounced over my head. This floor also has a wax area, where you put drops of it on your spiral paper. Kuya did it too, but got most of it on his shirt and face. My camera battery ran out, so I have no pics.

The 3rd has a train set and some museum and interactive mechanical stuff. And the 4th has a interactive water works area showing how locks work. Pretty cool.


Click me for more photos.

Living the American Dream

It was a hot and humid early Thursday afternoon, like a sweatshop. What better thing to do on an afternoon than to put the kids to work. Good thing Child Labour Union didn't come around.





Free Lemonade for sale! Sold by two kiddies.
Tips welcome.
It was marketing at it's finest, and most simplistic.

Liam has been asking to have a lemonade stand for a long time. It was hot outside and thirst was in the air. And we saw one kid standing out on a corner with a big sign taped to his chest. "Alex's Lemonade". He looked like he'd been working hard and very little to show for it. But still Liam wanted to do his business.

In hindsight I guess we should have made a bigger sign since the two boys are still pretty small and you could easily miss them driving by. Which is why we told them to yell and wave. And it worked. It's how they flagged down customer #1 in a nice shiny BMW, and the UPS guy even got a sip. One really nice girl even ran in the house to get money to get a cup. But one generous kid gave them 5 bucks for a cup!

This lemonade wasn't the instant juice crystal lemon flavour chemical carcinogen junk. This was real stuff, lemonade made the old fashion way. With lemons and sugar and water. Chilled in ice water and sold by two kids trying to look as cute as possible to sell a product where the only intrinsic value is being immortalized on this blog, which is worth at least 50 cents.

It was Liam's Lemonade Stand.
Employee number #1 - Kieran.
One sales guy working the street and one guy pouring the lemonade into cups. It was a partnership destined for financial success. They got along better than when they play. No arguments over toys or debates on water sources, just focus on making customers feel good and making the bottom line happy.

They made their sign and taped it to the table and set up shop out in the hot NJ sun, cooking for 1 hr.
At first Liam wanted to sell each cup for 25 cents. His goal was to make $3.00 USD. At that rate they'd have to sell 12 cups to make his target. Minus the cost of the lemons, cups and site rental fee.
Instead, Chris recommended they market it a little different instead of asking for 25 cents per cup. Make the lemonade for free and have the customers leave a tip at their discretion. In 1 hr, they had 4 customers and they exceeded their target by over 300%. It was brilliant. Imagine if they had the little sister out there helping, but then they'd have to split it 3 ways. Not worth the arguments.

Towards the end, Kieran suggested that they start saying that they are closing soon, to encourage the customers who are on the fence to get a cup before it's no longer available.
The two young entrepreneurs made $9.14 USD before packing it in. Well employee #1 quit because he was hot and tired, Liam wanted to stay out there, and someone needed to pick up the little sister from school.

They are living the dream, it was priceless.

Click for more Liam-ade