First Day of School

Well Summer is really gone and we're all back to school. It's different this year 'cause I drop Sabrina on one side because she's now a big kid, and Mathieu on the other side. There were a lot of smiles today and that's great.

After school we had a great snack and Léa and Daphnée came to visit. The girls even created a new musical instrument from which we are getting patent for. Take that, Cirque du Soleil.

Last Day of Summer. Really!

And it's a relaxing one, with the kids in the pool, and my legs on the chair. Goodbye Summer, we'll really miss you.

An Adventure, and You Can't Beat Pete's Meat

When I came back from Brome, we all went of a road trip to try the new 30. The highway has been opened for a few months and it was time for us to try it, just to see if it is actually faster then using the 40 (or 20). The end goal was to eat a smoke meat at Smoke Meat Pete, on Ile Perrot.

It's really a pub like place that's like the Lion's Pub (a place I spent many $$$) with a country blues band. Suzanne and I had a really good time. I'm not sure the kids like smoke meats that much.

Mathieu did love his soft drink -- we don't drink those very often. I asked for a Root Beer myself, but because of the loud sound the person taking my order missed the Root part of it. It's ok, it was pretty good.

Coming back on the 30 again, at one point we saw a windmill farm, the same as can be seen on the North shore of the Gaspe coast. These things are starting to pop up everywhere.

Look on the horizon... Closely! They were a lot easier to see live.

Brome

Mom wasn't feeling right so I went to Brome to be there with her. I'll be staying there until Sunday afternoon. It gives me the time to work on my 1M servers and how everything is going to work with Simplifia.

I went to buy a few things while there and encountered a truck like mine that had the same windshield "issue". I guess the wipers on Ford trucks are not very good.

Park and Pool

This has been an interesting Summer that's unfortunately coming to an end. Today we went to the park with our neighbours and then it was everybody into the pool. I remember there was a time I wanted to get rid of the pool and now it's a very important artifact in our Summer activities.

Happens Often...

Mathieu: "How do we write plane?"
me: "What's the first letter?"
Mathieu: "P?"
me: "okay, what's the next one?"
Mathieu: "L?"
me: "Good, and the next?"
Mathieu: "A?"
me: "Yes"
Mathieu: "N... E?"
me: "You got it"
Mathieu: "That's it?"
...

Now must replace plane with so many other words.

Yesterday he came up to me and said: "Would you like to watch a bit of the movie   'J'  'A'  'W'  'S'   with me?" spelling it because he knows his sister is really afraid of it.

Three more reasons I love my kids

First reason: The cleaners are coming today and even though the house is not that messy, the playroom is full of lego and there are a few toys lying around. We get up around 6:30am and while I'm picking up the house, Mathieu goes to clear the playroom, all by himself, without having me ask him. Within 20 minutes the house is ready for the cleaning ladies.

At lunch time Mathieu told me not to make lunch for him. He came up, made himself a sandwich with lettuce, ham, cheese and mayo that looked quite good. He's making me one tomorrow.

Tonight the kids are watching the oh so excellent Back to the Future movie. Sabrina realizes that Marty's life is going to be screwed up the second he gets hit by the car, saving his young dad in the process. Now, for one, she followed the story and knew that's how his mom met his dad, and two, in a flash she was able to understand the concept of "what happens if you go back in time and kill your grandfather" which is a lot to understand for a kid. Real cool.

Planes

Today we went to see the movie Planes, along with Léa, Daphnée and Yolande. It was fun to go to a movie especially since there was nothing to do outside because of the rain.

I really enjoyed that movie. Yes it was predictable. Yes the plot was simple. Yes the characters weren't as touching as the ones in Cars. Maybe because I like planes more then I like cars. We had a great time.

Ultraman

Dear beautiful Suzanne. She couldn't help but get Mathieu a great Ironman costume.

Happy Birthday Sabrina

"Happy Birthday to you"
"You live in my heart"
"From the bottom to the top"
"I love you"

-Mathieu, to Sabrina this morning.

Perseids, part II

Mathieu woke up wanting to buy some Lego so proceeded to count the money in his piggy bank to see if he had enough.

We spent most the of the day outside swimming or at the park which was nice. Daphne and Lea came to swim with the kids too.

Tonight we tried again to see the Perseids but once again the clouds didn't want to cooperate. The kids and I got a nice swim under the dark clouds though. It was fun.

OOOUUUUUUIIIIIIIIIIIIIII !!!

What an amazing day we had today. First we all went to LaRonde for a few hours. We were a bit late because I got up at 8:30am. As soon as we got there Mathieu and Suzanne went on the Tour de Ville.

We then split up, Suzanne with Sabrina and Mathieu with me. Sabrina, you have to remember who was brave, and who was afraid in La Spirale :) Once we got back together we went in the Aqua Twist (I got wet), the Splash (I got more wet) and then while waiting to cross the bridge from the last ride Mathieu, Suzanne and I got a good part of the wave (I got really wet). Mathieu was already pretty drench because of his run in the water park.

We came back home to use the pool, and then spend some time outside. The following tomatoes come from our garden. In fact, the entire salad bowl is from our garden (except for the olive oil and the balsamic vinegar, of course).

Add an excellent bottle of wine to compliment our dinner. While I'm not crazy about Zinfandels, this Zin just tasted powerful, very oaky, yet quite good.

While waiting for darkness to fall so that we could all enjoy some swimming under the stars and a celestial show courtesy of the Perseids meteor shower, we got a surprise visit from Kim and Pascal who are currently on dink mode. I had a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the clouds didn't cooperate and we weren't able to see the meteor shower.

Relaxing Saturday

Today we didn't do much. We didn't do much but lounge around the house, Suzanne and I worked and we then took an afternoon stroll to the park.

Mathieu was in clown mode today.

Facebook exchange; another milestone on my project

It's quite hard to work with kids. I feel a bit guilty but unfortunately my arrangement with the neighbours didn't pan out.

Brome; Project

Today we went to Brome. The kids and I picked up Pierro and we all went to have brunch at the Star Café, a cozy little place where the food is actually good and (if you don't take French Toasts) the price really good. We then went back to Mom's place where she gave me an old typewriter I used to work on a lot, and Suzanne's plant. Here are a few pictures:

Kids playing. Don't drop those pieces else a dog is going to chew on them.

My beautiful mom, who doesn't like to be photographed but agrees for the sake of the kids

Suzanne's gift. Miam!

The old typewriter. That's such a cool item.

My project is going full speed. It's really cool to get it going. This is what it currently looks like:

Just to avoid licensing costs I'm looking for zen pictures in my own collection of 26000+ pictures.

FAMILY PAST:
My big brother Alexandre and my mom's cousin Robert Ouellet whom I remember to be quite the kidder. I remember the fake worm that scared the c..p out of me. MOM, UN PEU DE TEXTE?

Birthdays are coming up; La Ronde; Again

And the kids are on the lego site showing me what they want. First Mathieu shows me the Lego he wants, then Sabrina tries to find hers, a Lego Cruise Ship. She's trying to find it but can't so Mathieu goes: "Let me do this". He clicks on the search bar, types "boat" and voila, her object of desire. It's so useful when both can read and write.

Mathieu's not reading novels yet, but he's becoming more and more functional, all by himself (no coach, and I gave up teaching him to read a while back)

And yes we went to LaRonde again. It's kinda fun to go there for a few hours without the stress of getting every bang from our buck... We already have. So here are a few pictures of our day.

Mathieu the Brave

Waiting for the ride to start... Where's the smile?

Beautiful Montreal

Beautiful Montreal

To the sea

Longueuil

La Ronde

Beautiful Montreal

Two well behaved kids