I know that many of you who check out this site like to see the pictures, so I’ll start with those. I’ve created three new albums for things to be a bit more organized. The first are pictures from the end of the summer (called End of Summer), the second album is full of a bunch of pictures from Disney (the album is called Disney) and the most recent album has pictures from this Fall, Thanksgiving and Halloween (the album is called Fall and Halloween Fun). All three albums can be reached by the links at the bottom of this page or by clicking on “My Family Albums” on the left. I hope you enjoy the pictures.
Let’s see - how can I condense four months of family info into a relatively brief journal entry? I guess I’ll start with some of the big stuff.
In late August, we went to Disney with my side of the family. We spent seven days in Disney with my parents, Jenny, Kathy, Steve, Kian, Jennifer and Sarah. We had a great time touring the parks, eating at some fabulous restaurants and swimming in the world’s most amazing pool at our hotel. On our fifth day there, our sister, Mary, and her son, Raymond, his wife, Joy and their three daughters came to stay and tour with us for the weekend. We hadn’t seen Raymond since he was a young kid, and we’d never met his family so it was simply incredible to get to spend time with the entire family.
Alex had a truly spectacular time. We kept waiting for him to have a major meltdown. It was hot, we were waking him up early, keeping him up late and eating on the run a lot of the time, so we wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d lost it the way so many kids (and a few adults) do when visiting Disney. Thankfully it never really happened. He skipped, danced, jumped and ran through all of the parks, enjoyed all of the rides he went on and had fun meeting some of the characters (even though he was a bit shy at times). Probably his favourite ride (and one of ours too) was the Kali River Rapids in the Animal Kingdom. It’s one of the few “grown up” rides that someone his size can go on safely as it has a special seat for smaller kids, so we all piled into the raft and got soaked. I didn’t get a lot of good pictures of him on the ride, but I did post one of Jennifer screaming as she got soaked, and Alex is also in the picture laughing his toes off.
It was truly a trip of a lifetime - and we loved everything about it (except for the August heat). We managed to see fireworks, meet a bunch of the characters, so on some fun rides and see some great shows. Because of my mildly obsessive Disney planning approach, we also got to enjoy some great restaurants during our stay, including our first night’s dinner in Epcot at the Moroccan pavilion (although Alex fell asleep during that dinner - poor guy had been up and excited since 5:00 a.m., so it’s not surprising he fell asleep in his salad). We also went out for a special dinner with my parents at an African restaurant called Boma and enjoyed a birthday dinner at the Coral Reef, which is a lovely restaurant built around a huge aquarium in the living seas, so while we enjoyed a nice dinner, we had sharks, mantas, fish and scuba divers swimming by (to which Alex would repeatedly cry out, “SHARK!” or “DIVER!” much to our amusement.
It was my mother’s 75th birthday, so I’d arranged with the restaurant for us to have custom menus with my mother’s picture on the front, as well as a diver holding up a happy birthday sign (although for some reason the sign said, “happy brithday” *laughs*). It was our last night in Disney and was a great way to celebrate with the entire family.
Earlier in the summer, we’d had lots of fun with Alex and taking him to a local water park and also doing a special “Day Out with Thomas” where Alex got to ride on a train that was pulled by Thomas the Tank Engine and also had fun doing some other things. We also took a trip to Montreal as Chris had to go there on business, so we added on an extra day or two and made a family trip out of it. It was amazing to see some old friends like Harold and Maureen and Mike and their two adorable kids. Alex had a great time, and we loved being back in Montreal, even if it was for such a short visit.
Once we were back from Disney, we got busy doing some of the normal Fall things. We went to a very fun Apple Festival in a small town near us, and Alex had a great time doing pony rides, getting his face painted and trying lots of sweet apples.
We also spent a great Thanksgiving in Kingston and celebrated my father’s birthday while we were there. The kids all had fun together, and we all enjoyed some great dinners and the nice weather.
As Halloween approached, we decided to have some friends over for a pumpkin carving party, so we cleared out the living room, put down some cheap tablecloths and had fun gutting and carving our pumpkins. Alex wanted his pumpkin to have a ‘scary’ face, so he showed me what it should look like and then we both demonstrated the scary faces for Chris (see picture in the album lol).
For Halloween, Alex wanted to be Buzz Lightyear, so his Aunt Jenny bought him the most amazing costume. Not only did it have boots, gloves and a helmet, but it also had wings that lit up and it fit him perfectly. He loved being Buzz Lightyear for the night and loved the fun of going trick or treating for some candy and chips. Jennifer was a pumpkin, Sarah was a ‘dead princess’ and Kian was an absolutely adorable Tigger.
In other news, Chris is still working hard at his job. His company was bought out back in March and the sale was just finalized last week. We don’t know what impact this will have on his job or territory, but we don’t think his job is at risk as he’s doing very well, plus he’s involved in a number of other projects for the company. He’ll be going to Holland for six days in mid-December for one of those projects, so he’s very excited to see Amsterdam and Boxmeer and also meet some of his colleagues from other countries.
Our plans for Christmas are to go to Montebello again, so we’re very excited about that. We hope to get the house decorations all up this weekend and I’ll be trying to get the Christmas shopping done before the 24th!
I do apologize for the long delay in updating this site, and I’ll be sure to post Christmas pictures as soon as we’re home.
Our best to all of you for a great holiday season and I hope you enjoy the pictures.
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