Okay got this puppy resurrected once again... more frequent updates coming. I promise :)

We took Oliver out for his first ice skate (and ours in quite a while) this morning. He had a great time and two tired, sore parents practically had to coax him off the ice.

Burlington recently put in a great new rink right on the Lakeshore downtown. It's a great facility with a snack bar and a nice warm place to sit and get gear on and off.

Looking forward to more skates in the future!

Photos:

When Mum called a few months ago to ask if Oliver wanted to go see the Wiggles live in concert Erin's first reaction was "Are you sure? Have you seen that show?" (She hadn't).

Still we thought Oliver would enjoy it so we said "Sure", and then poured ourselves a nice stiff drink. We tried watching "The Wiggles" once last year, when our friend Lori was visiting from Australia and loaned us one of her son Patrick's discs. We got about five minutes in and couldn't really take the grown men bouncing around like idiots - which meant, of course, that Oliver loved it. We desperately wanted to turn it off but didn't want to upset him - and then the power went out! (Thank god for flaky power @ the cottage)

With that experience in mind we braced ourselves for what was sure to be a long, long Saturday morning.

After dawdling around the outside of the Skydome (I refuse to call it by it's new name) as Oliver checked out every intricate detail of the doors, sidewalk and anything else he encountered we finally got inside - at which point Nana promptly marched him over to the souvenir stand and pretty much told the girl "one of each please" (did I mention Granddad was out of town?).

Once the show got started it actually turned out to be pretty enjoyable for the parents too. I don't know if it was just that show or if the guys were always like that but even they seemed to be having trouble with the silliness of it all - on more than a few occasions they cracked each other up to the point where it took them some time to recompose themselves. I also got the distinct impression there were times where they were just outright messing with each other.

Oliver, although feeling a bit under the weather, loved it and once he got used to the 6,000 other screaming children he started to really get into it - doing the actions and everything.

Overall he had a great time but when we got home that evening he passed out at five o'clock and ended up going to bed without supper and getting a good 13 hours sleep.

Photos:

This year we figured Oliver would be good for a few houses up and down the block - we had no idea he'd muster the energy to cover over 30!

Erin picked up a great costume for him (as you'll see below) - it was a dragon costume but rather than covering him entirely he stepped into it so his legs were the dragon's legs - but then the head came out by his stomach and the wings and tail came out the side and back. It was nice because a)he could see and enjoy the costumes and b) it was a cool night so we could put a jacket on without covering the costume up.

With help from his babysitter Debbie, who taught all the kids the motions of Halloween, he did a great job saying "Trick or Treat" at each house and following up with a "Thank you" after he got his candy. He had a great time and even this morning he came wandering into the bedroom with his bag as we were getting ready for work making yet another attempt at Trick or Treating. Heck he even said thank you after Erin stuck a (fresh) Kleenex in his bag. :)

To get ready for Halloween we took Oliver to the Pumpkin patch at Springridge farms in Milton. It was a pretty cool day (complete with hail) and it was mucky from the previous day's rain but we still had a great time.

Oliver loved tearing through the maze they had setup and just trundled off into it on his own without waiting for us. He also got to go for a pony ride (something he's still not completely sure about even though he's been before) and see the other animals. Overall I think I liked Chudleigh's farm better last year but it was still a good day.

After playing Oliver picked out his own little pumpkin (which has been carted around the house like an abstract teddy bear) and we got a bigger one to carve that night (see the coming Halloween post).

Photos from the day:

Oliver turned 2 over the weekend and he somehow managed to score himself not one, but two parties. Saturday we had family and friends over and then on Sunday he had a group party with his friends Mason, Clara, Cole & Alex - who all have birthdays within a month of each other.

He had a great time at both parties and made out like a bandit (he even got to the point where opening presents just wasn't interesting anymore - rough life!)

Anyways, here's some photos from the parties:

We're having a great time so far!

 

Flight on Zoom was great - we left early and arrived 45 minutes early! Thankfully Aunt Diane had checked ahead to see our schedule so she was waiting at the airport for us when we arrived. After stopping by her house to unpack and freshen up Diane took us to Arundel to see Arundel Castle , and wander the town for a bit. Got some great photos that I'll put on Flickr when we get back.

 

After, we went for supper at a pub close by with her cousin Richard and his wife Shirley. We had a few good laughs, drinks and a good meal to boot. Erin had to nudge me a few times on the way home to keep me awake and we finally surrendered to our exhaustion by 8:00 pm… 12 short hours later, Aunt Diane, gave a knock on the door to get us up to start the next day.

 

We spent a great day in London yesterday. We bought a couple of tickets on the hop-on/hop-off tour buses and managed to pack in a pretty good sampler tour of London . We actually ended up getting on and off several times as we made our way around the city. We stopped at Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square , & Harrods, wandered around China town & Soho then ultimately ended up at the South Bank for a stroll. We had dinner overlooking St. Paul 's Cathedral as the sun set on the water and then hit a few pubs as we made our way back to Victoria Station to take the train back to Diane's.

 

Today, Alex and Marcus are joining Aunt Diane and us for a trip to Portsmouth… and tomorrow we're spending the morning with Ros and Robin. Hope the weather holds – so far we've had good luck!

 

Erin & I are off for a quick long weekend in London. Oliver is getting a weekend off of his own with Grammy & Grandpa.

We're both looking forward to seeing some of the Coleman's on the other side of "the pond" and enjoying a whirlwind tour of London.

Labour day has passed and with it comes the (almost) end of another great season of cottaging. I say almost as there's still a couple of weekends left to go up for close up etc (and maybe a weekend of winter cottaging) but after labour day it's a very different (and equally as fun) experience up north.

Erin, Oliver and I didn't get up as much as we would have liked to this year (of course anything less then moving up Victoria Day and coming back at Thanksgiving would qualify as "not getting up often enough") but while we were up there it was a ton of fun. We were worried at first that this year would be nothing but chaos as we chased a now-mobile Oliver around the property but it turned out to actually be a little easier this year rather than last.

One great help was the new deck across the front of the cottage - we had it for the end of last season but Oliver didn't start walking until Labour Day weeked '05. This year he had a good 50 feet of "fenced in" deck to run free on, so Erin and I could sit out there with him and but not have to be always on top of him.

As the previous post indicates it was also a bit of an exciting year as well. Right before the August long weekend our chain of lakes was hit by a pair of tornados (F0 & an F1). Thankfully no one was injured, power was down for only a few days and the community rallied together to get everything cleaned up.

An extra little bit of excitement came as Jim finished the pine ceilings in all of the bedrooms! Needless to say everyone is glad to have the pink insulation and plastic sheets covered up. The ceilings look great and Erin and I both look forward to waking up to them each morning.

The slideshow below is of all the photos from the 2006 season:



All the photos can also be seen here.