Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Canada 2012

AKA Mason’s first international trip

I started writing about our trip but it turned out to be a book, so here’s a bulleted list.

  • Nathan lost his passport. I went to Toronto on my own on Thursday.
  • Nathan’s parents miraculously sent his birth certificate by 7am on Friday. *whew, and thanks Woods’!*
  • I left the hotel, got 20 minutes down the road and realized I forgot my passport in the hotel. Took an hour to get back to the hotel. *sigh*
  • I picked up the boys in Niagara Falls, NY, then brought them both up to Toronto. Finally our family vacation started! A few incidents:
    • I almost forgot the diapers and formula at KMart, after paying for them.
    • I DID forget the bag of goodies from the drug mart in Toronto. Luckily when we went back a half hour later they had set our bag aside for us.
  • Saturday: We all went to the zoo. Unfortunately half of the subway system was shut down that weekend, so we had to take a shuttle to the subway, then a bus to the zoo. It took 2 hours. Mason fell asleep during the last half of the zoo trip. We also tried out the hotel pool, where Mason cried at first (Nathan is a fan of the “jump in to get acclimated to the cold” while Mason and I like to slowly get in so we don’t freeze!) He had so much fun playing in the water.
  • Sunday: We visited Casa Loma, a mansion/castle, where Mason slept again. We also went to the CN tower, then headed to Niagara Falls, but not after a few traffic “incidents…
    • A lady tried turning out in front of us while we had a green light. She laid on her horn and gave us a mean face. So I laid on the horn and gave HER a mean face. While I went around her.
    • A guy skidded against the back bumper of our car and was about 3 inches from my door, in the middle of the road. So after a bit of hollering we checked everything out and everything was fine. How do you deal with a traffic accident in another country, anyway?
    • Some dude hopped on our car and washed our windshield for us as we were leaving the city. I was waving my arms and shouting “get off my car!” while Nathan laughed. He paid the guy $2.
  • Monday: We walked down to Niagara Falls (our hotel was a few blocks away!) and rode the “Maid of the Mist” boat with Mason. He ended up soaked. At least the pictures are cute. We also walked around the falls, though Mason won’t remember that since he was passed out.
  • Once we left Canada we went to Erie, PA to find a beach. Who knew it was so hard? After we found one, we went into the water with Mason, and it took him a while to be okay with the water, but once he was I’m sure he would have played all day long!
  • We headed home and got here around 8:30pm. All in all it was a good trip, but it sure does feel good to be home.

Okay, here are some pictures:

“Yay! No more cars!”

CANADA 2012 005

Looking out the hotel window.

CANADA 2012 006CANADA 2012 007

Mason’s first brewery experience. He cried because it was so loud. Then he was happy because he got to eat french fries.

CANADA 2012 008

And have a beer. Just kidding. This is just funny placement : )

CANADA 2012 010

Mason’s face here makes us both laugh.

CANADA 2012 011

BOTH of their first subway rides!

CANADA 2012 016

At the Toronto zoo.

CANADA 2012 018

Mason got a little rowdy at the Mexican restaurant… good thing we were outside!

CANADA 2012 022

At the CN Tower

CANADA 2012 023CANADA 2012 024CANADA 2012 025CANADA 2012 026CANADA 2012 029CANADA 2012 030CANADA 2012 031CANADA 2012 032

Why yes, that IS the city beneath him! Glass floor, anyone?

CANADA 2012 038

Niagara Falls

CANADA 2012 040

Poor blue kid.

CANADA 2012 041CANADA 2012 042CANADA 2012 044CANADA 2012 045CANADA 2012 046

“Hello, my name is Mason. I sleep at really exciting places.”

CANADA 2012 049

Back in the USA… at a Bob Evans. : ) Hey, we were hungry.

CANADA 2012 053CANADA 2012 056CANADA 2012 059CANADA 2012 065

Favorite. face. ever.

CANADA 2012 070

At Lake Erie, easing him into the water.

CANADA 2012 074CANADA 2012 075CANADA 2012 077

He’s holding on for dear life!

CANADA 2012 080CANADA 2012 081CANADA 2012 087CANADA 2012 088CANADA 2012 090

When we got home from work today I plopped him down in the kitchen to play while I started dinner… he found his way over to the dog water and played in it. No big deal, he’s getting a bath tonight anyway… until I found the 5 chunks of kibble in his mouth. Oh, and there’s one in his hand too! Ew!

CANADA 2012 092

That’s all of my pictures from our trip! My favorite might be the kibble-eating one….

Friday, May 11, 2012

43 Weeks (you thought we were done counting weeks, didn’t you?)

Alright, so Mason has been doing TONS lately. I’ll make a list.

    • Waving
    • Clapping
    • Walking
    • Being cute (oh wait, that’s being going on for 43 weeks.)
    • Eating mostly solids by himself. It makes feeding times easier for me- I just throw food on his tray!
    • Getting used to playing outside. He doesn’t like the grass (it’s pokey!) so he stays on a blanket. : )
    • We’ve moved him from his little bath tub to the regular bath tub, which is great but also means he knows he can stand up in there : ) If he does it twice his bath time is done.

Wow, he’s so much fun. His waving and clapping was a lot of hard work but somebody had to do it. And seeing him wave at me (or himself, or best of all, other people) makes me light up. Same with every one of those steps he’s taking.

We’ve been looking for a babysitter for date nights since the last date we took was when we were home in MO for Christmas. Nathan works with a lot of people with kids, so it should have been easier and we could have nicely done a swap, but unfortunately things don’t work out that way since he hasn’t asked anyone : ) Instead I used care.com where I got my own job; we had 12 people who want to help! Unfortunately, I’m not one to say no to anyone so it kind of stinks for me. So I just picked the first 2 people : ) It looks like Mason will have a new buddy to hang out with on random Saturdays!

I cleaned out my phone pictures today too (gotta love naps) and came up with over 1000 pictures and videos. Holy moly. I’ve put some on facebook, but I’ll put a few on here too. Are you ready?

Here’s a picture from our honeymoon! Oh wait, you wanted to see pictures of the kid? Fine.

Pictures from my phone 021Pictures from my phone 054Pictures from my phone 095Pictures from my phone 138Pictures from my phone 150Pictures from my phone 183Pictures from my phone 202Pictures from my phone 233Pictures from my phone 247Pictures from my phone 251Pictures from my phone 261Pictures from my phone 293Pictures from my phone 307Pictures from my phone 325Pictures from my phone 326Pictures from my phone 331Pictures from my phone 343Pictures from my phone 413Pictures from my phone 414Pictures from my phone 439Pictures from my phone 539Pictures from my phone 557Pictures from my phone 579Pictures from my phone 581Pictures from my phone 582Pictures from my phone 591Pictures from my phone 602Pictures from my phone 618Pictures from my phone 620Pictures from my phone 622Pictures from my phone 623Pictures from my phone 630

Can you believe how much he’s grown? Us either. (Was that enough pictures dad? : D)