Ice Hockey

Well, what a night. Our first ice hockey experience. Actually, it was great. We had a wonderful time. Jesse's explanation of the game is "nice and violent". He is referring to the players being smashed against the perspex by another player.

The teams were the Mississauga Majors vs the Petersborough team. The Majors won.

At half time, these tiny little kids dressed in all their hockey gear came out onto the ice. They were adorable. It was somewhat like watching dominoes. The puck would go past and one would fall over, then the next would watch it go past and fall over and on it went. So cute.

The little guys

Jesse with the Majors Maniac.

The game is very exciting and you have to keep your eye on the puck, otherwise you can easily miss what's happening. It wasn't nearly as cold in there as I'd imagined. They clean up the ice after every period, of which there are 3, with big machines.

Classic Canadian saying of the night was "he needed a bit more wood on it aye" meaning he needed to hit it harder.

The rest of the photos have been uploaded to the Me gallery - you know the login and password, if not scroll down.

Squirrels in the Backyard

I thought I'd share with you the view of our deck and backyard. We are enjoying having a backyard after spending the last 8 weeks without one (and having the neighbours looking straight into our house).

Today we have been treated to a visiting squirrel who spent a large part of the day foraging in our yard. This evening I finally managed to get photos of him before he took off over the fence.

Beautiful morning!

Our lovely deck!

Looking at our landlord's fence - behind that fence is the most beautiful garden.

We are really enjoying our house, feeling much more settled now that we are here and have unpacked our boxes from NZ. It actually feels like home.

Have added more photos to my MobileMe Gallery. If you've forgotten the password it's in one of the previous posts.

Baseball!

Us (minus Jenna who took the photo) and Bryce at the Baseball

Yes, it's true - I went to a baseball game but don't tell anyone. A couple of Sundays ago (yes I've been tardy at writing) Bryce one of our friendly Kea's took the whole Karl clan to a Blue Jays (Toronto's home team) baseball game.

We had excellent fun. I took lots of photos and really they tell the story except to say that I really enjoyed it. It was exactly like you see in the movies, the music, the cheering and the national anthem. Of course they first sang the USA anthem (for the opposing team) and then the Canadian one. I'm was amazed when my son (after only 2 weeks of school) stood there hand on heart and sang the Canadian national anthem knowing all the words - they teach 'em the important things first!

School Children Singing the National Anthems

Great action shot!

This was before the game and all the blue seats are empty - they weren't empy for long.

The three guys standing in the front became the ring leaders for the mexican wave that went around the whole stadium about three times.

The ring leaders described above wearing the Blue Jays blankets handed out at the beginning of the game - we have three of them.

Blue Jays mascot

A full stadium!

All in all we had a fantastic day - thanks Bryce!

Antique Shopping at Parry Sounds

Andy and I went to Parry Sounds again on Saturday to collect an antique desk which I bought when we were up there a couple of weeks ago (couldn't fit it in the car with the kids).

As you can see, Jenna has already made good use of it.

Had a great day - to check out the photos Click Here. Once again, username is friends, password is karls1234.

We Have A House!!

Yes, at long last we have a house!

After searching for 7 long weeks, seeing approximately 70 houses and putting offers on 5 different houses, we finally have found a landlord who is willing to take the risk of renting to someone who doesn't have a job (as long as we paid 6 months rent in advance)!

Lounge

Stairs

Great Kitchen

With pantry

Just as well I like blue!

You would think that we were just being fussy looking at this many houses but believe me, we weren't. Just to be clear, we didn't look in all these houses - probably only about half of them. We have seen tiny wee town houses, huge houses that it would cost a fortune to heat and everything in between. I guess we did change our mind about the area we wanted to live in half way through the search but that's OK.

The house is in a nice neighbourhood with mature trees. We are hoping that there are children around because we have only been there when they should be at school. Our landlords live right next door so they can keep a close eye on us - hope they have earplugs for the drums!

It has a beautiful brand new kitchen, as you will see from the photos, which actually has a pantry. For some reason Canadians don't do pantrys.

It has three reasonable sized bedrooms, two and half bathrooms and a basement rec room with a fireplace so all our NZ visitors can stay there (hint, hint!).

Have a look at the photos and let me know what you think!

Jesse's First Day of School

On Tuesday Jesse started school at Northstar Montessori.

He got all dressed up in his school uniform (which should be made of gold - it cost enough) and was feeling very proud.

School hours are drop off at 8.45am (no earlier) for a 9am start and finish at 3.45pm. They have a drive through system to collect your children. The children assemble in the gym, you all queue in your cars and as you drive up to the door they radio into the gym for the children to be sent out. You feel like asking if you want fries with that.

Jesse was very shy and nervous on his first day. He asked me if I could stay the whole day with him but of course as soon as he got there he was fine. He came home smiling so that's the main thing.


Other news - we have put in yet another offer on a house to rent. This one is more expensive - $1700 per month but it is a detached house with a very large section (for here anyway). We are waiting for the landlord to come back to us and advise if they accept.

Customs finally released our goods today and we only had to pay $800 in tax. We decided to just pay it because there isn't much likelihood of Andy getting a job in the next few days and it was going to cost us for Crown to store it anyway. Jesse is very excited about getting his drums.

Oh, and for the bakers among you, today I bought the most amazing muffin pans - they are silicone pans with a metal top. If you've ever tried baking with silicone muffin pans you'll know that they are floppy and you can't get them into the oven without spilling them. Well, because of the metal surrounding the actual pans, they are just like ordinary pans and no probs getting them in and out. Okay, so that's a bit of trivia you probably didn't need to know or even understand but I think it's cool.

Parry Sound - Labour Weekend

It's Labour Weekend here - we decided to head North out of town on Friday afternoon and stay one night in Parry Sound which is a small town on the edge of one of the many lakes.

Even though we left home at 1pm we didn't arrive in Parry Sound until after 6pm, partly due to the traffic (everyone else evacuating the city for the last summer long weekend) and partly due to us stopping at Barrie to enjoy the beach.

I took two whole SD cards full of photos so decided to put them on photobucket instead of here as it takes ages to upload them here. Click here - username friends password is karls1234.

We had dinner at Wellingtons - how could we resist - I must say that it was the best chicken salad I've had since arriving in Canada - well done the small town. We stayed at the Best Rates Inn and it was as you can imagine - not the greatest. It got worse in the morning when there was no hot water - cold shower!

We wandered off and had breakfast at Lill's which was incredibly busy - we know why - the food was great. Bacon, eggs and fried potatoes. Andy had the "man's breakfast" which was two of everything including pancakes.

We decided that the best way to see the Sounds was from the air rather than the cruise. So we booked our flights to go up and wandered off to look at the shops. The tour was called 30,000 island tour and I thought they were joking - it would seem not. When you get up in the air you see there are so many islands, it's incredible. A lot of them have cottages on them (Sarah's Cottage on HGTV for those in the know). Imagine owning a whole island! Check out the one with the swimming pool and tennis court.

We ended up staying a second night because we simply could tear ourselves away. We stayed in the most beautiful Victorian B&B. The people were lovely and they told us it was for sale. Hmmmm - perhaps it could be a good business - oh but no!

We then travelled about half an hour North to a bear reserve called Killbear Park (very funny name for a bear reserve!) We didn't see any bears or snakes (thank goodness) but the boys went swimming so Jesse was happy.

The drive home was much quicker as most people were staying away an extra day. We got home very tired but very happy having had the best weekend.