Montreal Day 1-3

 

First stop was Montreal. After a swim and supper with the Riffs we headed to our unofficial "campsite" int he parking area of the marina where our friends Paul and Nat keep their boat. The next day we spent a lovely day on the boat, with a stop at Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue to walk around the farmers market and the canal locks  and a picnic lunch before we headed to the sand bar in the middle of Lac St Louis with Mount Royal and the city in the background. We anchored in the shallow water and swam and splashed about. 

 In the evening we had dinner and more swimming in the marina with lots of people from both Paul's and Nat's families.

Things to remember... the wind in our hair on a speedy boat, hanging out with good company, breaking the boat twice (oops, Steve and Brendan each to blame! Though Steve says the captain of the ship holds ultimate responsibility for the actions of his crew :) ) boys playing a board game and colouring with new found friends and an awesome little pool.

Thanks to the Riffs and Paul, Nat and Zach for getting our trip off to a good start!

Gap here to be filled

Araliya turned 4 months old yesterday. They have been 4 wonderful months and there's lots to record here but right now we are on a roadtrip and have adventures to write about. We are a few weeks behind so the following posts may be heavy on the bullet points. Here goes...

Baby month

It's baby month, and I hope time neither drags nor speeds up, so I'll just mention it this once!

I've been pottering about tidying up, sorting things like linen cupboards and winter clothes, counting nappies, welcoming in and finding homes for loaned and gifted baby "things" and, perhaps most enjoyable, crocheting baby longies, my first proper attempt at a garment rather than just a decorative bit of crochet.

  

I'm loving all the stripes- when we pared down our baby clothes last year I seem to have kept everything stripey! And since the above photo was taken I've added more of the hand me down clothing from the other Riffs- thank you!

In case we haven't mentioned it yet... this house has just two bedrooms, so we'll be grateful for the big king size bed to fit everyone in, but especially a baby for a good while. 

As well as pottering about by myself I've been treasuring time spent with others too. My dear friend Lindsey organised a small gathering for the closest women friends I've made since arriving in Ottawa. We ate and drank and chatted about how we met and birth and mothering. I'm so fortunate to have met such wonderful women in such a short time. One of them had a baby just 3 weeks ago and another had hers in her bed yesterday morning! What a beautiful time of year for a Birth Day!

And my lovely neighbour women friends have invited me over this Thursday evening for a little baby shower too. It's all making me appreciate the support we have and how good people are. And of course, it's making me rather excited :) I think once the birth tub arrives (first go at it- to see what all the fuss is about!) it will seem more imminent to the boys. They are going to have a tough time waiting :)

Brendan came up from downstairs to wake us up this morning and he must have looked at a calendar or something because he excitedly said with a big smile, "Mama, it's April, that means the baby will come soon." I suppose that's what prompted this post.

Last thing to mention is that we got a new to us, lovely, rainbow woven wrap. Our first one. Tadhg loved being in a rusksack carry when we tried it the other day. Too bad it's not really meant for him! But this one is just for fun and prettiness, our workhorse of a carrier is going to be a manduca, still to come, and thanks to the Riffs!

That's it for the update. I should really have a belly photo in here but I haven't taken any recently, except maybe a couple of blurry ones...  Ok, not too bad, here are a few, but I'll try to get a better one in the next couple of weeks, with Steve and the boys in!

Sugar Bush

Our first sugar bush experience!  Will try to keep this brief, but it'll be hard!

 

So we learned a bit about maple syrup making, by walking around and reading the info and by listening to a lovely old man with a long lifetime of experience who told us about the old and the "modern" ways of maple tapping.  The traditional way is to insert a tap into the tree, during these few weeks of the year in the early spring when the sap flows most abundantly, and collect the sap in these metal buckets.

 But this sugar camp is a fairly big operation so they converted first to metal tubing and later to plastic tubing like this...

  

Which means miles of tubing snaking around the woods, not the most attractive thing to see, but it's so much more efficient. It also means all the old buckets are no longer used...

All that tubing takes the sap downhill towards the pump house, from where it is pumped back up the short distance to the boiling room.

 In here it is boiled a few times, each time removing more water and impurities, then it's passed through a paper filter where the "sugar sand" is collected and used to make various products like soaps and scrubs.

 And eventually you get maple syrup. We've met some people who just never have any refined sugar in their house at all. I'm planning for that one day too. Maple syrup and honey. Yum.

We had a wander around the grounds. Here's Tadhg laughing at his sledding antics- just seconds after he narrowly missed knocking over his pregnant mother before crashing into the corner of a log cabin (seen behind). He avoided smacking his face into the corner by a hair's breadth. Hilarious.

We went on a sleigh ride along one of the trails through the woods. Past hundreds of tapped maples and their collecting tubes. Some traditional style wooden shelters were still there and some of the tree names were labelled. Very pleasant ride, especially in this weather!

Growing belly front and centre!

We then played in the woods a while and sat by the fire for a while, the boys each toasting a marshmallow.

We then walked a short trail that had lots of info panels on the tapping process as well as the trees and wildlife. The boys were interested and stopped to read them, something they usually resist and just run right past, infuriating their mother!

 

There was a pancake house there, with a live band decked out in green playing Irish music for St. Patrick's Day, but we skipped the maple breakfast (saving for a trip) and found a picnic table by a river in a nearby town to eat our picnic- hot (thermos-warm) veggie chilli and homemade bread and butter.

On the way home in the afternoon we got a phone call from some friends inviting us to join them for a walk so we went straight there. The trail went past a wild bird care centre so we stopped in to see the birds before going for a lovely walk in the woods. The 4 kids with us, and the grown up boys, had fun running ahead and hiding to jump out on the stragglers. 

 It was a beautiful, sunny, early spring day with a good few hours spent outside. After the walk we went back to our friends' house for more outside play (kids) and a yummy supper of sausages, mash and sauerkraut, followed by singing and guitar and fiddle playing.

Last week was March Break so the boys are back at school today and Steve is back at work. Hence me posting a few blog posts all on one day!

Brothers

 

These boys are so good to each other and love each other so much, it makes me teary sometimes when I witness those special moments of closeness and kindness that happen regularly. I love that they have each other and have so much fun to look forward to in the future.
Tadhg looks up to Brendan and naturally tries to imitate a lot of what he does. If Brendan says something interesting, Tadhg will immediately say something similar, though often it's half nonsense. Brendan reads to Tadhg and will help him with tricky things. They make each other laugh constantly.
I could stop there and pretend that this is the 'whole' truth, but I should also note (as a reminder of reality and to prevent selective memory in the future!) that, of course, they can also wind each other up something rotten! There is a fair share of jealousy, competition, frustration, 'button-pushing' and, rarely, a bit of violence. And although those moments drive mum and dad up the wall at times, when I really think about it, peace and cooperation far outweigh the tension. Lucky boys.

Dog try out

Our friends were heading off on holiday so we looked after their dog for ten days. Floyd is a perfectly behaved, gorgeously scruffy wee dog who is so friendly and good with kids. Just what we'd be hoping for if we were ever to bring a dog into the family. His only naughty habit was getting food off the table or kitchen bunker. One morning, when returning after rushing out to school without properly tidying up the breakfast or the lunch making stuff, I was greeted by a guilty looking Floyd, a sausage package on the living room floor and a shredded shreddies package on the kitchen floor. He had eaten the lot... a third of a box of shreddies and 8 turkey sausages. Thankfully he didn't suffer any tummy nastiness, though he may have felt a bit tubbier to his owners when they got home.

Floyd kept his distance from Belle for the first couple of days, as she would hiss a little if he got too close. Over time though they both relaxed until they could walk right by each other without paying any attention.

So maybe a dog one day, if we feel settled enough some time. But for now, we are happy with our Belle and she is the perfect cat- happy and playful and chilled out, and most importantly, able to tolerate these shenanigans...