[No, we still haven't replaced our digital camera - this photo's from last year, but Joe and Noah still look exactly the same!]This week has been a busy one!
On Sunday, we attended It's Your Festival at Gage Park - the oldest and biggest Canada Day festival in the country! We hung out at the park's splash pad and playground for a while, then had a relaxed picnic dinner while we enjoyed live performances by The Spoons and April Wine.
[Cool fact: the Spoons' keyboardist, Scott MacDonald, happens to be my across-the-street neighbour's brother, and was visiting from China, where he's lived for a few years now. Scott's son was playing in my backyard the afternoon of the show!!]
Tuesday was Canada Day, and therefore two traditional activities were required: strawberry picking (at Lindley's Farm in Ancaster), and fireworks (at Bayfront Park). Joe and I managed to squeeze in solo bike rides as well - I rode 25 km and Joe squeezed out 45!
The Canada Day weather was perfect; sunny and mid-twenties (that's Celsius!) with very little humidity (nearly a miracle in July in southern Ontario). We picked 18 quarts of strawberries in about an hour. The kids got bored of picking after a while, so Noah started investigating the environment a bit more closely and noticed the irrigation pipes. He asked what they were, and we ended up having a rather interesting discussion on farm irrigation systems (we pointed out the farm's irrigation pond on the way back out). Nathan entertained us by making up a story of King Berry and his plot to take over the world (yep, the kid's watched a lot of Pinky and the Brain, LOL!)
We all rode our bikes along the Waterfront Trail to the fireworks display. I was in the lead keeping up with Nathan the speedster. Joe and Noah were quite a distance behind us, and were lucky enough to see one of our local beavers swimming in the Desjardins Canal!
Much of the rest of this week has been spent either wrestling with strawberries or loafing at the community pool (a mere 5 minute walk from our house). I now have 1 1/2 dozen jars of strawberry jam - with any luck these will last us until next year; I only had to buy 1 jar of storebought this year to get us through to the new season! I still have 6 quarts left to hull and freeze, which I should probably be doing right now instead of blogging....
This afternoon, the whole family went for a ride down to Pier 4 Park - we brought a couple of the boys' friends along for the ride, too! We were lucky enough to catch the end of the Dragon Boat Races as we'd been meaning to attend but the event had slipped my mind. The boys played at the splash pad and playground while Joe and I took a stroll around to soak up the Harbourfront atmosphere and relaxed on a bench by the water with our books.
And now, I believe it is time for me to go deal with those strawberries!
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