Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

The halls of learning....

A snippet of our busy afternoon....

Savannah wrote out a list of party guests who will be attending the Welcome Home tea-party for her Build-A-Bear friend (scheduled to be assembled Mar.6). Among the invitees..Teddy, Princess, Slobbers (the guest of honour) and Puppy- there are probably more but she'd already filled up her sheet of paper by then and had moved on to other party preparations. I was working on my notes from the conference while calling out the required letters and offering my opinion on colour schemes for invitations.
Just out of the view...Sebastian finished a word-building game on Nick Jr.


Oh...and one never knows who one will find in a camera bag.....evidently a refugee from Savannah's earlier re-make of Madagascar 2.

An attempt to capture the early evening shadows on Savannah's wall...it's nice to still have daylight at 6pm...waning though it is. I understand now why photographers like these 'threshold' times because the light creates such interesting colours and shapes....


Sunday, February 22, 2009

Weekend at the Hilton....

Off to snowy, blowy, freezing cold London for my OAVT conference...we had some snazzy digs at the London Hilton (although we're told that it is only 'average' on the Hilton scale by a seasoned-traveler friend) it was fancy enough to impress us simple folk....

The view from our room on Friday morning...yes, it's as cold as it looks.


A little home-away-from-home...ye olde trusty laptop for watching movies and playing games...

I was being treated to a fabulous spread put on by the conference for my breakfast so everyone else got room service - kids six and under eat free with an adult order - which was good because half a grapefruit cost $4.99.....
....eggs and toast for B and a bacon and eggs and toast for Savannah....with a goblet of orange juice fit for a queen.


Sebastian's platter of pancakes with WARM syrup...he'll be expecting that sort of service at home now...
I headed out to a day full of wonderful lectures and learning and the gang spent the morning recuperating from the late night before.....

Sebastian discovered the controls on the DVD playing software and showed shades of his Uncle Simon by re-editing Jumanji several hundred times over....


Then it was off to explore the hotel...escalators - a first for them, and rather unnerving...
....didn't take long to get the hang of it though.
Sitting on the ledge of the Skywalk that connected the hotel to the convention centre - nice to not have to venture out of doors!


And, of course, the pool and whirlpool....apparently they believe in mega-doses of chlorine so Savannah's eczema roared out of latency after a few minutes in the whirlpool and she didn't want to stay....
Sebastian enjoyed it though.....
After my lectures we went out again for an explore - so they could show me all the great things they'd found...
The exercise room...

A fancy-schmancy horse statue.....
And some comfy chairs in the lobby.

Savannah is waiting (patiently) for our trip to Build-A-Bear to cash in her gift certificate...she's chosen to build the Jack Russell Terrier and wanted to show the spirit of it a good time...

And finally...after a Pay-per-View viewing of Madagascar 2, it was sleep, sweet, sleep....

A grand time had by all....but it's really great to be home.


















Sunday, February 15, 2009

Sunday service...

It's Sunday, so we decided to go to church....

Dogs are allowed in our church....

The fine, upstanding matriarchs oversee the devotees.....


....while the frogs and turtles slumber, not yet interested in the sermon..

Lots of wondering who or what might be living in this hole....no penalties for whispering or chatting during the service here....
A few patches of snow hang on in the shadier spots...

Something catches everyone's eye...probably Oscar - the weiner-dog of the wilderness

Standing room only....
A frosting of ice on the stream...who needs stained glass?

Communion at the font....



The Oak King sleeps soundly still.....


All hail the Oak King.....spring is on its way....or at least it felt like it today.










































Saturday, February 14, 2009

On the road since 10...

We had grand plans to document our very adventuresome day....

Starting with a hearty breakfast of Nanna 2's cheese pie...

Then we were off to meet Aunty Sarah and Mia for a puddle-jumping session. The only trouble was that it was a lot colder than we originally anticipated and all of the puddles were iced over....not to worry, there was still the raging stream we had spotted from the bus on Thursday...

Sebastian scales the wall.....

A lovely old willow down by the stream...which, fortunately, was still raging...

Savannah discovers a bridge across the stream....
Here's where the batteries died on the camera. I missed some great shots of our further adventures including the rest of our trek, lunch at Aunty Sarah's, a bus ride to the chiropractor and then to Nanna and Granda's. Sebastian did a face-plant into a mud-puddle at the second bus stop that was very photo-worthy....I suppose I could snap a pic of the muddied napkins balled up at the bottom of our backpack....






Friday, February 13, 2009

In the jungle....

Interesting what you find lurking in the foliage when you go to water the plants....







Thursday, February 12, 2009

Project....unfinished

Savannah's passions of late involve printing things off the computer to either colour (colouring pages) or assemble (chinese lanterns). She managed to find something to combine both activities from one of the fave websites - Treehouse - in the form of a Toopy and Binoo theatre.

First step is to print off the characters...and then the stage and backdrops....seeing as how we don't have a colour printer, she was free to colour things in her own way.

She and her trusty sidekick - Snowbell - cutting out the character shapes.
Meanwhile...in the Bat Cave...Sebastian sleeps off his full-moon mania....
Colouring commences....
I am enlisted to trim the characters in order to get the folding tabs in place so that they will stand freely. I have to admit to being pleasantly surprised at the design...
Everyone stood extremely well.....
It was at this point when she showed herself to be her mother's daughter and lost interest in the project...moving on to more exciting things....the rummaging through our craft supplies for some collage materials. *sigh*
Some say 'losing interest', I say exploring a whole new tangent of creativity....