Ada sleeps with lots of friends close by

[link to hi-res image]

That's a rhetorical cookie

Greta:  Do you want a cookie?

Max:  (with attitude) Um...yeah

Greta: (laughing) Your right.  What kind of question is that?!

Max: (pause) A rhetorical question?

Not quite, but I still thought it was funny!

Cargo bike take 2

Four years ago we bought a cargo trike.  I wanted to be able to carry all our kids and gear on a bike.  While that bike was impressive in its ability to carry stuff it was like biking around a semi-trailer with half the agility.  It was heavy, slow and cumbersome.  We sold it at a loss, barely used.

A year later we visited Saskatoon and tried Liz's awesome long-tail cargo bike.  I loved it.  It was SO much more agile and when you weren't carrying kids or cargo it felt like biking a normal bike.  But it was really expensive and I had already burned my cargo bike budget on the cargo trike.  So we settled for a combination of a tow bike and bike trailer.  Cumbersome, but it worked.

This year Darwyn was just too big for the bike trailer.  She and Max are old enough to ride on their own if the trip is close, but they can't ride on any busy roads or longer distances.  I still had my eye on that long tail.  And lucky me, a beautiful long tail cargo bike came up on kijiji for a steal and with electric assist.  I wasn't sure how I felt about electric assist, but I couldn't turn down the price tag so we are once again cargo bike owners!

It turns out I love e-assist.  I often don't use it, but when I need it, it is a life saver.  I take the bike on many more trips because it increases my range and my speed.  Ada is even more infatuated than I am.  She loves the bike and begs us to take her on joy rides.  Once on, she begs you to turn on e-assist to the max and go at top speed (a little over 30km an hour).  She is a total adrenaline junky!  She will come along on any trip where we get to take the cargo bike and has come with me to get groceries, and tow a different bike to the bike shop for a tune up.  The long tail is stable, easy and versatile.  I love it and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to bike around lots of kids and stuff.  Check out some of the cool stuff we've done with it!

Gus and Ada test riding the bike right after we bought it.

I built my own version of a hooptie to provide handle bars for the kids.
This is a prototype made from PVC.  The final version will be made from electrical conduit.
I also sewed washable seat pads.

Towing a regular bike to the bike shop
(No Ada is not dragging the bike.  She just likes to have her hand there.)

First load of groceries + Ada

Full market load, including a half bushel of beans and a half bushel of nectarines

All 3 kids on the bike.  Please ignore the theatrics.

Diet Restrictions

Ted:  I really like tea

Darwyn: Me too!  And you don't need to kill anything to eat it.

Max: You kill the tea plant!

Gus:  I won't eat anything that casts a shadow.

Max: (between heaves of laughter) Bad news dude.  You can eat glass and not much else!

Mommy can I pleeeease get a puppy???

The kids want a dog.  I'm not sure what got them on this kick, but they are all sure their life is not worth living if it does not include a puppy.  Ada is more flexible and declared to me that she would accept "a puppy, a kitty or a baby."

Gus and I are more realistic and understand the energy involved in having a dog, but it did not help our resolve when we stopped at Mapeltons one afternoon to discover these:

With some effort Gus and I held the line and we did not leave Mapeltons with a puppy.  We decided that rather than get a dog we would borrow one.  This, we explained to the kids, would allow them to demonstrate their dedication to actually looking after a dog and would help them understand the work that goes into a dog.

My friend April has a lovely German Shepard named Yoda and they were going away for 10 days, so we decided to watch her dog for her.  Yoda is very sweet.  He is sociable, loves fetch, and he is very patient and kind with the kids.  This last trait is especially fortuitous because Ada absolutely loves Yoda....a little too much.  She follows him around all day talking to him and cuddling him.  I'm not certain he loves the cuddling, but he is quite patient about it.  She loves to tell him "No Yoda!"  I have explained to her that she shouldn't say no unless he is actually doing something wrong, but my wisdom fell on deaf ears.  Fortunately, Yoda ignores Ada's admonitions.  Ada is so fond of saying "No Yoda!" that Darwyn has even heard her doing it in her sleep, while she giggles.

Yoda loves to play tug with the kids.  We bought them a long rope so they could safely play with him and he drags the older kids all over the yard, while they shriek and laugh.  Ada wanted in on the fun and they dutifully gave her a turn.  Ada does not know how to tug.  She jumps up and down while holding the rope.  Yoda gave her one "are you kidding me?!" look, groaned and laid down (still with the rope in his mouth).  After that he laid there while Ada tugged and pulled to no effect.  It was quite cute.  Unfortunately, we did not catch it on video.

Yoda's other quirk is that he loves water hoses...something we discovered when we attempted to fill the kiddy pool.  He lunges and bites at the stream of water as though he thinks he can catch it like a  ball.  It is hilarious.  The kids caught it on video:

The kids did come along when I walked Yoda and Max even agreed to pick up some poo....although he was quite disgusted by the practice and took more than a little prodding.  Unfortunately, most of the work still fell on me.  Still, everyone loved to have Yoda visit.

Trigator take 2

This past June the kids did their second year of the trigator triathlon for kids.  Everyone did well and had a great time.  Ada managed to halve her time from last year, owing largely to the fact that her biking has improved dramatically.  She was still reluctant to swim on her own, however, and Gus once again carried her across the pool.  But she loved it and as soon as she finished the race she asked to do it again.  I am sure she is the only person in history that wanted to repeat the triathlon the instant they crossed the finish line!

Both Darwyn and Max also improved their times from last year.  Like Ada, Darwyn was much better on her bike.  Last year she used an impromptu balance bike.  This year a month or so before the trigator Dar decided she wanted to ride her regular bike and she devoted a huge amount of effort to improving.  She looked like she had been riding for years by the time triathlon day rolled around.

Max made record time on the bike portion and also chose to swim the pool this year without a life jacket.  Max is about as buoyant as a stone with arms, so I was a little skeptical that that was a good idea.  But there is a personal volunteer for each kid that stays with in arms length of them for their entire swim, so I couldn't see the harm in it.  Max did a great job and swam almost the whole thing without any aid.  His head was above the water (if barely) most of the time, except for when he stopped to wave at grandma and grandpa (see photo below)!

Below are pictures and videos!  Special thank you to Aunty Sue for taking all these awesome photos.

Darwyn the athlete!

Just high-fived grandpa on his way past!

Waving to onlookers while swimming is not a recommended activity.

Another awesome trigator for all!

Relative Time

Ada just turned four and is hurtling towards Kindergarten.  She is very excited to start school.  While driving yesterday I said to her "Ada, you are going to start Kindergarten soon!"

There was a long pause from the back seat and then Ada replied (in a skeptical voice), "Is it adult soon or actually soon?"  

Also a cute picture of Ada finishing preschool

Fortunes

Ada recently brought home a pretend fortune cookie from preschool.  It is made of fabric and allows the kids to make their own fortunes to add to the cookie. 

Ada's custom fortune: It is important to go pee.

Max's custom fortune:  You are about to choke on a piece of paper.

South Book 2: Trip to Florida

One of the advantages of coming to Charlottesville for the winter is that it brought us 10 hours closer to Naples, Florida where Gus's parents usually spend their winter.  They have been bugging us to visit them for years.  We were finally close enough that we decided to make the crazy 15 and a half hour drive to visit them.

Everyone had a great time.  The kids were most excited by the first palm trees they saw out the car window on our drive down, but getting to stay the night at a hotel was a close second.  We even got a terrible all you can eat hotel breakfast the next morning which the kids thought was second to none (well...except the palm trees of course).  

Kids in front of the hotel palm tree

Grandma and Grandpa live in a lovely golf community in Naples.  The kids were very excited to stay with them.  They got to ride the golf carts, see alligators on the golf course and spent a great deal of time diving for golf balls in the condo pool.  Plus they got 5 whole days of Grandma and Grandpa's undivided attention.

Our second day in Naples we went to the beach.  The best part about the beach were the shells.  I have never seen so many shells in my life.  The beach was literally made of shells.  The "sand" was ground up shells, some fine enough to walk on; the rest was coarse enough that you needed shoes.  The kids collected pounds of shells to bring home.  Darwyn met a woman that taught her the best technique for collecting shells and came home with a beautiful selection that I had to clean and sort and cart back to Charlottesville.  Max and Grandpa enjoyed searching for critters under the "sand".  If you dug up a shovel full you would always find a few live shells that would burrow there way back into the sand.  

After the beach we visited the docks where the fishing boats come in.
Apparently the fisherman feed the fish guts to the pelicans.
Unfortunately the boats were early that day and we missed it,
but the kids still got to look at some pelicans up close.

Day three we visited the everglades national park.  Grandpa took us to a tourist center right along the highway that was nothing special, but it had a short boardwalk along a ditch that was littered with Alligators.  An interpreter came out with Alligator skulls, skin and teeth to show off.  Unfortunately, the Alligators really just sit there.  I hoped to see them eat something, but apparently it is not warm enough in the winter for them to digest food quickly so they rarely ate.  We did get to see a lot of aquatic birds catching and eating fish.  

 

Lazy alligators

We took a lot of pictures of our kids being eaten by fake alligators
(I believe you saw some on Gus's previous post).  Just to be clear, this is not
indicative of any particular fascination on our parts.  The kids clearly
believe this makes an amazing picture.  "Hey dad!  I bet no one has ever
taken their picture being eaten by the fake alligator!"

Day four was my favorite.  We visited a local parrot sanctuary where we got to hold, feed and learn about a variety of different parrot species.  They were fascinating and very loud.  They mimicked some of the things you said and also certain body movements.  Max found this fascinating and kept bobbing up and down and then grinning with delight when the parrot did the same.  

The tour guide had a small parrot she carried with her that she called a love bird.  It was full of personality and loved to be pet.  Whenever she stopped paying attention to it, it would cry for her to cuddle it.  My kids were instantly in love with this bird.  By the end of the tour Darwyn was convinced she wanted to work there.  The tour guide told her she could volunteer for up to 6 months and live on site once she turns 16.  Darwyn now has a life goal.  She told me only 10 years left to go.  She was quite depressed when she realized that is longer than she has been alive.  

Ada spent the whole visit to the sanctuary picking bits of leaves and grass off the ground and appeared not to notice there were parrots at all.

Best picture from the whole trip

Darwyn spent a great deal of time performing songs and dances for the parrots.

It was pretty adorable.

The final day we were in Florida we went kayaking through the mangrove swamps.  We hoped to see dolphins, but unfortunately we didn't see much wildlife at all.  Max did learn how sharp the barnacles that lined the shore were though.  Grandpa picked one up to show him and instantly cut his thumb.  There is no getting out to pee.  

On our trip home we were lucky enough to intersect with Jose and his mother who were also visiting Florida.  We visited a orange orchard where we hoped to pick oranges off the tree.  I have to say I was disappointed by the quality of the oranges.  They weren't that much better than oranges I get from the store.  I've never had any fruit picked right from the tree that didn't blow my mind....but fresh oranges are underwhelming.  After our short stop at the orange orchard we drove through the night and arrived home at 4am exhausted, but it was worth it to avoid another hotel breakfast :)  

Ada spent a lot of the trip picking things up off the ground
oblivious to the cool things in her surroundings

Sigh....I hate these things.

Charlottesville 2019

Photos from Gus's phone.  Images below.  In case Blogger decides to fail again, here's a link to the photo album.

Coco the love-bird

Visiting Jose and Magali in Florida

Darwyn's homemade bag, with help from Teela

Short sleeves in a snow fort

Nap time in the living room

Ada joins the ranks of Gutoski-James lego artists