Bronte Creek Provincial Park Maple Syrup Festival

Today with such beautiful weather I decided to take the kids out for the day to the Bronte Creek Provincial Park where they were hosting their annual Maple Syrup Festival. It was just a short drive from our house and a great day out. They have information showing how the maple syrup is collected from the sap of trees and how it is turned into maple syrup (we didn't do this tour today as we wanted to just wander at our own pace around the place and see what there was to offer). The kids got to sample some maple taffy (the first picture) maple taffy is just like toffee and is served on blocks of ice needless to say they both loved it. Then we headed over to see the animals, we got to see some cows and pigs. The pigs had a few little piglets who were very cute but the pig pen stunk like nothing else so we really couldn't hang around and admire them for too long.

The kids sampling some maple taffy.

This is a side view of the children's play barn at the children's farm area. The barn was set up with loads of indoor activities for the kids to burn off some extra energy (assuming walking around the provincial park didn't already do the trick LOL)

Front view of the barn.

Riley inside the barn taking a leap from a loft onto a nice soft landing.

The kids playing around on a hill. Right after this pic Emily stumbled on the hill and had two middy patches on her knees for the rest of the day.

Riley trying his hand at carrying the pales - these ones were only filled with hay so not too heavy for my strong little man.

Front view of the area we entered for the maple syrup festival.

Tractor sitting....LOL

We took a real tractor ride from the festival across to another area of the park called The Pancake House for lunch. As you can imagine we dined on pancakes and maple sryup for lunch........hmmm still can't work out why Emily didn't nap this afternoon LOL.

Overall a great place to visit and a great day to be had too. We will definitely return there one weekend when Brad is home as they also have short hiking trails that we can take the kids on. If we weren't leaving soon I would definitely buy an annual family pass and spend more time there. They also host radio control model shows and have a large camping area as well and numerous picnic spots and a large public pool.

Playdates......

The kids have made some lovely friends from across the street and a couple of weeks ago we took a walk to our local park. The boys were more than happy to 'pose' for a few pics but I chose just a couple to post here.

This is Riley and his mate Roy on one of the climbing forts at the park.

Emily wondering just how she is going to scale this big kids slide and make it up top to where the big boys were playing. See the ice on the ground behind her? She couldn't help but to taste test it a few times whilst we were there, she would break off an edge and then pop it in her mouth, until Mummy came along and spoiled all the fun.

This is Emily's little mate Ria enjoying a swing right beside Emily. The girls would have stayed on those swings the entire time we were at the park if they had their way.

Emily enjoying her swing.

It is March break here right now which means that Riley has a week off school and the weather here has been amazing with temps around 10 degrees. Ok so I know that for all of you playing back home in Aus 10 degrees is freaking freezing but here it has been lovely. So the kids wanted to play out in the back yard and we realised that we didn't have any outside toys so after a short trip to the toy store we return with some outdoors fun in hand and Riley's mate Roy came over and joined us for some fun. Not long after the neighbour next door to us bought her little grandson, Ethan, over to play also. Ethan is a few months older than Emily so they played really nicely together.

Emily working out what goes where for the first time...

Might not be the conventional way to hit the ball but connection was made! (oh and Emily was pretty pleased with herself also)

"What you lookin' at?"


The boys at play with the tiny tonkas in the only patch of dirt we have in the yard and this is only thanks to our friendly squirrel who dug for nuts in this patch at the beginning of winter LOL

Best seats in the house!

The kids working out how to hoola hoop......Emily wasn't going to let a little thing like size stop her.
Action shot!

Mix n Match from around the place

It has been some time now since the good old blog was last updated so I am just adding some pics to get everyone up to date. We really haven't been 'doing' a terrible lot but sometimes just hanging around the house can be adventure enough.....

Wild West day at school. Riley sure does make a cute cowboy and Emily? Well she wasn't going to be left out of the photo.

My little guy 'creating a masterpiece'. Now there's painting..................

..............and there's PAINTING....................took Mummy quite some time to scrub off all the paint that night LOL

My little spidergirl.

Even superheros need some 'downtime'

The kids and I baked our own playdoh one afternoon and they both had a great time making playdoh creations together.

Family tea party time with the kids' new mini Tupperware baking set.

Emily thinks it is HILARIOUS to lick Riley's feet and then falls over laughing when Riley wriggles and giggles. As gross as it is to think of one person licking another's feet this is actually quite cute to watch.