Fall Colours - Take One

In keeping with our pledge to get out and see our new suuroundings we jumped in the car on Sunday and headed a couple of hours North to a little place called Barrie to see the fall colours. We were unfortunate enough to have chosen an overcast day and so the colours were not as prominent as they would have been in the full sun light (a theroy that was proven on the rare occassions that the sun did show itself that day). We got our cameras out and took a few pics anyway and then in a few more weeks we may do the trip again and see if we can get a better look at these fall colours that everyone keeps on telling us about.

This is my favourite pic of the day. We were up in a little village called the Blue Mountains (not where I always thought the Blue Mountains were but anyway) and this is looking across over the lake (pretty darn huge lake!). On the other side of this fence was a bloody huge drop, so given the state of the fence I think it is there more as a deterrant rather than a safety feature.

Daddy & Riley (with his belly button showing!) It was a really cold day (about 7 Degrees) and the wind was freezing, I think we may need to do some winter clothes shopping soon......
A rare pic, me actually posing.
The Girls, the only way we could get Emily to keep her beanie on was to put her hoodie over the top of it. We will be buggared when she figures out how to get it out from under there.
Me with my boy, who insisted on wearing shorts even though we told him it would be cold. Who am I to come between a boy and his fashion sense? I also really love this pic of Brad and Emily, you can see a little bit of the colour and the lake in the background. I think that this old fence really helps in the colour contrast of these pics.
In the winter time this mountain is actually a skiing field, coming in from the bottom you can see the different slopes marked out and separated by trees.This is Riley pointing out the different runs that the slopes have during the winter time. I think we may have to do a weekend trip back to try our hands at skiing too. Let's just hope that the kids ski school will let a big kid in.......could get messy otherwise.

Looking out over the lake. That little island in the middle actually has a light house on it.

I thought that the township below looked really cute and very organised so I took a pic of it.

Our Little Emmy Bear is One Year Old Today!!!

OUR LITTLE PRINCESS!!

Can you believe that a whole year has passed? On this day last year we found ourselves in the delivery room of the Sandton Medi-Clinic in Johannesburg South Africa with a new addition to our family. A beautiful baby girl, EMILY MAY CROSBY. Today we are celebrating her very first birthday. She is such a little princess and a fearless adventurer at the same time. She is sweet and cuddly and smiles at everyone. We are often pulled over by people who are drawn in by her smile and her big bright blue eyes (in just the same way that we were with Riley). Riley is still the ever-loving brother and Emily just adores him. When he goes into class at school each day the whole class lines up and blows a kiss to their mum or dad and Emily will usually blow a kiss back at Riley too and wave bye to him. They will play together in the car as we are driving along I will hear loads of giggles and when it is quiet I can often look back and see them holding hands across their seats. Emily is also into climbing at the moment and it seems that no mountain is too high, just the other day I came into my room to see her standing at my bedside table (which is just slightly taller than she is) she had her hands on top of the table and was trying to bring her knee up to pull herself up on the table! She has also worked out that if she climbs onto something else first she can then get herself up to another level. The other day I came in to find her standing on Riley's little step investigating the top of my bathroom counter, a surface previously unavailable to her due to height. She is walking confidently along furniture and whilst holding onto to our hands and has taken a couple of steps alone this week so I imagine she will be walking properly sooner rather than later.

PEEKABOO DADDY!!

Em is wearing the princess tutu and tiara that Riley bought for her - he calls her his little princess and was totally his idea to buy her this gift.

GETTING SET TO BLOW OUT HER CANDLE.

FLASHING A WINNING SMILE AT HER BIG BROTHER.

HHHHMMMM TASTES GOOD.

GOTTA LOVE BIRTHDAY CAKE TIME!!

RILEY SHOWING EMILY WHAT NANA BOUGHT HER.

RILEY 'HELPING' EMILY TO OPEN GRANDPA & NANA YVONNE'S PRESSIE.

EMILY SHOWING US ANOTHER USE FOR HER NEW BIRTHDAY PRESSIE FROM MUMMY, DADDY & RILEY.......

Niagara Falls

When we moved here we said to each other that we were going to make an effort to get out and see Canada and hopefully parts of USA also. So this past weekend we took a short road trip (about 1 hour from our hotel) to Niagara Falls. The falls were gorgeous and although it was an on and off rainy day that did not stop us (or the million or so other tourists there) getting out and seeing the sights. We didn't get a chance to go for any rides on the boats but we will definitely be going back again one day soon and we will do a ride.


This is my arty shot of the falls and the rainbow after the rain.

My boys taking their first shots of the day, I thought that this was too cute not to take a pic of.

Emmy trying out her new trick of climbing anything she sees.....not nerve wracking at all........

My little man posing for us in front of the falls.

My two gorgeous kiddies taking in the view (and Emily sucking on the guard rail).

This is my favourite photo of my gorgeous kiddies. They were playing so sweetly on the grass opposite the falls whilst Daddy was busy taking some video and pics of the sights.

Seeing as how only a couple of days prior to our Niagara visit it was our 10th wedding anniversary we decided to treat ourselves to a nice lunch with the kids at Niagara. This is just one pic of the view from our table, you can see one part of the falls, the mist that is generated and then the green grass on the other side is the USA.

Riley's Homework

Riley gets homework now from his new school, it's kinda strange because the system here says that they are too little to be at school for more than 12.5hrs a week (which in Riley's case is 2.5hrs every day) but then they are old enough for homework?? Anyways he is loving having homework. He only gets it once a week, usually on a Thursday and he does not have to turn it in until the following Monday. Today he bought home a special bag called "The Rainbow Fish Bag" each child in his class takes turns in taking it home and today it was his turn. They must read the stories that are in the bag (one of which is about a rainbow fish - hence the name of the bag) and then draw a picture of a rainbow fish and write a sentence about it. Riley was so excited going to school today as he knew it was his turn to get the bag and couldn't wait til Emily went to bed so that we could sit down and go through it (the instructions are that parents must go through it with the child). There are also a couple of games to play but we did not get time tonight so we will try to play them in the morning.

This is Riley with his Rainbow Fish homework. He is looking mighty tired but believe me he was very proud of his effort - as was his Mummy & Daddy.

This is the page that Riley did his homework on, the page opposite is the work of a boy who is almost a full year older than him, I think Riley's looks better - am I biased do you think??? LOL

A close up of the homework. It reads: The rainbow fish shared his scales and then he was very happy. Riley Crosby

Riley's new school and 'Wacky Tacky Day"....

Notice anything 'silly'????

This week Riley started school here at Mother Teresa Catholic School. I think it was a relief for both of us that he starts school as he was getting way too bored at home. So even though this is a Catholic school and not a public school there are no school fees!! How awesome is that?! Turns out the tax from our rent will be paid to the school to help fund it. The only down side so far to his schooling is that as he in in Senior Kindergarten (Which would be Prep at home) he can only attend 1/2 days so either mornings or afternoons and seeing as how we arrived just after the school year began all they had left was afternoons so he starts school at 12:20pm and I need to pick him up at 2:50pm, some days it is more of a pain in the butt than anything but I figure that next year when he is in Grade 1 it will be easier as he will be there for full days again. So he started on Tuesday and we were informed that Tuesday was also school photo day so he has already had his face in the class pic which I just think is so funny. On Wednesday he came home telling me that Friday was "Wacky Tacky" day. I didn't hear anything about it from his teacher so on Friday morning I called the school and confirmed what it was all about. Basically he had to go to school dressed 'wacky' so Riley decided that he was going to wear all his clothes back to front and then wear mis-matching shoes and socks! He had a great time dressing up silly and after I picked him up from school we went to the supermarket and he still insisted on staying dressed up silly.

And a pose just for good measure......

Our First Canadian Week.....

The view (through the mesh screen) from our Lounge Room in our hotel room.

I can't believe that we have been here over a week already. So far things have been really great for us here. We picked up a hire car at the airport when we arrived and it was a Dodge Caravan - one huge arse minivan which we duely filled with all our luggage. The next day we swapped it for a more economical car, the guy at Avis had us down for a Hyundai Sonata but when we got there we asked for something esle so that we had the opportunity to drive a car that we would not have in Australia and so we are now driving a Pontiac G6. It is quite a nice car, very close to the ground though kinda like a race car. Driving on the WRONG side of the road has taken some getting used to and I still have to have my thinking cap on, especially when I go to turn left. I have also hit the car door a couple of times looking for the gear stick or handbreak (as they are now on my right as opposed to on my left in 'normal' cars LOL) but all in all it has not been too hard. The kids and I have been out house hunting most of last week with our appointed Real Estate Broker. All of the houses here have basements which is a totally new thing for us and Riley has been having a ball discovering what the basement of each house we look at holds. The neighbourhoods here are just gorgeous too, so clean coming from Joburg, there are so many beautiful trees and I am really looking forward to seeing them change colours as we approach Fall (or Autumn as we know it) and then again in Winter being covered in snow. The hotel we are staying at is really nice and the staff here are all so friendly too, both kids seem to have made a good impression on everyone (thankfully) and so everyone knows us when we come downstairs for brekky in the mornings or dinner in the evenings which is nice.

Brad and the kids surfing the net.

Today we went and explored a little of the waterfront here, Lake Ontario, we picked up a couple of pizzas for dinner and ate our dinner overlooking the water. The feel of the place reminded me so much of Mackay Harbour about 15 years ago which was really nice. After we ate we went for a little walk along the water and found some people feeding a whole bunch of bread (about 4 big bags full - I think they own a subway type store and were getting rid of the end of day bread rolls) to the ducks, geese and of course swooping seagulls. We stood and watched for a little bit and Riley asked me if we could ask the man to share his bread with us so we could feed them also. The man heard him and came and took him down closer to the water and set him up with a massive roll. So we spent about 10 minutes feeding probably 50 ducks, geese and seagulls. It was so lovely, clean and SAFE to be out there in public and I am looking forward to getting set up in a neighbourhood and getting out more with the kids riding bikes and taking walks etc.

The park that we visited at the waterfront.

Brad and Riley scoping out a nice place to sit and eat our pizza.

Emily looking unimpressed with her lack of freedom.

Riley looking out longingly at the boats, he wanted to go and ask one of the owners if he could have a ride. Not sure how that would have gone down LOL.

Pic of the lighthouse at the end of the pier, there were so many photo ops this arvo but I did not have my memory card in the camera and the internal memory was already full, Dad & Bec you guys would have spent hours there snapping off shots at everything. I will go back again another day soon and take some pics of the gardens there for you both.

The Big Move...

One very tired little man sleeping on the plane on the second part of our journey......London to Toronto.

WE MADE IT!!! Our relocation adventure began on Friday 5 September when the removalists came and packed and moved all the stuff in our house. The next three days we spent doing last minute cleaning and tidying up loose ends. These three nights were spent in a really nice hotel near the Joburg Airport and then on Monday morning we checked out, did some more last minute tidy ups and then flew out at 9pm on Monday evening. It was a 10 hour flight into London and as it was a night flight the kids spent a good deal of that sleeping. We arrived in London at about 7:30am on Tuesday and spent 4 hours in between flights. We decided before we left to join the Qantas club and that was such a good thing too as it meant that our stay in Heathrow was in the comfort of the BA Lounge. The kids got to play in a special kids area where they both enjoyed building towers etc with the blocks and Brad and I watched some news, drank coffee and just chilled. We left London at 11:30am (London time) and arrived at Toronto at 5:30pm (Toronto time) on Tuesday afternoon. The kids were both awesome travellers. I was sure that Riley would be fine, give him his own little TV screen and remote and he is set, but Emily I thought would be the problem seeing as how she would have to sit still and wouldn't have as much freedom as she would ordinarily have/want but she was great. She slept for quite a bit of the first flight and spent the second flight either sleeping, feeding or trying out her charms on everyone around her. At the end of both flights the people around us came up to me and commented on how good my children were so that really made me feel good. So, by the time we checked into our hotel room it was after 7pm (so we were too late for dinner), we ordered ourselves a pizza to be delivered to our room and then went to bed. That's not to say we slept of course.........and by 'we' I mean Emily. The boys happily snored their way through to 8am the next morning but Emily had me up a few times during the night and then decided that 2am was a perfectly acceptable time to start the day. I guess seeing as how her body clock was still on Joburg and it was 8am in Joburg she didn't really have much choice.

Riley with the Bzz Lightyear that he earned on his star chart - took him almost 2 months but he worked hard and managed to earn it the night before we left (good timing eh?)

Emily 'helping' Daddy listen to the movie he was trying to watch on the plane.

Emily and Daddy after Daddy finally relented and just let her have the headset....Does this pic remind you of anything Father????LOL