I'm rolling down a volcano!!

One of the highlights of our recent trip to Kelowna was getting to visit Mount Boucherie which is an extinct stratovolcano.  L was really looking forward to it and we tried to explain to her ahead of time that it wouldn't look like her idea of a volcano as it was millions of years old and extinct. 

 

On one side of the mountain is this beautiful winery called Mission Hill winery.  L couldn't contain her excitement at be able to visit a real volcano until we got there and then couldn't hide her disappointment!  She couldn't grasp the fact that there was a winery on top of the volcano!!

However she soon got over it when she realised there was a wonderful grassy hill to roll down.

 All we could hear was " Mommy I'm rolling down a volcanoe!"

Here she is doing a cartwheel.  She also did some highland dancing while she was there.  Dancing, cartwheeling and rolling down an extinct volcano can officially be checked off her bucket list lol!

 

One a side note when we arrived we asked the girl booking tours if there was any information about the volcano.  She asked what we would like to know so my dad asked her when it last erupted.  She looked at us seriously and said I think about 60 years ago.  Well that was the end of our questions and my parents and I had a good laugh for the rest of the day!!

 

It was an amazing view and so romantic.  I for one would love to go back there some day sans kids to have a romantic dinner and sample the wine....

Our little beach?

We live up the hill from the coast.  On Sunday we were coming back from town and decided to drive down along the beach.  We got to the bottom of the hill and were shocked by what we saw.  Our usually quiet, peaceful beach was crowded with hundreds of fishing boats, sea lions, bald eagles and thousands of seagulls.  It was quite the spectacle!

The herring run happens here every March but this year it must have been spectacular because I've never seen so many boats.  The whole town was out taking pictures!

We quickly hurried home and got the camera and had a wonderful photo shoot in the beautiful spring weather.

 

 

It once again reminded me how lucky we are to live in such an amazing, beautiful place!

Hunting for Fossils

A few weeks ago we had a wonderful family day searching for fossils.  Vancouver Island has many places which are perfect for amature fossil hunters.  We equipped ourselves with hammers, picks, buckets and of course a lovely picnic lunch.

 The weather was gorgeous.

 These two fossil hunters took their work very seriously.

 In the end we were successful and found what we think are two trilobites!!

A wonderful day was had by all.  Even when L fell into one of the pools and had to wear Daddy's top as a dress while her clothes dried!

After our finds we have gotten the fossil hunters bug and hope to go out hunting again soon.



Winter Wonderland

It seems like it was only a couple of weeks ago that I was posting about the beauty of Autumn and cleaning up the garden.  Oh wait it was only a couple of weeks ago!!!

Now we've been blessed with this!

We woke up a few mornings ago to a gorgeous winter wonderland. My husband and daughter were ecstatic as they are both total snow bunnies. I like it for a while and then want my nice mild west coast weather back : )

Daddy and L have made the most of our unusual snowfall by making cute little snowmen and women and doing lots of tobogganing.

Now I'm really in the mood to start my Christmas crafting!

Exploring our new home

Now that the weather is really nice we've "shelved"  Montessori shelf activities for a while and taken the opportunity to explore our new home.  Instead we've been doing more I guess what you would call life school.

L has been really enjoying playing in her new sandbox practicing pouring, digging, sieving, burying and many other things.  Talk about the ultimate sensory box!  Adding water is always fun as well!

We've also been spending tons of time at the beach.  Experimenting with what sinks or floats in the ocean, learning about shells, sand dollars and crabs.  Making towers out of flat beach rocks and playing in the water with friends.  Watching the tide come in and wash away our sandcastle villages.  This is what life is all about : )

L has also been helping Granny water the plants every night and taking care of our vegetable garden.  Learning the hard way that we aren't the only ones who like lettuces!
I know that this "break" has been good for both of us but I also know that I can't go too long without making up an activity or two ; )
I've also been enjoying reading all of your posts and am excited to try out some of the great activities you've all been doing with your kiddos!

Our week in pictures

This week the weather has been fabulous here so we've taken advantage.

Starfish spotting. We found the mother of all starfish. Look at all of those legs!!!

Feeding the goats at our local market. Usually they live up on the roof of the market. They're just waiting for the grass to be perfect before they move up to their summer home.

Seeing the Olympic flame!!


Exploring Spider Lake. Hey there's no spiders here!

Bliss...

Happy Valentines Day!

Thank you to Making of a Montessori Mum for inspiring me to make Valentines Day a special day for our family (the beautiful sunshine helped to!)

We made sweetheart necklaces for everyone out of salty dough.

We also hung some from the light with our Valentine star.

I totally ripped this idea off from Making of a Montessori Mum and L loved it. After finding all of the hearts once she asked daddy to hide them for her again and again.

Then we all went up to the mountain to play in the snow(well I lounged in the snow). This is the closest we'll come to having a chalet on the mountain ; )

The view from the balcony where we had our snack. What a life!!

Now we're off to catch up on what we've missed in the Olympics.

A visit from GAS and GUS

The other day L's Great Auntie S and Great Uncle S came for a visit. We refer to them as GAS and GUS for short. Rather unfortunate acronym for my aunt but the rest of us think it's hilarious! L gets so excited when they come over and has a fabulous time showing them all of her activities and puzzles. We got out the continents mat and had a fun time putting all of her animals on their home countries. We also went out for a lovely walk and L got to ride on GUS's shoulders but she was really riding an elephant!

My aunt picked up this second hand fractions puzzle for L and she can't get enough of it. It's such a novelty because it's new but also because it's from her special GAS! (hee hee)

Nature Bugs

We got this idea from Aayla do! Montessori. It is so cool. We went to the park with our basket and collected all sorts of things to make insects out of. L can't get enough of finding things to put in her basket. We then found a picnic table and got to work. L got very excited when I got out the "glueb" and wanted more and more to stick everything together. Although she wasn't able to actually make any bugs on her own she understood the concept and asked for me to make the caterpillar on the stick.


Our creations. Daddy was a bit too ambitious with his bugs at first and kept complaining that the glue wasn't good enough. Next time I'll get a glue gun for him!!

This was so much fun for all of us that I know it will be a project we do again and again as L grows up. We took the bugs home and they're now sitting outside on our windowsill. L keeps checking to see if they've flown away!

What we've been doing

These are some of the things we were up to before I dropped the camera...



Family body tracing. We all really got into this and after doing our hands and feet moved on to heads and then full bodies! Obviously it was too exciting for me as I dropped the camera a few minutes after I took this picture.



Ice excavation. Idea courtesy of Chasing Cheerios.

L used spoons, forks, a spray bottle and a cup and bucket of warm water. It was such a hit that I refroze it right away and did another container for when her friend came to visit.

I bought some emergency vehicle stickers when I was at the craft store and stuck them onto some 2p coins. L takes them out and matches them. I'm also trying to introduce the memory game which she ends up playing her own version of.

Going on Safari

For Daddy's birthday we decided to go to a Wild Animal park close to our home. I really don't like zoos and animals in captivity but this one is the closest we could find to animals being able to live in their natural environment. It is set in 600 acres and even has an African Experience Safari where different animals roam freely.

Setting off. Now I did read on the website that the park was set in 600 acres but it obviously didn't register as we set off sans stroller. At the end of this path were about 5 flights of stairs down to the old manor house. Well we soon realised that it was going to be a huge trek. L the little trooper did a fantastic job and only had to be carried up the hills.

One of our favorite animals. We got a book about wild animals out from the library a week before we went so L knew all of the names of the animals and was so excited to spot them.

Trying to step on her shadow. She thought this was hilarious.

Out on the open plains. This was from the safari bus. It was so cool and as close as we'll be getting to Africa for a long time I think. We were exhausted by the end of the day but I think fun was had by all!

Collecting Leaves

We finally got around to getting out and collecting leaves at the park. I've wanted to try leaf rubbing for some time now. We took a basket for L to collect the leaves in and she absolutely loved it! We had to really watch her though because there are tons of stinging nettles along the path. She only picked up the leaves that had fallen on the path. Once daddy had gotten over his wanting her to only pick up the "clean leaves" we all really got into it. Somehow L also added picking up sticks to our agenda. It was really interesting to see her learning the size limitations of her basket when it came to the sticks.

Sorting out the findings. She even found some sort of large seed which she insisted on calling popcorn?

I have to just note here that I'm putting in the old college try when it comes to plants but I'm really very lacking in knowledge (probably the only person who's killed a cactus). I'm just trying to hold down the fort until we get to Canada and granny the expert can take over. (Does green thumb skip a generation?)




All three of us got started rubbing the leaves, although daddy and I ended up being much more into it than L. She did get in some Double Doodling though!
Our end result turned out to be really colorful and best of all we all had a great time!

We splurged!

As anyone can tell by my cardboard creations we don't have a lot of money to spend. With only one of us working it is very seldom that L gets anything new. The boot fair was cancelled last weekend due to rain so we ended up going to ..... Toysrus!! That's right. Now this is not a place that we normally frequent but it does have something that I've been wanting to get for L for a while now. Just a few words about Toysrus before I continue. (I have to get my rant in). I've never seen such a great example of where society is going wrong. It's like Las Vegas for kids in my opinion. So much plastic and almost every toy is associated with a TV character. That being said they do have a tiny portion of one isle dedicated to Melissa and Doug toys. Yeah! So that's where we headed and picked up....

The Melissa and Doug tool kit. I've been wanting to get this for a while because I think L is ready to start working on her twisting movement and she also didn't have a hammer. Well you think this would have been enough for one kid but daddy had come along with us. (uh oh)
L still has her obsession with airplanes and daddy has been wanting to get a small airplane they can fly together. Well they just happened to be on sale. He looked at them and hummed and haa'd but we ended up just getting the tool kit. When we got to the car he was still talking about the plane so I said oh just get it. It can be an early birthday present. (ha ha) So he did. We had to get about a zillion batteries and charge them up and the we went out to test it.


This was such great fun and hilarious. We took it to an open space but there were still trees around and it was quite windy. It took daddy a while to figure out the controls and then the plane was off. It went higher and higher and then started drifting towards the trees. We were all yelling to try and bring it back but it ended up in some brambles. Luckily we could still see it. So hero daddy waded his way into the brambles with his stick Indiana Jones style and finally retrieved the plane. Serious entertainment!
Anyway I love both of these because they are things L and daddy can do together and he enjoys. She already knows the names for the spanner, hammer and screwdriver!

Fun on the Farm

For the last little while, well long while actually daddy has been having to do extra work on what are supposed to be his days off. So we have been seriously lacking in fun family outings. Well that finally changed last weekend when we went to the beach and this weekend we went to the Rare Breeds Centre. It is a fantastic place where children can get up close to the animals. Not only are there your typical farm animals but there are also rare birds, a butterfly tunnel, alpacas and even chipmunks! As well as the farm bit there are acres of woodlands and cool playgrounds. We always have a good time and with the beautiful weather today was no exception.

Strangely L had no fear of any of the animals except this sleeping piglet. We had to coax her to pet it.
Guinea pigs with lots of cute little babies.



Feeding the rabbit some lettuce.


Feeding the goat some hay. Funnily enough he wasn't interested : )