Happy Mother's Day!

Hello from Canada!

This will be a short little update.  As I type, Clark is taking Linden to check out a home daycare close to Juniper's school that was highly recommended to us.  If it works out, we'll hopefully be able to send him a few days a week, and I can make use of that lovely little office space that I have almost gotten ready for action.  I was supposed to be going with them, but Juniper is home again from school.  This is now day three in a row.  Thursday and Friday she was complaining about a sore throat and a headache, and today it is an earache.  She is clearly not quite herself, but also not completely sick, either.  We actually had a pretty action-packed weekend, which Juniper was able to participate in. I don't doubt that her ear hurts (I think she's got quite a bit of sinus congestion), but for the first time, I am unsure how much of her insisting on staying home is related to truly feeling crappy, and how much is not wanting to go to school.  It breaks my heat a little.  

Some water got added to Linden's digging hole.  This was clearly an excellent development. 

 In any event, I have included some pictures from the weekend.  The highlights involved a gorgeous bike ride through some trails by Clark's work, a visit from Jane and little Ruth, and a Mother's Day trip to the Nature Museum.

1. Bike Ride:
Clark has been biking to and from work this past week, and discovered early on that there are a whole series of beautiful woods paths all along and through the area.  Clearly, then, this was top priority for a family adventure as soon as the weekend hit.  It truly is gorgeous, and very age/difficulty-level-appropriate for the kids.  The trilliums were out in droves (more in one place than I've every encountered), the trees are all in bloom, and there were incredibly picturesque streams to pause and explore along the way.  The one mishap that occurred was mine - in an attempt to get a nice picture, I slipped on a rock in the river, and went down.  My pride was definitely hurt (I got completely soaked), but as it turns out, so was my body.  I still have a huge welt on my leg, and my right arm is bruised, cut, and functioning only sub-optimally.  That will teach me, I suppose.

All ready to go!

Juniper coming through the blossoms

The highlight for Linden:  crossing a train track

Look at all those trilliums!

Close-up

The stream that did me in.  I would have gotten a nicer shot if I hadn't taken a spill!

2. Ruth stopped by!
Though we are not super close to Ottawa proper, we are starting to figure out the logistics of getting to see all the wonderful friends we have who live in this city.  One of which is our dear friend Jane, and her adorable little daughter Ruth.  They were away when we moved here, but were back this past week, and made it over for a visit on the weekend.  Though we were all pumped for the visit, Juniper might have been the most excited.  She dressed "like a princess" for Ruth's benefit, and spent as much time as she could holding her.  Ruth didn't seem to mind one little bit!

Look at that gorgeous girl!

3. Nature Museum!
Finally, as a mother's day treat, we finally made a family trip to the Nature Museum!  In an incredible act of thoughtfulness  and generosity, our Woods Hole friends gave us a year's family pass to this museum, and Sunday was the first day we were able to take advantage.  It was amazing!! Even though we were there for a solid couple of ours, we only got to see maybe half of the exhibits.  I feel like this will become a weekly (or at least bi-weekly) adventure for me and Linden on the days that he doesn't go to preschool.  I didn't actually get all that many photos - we chose what must be one of the busiest days of the year to go, and therefore there were people everywhere. But as you can see, one of the highlights was the dinosaur exhibit.  We could have basically spent all of our time there, and both kids would have been pleased as punch.  We also paid extra to see a 3-D movie about wooly mammoths, but Linden felt the whole experience was a little scary and overwhelming, and screamed every time something seemed to get a little too "close"for comfort.

Linden trepidatiously checks out the T-Rex

 See you next week!