Father's Day and a bunch of goodies

Family shot

Happy (day after) Father's Day!  I have to say, we ramped it up a notch this year, and gave Clark one full-on celebratory weekend.  This is not surprising, as Juniper has entered a rather intense party-planning phase of her existence (she has, for instance, been making plans for her own birthday daily for the last 8 months or so).  We had special suppers, a special breakfast (in bed), multiple presents, given at various different points in the weekend, special activities and outings... seriously, I feel like I should have gifted myself a day at the spa just to unwind from the whole thing.  Joking!  (sort of).  All joking aside, I can't think of a father who deserves to be fêted more than Clark, so I'm happy we pulled it all off.  Here are some highlights, as well as some other goodies, and some videos, to boot!  (including the much ballyhooed return of Juniper and Linden dot org.  Be sure to check it out!)

Presents, presents, presents: This year, Clark somehow managed to get continually showered with gifts for the entire weekend.  There were the usual cards and pictures and school-created goodies (a bag of "steak spice", for instance, that Juniper was SUPER proud of), as well as the necessary nature items, such as this particularly lovely collection:

Some early father's day offerings foraged on a nature hike

Clark also managed to accumulate quite the collection of coffee-related supplies including an AeroPress and a nice Burr Grinder, and a couple of sweet value village mugs from Juniper (because, seriously, what we need around here is more pottery). The pièce de resistance, however, was this big beautiful wooden bird feeder that Linden found (also at Value Village).  It was the PERFECT father's day project.  I even put aside my inhibitions, and got some non-washable paints for the occasion.  The kids fell a little short of keeping it a secret (Linden, for instance, pointedly told Clark not to look at the bird feeder), but he managed to not actually SEE it until it was completed.  It is a thing of beauty:

Hard at work painting the bird feeder

Close-up of Linden putting on the finishing touches

The finished product, hung on the backyard fence (for now)

Juniper wanted to show off her fancy princess face paint, procured at a charity rummage sale we happened across

Mountain biking adventure:  On Saturday afternoon, I had some (more) father's day-related errands to run, so Clark decided to take the kids on a bit of a mountain biking adventure.  Linden was super keen, but Juniper declared that she'd rather run errands with me.  I tried to convince her otherwise - not because I didn't want the company, but because mountain biking sounded WAY more fun.  She actually said (and I'm not paraphrasing) "I want to go with you, mama, because I love you and I want to spend time with you".  Seriously.  How could I say no to that?  It might have also had something to do with the ice cream cone she knew she'd be getting at IKEA, but I'll take some sweet words when I can get them!

The boys, about to set off on their adventure

Hard Core Mountain Biking

Father's Day!  It included breakfast in bed (waffles with berries and whipped cream and maple syrup, as well as bacon, boiled egg and brie on the side)...

My kitchen helper early on father's day morning, complete with very fancy (vintage 80's) dress, and improvised chef's hat

... and then a trip to Pinhey's Point Historic Site. We wanted to do something fun and unusual, so we literally googled Ottawa Father's Day events, and came across a webpage for this historic site not far from us.  These are the details, for anyone interested, as well as a description of Pinhey himself:

The special event for father's day was a "heritage trade show", where there were day-long demonstrations including blacksmithing, carpentry, blade smithing, rope making, weaving and spinning and cooking.  It was seriously the perfect outing, and we are totally going back, maybe on a semi-regular basis.

holding the reins and discussing all things horse on our hay ride

Around the corner was this blacksmith, who does this for a living.  We bought a little key chain for juniper (which we actually watched him make!), and he threw in a hook for Linden. 

Linden tries his hand at the wood shaver.  

Hard at work punching a design into a piece of tin to make a lantern

A highly anachronistic (yet highly enjoyable!) park in the middle of the site

Just taking an apple break in some ridiculously high socks

I would say that about sums up our weekend.  Here are some other random pics from the week, including the terrariums that I have finally finished creating and hanging.  Perhaps no one else will find them as interesting and beautiful as I do, but I thought I'd include them just in case!

Though we have officially decided to just nix afternoon naps, there are still occasions when Linden can't help himself

Sometimes, if Clark takes the car to work, I have to walk to get it.  I don't mind.

Two terrariums hanging with the birds in the living room...

...and two in my office window

Close-up on what is currently my favourite.

 And finally, here is that video I promised!  It is two random Linden videos thrown together.  The first two clips are from the beautiful mountain biking adventure that the boys went on.  The second is what Linden gets up to in the morning before he leaves his room.  You see, Linden is very erratic when it comes to morning schedule.  He knows he's not supposed to come out of his room until 7am (which he often honours, due to the promise of a gummy bear - yes, we've resorted to bribing).  However, because no one sleeps in there with him, we have no idea what time he is actually getting up.  Some days, it is pretty clear from his grumpy demeanour that he woke WAY too early and never went back to sleep.  So for the last few nights, Clark has set up a computer camera that takes photos every 10 seconds, to see when Linden actually turns on his light and gets up for the day.  The times got cut off on the video, but on this particular occasion, Linden turned on his light at a very respectable 6:30am, and left when he looked at his clock and realized it was after 7:00am.  We're going to keep recording for the next week or so to see what his patterns are - I'll be very interested!

Also, don't forget to check out the grand return of Juniper and Linden dot org!  You can find it here. Whew! I can't believe I actually finished this post at the end of such a looooong weekend.  Maybe I deserve that spa day after all. See you next week!