170 km in one week.

About a month ago, Kay bought a new bike. Yippy! A week-later Pamela bought a bike. Very surprising. I took both of them to MEC to equip them with all the little necessities. Bike lights, bells etc.. It was great doing it together. I made some suggestions and they bought what they felt they needed. They have quite different bikes and their choice in accessories but at least they're both safe with lights and helmets.

Shortly after that we had a very busy week where we rode 170km all together. Each ride seem to have a different combination of people but that's what makes it fun. Vanessa tagged along on about half of it. She loves her trailer and even asks for her helmet. She falls asleep in all sorts of interesting positions.

We went over to Parc Jean-Drapeau to the Festival Plein Air. We'd planned to go for dinner. On the way there we got soaked in the rain. I'm sure it gusted up to 50km/hour. Good thing it didn't last long and we were dressed for it. Windshield wipers on my sunglasses would have been nice. We didn't realise it closed at 7pm so Pamela suggested we go to the old port for dinner. Kay later confided that she initially thought Pamela was nuts. Half way they she realised how close it was. Our clothes dried in the wind and we went out for dinner. We got some looks going in and out of the restaurant. On the way out, I nearly told someone staring that to watch out the ceiling was falling and tap on my bike helmet. Hehehe. We called Eric at 9:30 after dinner to let him know where we were since the old port was not in the plans. He said we'd better hurry up since the bridge we had plan to return on is closing at 10pm. We hoped on our bikes and rode like the wind. I figured we averaged about 25km/h. That's much higher than our novice rate. When we got onto the island I had lost all sense of direction in the dark. Good thing Kay knew her way around and we got back with a couple of minutes to spare! We took a break on the other side of the bridge. We were eager to get over the bridge but did know that if we got stuck we could take the metro from the park.

The next day. We went back to Parc Jean-Drapeau and took a bike "fine tuning"(great french)seminar. It was pretty good and packed. Vanessa and her daddy walked around the facility. One of the kiosks was giving away free mediteranean yogurt. I gave one to Vanessa but after she ate it all I took it away. She screamed like I had just pinched her finger in the door. Nice to see lots of sympathetic smiles. We walked away and she moved onto her happy self. We again rode over to the old port and had dinner and then to Ben and Jerry's. We didn't bring a seat for her and regretted it. It's much easier to eat together when she's strapped in somewhere. Vanessa had a B&J cookie which was easy for her to feed herself and kept her happy while we had yummy icecream. We rode back and Vanessa fell asleep and even slept through a trip to grandma's.

Kay's teaching Vanessa to play in the tracks.

On the Sunday, Kay, Eric and I biked to the Fort-Chambly. It's a lovely ride all on bike path and mostly away from traffic. Eric pulled Vanessa on the way there. We brought a pic-nic and met up with my parents and Tara. It was a really nice way to spend the day. This time we brought her clip on chair. Vanessa walked Grandpa and Grandma around the park. She still won't walk on her own but loves to put her had up and get us to take her by the hand.

It was a great week-end and we'll do it again soon.

Yippy!

Vanessa got a new high chair. As you see, it clips onto the table. This will making camping easier. It's nice to have Vanessa sitting at the table with us. She usually opens her mouth wide like that after getting out of the bathtub. It says brush my teeth. Maybe she expects to have food. hehehe
We bought camp chairs for some friends to borrow last year and Vanessa has grown into it. She loves it. She also loves to climb around in it. I think we'll have it in the grass until she's an expert.

Eric took this video one morning. She loves her scooter.

Cycling

With the rise in gas prices everyone has taken a new look at bicycles. Bike stores are having record sales. It can take up to a month to get an appointment to have your bike serviced. Last week-end it was garages in our city. While V went to swimming, I got on my bike with a trailer and went to look. It's so crazy in this gas gouging era that people drive around and idle the cars to look at junk. I found a play thing for V and a small pool. I had to go back for the pool but I did 11 km with my bike and trailer and got a feel for it. It was a gorgeous day so lots of fun.

Here are a few things I've read lately.
Freewheeling vacation through Rockies This sounds like a fantastic trip.
I've also been interested in some new blogs about cool bikes.
The Lazy Randonneur about The Big Dummy. You've got to see this bike to believe it.
Cycle Fun Montreal. Local Cycling news is always fun.

Lastly, I've given Kay the cycle bug. We went out last week and bought her first bike. It's a nice basic hybrid. This week we'll go out on our first ride. We'll head out on a bike path and do a few clicks.

I look forward to many more rides and my first trip out to Chambly. I'm still not confident enough to take V that far alone but soon enough.

So Cute!

On Sunday, we had a busy day and Vanessa only got a nap at 2pm. We gave her until 4pm since we were riding over to Grandma's for dinner. Vanessa loves her naps. Thank goodness because I love her naps too. We almost never wake her up. Daddy opened the door which always wakes her and she sat up and shook her head. "No, I'm not ready. 30 more minutes please" she expressed. She was in a great mood that evening but we made sure she was in bed on time.

Vanessa loves the bike trailer. She's had a couple of rides so far. On Sunday we biked over to Grandma's, we put her in the trailer and she asked for her helmet. We were so proud and relieved that she likes it since the shopping of the helmets didn't go as well.

I'll try and post some pics shortly.

communicating

We're trying to teach Vanessa some words and signs. We never know which one she'll use first. She doesn't watch much TV but when we need to cut her nails or when she can't sleep due to a cold we put on her Baby Einstein. She's memorised. It goes through basic words and the signs for them.
Over a month ago we were playing in her room and I could hear her say. Hats Hats Hats over and over so I asked. Hats? wondering if she was just babbling or saying with meaning. She looked at me and tapped her hand on her head. That's the sign for hat. So we have our first word! A week or two after that she saw a picture of herself wearing a hat and did the sign. Very exciting.
She practices words. Tries them out. I think I've picked out. Shoes....shuz and book but it's not convincing. Yesterday we watched the video and she tried some new words. Bowl and Kitchen she tried to verbalize. She's now working on the sign for Table. I don't know if she knows what a table is yet but soon enough. We're working on milk so she can tell me when she's thirsty.
She says mumumumum but finally I think it's Mommy and food.
It's all so exciting. Ohh and she still shakes her head for No when she's done something we don't approve of. Usually dropping food on the floor. :-)

New Shed

We've been talking about a new shed for a while. They've gone from some boxes to put odd and ends in to building the garage of our dreams and reorganizing the back yard. When I seriously looked at them online I found one that meet our needs perfectly. It's not fancy but it does the trick. It's 7X10.5 which goes at the end of our driveway up against the fence. Yippy. Fits perfecty and it has a door on each end. Right now it holds our bikes, the Chariot trialer and our strollers. That gets our stroller out of the front entrence.

We found this at Rona on the scratch and save days. We got 5% who hoo! We had it shipped with "Ronald Transport". Early Saturday morning.

Eric went off and took Vanessa to swimming and came back to assemble the shed. Pamela came over to watch Vanessa so I could help. Eric had it mostly undercontrol until the blasted roof. I've never heard so many choice words out of Eric's mouth.

It's all set up and pretty sturdy for a Rubbermaid box.