Tipsy

Just like that. In a blink of an eye.

We were in a checkout lineup at the grocery store. I turned around long enough to see if there was a bag of nachos on the shelf directly behind me. Two seconds tops. I hear a crash and turn around to see BigE on his back on the floor with the cart on top of him. He'd grabbed the side and tried to do something. Don't really know what. Them BLAM! Once he saw a lady looking at him he went "Um I'm ok".

Another Acanac deal

A small update to Acanc II. If you missed out on the last freebie trial it's back. Until Aug 28th you can try out Acanac for free.

You still have to have a DSL account with somebody (e.g. Bell Sympatico, Teksavvy). If you were thinking of trying Acanac then this is a chance to switch to Acanac without commitments like canceling your existing service.

How do you setup? We'll you pretty much change your PPPoE/DSL login user name and password to be the id given to you by Acanac. IF I can find more specific details I'll post them

Well that's a first

We'll its back to daycare after all the cottage fun. Not hard to blame BigE for being a little disappointed. However we made our way to daycare with a few silly walks from the car. After hanging up our backpack and putting away our hat I'm expecting the calls for "Upppie" ... BigE sees a buddy and they go off to play.

Bam! No hugs, no crying, no goodbye. He's just gone. Holy *&#@

I even had to call his name to get him back for a hug! Now this time it was a legit reason since I didn't want him to freak out if I left without saying goodbye. It wasn't just for me.

I wonder if we've reached that point where he can just run in and join the group?

Gotta get me some pie!

It was hot. Nearing thirty in the evening. We'd keep the house closed and cool. We were having a BBQ of chicken, pork chops, and corn for supper. A pie was brought for dessert. Rather then using the oven and then being forced to through on the AC I figured to use a better way.

I decided put it on the BBQ. Add a little tin foil heat shield and viola you have an oven. This was apparently wildly crazy.


Just to try and speed things up I flipped the vegatable tray upside down to put the pie on. The thinking was to crank up the heat but shield the pie from direct heat. Shortly after I covered the top so the crust didn't do too quickly.

Note the silver cord going to the contraption on the side of the BBQ sitting on the foil. That's my remote BBQ thermometer. It was handy to keep an eye on the temperature.

Swimming at the Cottage

Well a main part of the trip to the cottage was all the swimming. BigE was a little tentative at first. Especially as Saturday was warm but not hot and sunny. But by mid day he was ready to head into the water all by himself.

Thankfully he knew he had to wear his life jacket.


By Sunday he started to get interested in goggles. The cousins had been using snorkels for most of the weekend. This time BigE found a pair that would fit and was curious.


Off he went into the water for more swimming. This time with Jakie and the goggles.


Of course after some time in the water the chill would eventually set in. Sometimes the towel would help. Sometimes you need a little warmth from a another body.

A Trip to the Cottage

While the cottage was really nice we never bothered to take any pictures of it. Let's just say it was wooden with about 10 families worth of nick nacks. On to the important stuff. The Water!

Most of the time was spent in, on or near the water. The boys spent quite a bit of time in the lake. We took a few trips out in a pedal boat and a small inflatable raft.



Of course Saturday night there was a fire and some fireworks. One firework exploded instead of lighting. The booms seemed to irritate the neighbours. Who had to hit the sack at 9:20 so they could be up by 7:30 to zoom around the lake.


While we were at a cottage that doesn't mean you can't still catch a bedtime video.


One fun spot down the lake from the cottage was the swinging tree. It had a 20' piece of rope hanging from a high branch. The kids were swinging out and having a blast.


Half of Saturday was spent blowing things up. Looking at the size of the Cabana here you can tell why. It had two ingeniously designed entertainment devices. A hole in the middle (Which I think was to hold a cooler) that the kids kept swimming into. The other fun thing was the anchor. We had several iterations to come up with a working version. Scott eventually vetoed my cinder block version. Some silliness about punching a hole in the float. Pfuhhhh.


Of course there was much fun in the boat. When the kids weren't being dragged on some inflated thingy we were cruising the lake. We took a trip to a water side restaurant on Sunday. During the cruising the kids hung out in front

and the ladies in the stern.

Quote of the Day 23

As Mama is leaving the bedroom after a snuggle.

BigE "Mama?"

Mama "Yes?"

BigE "Where did Scott get his boat?"

Mama "I don't know."

BigE "Maybe he got it at the dollar store?"

Mama "Umm I don't think so"

Off to a Cottage

We're off to a Cottage with Auntie Bevie. Hopefully we'll have lots of pictures in a couple of days. See you all then.

Bob the Builder en francais

Our DVD remote is busted. So we're pretty limited on what we can do with DVDs. Fortunately most DVDs can just be inserted and played. No big deal.

Our Bob the Builder DVD isn't like that. For some odd reason it wants to start playing in french. You'd swear we bought a boot leg copy or something. So every time the disc is inserted you have to go through the options menu to select the english tracks.

Well BigE wanted to watch Bob and the remote is dead. So what did we do? Watched 45 minutes of Bob in French.

Watching TV

Now most tired kids watching TV would be flacked out on the couch. Or at least that's what you'd think. No not BigE. He's doing his special trick while checking out the lastest kids show.


Now Dada can't get mad because he's no longer jumping on the couch. You see if you just keep standing on the back of the couch then your not jumping. So "No more jumping on the couch!" doesn't apply to you.

See so simple!

Lawyers apparently think like three year olds.

Who knew?

Somebody came over to get my attention. Apparently it's news that your pants can go up this far!

Once I pulled out the camera then it became stupid dance time. Too bad I didn't grab a video in time.

What are you doing?

BigE "I'm washing the dishes"

Dada "Really? Cause from here it looks like your making a big mess"

BigE "I'm not making a mess. ... Hey how come my shoes are wet? Ahhhh"

I was thinking that it had been a while since I moved the tent

Making a Comment

Just a quick guide to making comments.

You see a post you'd like to comment on. You click on the link located in the bottom right hand corner called "COMMENTS". It's circled in red.



You type in your comment in the box. You can use a blogger.com/google ID or you can just leave an anonymous comment.

If you leave an anonymous comment you don't need to log in.



Enter the letters you see in the image in the Word Verification box. This is to stop scripts from posting spam comments. After clicking "Publish your Comment" the page will reload and at the top you will see:



So now your post goes into the system. They don't show up on the page until they are approved by me. I don't plan to moderate much. Mostly just to remove any personal information.

The next time I log into blogger.com I see your comment. From here it gets approved and then it appears on the site.

Old Style Ice Cream Makin'

After Making Ice Cream I've been keeping my eye open for ice cream ideas.

Over at instructables.com is an even more extreme (really retro) Hand-Crank Ice Cream for Cranks recipe. Note they even use berries and eggs in their recipe.

The Art of the Beg

brought to you by Arnie

Back to the Bike

Dada's Broken Bike is back. Worked like a charm today on the way to breakfast. We'll see how long things hold out.

As it turned out my axle broke in my bottom bracket. Bottom Bracket? Yeah I had to look up what the hell the name of the part was. Here's a pic


The cylinder on the inside is supposed to be one piece. It's a little hard to see but I had a nice clean vertical break in the axle. The bolts to connect the pedals are on the back side of each piece.

PS The only sheet of paper I could find for a backdrop had some old calculations from my prep material for Dada's trip back to school. I don't normally work on simple derivatives and integrals in my spare time.

Two Hundred Posts

Ever proving that quality is likely inversely proportional to quantity. tBF.ca has reached 200 posts.

Here's a look back at a few highlights from the last 100 posts.
Slushie Redux
Strawberry Jam
Jumping Jacks
When you get mad get even ... unless your mad at yourself!

And the shameless plug for the online photo collection Flickr Photos

Adventures at Daycare

No fire truck today

What a bitter blow to BigE when we arrived at daycare today. The lunchtime scheduled visit by the fire department had been canceled. Apparently not due to the torrential down pour we're having. Something administrative some time ago. Would have been nice for a big fat X through that activity on the calendar.

My suggestion to pull the alarm and just pay the $75 false alarm fee wasn't appreciated. Odd hunh?!?

Library Trips
The fire truck came on the heels of yesterday's missed trip to the library. Library days don't involve all the kids. Some how between the older ones and those that show an interest get to go on the trip. The highlight being the ride on the city bus.

So after finding out about the fire truck I put the word in that BigE loves to go to the library. I'm not real sure it has anything to do with the books. But it's worth keeping the illusion up. So BigE should get to go on the next Thursday library trip.

Gas Mileage

I emailed GM wondering if they had the fuel economy vs speed measurements for our Vibe. I mean I know they have it. Who builds and tests an engine and doesn't know how it will perform. It's more of a question is it anywhere I can get access to it. Sadly I'm still awaiting a response from GM. 6 days after their own deadline, on the second request, to get back to me and there is no sign of a response.

Anyways on to the actual article. From Edmunds.com comes We Test the Tips: What Really Saves Gas? And How Much?

Aggressive driving by hard acceleration

The Cold Hard Facts: Up to 37 percent savings, average savings of 31 percent

Speeding

Cold Hard Facts: Up to 14 percent savings, average savings of 12 percent

Ok that one hurts.

Idling

Cold Hard Facts: Avoiding excessive idling can save up to 19 percent

Recommendation: Stopping longer than a minute? Shut 'er down.

Here is one recommendation I have started doing. There are two left turns I make on a regular basis. At least one on my regular commute. On timing them I realized at one light I was waiting for over 100 seconds (1 minute and 40 seconds) between turn arrows.

Today's Agenda

"After daycare we'll go get your bike and then we'll go to the grocery store to get some Eggos"

How to get home from the Hospital

On the way to daycare today an ambulance races by us from behind on it's way to the hospital near daycare.

Dada "Hey look over here"

[Ambulance rushes by on the drivers side]

BigE "An Ambulance! They're going to the hospital to feel better"

Dada "That's right"

BigE "Then when they feel better the fire truck will take them home?"

Dada "uh, No"

Then proceeded five minutes of trying to explain that you had to find your own way home.

Dada and the Optometrist

I'm just back from the tri-annual eye exam. Actually it was only my third ever eye exam. It just so happened that my last eye exam was three years ago. With school approaching and tons of procrastination I finally booked an appointment.

So I'm sitting with the doctor who is showing me my vision with and without the prescription. In a good natured way pointing out my squinting to read the chart.

When I piped up:

"I don't need to read the bumper sticker on the car in front of me I just need to avoid the car in front of me. And that car, even a Smart car, is going to be four times the size of the entire eye chart"

...

On the upside I learned the province lowered the eye sight requirements. I no longer have the worst eyes that do not require a prescription. I'm now AVERAGE. Wahooo!

Time and Space

Apparently 3 year olds don't have a good perspective on this.

BigE to Mama "I want to have lunch at home WITH Dada"

Dada is at work today. It would take the proverbial lunch hour just to do the traveling.

The BBQ

Today we came home after a day of daycare to have a BBQ. We had a BBQ less weekend and I knew BigE was chomping to BBQ in the pot. Pot? Yes, but that is another post. In the pot is some lump charcoal.


What's not seen is a piece of corn sitting on the side of the charcoal. It was thought to be gone but I through it in, sheath and all, to the pot.

BigE decides to make a spot for us to sit and eat under the steps. That wasn't my favorite idea. It's a small spot for big Dada. But I gave in to the persistence.

Here we are sitting on the concrete eating our hot dog.

Oh, and here it the corn. It was darn good!

Of course the whole time we were stalked by the chewdon Arnie waiting for something to drop.


Not to worry though, BigE made sure to put one hot dog on the BBQ for Arnie.


Disclaimer: Only hot dogs and corn were harmed in the making of this post.

Low posting rate

We've been:

• busy


• working late


• having a temper tantrum

Pick any number of the above and that's why we've been lightly posting

No really?

We're goofing around in bed during snuggle time when I'm told

BigE "I'm grumpy when I'm in bed"

You know boy that explains a lot.

Day at the Beach

Daycare had a day at the beach on Friday. BigE while not being booked went anyways with Mama. That way he got to see some of his friends from the "small daycare".

It wasn't a particularly great day. But the forecasted thunder showers did hold off. So they did get to play most of the day. There was intermittent showers which did stop their play with the water sprinkler. Cause you can't play with a water sprinkler in the rain.

BigE running through the water sprinkler.


That resulted in one wet little boy


If the sprinkler wasn't enough then BigE and one of his favorite buddies from daycare started to play secret spies with their water guns

Here are the super secret spies sneaking up on Mama

I want to get rich so I can buy a backhoe

From Get Rich Slowly (Personal finance blog) comes a quote that I could see coming from BigE when he's nine

"I want to get rich so I can buy a backhoe. A real one, because that’s the job I want to do. After I finish college I want to build big buildings and be an inventor. I want to be on Dirty Jobs and Myth Busters, too."

You mean this thing is for groceries?

I got a call for my presence in the kitchen. I turn the corner and see

BigE "I want to go for a ride"

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Daycare fun day

If today can't be a fun day at daycare there is no hope. Today the kids are going to the park with a beach and then to see a movie. They're going to see Ratatouille.

I can only imagine the insanity at the theater.

UPDATE:

So I picked up BigE from daycare and he was actually readily admitting he had fun today. Highlights of the day
* They got to go to the play structure
* They had to leave their bags on the bus
* They had to keep their mouths closed at the movie
* And some guy was trying to chop the mouse in the movie.

The final point might just be the shortest review of Ratatouille on the net.

Lunar Jim

We have a new favorite morning TV show around the Bussey household. It's Lunar Jim. So to keep everyone in the loop here is the show:

The Cast

It has three people and two robots living on Moona Luna. There's the leader and title character Lunar Jim. He's tag line is "Let's get Lunar!".

Then there is Ripple the engineer and Eco farmer. A moon base you can see having the engineer. It's kind a hard to outsource that work. But a farmer? Yup. They've got Betsy the cow and crops in a a dome. Plus there are many strange plants on the moon. Didn't you know?

Then comes Rover the robotic dog. He's Lunar Jim's sidekick. Apparently only TED and Jim can understand his noises. Go figure. Whenever Jim heads out on a lunar adventure he takes Rover with him. They slide down a tube to where robotic arms put on Jim's gloves and helmet; and an a polisher cleans Rover's eyes or goggles. The funniest part about Rover his built in fax machine. Flash light eyes I can get. But fax machine?!?!

Then there is TED the robotic helper who feels he can do everything better. He's the lovable dofus that helps set up the mystery and adventures on Moona Luna.

The Shows

Each episode (25 minutes) is two smaller shows. There's usually a problem setup in the first minute or so. From there Jim and the gang investigate. This give lots of time for the kids to figure out the mystery before Jim solves it.

Summary

All in all it's a fun show. The animation style reminds me of something like Bob the Builder. In fact I can see many similarities between the two. Like many shows it tries to play up it's educational side. Sure the kids seem problem solving and facing mysteries. But it's no Sesame Street.

Regardless it's a fun little show. The two episodes in one seem to keep BigE's attention. They're just long enough to have a little story with some adventures and twists while not being too long that he gets distracted.

Would you like Chocolate or Bedila?

Be*dil*a (noun) aka Vanilla. BigE's version of Vanilla.

Either way BigE would love a scoop. And often he likes having just a cone once he's done the ice cream cone.

Dada's Broken Bike

Last weekend I went to drive the pedals down on my bike to get us moving. I had BigE in the bike stoller and we were going across some grass. That can make things a little slow going. As my weight came down I heard a crack and suddenly both pedals were at the bottom at the same time. If you've haven't ridden a bike in a while that is a bad thing.

So we took the bike to the bike shop on Sunday to get it fixed. There goes $50 bucks. I'd do it myself except I'd have to spend more to get the tools then the one time charge of $10-15 for the labour.

Anyways to make the bike fit easier I pulled off the seat. I have a quick release so it's no big deal. Little did I know how popular that seat would be. Now BigE has his own portable seat. He's been hauling that thing around the driveway for two days now.

Now everyday I get asked by BigE when we can go pick up the bike. After this nap? After we get home from daycare? After dinner? Before every ride as we are putting on our helmets I'm told I can ride Mama's bike.

Quote of the Day 21

We're pulling into the driveway after getting home from daycare. I can see Mama in the garage waiting for us. As I'm backing into the driveway

Dada "Do you see who is waiting for us?"

BigE "It's Mama?"

Dada "Yup"

BigE "Careful don't knock her down"


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Quote of the Day 20

After half a weekend of playful are you "Mommy's Boy" or "Daddy's Boy" we're getting into the car at the grocery store:

Dada "Are you Daddy's boy?"

BigE "Noooo"

Dada "Are you Mommy's boy?"

BigE "Noooo"

Dada "Well whose boy are you?"

BigE "I'm my own boy!"

Well there you have it.

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Revelation of the Day

BigE "I can make noise with my tire"

Brakes are a wonderful thing.

Slushie Redux

If you read The Magic Slushie then you know how good they were. Tonight we stopped by for a small on our bikes. After some confusion as to how we'd get them home on the bikes we had our special treats as our bedtime snack.

As we were snuggling for bedtime the question hit:

"After my nappy can we go to the store for a special treat?"

A Trip to the Civilization Museum

Mama and BigE hit the Civilization Museum this week with some of Mama's co-workers.









Light on the text? Well bug Mama to fill more in!

First Day back at the Big Daycare

Today BigE made the move back across the street to the big, old, daycare building. It's been a bit of a tough move for BigE. His 'visits' across the street have been rough. There were two friend who've already made the jump across the street.

After some whining and crying we parked on the big daycare side of the street. BigE was walking in an angle towards the old, smaller daycare. There was definitely disappointment when I broke the news we wouldn't be crossing the street. Once we got inside things got a little better.

We got a little lucky today. Little Ray's Reptiles was coming in a hour. BigE's friends from the small daycare came across to see the reptiles.

There was little snakes, big snakes, and a alligator. The alligator had it's mouth taped because "he could bite the little kids fingers". He apparently had lost a toe to another alligator. Jeeze, and you think you job is bad! BigE didn't want to touch any of the animals. So he learned the hand signal for that very quickly. It was making an X with your arms.

His favorite animal was the little snakes. But we don't know what they eat. Which was our discussion on the way home. Guess we'll have to look that one up.

Canada Day Party

This year's Canada Day party was a success. We had a turn out of about twenty. And we didn't even advertise free booze. Maybe the trick to parties is to stop inviting people who don't show. Might be something to that.

We got to meet baby Claire. Mama had to be tranquilized to get her to release the baby.

BigE had most of his buddies over: N from daycare, Monkey from the neighborhood, and Neighbour G. The day was finished with races from the tent to the fence gate. About 70'. After a dozen of those the kids were pretty red in the face. Fortunately they were able to down a bunch of juice boxes to cool off.

After all that the only picture that got taken was the tBF.ca Family Shot




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The New Bike

Well after much thought BigE picked up a new bike today. He had a 10" from Auntie Karen. While that bike had served him well since Christmas he was getting a little big. So it was off to a 12" or 14". I must admit I had hoped to get to a 14" but BigE wanted something he was comfortable with. So here is the blue and yellow bike!



I had him on a 14" at Canadian Tire a couple weeks ago but he really didn't like the ride. He wasn't used to the higher seat and bar so getting off and on was more difficult.

So, today with Mama it was a 12" bike. It rained most of the afternoon and evening so it wasn't till late we got to have a ride. We did three

BigE: Let's ride the block around

My little french canadian boy.

Strawberry Jam

Well after our adventure picking strawberries we're trying to make strawberry jam. Here's a strawberry jam recipe.

We ended up following the directions on the pectin box we picked up at the grocery store. Which was fairly similar except there was no boiling of the jar after filling it.

However things got interesting as we got near bottling. Those lids we picked up? Yeah too big. It's 9:50 and the grocery store closes in 10 minutes. Zip off we go to try and get smaller ones. I'm looking at the selection and realize that the big lids we bought are the only size they carry. Oh well it looks like I can buy some jars to fit those lids. They're 1 litre but what the heck. The alternatives are 1.5 litre jars, that's a lot of jam, and some tiny tubby jars, maybe 200ml that are pricey.

I don't want to throw away all of those strawberries. Or eat them tonight. So for $7.50 I'll pickup a dozen 1 litre jars. We can start bottling everything under the sun I figure. After waiting for a round man to empty his cart at the grocery store I discover my jars are actually $12. After all that time. Screw it I get them anyway.

I get home to see that the Jam has been put in our small lidless containers. And has now set. I was just about ready to drop kick the dam box of bottles out the door. Then Mama reminds me that we'll just have to do the cold method. That means the jars have to stay in the freezer. We'll still have the 6 months to use them. It'll just be freezer life instead of shelf life.

Current status: I hate bottling jam! I love Jam! The dichotomy pains me.

Picking Strawberries

Well in keeping with recent fashion, tBF.ca has managed to go on another outing and take no pictures. There's a lot of I behind the WE of tBF.ca.

Anyways we headed out on the holiday Monday to pick some strawberries. The location was picked by the WB family. They managed to take a few photos of their adventure. Head on over to Berry Pickin if you want a picture of some other kid running around the berry patch. If I had photoshop maybe I could doctor that one up. Hmmm...

However the Bussey Family excelled at picking strawberries. We were aided by the fact that our kids weren't gorging on the strawberries. Then again BigE wasn't picking or eating many.

After filling up three gallons we were stucking waiting for the WB's to fill two gallons. So while we waited for the WB gang to finish we sat down and started snacking. This is when BigE finally took to the strawberries. As long as they looked good. Anything without a top or mushie ... No Way! Textures are important to BigE.

All in all a nice morning out in the sun. Not too hot and just windy enough to keep the flies at bay.

Happy Canada Day!

tBF.ca wishes you all a happy 140th Canada Day!

The Magic Slushie

We have a new strip mall around the corner from our place. It's been under development for over a year. Low and behold we now have a medial plaza, coffee shop, vet and Mac's.

What's a Mac's? Well imagine a real world Kwik-E-Mart. Wall to Wall Junk food. There is one tiny shelf that contains a couple bottle of tylenol, buns, and not completely sugar based cookies. Everything else ... well sugar, fructose, sucrose, sugarose and so on.

There's even a wall of slushie choices. Of the top of my head: Coke, Minute Maid orange, Mango WTF, Orange WTF, Barq's cream soda, Blue raspberry, and grape. And I know I have forgotten a couple too.

After dinner last night we headed over. Along the way BigE wasn't really even paying attention to where we were going. He even walked by the door completely. I don't think that will happen ever again.

After a small orange slushie (read still big) somebody had a new favorite treat. BigE still didn't rush it down. He worked on it for over an hour. But it was all gone after the hour.

As we were heading to bed somebody wanted to know if after his nappy could we go back to the store to get another treat.

Why I wake up we will go to the store and get a special treat okay?

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