First Blue Jays Game

We have taken Logan to a few smaller arenas/grounds before to see some games (Storm playing at Guelph arena) but he hadn't been to a major game like the blue jays at the Rogers Centre (skydome for the old school in the audience).

The plan was for Bob's birthday to buy him a ticket and take Logan for the game too. Unfortunately, bob couldn't make it last minute as a fishing trip was changed that he couldn't get out of and so I took his place. As you will know I'm not a major sport fan but was glad I could go in the end especially being Logan's first time. Mike, Christine and the kids managed to get the seats next to us and they turned out to be great seats (good choice Janice) at the front of 200 level. Which for the non-Ontarians means about half way up the stands with a great view and we were roughly inline with first base.

Logan was very excited and slightly overwhelmed with it all as unknown to us when we booked the tickets, the jays were about to have the best season they've had for around 20 years. So there was 47,412 people there and the games always have a lot of music and show pieces going on to entertain you (because the baseball sometimes struggles to....).

And knowing that lots of people take kids they have all kinds of "stations" to entertain them (and you) before and during the game and Logan and I took a couple of "walkabouts" around the ground. You can cover quite a lot of ground going up and down the levels and seeing the game from different vantage points, whilst hunting for some drinks, snacks and getting tattoos!

Sporting my jays T-shirt and tattoo

Kinda wondering what is going on!

And although they ultimately lost the game it was an exciting one in-between our wanderings and that meant Janice could get to watch most of the game, so everyone was happy.

And then we avoided the rush of traffic going home by grabbing coffee and dinner around the waterfront in Toronto with Louise, and Logan managed about 2 minutes in the car before passing out on the way home, so good day had by all!

Tree Identification

After a year tending to our garden and trying to understand what plants we actually have I saw an evening session about Trees and shrubs at the Arboretum.

Now the first thing you might think is "has Phil finally lost it or turned 60" as evening tree IDing isnt perhaps that exciting. But I am a home owner now (Yes, I have accepted it just dont mention the mortgage....) and I'm deciding to embrace my local Guelphitism now we've been here a year or so.

Anyway, off I popped with clippings to see what we have and find out we have a version of a crab apple and a type of tree called a "serviceberry".  This one especially interesting as its a native North American tree, hence I've never heard of it. And we can eat the berries. So seems my "dont eat any berries Logan as they are for the birds" was a bit misplaced.

So next spring if you come to the Duffy house expect some servicberry muffins... if I can convince Janice to make some.

Road trip to Maine

We took a trip to Wells, Maine and didn't realise it was in a line of three very tourist "towns" which now makes sense being only 1.5 hours north of Boston. And thought setting off on the trip on the Labour day long weekend here in Canada was good to give us the Monday off, not realising we were driving into the Labour day weekend in the US too. OK, everyone else in North America knew it except for us....especially the 52 million people who were there from Boston.

13 hours into the road trip and thrilled to take another 30 mins for the last 3 miles!

Was a good drive overall though, through four different states and some fantastic countryside and we took the scenic route on the way, hoping we might see some of the "New England in the fall colour". But were a few weeks early to see the real colour changes in the leaves, so not quite leaf peepers yet!

As you can imagine I was loving being somewhere with hoards of other people..... but can't blame everyone for being there as it is a lovely spot with nice white sandy beaches and countryside.

And speaking of beaches I also had to chuckle as we went to one beach on the Sunday and I thought I was in a bad movie, where you could just about see the sand in-between the people.

Are you kidding me?!?

But then we found some other beaches were we could enjoy some more peace and quiet and get the kayak in the water.

Ah, much better

Then thankfully everything got much quieter from the Tuesday but still not thrilled to be charged US$20-25 to park by a beach!! So we found some ways around it (like "locals" beach above) and managed to enjoy a few hours here and there as we are never very good at staying in one place for a whole day!

Being in that part of the world it was a requirement to eat lobster so I reluctantly took on this challenge and advantage of some of the many take-away (lobster rolls) and eat-in joints (lobster and seafood pie).

We had some fun in the first few days and Logan was a bit manic which was out of character for him. But then after talking to him we figured out he was thinking we had moved house (again) as he hadn't quite got the "holiday/vacation" idea! Poor confused thing. So after we convinced him this was just the "holiday home" things went more smoothly.

We took a trip midweek to Portland being the main city in Maine (but not the Capital) which had a very nice seaside big-town feel about it (similar to Halifax) and all had some fun in the children's museum and wander around the "old port" area.

And a new blog post wouldn't be complete without a related picasa album.

Spooky Halloween and a sprinkle of snow

We didn't go full out for Halloween this year, as being a little bit busy for some reason.... But we did get a few pumpkins that Janice and Logan did some creative carving on!

Do you like my with fingers!

And we decided to head over to the Rossit household so Logan could do some "trick or treating" with his cousins and it was a mans job to take the little kids around, not a bad gig really as we enjoyed the spooky houses probably more than them!

Then we woke up this morning to see more than ghosts and ghouls, but some SNOW!!! It was predicted but you never know...

Only some snow but exciting the same as been a long while since we've seen any and check out the chilly video for the full experience (or in side bar).

We have our own place

After many months of house sitting out in the very pleasant but quiet world of Eden Mills, we have finally got our new house in Guelph.

It is quite ridiculously bigger than anything else we've lived in so far, being probably more than twice the square footage of the "villa" in Perth. We didn't plan it that way, but was the right house in the right place for the right price and am sure with the help of Logan's toys, we will fill it soon enough.

So wanted to share a video walk through of the house just before we moved in and as you will see, tackled the very pink house!

And with our new quicker internet connection I have no excuse not to get back into my blogging and uploading videos.

So I'll let Logan say "Welcome to the new house".

Rockwood Conservation Park

Only a few kms from where we are currently living in Eden Mills is another small village called Rockwood, that has a conservation area/park. So we decided to take a wander around there last weekend and check out the caves and the lake.

The small weir or "waterfall" according to Logan

There are a few trails around the park and we took the caves trail first. We were clever (to start) and took the mozzie spray with us in the car, but not so clever and went and left it in the car. And although there were some nice views to look at along the river, we couldn't really stop for long as they "swarmed" us and Janice got her regulation 10 bites in about 2 mins.

Lovely reflection shots, if I do say so myself

Hiding out in a cave...

Then we took the more leisurely walk around the lake which wound around to a nice beach area, but we weren't planning on a swim and long stay but did find a great spot for a picnic lunch before heading back.

A nice lady helped with a rare photo of us all

Look Mummy, jumping fish!

Off for a Canoe trip

We took Grandpa's Canoe out for a trip down the Grand River a few weeks ago from Elora Gorge down towards Ariss not far from the House of G. Other than the first small rapids (which we didn't expect) it was a very pleasant cruise for about an hour and downstream so a pretty easy paddle. And of course I was the perfect gentleman getting out to walk the canoe over the shallow sections while m'lady sat in the canoe, with Logan helping by wobbling the canoe side to side. Also a good excuse for me to get to wade about in the water which once you got used to the cool water was all part of the fun! All very handy when you have someone to drop you off and come and pick you up at the end, thanks Bobby G :)

So since then Logan has been very into Canoeing and so we finally found a use for the seat cover from his car seat which never really was much use on the car seat. It obviously makes an excellent canoe, with room for some cuddly passengers too!

With "Rocky" the bear acting as lookout

Then every now and again Logan shouts "big rock" and gets out the canoe and drags it round a bit, then jumps back in.... no idea where he gets that from.

All aboard and don't forget the spatula paddle