For inexplicable reasons Hannah is now fascinated with sharks. Everything is about sharks, what they do, how they swim, what they eat, who they eat and in particular their relationship to mermaids......

Hannah's Shark....(I added the eyes and smile with big teeth as per her request)

Peeking in the Window..

Check out who got caught with a beak-full yesterday afternoon.

Hurray for CAA! BOO WINTER!
The car (our VW Golf) quit on Highway 12 yesterday and had to be left there with the 4-ways on. We had the car pulled over to the side and Joe was standing behind it so people would see it. After all our 3 year-old and a 22 year-old young woman who rides to work twith Joe were both in the car. Joe waited for 20 minutes before a neighbour, who was actually heading the other way, turned around to pick up Joe and the kids. NICE! All the people in the world who Joe knows and works with, who would have been driving by at that time.......anyway...that's a rant for another day.....

So I called CAA and had a co-worker drive me over to stand with it, while I waited for CAA. On our way there there was a little Nissan Sentra changing lanes every so slowing and really not concerned with the fact that it was actually not in its own lane or that it was travelled at the speed of lint. As we finally got the room to pass, we saw a young person (gender is irrelevant) right up on the steering wheel, frozen in fear...my point...if you're so scared of winter driving....call a cab. It's safer for us all...I will even admit that I have done it when I didn't feel safe driving myself. Cabbies and Cabbettes drive in our winters all the time and it's so much easier on us all to be travelling on the roads with drivers who are confident.

Anyhoo....back to the dead car story.....as we pull up to the spot wher the gold is "supposed to be" I don't see any Golf....nothing!
So I come home only to find out that the police called, stating that my Golf had caused an accident and they had it towed. At this point, after the adreniline rush, I start to feel bad that maybe someone was hurt seriously. The towing company had taken my car to their impound lot. Luckily the company is an inlaw of sorts so my car was brought home, fee paid and I may recoup this fee from CAA since I had already called. I had a chance to ask the tow truck driver what happened at the accident and found out that the accident actually took place on the opposite side fo the road and my car did not cause it. THANK GOD!!! Feeling much better now. Still don't know what the car had to be towed so immediately...but anyway.......

Toonces the Driving Cat -The Original

Toonces without a cause

After the Cat Driving Videos

Hannah thought it might be a good idea to teach J.C. to read. That way he can study up on his driving handbook. (PS: At "school" she tells stories about her and J.C. stealing my car so they can go driving around. When asked where they they go, her answer is quite simply," WALMART!")

Ok ..ONe more Tounces Video ..or should I say TOONCINATOR!

THis is the last driving cat video I will post on this blog...It took me a long time to recover from laughing again though. Have fun.

Who can forget Toonsies the Driving Cat

It doesn't matter how often I watch this one I still laugh. I love the part when Victoria What's Her Name saus,"Tounces, Look OUT!" as TOunces is "losing" control of the car yet again. Look closely and you will see his mouth open and his ears go flat.

Tool Belt Dance

All happy about the new tool belt....

Finally Got It!

We finally found this cache after trying twice before already. Here's Hannah and Darren holding up the trophy!

Making Pasta with Martin and Hannah

There's nothing like homemade spaghetti from scratch....
even if our helpers take forever to get it all just right!!!

Best Cat in the World

He leaves for days at a time but always comes home for snuggles!

Geocaching anyone??

this may be the best choice with the recent incident in the Simcoe County Forests!

Yet another one...

Google Videos can keep me entertained for hours...this is another "laugh-out-loud" one!
Make Sure you turn up the volume for this one. This was just like our old dog...well-meaning but never quite able to complete the assigned task...

Mad Turkey

When I first saw this I laughed and laughed and laughed and then I called Joe to watch this ...then we laughed and laughed and laughed...I think I have to go and call the neighbours over now.....

Red Dye....I'm sorry it's no myth........

Anyone who believes that the hysteria over additives in our foods is just the hyper-active imaginations of granola-heads (like my mom) need only to see Hanna right now....HOLY COW!

Everytime we have anything processed that contains red dye....Zoodles, Cheezies, Ketchup....or god forbid we have Strawberry Jello....it is only a matter of minutes before Hannah turns from herself (a normal three year old, who will eventually succumb to my logic or my devious tricks and lies about sugar monsters living in her teeth) to this.......

Haloween Princess

For all those who actually follow this blog, you will remember that Labour Day weekend saw an unused costume that was going to be great for Haloween. I was certain that my job as costume developer for Hannah was complete......then Hannah started a new daycare

One day she came home from her new daycare talking about Haloween. She also came home talking about wanting to be a Princess for Haloween. I thought that agreement for the moment was the best response. I also, naively, thought that by agreeing quietly to the princess costume she would eventually forget about it and we could still bring out the worker bee costume one more time...

Last Friday Night at 1.00 am I put the final touches on the princess costume. The next morning Hannah tried the new dress with pearl eyelets and lacing. She then asked for it in blue.........**sigh**

Sylvia and Richard had a boy!!!!!!

Carson Noel Richard Norton-Sutherland was born on Friday, October 27th, 2006 9.39 pm at Orillia's Soldier's Memorial Hospital. He was 7lbs 2 oz and 19 inches long.

Sylvia had a good delivery and is doing really well.

Geocaching Weekend Part 2

We all set out after lunch on Sunday afternoon to try and conquer Offroader's Dream. . It was rainy and miserable but we thought we would try it anyway. Just as we started into the last 5.5 km of the trip, which was where the regualr road ended and the off roading began, our smallest geocacher fell asleep in the back seat. She slept all through the road trip in to no man's land and all theway an and through the actual find itself as well. We left big brother in the "car" while the intrepid mother wandered out through the swamp and rocks to find the cache. The find was relatively easy. Signed the log book and left again quickly. It was a funny thing to meet up with other people along the road. Makes you wonder what all goes on back there in no-man's land......

And we forgot to mention....

This last geocache marks the 30th successful geocache! Not necessarily the 30th time we have gone out to find a geocache though.....there have been many snow-covered days that had Allegro Mouse's Mom digging through 3 feet of snow only to give up with frost-bitten toes and paws....

That's what we get for starting this sport in winter!

Geocaching Weekend part 1

Out we went to find the last two of the series! It all started out with a short direct walk to find the first of the two caches we had set out to find today. Martin found it quickly with his eagle eyes. Our GPS showed us that the next location was only about 500+ metres away. This seemed ok at the time, except that the trail was not direct. Hannah started getting really tired along the way and wanted to go to sleep. (which really means something for a kid who has fought sleep her entire life!). Mom ended up leaving brother and sister to sit on a log and walked back to get the official geocaching vehicle of the CowTippinIdiots and pick them on the back trails of the Wildman Simcoe County Forest. We ended up driving through some pretty mucky stuff to finally make it to the cache, while a certain allegromouse fell asleep in the back seat!

All in all a great day. We're off again tomorrow to try another geocache called "offroaders dream" let's see how this goes....

Turkey Day!

.....so the turkey was in the oven, Hannah, Martin and Mom headed out the the Wye Marsh to see the Birds of Prey Program. This was an incredible way to spend Sunday afternoon while another "non-raptorous" bird ironicallly worked on his tan-line in our oven.

Here's Hannah petting "Jimmer" a Barn Owl. The whole program was about an hour long and Hannah sat through most of it watching the Birds. Aside from Jimmer the Barn Owl they also show a Perigrine Falcon, a Red Tailed Hawk and a Harris Hawk. Merlin, the Harris Hawk, is quite the ham too. After the Birds of Prey Show we took a walk to see the Trumper Swans but they were out. So we sat on a bench.
After sitting through the Birds fo Prey Show and sitting on the bench, we came home and recovered from the day with a rest on the couch with brother Martin and a movie.

Huge Update part 2

So the only reason I broke this up into two parts is because, I can't get anymore photos to load up to the previous blog and I don't care to try to fiddle with it at all this evening.
So back to our update: Our first day at our new daycare, or pre-school as we are calling it at home was the 11th of September. We got up early, had breakfast together at the table, brushed out hair, brushed out teeth and were actually completely dressed and ready to leave the house at 8.05 am. This was an amazing morning and very different from all of our other mornings. usually our mornings start with mom getting up finally at 7.15 or 7.30, and Hannah finally being lured from bed with promises of adventures, treats and other excitement between 7:45 and 8:15, being dumped in the car with our pajamas on and dropped off at either Allison's or Grandma's and mom arriving at work at about 8.59 am. Things have been going really well with the getting up and ready for "school" ever since though. We seem to like school, have joined forces with another kid at "school" and even get to go to the gym everyday and swimming on some Fridays. Here's a little picture of us on our first day at school.
_________________________________________________


And of course, we still enjoy the time with Dad on the back deck with the TV watching car racing.

Huge Update Part 1

OK so this update is not profoundly life-altering-ly "huge" as the title of this blog may infer, but the "huge" really refers more to the physical size of this entry, as we have been rather lax in updating on the Allegro Mouse's activities lately, or at least not since our trip to Santa's Village. The summer went well with Hannah either hanging out with her Counsin, Allison and her daughter Olivia, or with her Grandma and Apo (Opa) in the country. With an acre to run about, sooo many trees to climb and even a few cats to chase, Grandma's house is always lots of fun. Mind you the numerous trips to the swimming pool and the Fun Stop with Allison are nothing to spit at either. All in all a pretty good summer.


Allison bought a giant Simba this summer who was supposed to stay at Allison's house for Hannah to play with when she came to visit. Simba took on a larger than life importance for Hannah and hasn't left her side too often. Here's a little picture of him serving as a pillow while reading Dr. Zeuss with Dad one night this summer.

__________________

The summer finished off with the traditional Children's parade which is hosted by the Beach and Cottager's Association where we live. We had a fabulous costume picked out this year. We were going as a WORKER BEE, but unfortunately received the wrong start time from "Uncle" (you know who I'm talking about) and were ready to go an hour too late. It was a great costume. We even had a hard hat and safetly googles for the "safety-conscious" WORKER BEE picked out. Oh well...what a halloween costume we will have this fall.... You must also notice the "Dorothy Shoes" which Dad picked up at a friend's lawnsale. Much like Simba these took on a life of their own for a number of days as well. They are about 4 sizes too big and incredibly loud in the house since we almost completely got rid off all the carpeting in the house. She was absolutely in love with them until we forgot them in a shopping cart at Walmart.
ASIDE: I went back to Walmart not 15 minutes later, having realized that she took them off in the shopping cart and we must have left them in the cart and driven away. They were absolutely gone. I stood in line at the Customer Service Desk for about 30 minutes with a crying 3 year old who was barefoot. Nothing. My friend's son, who works at Walmart in the parking lot moving carts about and helping people to their cars with their purchases, hadn't seen them either, as he had that very day, not 10 minutes before my return, cleared the carts on the other side of the lot. Of course luck would not smile upon us and have someone we actually know, who might care, clear the shopping carts on the side of the parking lot where we were parked. My friend, who sometimes has to pick her son up at night after working late, told me that people quite often purchase shoes at Walmart and leave their old ones right in the parking lot. Not even bothering to throw them in the garbage if they are done with them. She suspects that whoever found the red shoes in the parking lot must have assumed that very thing and simply thrown them away. All too sad....Anyhooooo back to the update....
....Later that day, as Dad worked away on the car "he told me not to buy" Hannah thought that maybe her tools from the tool belt could help out in reparing the "Rustang". The Rustang unfortunately needs a $250 part which is really not on the top of our priority list here since we moved over to a brand new, fabulous, but expensive, daycare.

Santa's Village Day

We took today (mid-week, I might add) and travelled up 11 to Santa's Village in Bracebridge. What a place for a three year old. Sure we did the train ride, the water park, the reindeer feeding and even paid $6 to win 2 stuffies which are currently the most important toys in the world.

Where did the three year old spend the most time at Santa's Village?? At the playground that is quite similar to every other playground that we drive or walk to here at home. I thought for sue a ride in the swan boats would be the worth standing in line for, but nooooooo.....it was a fight to get away from the playground everytime we passed it.
In all fairness...
All in all a good day for the Allegro Mouse. This was her not five minutes down the road on the way home.....

She slept all the way home which meant that my hopes of an early bed time for myself were lost. She's asleep now and should probably sleep straight through until Friday......how about those elf ears??

Computer Crash Recovery....

It's been a while since I posted here for the adventures of Allegro Mouse and her family...lots has happened since the last post of our evening on board the Georgian Queen .
Joe and I attended a friend/relative's Jack 'n' Jill. Joe did not recover well from this. but that is his own fault.

Hannah and I have been spending our weekends either at our beach or out doing things in the area. Last weekend took us geocaching with brother Martin! Good times. He loved it and wants to head out with us again next weekend.

Boat Cruises and Kings Wharf Evening...

So we went out for an evening on the Georgian Queen. The cruise was actualy a benefit for the Huronia Lightstation Preservation Society. This is a group of lighthouse lovers who are working very hard to restore the Lightstation at Hope Island. This was my VERY belated birthday dinner evening out with Joe Smith. It was a great evening with lots of "our kind" of entertainment. Along the way we waved to our friend, Gillian, who was at the Kings Wharf for an evening of "quality" theatre. Joe waved, but we aren't sure if she and Aliesha saw us. A++ for effort though.

The view along the way was fabulous and the Penetang cruise really is the best cruise for hearing a few Georgian Bay stories.

This guy seems to get it....

So I was wandering around reading other people's blogs and came across this guy's blog. Apparently we are not the only ones with the wildlife woes....

We are currently battling three racoons who are after our birdfeeders. They were able to get the humming bird feeder down from the window. This was at six o'clock at night!

So, we were at this movie...

Do not go and see this movie ! It took way too long to get anywhere. I really had greater expectations of this film. There were a few highlights to the evening though:

1. the pirate bucket of popcorn...who can resist a pirate bucket????
2. Gillian: laugh laugh,**snort**, "ow"....laugh laugh laugh
3. the 45 minutes of previews (by the time the movie started, I had forgotten what we had actually come to see)

One of the previews was for a movie called, "SNAKES ON A PLANE". I must go and see this one. Apparently there were going to rename this film Flight 90125 or whatever, because "Snakes on a Plane" was just the working title. One of the lead actors, Samuel L Jackson, , demanded that the title remain the same since it was the title that got him to sign on to the project. I think that I may actually have to go and see this. I can imagine this to be one of those movies where I laugh at inappropriate moments in the film. At the time of this blog entry I am still having trouble convincing people to attend this film with me.

The other day at lunch, this is what I imagined the film to be about........

Nahanni Eating Lunch

no comment necessary.......

I don't know this guy personally but I like his blog...

So this guy used t work at the museum where I work. My co-worker, Jan, tells great stories about him. "He was so nice. He was so funny" Then she goes on to tell stories that leave me belly-laughing and jan chuckling like a chipmunk. So I manage to find his blog and cannot stop reading it. Got the blog? Check it out!!

A new friend on the back deck....

After a number of nights of finding the flower boxes uprooted, the bird feeders "pawed-at" and the very small hand prints on my car hood every morning, I thought for sure we only had those blasted racoons to contend with on the back deck. Here's a picture of Joe's newest friend. A much gentler and kinder animal, he/she simply got in the trap, stayed there all night, was moved to a new location and released. We didn't even know that the trap had gone off until this morning. I think that he/she even turned around and waved good-bye on that back concession road.

Now for the racoons......

Cats just know things.........

Well we went to the doctor's office today after a night of coughing and being generally cranky. Truth be known, I could not have done another night of 5 minutes sleep spurts that amount at the most to 2 hours.

It turns out that we do indeed have "stuff" in our lungs and are wheezing. (HA! See I am not nuts and over-reacting)

Anyway...we now have the medicine ($154.00 OUCH!....thank god for drug plans!) that will help our breathing. In the meantime we have the wonder-cat J.C. to comfort us and make us feel better. These two actually stayed snuggled up like this for a good 10 minutes.

cat's just know things......

proof for Jan!

Jan is always claiming it is unbearably hot in our office...this is the temperature in our office that I walked into one morning.....

here's a Picture that some guy took from his driveway

the view from my driveway.....


If you get this...let me know.....

Hannah Mouse finished her first 6-week dance class today. We went from running in the opposite direction from everyone in the first class to actually participating in the songs and dances with everyone and even sashaying down the dance floor with other other kids at the final recital. There were no incidents of putting any choke-holds of death on anyone, we even tried to share our beany baby with the little brother of one of the dancers who was crying for whatever reason. (They actually have one point in the dance recital where all the kids dance with the beanie babies between their knees and do something that resembles the twist.)
I am quite impressed. She may actually survive in large groups afterall.

We celebrated the dance recital by going to "Booger King" for supper followed by a trip to Dollorama for the fun of it. We wandered the aisles looking for something fun to bring home for Daddy. Just when we were sure that we were going to go home empty-handed, we spotted it in the very last aisle that we checked.

New Family Portrait

So Joe and I took the plunge

We purchsed central air.  (Not what you were thinking, was it. )   The air conditioning guys came out on Saturday afternoon.  Unfortunately the electrical part of the job could not be finished until tonight.  I had told anyone who was comining over this weekend that they should wear their snowsuits because I ws going to to have the air on no matter what.  Well since they couldn't finish everything until tongiht, we have neither air nor heat!!!  We are all freezing here.  brrrrrrrrrrr

 

 

 

 

Found at our back door....

This is kinda of creepy...it measured about 5 inches across and 3 inches long....eek

Long Day for Everyone

Earache day Seven

ok...so we're on day seven of the ear canal infection. this afternoon i could actually hear again for the first time in a week.

I never ever want to have one of these again....

Round One: Raccoon.

After 2 Debreziners, 3 oz of cheese, one cup of bird seed and a lot of excitement, the kind of whch you usually only see on Christmas Eve, this was the disappointing result.

Game on!

There will be no more broken bird feeders.
There will be no more dug up gardens.
There will be no more garage break-ins.

It's game on!