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.
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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.

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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.