Toronto Day 2- Royal Ontario Museum

After the CN Tower we walked two miles to the Royal Ontario Museum, the largest museum in Canada. It was really cool. I enjoyed it more than Ben. After our two mile hike to get here our feet were pretty tired so Ben just cruised around each floor and then found a comfy place to sit while I took my time with each exhibit. This was probably my favorite part of the day.

In this "little" 5 floor building with over 100,000 sq. ft. of stuff we visited many countries.

The first floor was dedicated to the Asian countries of China, Japan and Korea. Another entire floor was just the Dinosaur bones and a section full of real animals that were stuffed, one floor was dedicated to the European countries, the 4th floor had all of the South American countries, Africa and everything else. The 5th floor was not yet finished. They actually are in the middle of renovating the whole thing. It is an old building that they have built around to expand the museum. It is actually pretty neat to see. I should have taken a picture of it.

China

A chinese throne. Must have been a pretty big guy, this king.

These statues where all carved from wood. There were at least this many more in other places in this exhibit.

Korea

I thought these boxes were really pretty and the butterflies in the back are cool too. I think they were light stands.

Maybe my Dad can translate for us:)

Japan

Samari armour

Canada

These is some cool Candian Inuit clothes. The one on the left with the decorations is all done in tiny seed beads.

Dinosaurs

Lots of cool Dino bones. The huge one is a sauropod dinosaur called barosaurus. I couldn't get the whole thing in the picture. His tail went on for several more feet. And that T-rex on the left is just a juvenile. To his right is a stegosaurus.

Europe

some cool armour

There were many room set up like this.

This is the train of Marie Antoinette's dress.

EGYPT, Africa

a real mummy!

Greek/Roman

By the time we got to this exhibit we were so ready to be done walking and we still had to walk the two miles back to the hotel. So we really rushed through it.

This is a really old toilet seat. I thought it was funny.

Canada Day 2- The CN Tower

We started our day early, especially since Toronto is 3 hours later than Arizona. We had breakfast at about 7am. Then we went to the CN Tower which is the tallest building in the World at 1815 ft. They kinda cheated a little in my opinion because they just stick a big spire(antenna) on the top to get a few more feet. It isn't actually functional space like a couple of the runner's up are. So the coolest part about this building is that they have an observation area that has a glass floor.

Here is Ben standing on the glass floor

This is the view from 1185 ft in the air.
This is me looking down. I couldn't stand on it. It just freaked me out.

I did eventually let Ben drag me onto the glass floor but I was only able to glance down and

I didn't let go of him.

Here is me and the view of Toronto from up there. It was pretty cool.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

These next few blogs are catch-up blogs. If I don't do them now, I probably never will. The beginning of the month Ben and I had the opportunity to go to Canada with his work as a special trip to reward all of the managers and their spouses in the company for all of their hard work. Not all of them get to go. It was pretty fun. Karin watched the kids for us and we got to have a grown-up weekend. We got there Thursday afternoon and our baggage got there a couple of hours later. That night we had dinner at the Hockey Hall of Fame. We didn't take any pictures, because neither of us really care for hockey, we just had to be there. The food was pretty good though; we had fajitas. The next day was the big trip day. We all went on a bus trip to a vineyard where they make ice wine and had a really, super delicious lunch. It included Butternut Squash soup, Vodka Smoked Salmon, and a yummy cut of beef that I can't remember the name of. For dessert they had several choices and I chose a pistachio pear torte that was really yummy. Next we went to Niagra Falls another hour away. It was pretty neat. Then we went on "The Maid of the Mist" which is a ferry-like boat that takes you into the middle of the horseshoe falls part of Niagra Falls. It was amazing. It was so powerful the boat had it's engine going full blast just to stay still in the middle. And you are there almost completely surrounded by the falls. They give you these little blue plastic rain ponchos because you get totally drenched by the mist coming off of the falls. I will have to add pictures later because, after I had made sure to empty the storage card in the camera and plugged the battery in to make sure it was fully charged, I left the battery in the charger at the hotel and so I only took a few pictures with my phone camera. I am still trying to figure out how to get the pictures off my phone without paying to text each picture. We got to hang out and walk around the area for a while then got back on the buses and headed to a dinner theatre for dinner. It was called Oh Canada, Eh. It was kinda funny and the food was so, so; it was probably the low point of the day, but still fun.

Update

Well, after one day of crawling around, Hyrum decided that wouldn't cut it. He figured out how to stand mostly on his good leg and by Saturday was jumping and getting around pretty well. He was a little slower though and it was much easier to catch him. His foot seems to be getting better. It is hard to tell. He doesn't act like it hurts him, but you can tell that he limps some and is still favoring that foot. I was taking the splint off every few hours to give him a break and when he was sleeping. Today he didn't wear it at all. I guess I will just have to see how he is doing tomorrow.

Almost Broken Bones

We have our very own Evil Knievel. This weekend while Ben and I were in Canada, Hyrum decided to jump off of some furniture, which ended in a less than successful landing. Yesterday morning I noticed his foot was pretty swollen and a little bruised above his big toe, so I called his sitter to ask if he had hurt his foot over the weekend. I learned about his little tumble. He seems fine. He has been running around and jumping, but his foot was still pretty swollen this morning and I could tell that he was favoring that foot a little and stepping on the edge of his foot rather than the bottom of it. Ben and I talked it over and we decided that since he wasn't crying about it and acting normal, he was going to be fine. Today after a full day of running, jumping and climbing it seemed to me that his foot was getting worse, not better, so I went ahead and took him into the nearby Urgent Care center. I was the most pleasant urgent care/ER experience I have ever had. We didn't have to wait at all before he was seen. They did an x-ray of his foot and then we waited just a few minutes for the doctor to examine the x-ray before he came to talk to me. He couldn't see any breaks.He said it is really hard to break a foot bone when they are that young because there are only a couple of bones, it is mostly cartilage right now. He wasn't really sure what to do, because it was pretty obvious that he had done something major for it to still be that swollen. He decided that he would have the nurse put on what he called a post-op splint. It is this foam stuff that they got wet and let harden around the back and bottom of his leg and foot. Then she wrapped it in an ace bandage and then put that colorful cast tape on top of it, just to keep Hyrum from taking it off, which he immediately tried to do. The doctor said that hopefully it would be awkward or uncomfortable enough for him to walk on it that he wouldn't; to give his foot at least a few days to heal. So far it is doing it's job. He has tried to stand up a few times and given up and just crawls to get around.
The nurse used bright green tape for him, which is perfect because when asked what color something is, he always says green. The splint isn't intended to have any weight put on it so generally it would break when it was walked on. Because Hyrum is little enough, it should be alright. We are supposed to go to his regular doctor if there isn't significant improvement within the week.
When we left I told Hyrum to tell the doctor "thank you", but the doc had already started walking off, so he didn't hear it. I was just going to leave anyway, but Hyrum got upset and really wanted someone to hear him say thank you and acknowlege it. So, I went back to find the nurse that had wrapped it and let him tell her. He was happy after that. He is such a sweet boy.

Horrible Babysitters

There is a Seinfeld where Elaine is a babysitter for her friend but she doesn't want to be anymore so she comes up with the idea to do a horrible job so that the friend will never ask her again. Well since Karin is such a huge Seinfeld fan I have to publicly let her know that was not our intentions when we had her kids this past evening. Unfortunately the devil got a hold of us and made us make this video. Please forgive us Karin for corrupting your kids.

My Wife Is Amazing!

Okay, I hope people don't think I brag a whole bunch. When it comes to my wife though sometimes I can't help it. My little girl wants to be Tinkerbell for Halloween and so Jayme decided TO MAKE THE COSTUME! I've looked forever online to find something as cute and real as what she has done and I can't find a single picture of something better! For all those out there trying to make Tinkerbell costumes here are some tips:

1. A green dress with wings doesn't make it Tinkerbell.
2. Tinkerbell does not have a wand.
3. Her wings are a very light blue (almost white), not green.
4. Tinkerbell when done accurately is actually a little provacative (unless it's a three year old perverts)
5. Tinkerbell does not have sleeves on her dress.
6. Her wings are not butterfly wings, they come to a point at the top.
7. Her real outfit is . . . you know what? Just look at the following pictures for advice . . .




Wow, talk about being accurate. Good job babe!

Home Improvements

Life has continued to be pretty crazy the last month, so I haven't blogged much. One day we went to do some fabric shopping with Karin for curtains. Afterward we went to Michael's Crafts and found some really cute wooden letters for Josi's room and paint and sponge brushes. Josi was so excited she wanted to carry it all herself through the store. The next day we covered the table with paper and I let her paint them. I just did touchups to make sure they were covered good.

First we painted them all pink.
Then we painted them chocolate brown.
They aren't as dark as I had hoped they would be
Then I sanded them a little on the edges

so the pink showed through.

This is the beginning of a french memo board for her room.
I am still looking for matching ribbon.

Another day I went out and expanded the drip irrigation line in the front yard, so I could put some shrubs where there hadn't been before. The last owners had cut down every plant but this one tree. I was able to find several stumps from the old shrubs so I could plant some of the shrubs in the same place that they used to be.
The pictures are during and after I put in the new line.

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This is the whole area I planted.

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There is still more I want to do, but this was just enough to keep us from getting in trouble with the HOA.