Oh Canada!

It was a holiday weekend for us as well this past weekend. We've come to celebrate the festivities on July 1, with the rest of Canada. On July 1, 1867, three British colonies were joined to form Canada, so July 1st is dubbed "Canada Day"!

It's also the day Hadley comes out of the basement, or at least that's what Dayven tells his Canadian friends. He jokes that we have a Canadian daughter and we keep her in the basement, letting her out once a year on Canada Day. Finley is also Canadian (he was born in Winnipeg) so we celebrate for him too. The 4th of July has come to feel like any other day for us, although I always think of our family and friends back in the states. Dayven is usually working and the celebrations are all happening July 1 here so it's more fun to join in.

We headed to Lion's Park where all the festivities happen. We picked up Subway on the way so we could have a little "picnic" (Hey, it's the lazy man's picnic!) and dined in the park with the rest of the celebration. They had fun activities for kids like inflatable bouncy houses, live music, watermelon,  free balloons and Canadian press-on tattoos! Members of the RCMP, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, were even there greeting kids and letting them sit in their cruiser (no, they don't always ride on horseback).

We've never actually gone to see the fireworks here. They start at dusk (11pm) and it's just way too late for our crew. We are usually in bed when we hear them start. Last year we looked out our front bedroom windows and caught a tiny glimpse of a few of them. This year we were sawing logs and slept right through. We woke the next morning and Dayven said "Darn. We missed the fireworks." Oh well. There's always next year...

The weather was gorgeous all weekend so we spent plenty of time outside, playing, grilling and eating. We filled up the swimming pool for a little dip and splash and the kids had a ball. It's a pretty tight squeeze with the two of them in there, but they don't seem to mind! We rode bikes around the street and Dayven made his famous hot wings on the grill. Yum!

Sunday we went to see....wait for it.... CARS 2!! Lightening McQueen and Mater's spy adventures with Finn McMissle. We've only been waiting a year for it. About 30 minutes before we were supposed to leave, Wyatt fell asleep on the couch. We knew he wouldn't want to miss it, so we woke him up. He was grumpy at first, but started warming up in the car when he realized where we were going.  We loaded up on popcorn and twizzlers and settled in for the movie. It was Hadley's first movie and we debated about bringing her or having the boys go alone. She was ridiculously restless, confirming she's way too young for a movie. She was talking non-stop in the beginning "Oh! It's dark in here... Mommy, it's woud. It's too WOUD!!.......where is Wightning McQueen? .....I want popcorn.....It's dark in here!" We kept shushing her and telling her to sit down. She was up, down, going from Dayven's lap to mine, and standing in front of Wyatt, trying to talk to him, but he was engrossed in the movie. About an hour into it, I just gave up and took her out to the lobby. We walked around for a while, watching people play video games and looking in the candy machine slots hoping for a forgotten piece of candy, then she said "I want my Wyatt." (she is so attached to him and always wants to be with him). So we went back in to the movie, but only lasted about 10 more minutes and she was done again. We just waited in the lobby until it was over. Wyatt loved the movie and talked about it the whole way home. Next time the boys will just go alone. Hadley's movie days are over for a while.