wasaga beach

(Update 2:52 pm) I've booked my flight to Ohio for October, yay! I'll be spending a few days with Andrea and Tom and Nicholas before and after OVFF. For some cute pics of Nicholas, by the way, see this link. Still not sure if Jodi and Allison will be able to attend OVFF. :-( I've reconfigured Greymatter so that you can now add comments to individual strips in my comics, Waiting for Frodo and My Life In A Nutshell. And I've also added a Notify List for my Blatherings, since it's highly likely that my schedule is going to be more erratic for the rest of the year.


I'll be sprinkling pics from our Wasaga Beach trip through my Blatherings over the next while. For now, here are some of my personal highlights from the trip:


- Sleeping with Sara one night. Sara had an elaborate before-bed ritual involving the careful arrangement of approximately half a dozen stuffed animals, dolls, her Dad's t-shirt, and a strip of cloth, all around her sleeping space on the bed. After she falls asleep, her animals are all knocked everywhere, but that's okay (as long as you don't make the mistake of accidentally rolling over onto one of them, as Jeff did one night).


- Sleeping with Annie one night. Annie is very cuddly. Her only before-bed ritual seemed to be reaching out in the darkness and gently patting my cheek before falling asleep, as if to reassure herself that I was still there. During the night she shifts position in her sleep until her body is perpendicular to my own, with her head rammed up against my ribcage and me pushed to the very edge of my side of the bed. I gently move her back onto her side of the bed, but inevitably she is drawn back to the perpendicular sleeping position, as if by magnetic attraction.





- The car ride to Wasaga Beach with Sara (she asked if she could ride up with us; Annie and Ruth went in the other car). Sara taught me the Alligator Song. She was also highly vigilant about seatbelts. When Jeff started driving without fully buckling in yet, Sara immediately began yelling, "UNCLE JEFF! YOU STARTED DRIVING WITHOUT YOUR SEATBELT! YOU SHOULD ALWAYS ALWAYS PUT ON YOUR SEATBELT BEFORE YOU START THE CAR! MOMMY TOLD ME!!! PROMISE ME YOU'LL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!!!" He promised. :-)


- Watching Sara and Annie on the beach, and in the water. There is nothing like the pure, unbridled joy of kids. They haven't yet learned to be cautious about enjoying life too much (just in case something goes wrong, you know).


- Being in the pool with Annie and having her ask suddenly, completely out of the blue, "Is this the real world?"





- Collecting shells and bones on the beach with Sara and Annie. Sara had come across several bleached bits of bone she called "dinosaur bones" (they looked like chicken and cow bones). Ordinarily, I would have walked across the sand without paying much attention to what was in it. Kneeling with my nieces, however, I was startled to discover thousands of tiny, perfectly-formed shells...some of the mussel-type, others conch-type with colourful whorls.


Other news...:


My friend Andrea was inspired by one of the watergun party photos so much she decided to hold a t-shirt caption contest" for a "Commando Debbie t-shirt". :-D She's still accepting captions for this photo.


I'm hooked on Riven! I blame my friend Josh.


I've revamped my Links and Projects page and cleaned up the navigation bar at the top of this page.


And finally, Jeff and I are spending the next few days (starting Wednesday) at Wasaga with Luisa and Reid, so I'll be offline during that time.


Today's Blatherpics:


- Sara beachcombing at Wasaga. (click on the photo to see a larger version)


- Jeff with Sara and Annie on the last morning.


- Jeff, Sara, and Annie on the beach.

Feel free to suggest a daily poll question.


Today's Poll: (Courtesy Amanda Foubister)

Would you want an Olympics in your home town/city?