My Day

Had a quiet day for my birthday. We decided to leave dinner till the weekend since Miles has robotic club till 7pm. I opened my presents. I received the DK Star Wars Lego Visual Dictionary which I love, a Star Wars Lego set, the 3D Monopoly and a box of Turtles.

We haven't had a chance to play the Monopoly game yet but it seems a little more complicated than the original one. Miles, Donovan and I have poured over the Lego Visual Dictionary. I didn't realize it has only been 10 years since Lego started making sets for Star Wars. I have it beside my bed and Miles also borrows it every night to pour over. It even comes with a unique mini figure of Luke Skywalker!

For my birthday dinner, we went to the Imperial Buffet. The children love it because they get so much choice. Actually their sushi bar is very good. And the chocolate fountain was in operation!! YUMMY!!

Zoo

We went to the Toronto Metro Zoo today. The tundra section has reopened so we had to visit the polar bears. Anne and Al met us at the front entrance. Then we went to see the polar bears. The zoo has changed the entrance to the polar bear section. Now the arctic wolves are there also so it makes quite an impression when you first walk into the section. Then you walk on to the bears. The two polar bears were play(?) fighting in the water. Unfortunately you couldn't see them in the underwater viewing. I wasn't really impressed with the new polar bear section at this point. Then we started to wander around. Once you get around the side there is another pool where there was another polar bear lounging. Then all of a sudden the other two polar bears came racing over and jumped into the pool. It was like a hot tub for polar bears but cold, of course.

The zoo has added all sorts of interest points, plus tepees. They are also going to have a section for arctic foxes but that isn't quite complete yet. In the end, I was impressed. I am looking forward to visiting during the winter.

Since Al hasn't been to the zoo before, I know, can you believe it! We toured the Americas Pavilion. I like this pavilion. The otters were swimming about and unbelievably the beavers were out also. They were trying to eat through the door to escape.

We walked around the Africa section also. By this time the children were all moaning about sore feet and being so tired. But once we got near the big stones, they were all running around and hiding on Hugh! It was a great day out.

Craigslist

Today I have been searching Craigslist for a desk. I am in the midst of redecorating my daughter's bedroom. I finally found a desk I liked so tonight we are going to Kensington Market to pick it up. Detta has a new bed and on Saturday, we are heading back to Ikea to buy the wardrobes for her. These wardrobes only have shelves in them so no more drawers. I am hoping this will help to keep her room tidier or is that just wishful thinking!!

I forgot to mention, the tacos were delicious the other night. I had a taco salad for lunch yesterday and today.

Tacos Tonight

I am so looking forward to dinner tonight. I bought a huge ground beef and cooked up 2/3's of it with taco seasoning, salsa, onions, celery and of course, the juice from a tin of pineapples. Yes, we have pineapple with our tacos. Hugh being British never had tacos at home until I introduced him to them. Hugh added the pineapple to our tacos many years ago and it has always stuck. I did add a couple of packages of soya mince to the mixture also. It just seems like too much red meat to eat at one sitting. There will be plenty of leftovers so I bought large tortilla shells. I will put together a couple of dishes of enchiladas. All this talk of Mexican food is making me hungry for Hernando's Hideaway on Yonge Street.

The other third of beef I just fried up with some onions, celery and another package of soya mince. That one is in the freezer, the in case of what do we cook for dinner.

We did manage to make up a menu this week, something we haven't done in a while. In this way we can buy the groceries we actually need for the week. I did find frozen pizzas on sale, our favourite ones, McCain Crescendo Rise 'n Crust, only $2.97. A very good deal so I bought 15. We will actually go back and buy some more. If we take them out of the boxes, we can fit more in the freezer. We have pizza every Friday night and ordering out for it, is just too expensive. But the children do like these ones.

Knitting

I must get started on some of my knitting. I am knitting mittens as presents for Christmas this year. I have only managed to make one pair so far. I can usually knit a pair of mittens in a couple of days, depending on time but I have been very lazy so fair this year. I have decided I can only make them for my sisters plus a couple for Joan's visitors from Australia. I will also need to knit a couple of hats also.

Detta had her hair cut today. About 6 inches was taken off the back. We are now going to attempt to keep it straight. I don't know how this is going to work out but I will do it. Detta's hair looks fantastic though, she is also very pleased with it.

Halloween

The big event is finally over. OMG, the trauma of it all. I told my children, next year we will NOT buy anything. All the costumes must be homemade. Miles spent over $20.00 on bits and pieces and then decided he must have horns!! Well do you think we could find horns, NO. But then this was yesterday. Detta wanted vampire teeth. I did buy some earlier in the week but they had diamonds in them. So yesterday we went to Party Packagers, these things cost over $25.00 but the queue was to the back of the store, so we said forget it!!

Anyways everyone wore what they had. Anne and Joan came over and decorated Miles' face. He looked very good. Detta went over to her friend's house. She had these boots on that made her at least 5' 10". Detta towered over me. I did find out later that after half a block, her feet were killing her. Hugh took the boys out with their friends so he had to herd 6 little rambunctious boys through the neighbourhood.
Anne and Joan popped out and bought 2 buckets of KFC. Then Al and Tom also came over. We made short work of the chicken but I managed to save some for Hugh. But by the children got home, they were starving so Miles and Detta finished off the rest.

We didn't have a lot of visitors this year. There were probably only about 25 children, if that. I don't know if it was because it was so windy or with all this H1N1 stuff going on.