Been a while...

Wow - where did July go and how did August get here so quickly? I am officially on 'countdown' as the summer slips away and the days bring me closer and closer to heading back to work. To say I'm looking forward to that would be an outrageous lie, but you can't dread the inevitable, so I'm just trying to enjoy these last few days as much as humanely possible. Which also means we've been incredibly busy lately...

The weekend before last, my step-brother and his family came to visit us for the weekend. My nieces were so revved about getting out to Canada's Wonderland for the day - actually, I think the adults were just as excited to take them!

They arrived on Friday afternoon and Seth and Derek headed into the city to watch a Jays game, while all the 'girls' stayed home, ordered pizza and layed low. Saturday morning we were awokened by thunderstorms - not a great start to our Canada's Wonderland adventure... fortunately we decided to risk it and headed out anyways. Lucky for us, the rain tapered off just as we arrived at the park. We spent the first half of our day in the kids area, watching the girls ride (Auntie Sara joined them on a few rollercoasters). Even Maddie got to take a ride - we took her on the carousel!

The rest of the day was spent in the waterpark - really shows how long it's been since I've been there - I'd never seen it before and it's huge! We headed home late afternoon and bbq'd hamburgers and hotdogs for dinner. The girls watched some of the Hannah Montana concert (in 3D no less!) while we finally got Maddie down to sleep.

The Thompsons left us just after breakfast on Sunday morning, and we spent the rest of the day trying to relax and recoup from all the activity. On Monday I headed out with Maddie for a visit to Kingston - we spent the week there visiting with a tonne of family and friends. Tuesday morning we headed out to my Dad's and Maddie took her first official dip in a lake!

She was enjoying herself until a boat went by and the waves kind of scared her. We visited with Stef and her little boy, Quinn on Wednesday afternoon and headed to Picton on Thurdsay for a craft show. Friday was spent shopping with Gramma Vallier (Maddie and Mommy got spoiled!).

Saturday was our big milestone day - I left Maddie for an overnight stay with Gramma Vallier while I joined Seth, Greg & Liz up at Greg's cottage for the night. From all accounts she was extremely well-behaved and while she didn't take a bottle, she did sleep pretty well.

On Sunday morning, Liz and I left the cottage and headed to Stefanie's house in Inverary for an overnight visit. It's so much fun to watch Maddie and Quinn play together - especially now that they're both mobile! We headed back out to the cottage Monday morning, so Maddie got to meet Greg's parents, and Maddie got to hangout in the sunshine and take another dip in the lake with her Daddy.

It was a busy busy week, and now we're just resting up in preparation for another busy week, as Mama Hat (Grandma Thompson) is headed up for a week-long visit as of this coming Saturday. August is going to be done before we know it!

I'll leave you with a few more pics of our roadtrip...

Maddie loves her rhubarb! Especially after a good dunking in the dog's water dish!

Me and Stef with our little ones!

After a dip in the lake with her Daddy. And check out the 2nd bottom tooth! (it made it's appearance on Friday)

There's lots more pics on our Flickr account - check them out if you have a chance.

xxoo.S