Miss Short & Sassy and the Super Swimmer

The kids had a great time on their 2 week trip through Arkansas. We turned around the next weekend and the kids left for "Camp Mamaw" at my mom's house, I headed to Austin for the PTA conference (check out my friend Steph's blog for video), and Kyle hosted a guys weekend back home. (I hope to soon post Margaret's pics from their trips). Finally, we are all reunited and will be together and home for the only 4 weeks left before school starts.

Here are our two biggest news items to finish out July:

#1 After only a few days of swim lessons, Nathan went from not swimming at all to swimming awesome! A big thanks to Ms. Shelly from A School of Fish for doing what we couldn't do. Now, if we just get him to do it in our neighborhood pool!

#2 Margaret decided to get a new shorter haircut - and it is so cute on her, don't you think?

O, Canada

Did I mention the kids are gone for 2 weeks? So, I could have used this time to get some needed home improvement projects done...but that would be a waste. Why not use this time to take a trip of our own? We had originally wanted to go to California or Seattle, but Kyle had a business trip planned to Toronto so we decided to head that direction. After some excitement getting my passport expedited, we were off to Canada!
Friday: After landing in Toronto, we drove to our first stop, Niagara Falls. Kyle had never been there, and the last time I was there it was May...and snowing, so I wanted to see it in the summertime. We stayed in the Marriott Fallsview hotel with a great view of both the falls from our room.
Saturday: We started the day at the Horseshoe Falls in Canada, and then walked all the way downriver to the Rainbow Bridge and onto the American side to do the "Cave of the Winds" tour, which was awesome and wet! The price of the tour even includes a pancho and water shoes because at the end of you are standing under the Bridal Veil falls. No sooner had we disposed of our tour panchos, did it start raining. We bought some new panchos and headed back to the Canadian side. Found a good restaurant overlooking the falls to have a snack and wait out the rain. Then we headed to the "Journey Behind the Falls" tour where you walk in a tunnel behind the Horseshoe falls. We were pretty tired when we were done and realized later that we had walked over 8 miles.
Sunday: We drove down the Niagara River, stopping to see sights like the Whirlpool along the way. Our destination was Niagara-on-the-Lake "The Loveliest Town in Canada", which is located where the Niagara River flows into Lake Ontario. We didn't have any reservations and decided to find a Bed & Breakfast when we got there, so we walked to enjoy the town and look at places with vacancy signs. We ended up at "The Old Bank House" B&B, which overlooked Queen's Park and Lake Ontario.
Monday: NOTL is full of wineries, so we rented bikes and rode the 8 mile trail from the town up to Queenston. We ended at Queenston Heights to see Brock's Monument and enjoy the view. Then we headed back down to NOTL, stopping at all the wineries on the way back for tastings.
Tuesday: We headed back out to the wineries for a few more tastings and a tour of the Inniskillin winery. Canadians LOVE their Ice Wine, so we heard about the process many times over. It's still a little too sweet for our tastes. After we finished our tour, we headed to the big city of Toronto. We got settled into our hotel next to the Rogers Center and then walked to the Entertainment District, to check out Restaurant Row and had dinner at a rooftop restaurant.
Wednesday: Kyle actually had to make some meetings, so I was on my own. But first, we did get to go to the top of the CN Tower, which has the highest observation deck in the world. And it is high! At one part, there is even a glass floor that is so strange to walk on. Kyle went to his meeting and I went to see a show. Dirty Dancing was playing at the Royal Alexandria Theater, so I caught a matinee performance. It was just like the movie in that it had good music, good dancing, and a so-so plot. I met up with Kyle again to walk around town since he needed to head to Union Station to catch the subway. After that, I was pooped so I just went back to the room to relax and read.
Thursday: We were getting ready to head home, but before we went to the airport, we walked around the Harbor Region of downtown, and found the HTO park, which is a little mini-beach next to the water. Very cool for a downtown.
We had fun on our Canadian adventure...and it sure beat the 100 degree heat back in Texas!

The kids are off...and we are Raising Sand

We dropped the kids off on Sunday evening to start their 2 week RV adventure through Arkansas with PaPa and Grandma.

On Monday evening we spent our first kid-free night with friends Glenn and Suzanne at the Alison Krauss/Robert Plant concert at the Nokia Theater. Who knew putting a bluegrass artist with an aging rocker would be so cool. There were so many unexpected moments in the concert - like the retooling of the Led Zeppelin classic "Black Dog" with banjos. Here's "Killing the Blues", one of my favorite songs from Raising Sand.

Happy Hot 4th of July!!!

We woke up on the 4th realizing that our new AC was not working the way it should, so while we waited for service, we got out of our hot house.
We started the day downtown to watch the Red, White & Boom hometown parade. It was smaller than expected, but we ran into some old friends and got to see all our "party cul-de-sac" neighbor friends riding in their antique fire truck.
Next, we headed to neighbors Alicia and Bobby's place for BBQ lunch. We found out that 8 years ago Alicia won the "Showcase Showdown" on the Price is Right so we asked if we could see it on video. While we were watching the video, Nathan knocked over a fan onto the glass display shelf that she won on the show. Luckily it didn't break!
Later, we headed to the "party cul-de-sac", hung around during the unexpected thunderstorms, set off some small fireworks, and then went off to their airport hangar to watch them set off a private fireworks show that rivaled the professional one in town.
PS. we are getting a new AC to replace our new AC next week!