it's my girls' world: visits

Showing posts with label visits. Show all posts

Friday, August 11, 2017

Downtown Cleveland and the Great Lakes Science Center

Days before our long weekend last weekend, D contacted his very distant but very close cousin growing up, from Cleveland to find out if they were free for a little visit from our little crew. They were so off we went on our totally unexpected road trip this summer... so unexpected, we planned it and then realised that C's new passport was being processed and we had to place a rush order! It was an amazing trip with some fantastic company and definitely one of our favourite weekends this summer...

These are just some pictures from a couple hours we spent in downtown Cleveland and the Great Lakes Science Center.

An outdoor concert at the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame.

Practise that violin, kid!!

Our awesome hostess and her beautiful boys. Her husband had some stuff to do so we joined him later on.

Then it was off to the Great Lakes Science Center... people if you are ever in the downtown Cleveland Area, this is a must see venu even for the admitted unscientific people like myself. We stayed for hours!

LeBron James in Lego-- talk about talent!

#legogoals

Yes and yes!

Happy Weekending, friends!

Linking up with
Andrea, Erika and Narci for Favourites on Friday

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Thanksgiving weekend

Some weekends are just good for the soul. This past weekend was one of those. Three of my aunts and my mom came to visit us and spend our Canadian Thanksgiving weekend with us. To preface this, I should mention that my aunts are some of my favourite people (it kind of goes without saying that my mom is too). They have laughed with me, wiped my tears, cheered for my accomplishments and been distressed in my not so good times. Everytime we get together, we stay up until the wee hours of the morning chatting about anything and everything- I lifted that line straight out of one of my aunts' toast for my wedding.... so although I'm a little sleep deprived today, I'm very contented and very grateful we were all able to spend this time together!

We didn't do much this weekend. They just wanted to spend some time with us--- who am I kidding? Now it's my girls they really want to spend time with- I'm gravy. We just ordered in, cooked, ate (sense a theme here), had some wine, watched some TV, played with the girls and in general had a lazy, wonderful weekend.

As with all weekends when I'm having fun, I forgot to take out my phone lots but here are a few of the weekend shots.

My mom bought the girls new Halloween jammies which they immediately put on.

My aunt Geeta and I headed to the famer's market on Saturday to buy stuff to cook for Thanksgiving dinner the next day.

The downtown chocolate store

Just chilling out on Saturday night-- all the ladies. D was so outnumbered but was such a trooper!

Our family just before Thanksgiving dinner

My mom and her first granddaughter.

The spread. Everything was so delicious. My aunt Vide is a marvellous cook and she did most of the cooking although we all chipped in so no one person would have too much work to do.

How things have changed. D is giving pescatarianism a try for a year. This is his first year without turkey but he had quite the feast with crab stuffed mushrooms, lobster stuffed peppers and jumbo shrimp. Somehow, I don't think he missed it!

After dinner, C put on a Bollywood show for us. A long time ago, my aunt Sabi used to be a Bollywood dancer so she choreographed a short routine for C to do.

Turkey makes everyone very sleepy.

(also, I will get in serious trouble for posting this!)

We stayed up until 2 am chatting that night and the next day everyone hit the road. We cleaned up a bit and then headed to my friend Mona's house for the evening. No pictures as I left my phone in the car.

Also, I got a Jawbone Up 24.... let the step counting begin.

Linking up

with Biana for weekending

and for the Grateful Heart with Ember Grey

Happy Tuesday everyone!!

Monday, June 23, 2014

Weekend in Toronto

Ahhh summer has officially started.... and to begin with a bang we headed to Toronto for the weekend with my parents who came to visit. I have lived in Canada for about 10 years and my parents have been visiting me since then but they have never been to Toronto... my bad! We decided to remedy that on this trip. They came in on Friday around lunch time and on Saturday after soccer, we headed to the city. We stayed at the Cambridge Suites in Toronto. Highly recommend it if you're looking for a great location with a little more room than your ordinary hotel room. In the evening, we walked around the city, visited the Eaton Centre, went to some Toronto Jazz Festival stuff and had some delicious Thai food.

Quite the poser, isn't she?

Just walking around

On Sunday, we got up bright and early and headed to Centre Island-- a place that I'd never been to as well. It's a little island that's a short ferry ride away from Toronto. It was amazing and as you can imagine a fun adventure for our five year old! On the island, there's an amusement park, a wading pool, a 'beach', lush greenery, concession stands and so many beautiful walking and biking trails! This weekend was also the Dragon Boat Festival which was fun to look at.

Our walk downtown.

Check A out in her Marilyn pose. And yes, she is barefoot in one of the pics!

And here we are in the island

So much to see and do.

When we came back home, my parents and the girls were quite tired so they had a 'pizza party' and Darin and I headed across to the Danforth for some yummy Greek food at Mezes. We then got the bright idea to walk more than 4 miles back to the hotel in my new shoes--- I have the blisters to prove it. Despite that though, Toronto is so full of colourful characters and hectic night life in the summer. It was great being part of that energy ~~and pretending we were cool once more.~~

On Monday, as D took the day off, we just headed to the CN Tower. It's the tallest free standing structure in the Western hemisphere (at one time the world). It's one of the distinctive icons in the Toronto skyline. No first time visit to Toronto is complete without a visit there. We hung out for a bit before we had some Hakka and headed back home!!!

A wonderful, hectic weekend. My dad, a bit of a cultural anthropologist himself, especially loved it and invited himself on our next trip to Europe! Done! All hands on deck.

Monday, March 24, 2014

4 under 5

On Saturday, our friends Sean and Amra came to visit with their two kids Arisa (8 months younger than C) and Aaron (4 months younger than A). We live more than an hour apart so when we visit each other, we usually spend quite a few hours together. We have a lot in common with the very cool grown ups and Arisa is one of Cassia's favourite people. It was a hectic, fun, entertaining evening... with lots of blurry pictures apparently....sidenote, I finally got my fantastic Nikon d3200, a birthday present from D... you would think I would upload from it more.

First, the little ladies put on a show