It's Already Wednesday

For (Nearly) Wordless Wednesday, because I am tired and cranky and full of allergies and the Little Goat is driving me around the bend with her obnoxious new 'style' of crying, which is a combination of crying, screaming, hollering, and dying pterodactyl noises; and also her new wake-up-early, no-nap habit. AUGHHHHH!

It's a good thing she has so many cute days.

Tea party with Penguin.

Getting greedy at the party.

Penguin: He likes his tea!

On the bench, in the yard.

Oui ou Non?

If only all arguments ended this way. This was one of the Little Goat's favourites this morning....

Bedtime Stories

Well since I already spent my last post whining about how sick we are and I don't feel like rehashing the tale that is The Night from SHEOL (suffice it to say, the Little Goat not only fell off her changing table but didn't go to sleep until 4 AM!), I think I will resist the urge to cop out with a "Wordless Wednesday" picture post and regale you with a delightfully ridiculous bedtime story Mr. J. heard at work today. It goes a little something like this:

So this coworker of Mr. J.'s, when she was a girl, lived in this big old house (this would've been about 50 years ago) with an attic that had attic access through her bedroom (a door with steps). With surprisingly regularity she heard noises. Her parents repeatedly reassured her saying "Don't worry! It's just rats!"

However, this one night, she heard quite the hullaballoo in the attic so her Dad came running upstairs with a baseball bat. He climbed up into the attic and minutes later came out, dragging behind him



A HOBO.




Yes, true. A bona fide hobo. Living in their attic!!

So then another of Mr. J.'s coworkers asked her if she was scared of sleeping in her room ever again and she said "What? Why? It was just a hobo."


Just.

A.

Hobo.

Woe is Me.

To ring in her 11 month, the Little Goat decided it was time for the allergies to appear. Her nose has been running more than the leaky tap in our bathtub and of course, wouldn't YOU enjoy having your snot sucked out by a freaky blue rubber thing? *shudder*

On top of that, I am also feeling abominable. My head refuses to cease its pounding and my entire digestive system is threatening to stage a mutiny; it is telling me it is disgruntled at the very least. To top it all off, the milk factory is experiencing technical difficulties just when demand has risen to help the LG through this rough patch, and every time she eats, I feel nauseous as all get out (and no, it's not because of That. I've checked.).

Mr. J. got a late start this morning and has things to do after work today which means he will be getting home later than usual and tomorrow he is working a double, from 7am until 11pm and I can only hope that I am feeling better by then. I am BAD company for a Curious Crawler in my present state.

So woe is me...whine, whine, whine....I want my Mom and I wish she wasn't presently on the other side of the continent, not that being her usual half-way across the continent is very helpful either, but it would be better than nothing and she would be near her free long distance plan.

Boo for sickness! Does anybody know any good home allergy remedies that are safe for little goats?

To the Desert, to the Ocean and Back.

Up until about two o'clock last Thursday afternoon, I was living the delusion that it was actually Wednesday and I had a full day plus an evening to get ready to go camping on Friday morning. I'm sure you can imagine the chaos that ensued upon my realization that I had, in fact, only about four hours of daylight left to get things ready. Ack! If you assumed that we got leaving rather late on Friday morning, well, you would have assumed correctly. It was a quick weekend but a fun one.

We stayed two nights at the KOA in Freeport/Durham and went 'cheater' camping. I say 'cheater' because we didn't actually stay in a tent (we haven't got one big enough for both of us and our stuff, nevermind adding a baby and all of HER stuff!); we stayed in a 'Kamping Kabin' which came complete with a heater, a mini fridge (that proved quite handy) and a microwave. We didn't actually use the microwave but it was nice to know that if the weather had turned sour (as it is wont to do on the Maine coast) we could've nuked our hotdogs instead of roasting them.

On Saturday, our first stop was the Desert of Maine. Oi. The people were really nice - no complaints there, but the tour seemed....silly. They have the actual 'desert' area fenced in so of course you can't see it which is good because if you saw it, you would've seen almost all of it and there would be no reason to pay. Mr. J. still has all the pictures on his camera to be downloaded later today so when they're in the computer they'll be up on the blog. Anyway, the desert is billed as 'Maine's I-can't-remember-the-adjective natural phenomenon!' The problem is, according to the explanation we were given, the whole pile 'o' sand came about as the result of poor farming practices. So...natural phenomenon my foot!

The rest of our day was spent doing a little shopping. Our lucky Little Goat (or should we just call her Miss Moneybags?) got some new bits and pieces of summer wardrobe and a brand new Radio Flyer Walker Wagon. The latter we picked up for a steal at the LL Bean outlet where I also - moment of silence, please - lost my sunglasses. I'm almost sure it was some manifestation of one of Murphy's Laws since just two weekends ago, Erin K and I were having a discussion about sunglasses, wherein I explained that I inherited my sunglasses from Mr. J. right before our trip to Hawaii several years ago. I had been searching around for a pair and Mr. J. kept finding ones he liked so we finally bought him news one and I took over the old pair. In the interim, I found a pair of sweet shades at Costco that were on sale. So they've been my backup pair, until Saturday when it became apparent that after checking back three times with various LL Bean employees my best sunglasses ever have gone AWOL and of course, now I can't find my backup pair either.

But I digress. The camping weekend was fun; we headed home on Sunday morning after stopping to pick up the best cinnamon buns we've ever eaten (May is turning out to be a good month for trying 'new' food!) and playing at the beach just a little. We also stopped to eat, for Mother's Day dinner out, at Texas Roadhouse where there are giant barrels of peanuts to munch while you're waiting to get seated and you are allowed, nay, expected, to throw your peanut shells on the floor. It was tasty and fun but I couldn't stop thinking about the mess and how much I wanted to come back with my vacuum!

Anyway, here are more pictures from our Quebec City trip. I need to get the camping pictures ready to go. Maybe tomorrow.

Fog.

Old (original?) city gate.

My next bike.

The city at night. All the people that would normally
be there were probably at the club next door to our hostel.
It was SOOOOO loud on Fri/Sat nights. I still can't figure out
how nobody else heard it on Friday night. I'm not crazy! I'm not!!

Old armory.

Don't mess with my baby, yo.

The end, or 'fin' as they say en Francais.

This Just In!

Well I was all set to tell you about our camping weekend and post more pictures of our Quebec City trip when this happened (please ignore the sounds of giddy parents...good grief we sound like morons!):

Trippy

So this past weekend, you'll recall that we went up to Quebec City with Erin K. and Co. We had an amazing weekend! It rained on Saturday and Sunday and was pretty cold, but we stayed warm and relatively dry and all was well. Our kids got along just swimmingly - they slept well, played well, ate well....as did we, the adults. We enjoyed trying on hats, visiting some crazy medieval shops, riding the funicular (okay, I enjoyed this slightly less than everybody else, darn leeriness of heights!), exploring a museum, and cramming as much tasty food down our gullets as is possible in four days. Oh boy! So many choices of places to eat and we didn't choose badly even once! Tasty Moroccan food on Friday night, a ridiculously good burger and microbrew on Saturday, a chocolate museum and store on Sunday and some delightful crepes on Monday. In the quest to fill the afternoon pain au chocolate (chocolate wrapped in pastry, basically) fix on Sunday, we stumbled across this bakery which we almost left because we didn't see any of the pastries in the case....well then we spotted then and ate THE BEST chocolate/almond pastry Erin and I have ever tasted in our collective existences! Oh my goodness! That served (quite nicely) as my birthday cake. Oh yes! And they all sung Happy Birthday to me en Francais!

All the while, Erin and I discussed our dream of opening a bakery together - not so much bread (although I did just pull some out of the oven...mmm....), just fancy, tasty pastries and desserts. Wouldn't that be amazing? We just have to work out how to move back to Canada and find a job for Mr. J. and then we can get started! Hopefully this dream will not fall as quickly to the wayside as our last goal which Erin plans to blog about someday. (Ahem...)

It was also nice to be able to explore a city with friends who are working with the same challenge we are - namely, trying to get in and around with a stroller and an occasionally fidgety youngun in tow. Public bathrooms with changing tables are surprisingly few and far between in QC. Without further adieu, here's our weekend in pictures - Part One - because, my goodness Mr. J. took a lot of pictures!

We stopped for a picnic on the way.

Crossing the bridge into Quebec City.

Exploring on Friday night.

The Funicular.

We were just in time to see the Bride & Groom walk out of this church
(the name of which escapes me just now). Aren't they adorable?

Quebec City, home of the largest woodpecker we've ever seen....

...and the scariest Hen in a Kettle we've ever seen.

Random building.

The Little Goat getting ready to go out.

Our kidlets, fast asleep in their almost-matching strollers.

Statue outside the Chateau Frontenac.
I think she's proclaiming to the world how much she loves breast-feeding. har!

Strange French wantons are available for purchase here.

We're Outta Here!

Well, it's Friday and Mr. J. has today and Monday off and we're on our way to meet Erin K. and her Music Man and Monkey in Quebec City for the weekend! We haven't seen them since Christmas and we are SO EXCITED! Hopefully I'll have lots of pictures to post when we get back.

Oh boy! And guess what else is happening this weekend! Nope, we're not investing in a yacht (no flooding right in our town, thank God!) and nope, we're not getting camels. Sunday is my birthday! I know, I know, things end up heavily in my favour for three weeks starting in April: an anniversary on the 27th, my birthday a week later and Mother's Day the week after that. Har! Someday when we're rich, maybe we'll just take a whole month off and go somewhere. But for now: Happy Birthday to me! AND to Brenda, my cyberttwin over at The Ones with the Baby. Make sure you head over there on Sunday and wish her a Happy Birthday. We're about to embark on our last year of Twentysomethingness. Ack!

And on the birthday note, here's a picture of the annivesary cake I made and a cupcake in the same style. I'm not entirely happy with the pictures because they're blurry, but you can get the general idea. The cake was plain white with a touch of rum and fresh strawberries, lime curd filling and lime-infused icing. Go ahead, drool, it was FABULOUS and yes, it looks like a hat!

Have a great weekend!

Yummy cake.

Best cupcake EVER!