Samuel Discovers the Snowflake Kingdom

February 10, 2012

What good luck that February 10 was a beautiful Friday, both Karine and Barbara were off work, and Winterlude festivities were underway. Off we went to the with Samuel to the Snowflake Kingdom in Jacques Cartier Park.

Our first encounter was with a friendly Canadian Navy mascot.

Then we had fun on the ice slides. Check out the video:

We negotiated our way through a labyrinth...  then more sliding. Time to have a first taste of a Beaver Tail... ummmmm.

Grant pushed Samuel and Karine around on a sled - fun!

After more sliding, it was time for a picnic lunch and fun around a campfire pit.

By noon hour we had a very tired boy. Time to go home for a good nap after a fun morning.

Samuel Feeds the Chickadees

February 4

Kirk & Karine had a lot of shopping to do for their downstairs bathroom reno.  Naturally, we were delighted to babysit Samuel, and we planned to take him to the Jack Pine Trail to feed the chickadees and look for the resident deer.

The first thing was to help Grandpa get some sunflower seed from the basement.  Barbara brought some apple pieces for the deer, but they must have been on vacation, as we did not see them, although Bill had seen five a couple of days previously.

We drove to the trail and got started.  Progress was slow, as Samuel wanted to look at everything.  We decided to put him in the sled and pull him to the feeder area.

Samuel enjoyed watching and studying us feed the birds.  He repeated over and over "oiseaux mangent".

He liked holding the seeds, but could not hold his arm out far enough.  Finally, with Grant's help, SUCCESS!   There were also other birds, squirrels and families to keep him entertained.

As morning was nearly over, we hurried back for lunch before Samuel nodded off.  He enjoyed a bath, and went down for a long nap.  He now wore his Saskatoon Roughriders football shirt as his plaid shirt had some lunch on it. We noted the Saskatoon shirt was small and well worn – good news from K&K later that he got a new bigger one from Aunt Pamela and Uncle Craig for his birthday.

After nap time, we went for a walk over to the apartment hill and play structure for some sliding and to give the dogs a run.

Kirk and Karine returned from a successful shopping day - they even braved IKEA!  We had raclette  for supper.  As Samuel started to fade, Barbara gave him some margarine containers to play with.  He quickly figured out how to get those lids off and back on again.

Boots rested by the fire while Samuel got ready to head for home.  It was a very stimulating day for the little guy.