Fall in Toronto

New House

Our Street

Our rental house

We have moved into our rental house now. Whew, its good to out of the 30th floor! Our new house has 3 bedrooms and a backyard, which is a bonus. There is an unfinished basement (all houses in Toronto are required to have a basement), so plenty of storage. I'm hoping to get a small inflatable bounce houses or a small trampoline for the boys to put in the basement.

This house is about 80 years old or so, and lots of things needed to be fixed. Luckily, or unluckily the fridge and washer have both quit, so the landlord bought us new ones. Also, being an old house, the closets are teeny tiny, so we had to buy Ikea wardrobes. We didn't bring alot of furniture with us because we didn't know what size house we would have, and I'm so glad we didn't bring alot! We've had to buy more furniture that fits this house, but thank goodness for Craigslist! Today we just bought the last of it, a TV stand so now Aaron can set up his Xbox. Unpacking has been slow because we haven't had a place to put anything.

We are in the midtown area of Toronto; our neighborhood is called Davisville. Toronto is a full of little neighborhoods, if you move one street over then you're in a new neighborhood. I've also heard it called Mt. Pleasant Village, so go figure.

Ethan and Kona

Ethan LOVES dogs.  All shapes and sizes.  When we are at the park he runs up to a dog and pets it (gently and nicely, I might add).  A while back he claimed a stuffed dog out of Micah and Joel's stuffed animal basket.  We named the dog Kona.  About a month later he claimed another small stuffed dog and I named it Hilo, which Ethan promptly dubbed "my udder (other) doggie". 

Kona's new bed.

So today we went to Costco and we had the boxes left.  Ethan dragged it into his room and put Kona in it and declared it was his bed!  That wasn't enough, however:

He had to sleep there too!  Needless to say he stayed in that bed for about 15 minutes.

Nueva escuela de espanol

Today Micah starts his new escuela de espanol.  It is an private after-school program and the only one in this city of 5 million people that we could find geared towards kids.  He'll go once a week to the "club" and then individual tutoring twice a week.  Praying that all goes well!

Toronto Zoo

Joel was too scared to see the bear!

On Monday we hit the Toronto Zoo.  The clouds looked menacing, but I thought, "We're Seattlites, right?  We laugh at rain where we come from!"  The difference here is that it actually, rains, as in POURS.  In Seattle its more like being in a mist... most of the time.  No one ever ever uses an umbrella in Seattle.  Here, many do.  Anyway, we got drenched, but we saw some indoor exhibits.  The Children's zoo was very unique with lots of interesting exhibits for the kids to climb around--like climbing into a turtle shell, turtle eggs, pretending you're in a prarire dog, etc.  The racoon habitat looked like a backyard of someone's house.  They also have a HUGE spray park with slides.  It looks super fun.  We can't wait to try that out next summer. 

We also saw the snake/reptile house, jaguars, tiger, Australia, macaws and polar bears.  They have an exhibt where you can walk right through the middle of the kangaroos/emus!

at the Children's Zoo

Library

Sometimes its just the little things that make your day.  Like being able to aquire a library card.  In my infinite wisdom I forgot to pack any books for the kids, so they haven't been reading much.  Micah was in heaven and is now busily reading away.  There hasn't been much for him to do here so that is a blessing.   This place is so small we couldn't have really brought much else anyway. 

Now if I could just get a frying pan, THAT would make life just plain easier!! I only have 2 small sauce pans and 1 medium sauce pan for cooking. And no cutting board.  There is only service for 4 here and at last count we had 5 people in our family!

Niagara Falls

So thanks to my good friend, Dana, we were able to pick up our car on Saturday.  We had it shipped to Niagara Falls, NY since it was half price to ship it in country rather than internationally.  I forgot to bring the title to the vehicle with us so I had to overnight the key to the safe to Dana who then went over to the house and found the title for us. THANK YOU!!

Since we *had* to drive down to Niagara Falls anyway, we decided to make a day trip and go on Maid of the Mist.  That was amazing!  Honestly, I know you've heard this 100 times, but pictures don't do the Falls justice.  When you are on the boat , you have 180 degrees of water encircling you, it is just amazing. It is like you are standing in a running shower, full blast.  We also were able to see a rainbow while on the boat! 

This is Horseshoe Falls  from Rainbow Bridge, which connects the US and Canada.  We took a disposable camera on the boat so it will take...ahem... a while to get that developed!  Joel was looking at the camera and he was pushing random buttons on it...he said "how do you see the pictures on this?"  HA, he thought it was a digital camera!  I don't think he's ever seen film.

Documenting our short 6 hours in New York.

Once we got over to New York we found our way to the lot with the Sequoia and then went shopping of course!  With import duties and 15% sales tax, things in Ontario cost A LOT MORE.  We hit up Target and the outlet malls, and gratefully replaced our previously-stolen GPS!! 

One note about Niagara Falls.  The Canadian side is so much prettier, owing to the  fact that both Falls face the Canadian side, so they have the prime real estate to invest in touristy-type attractions.  (But if you have the chance, go on the Maid of the Mist from the American side, its cheaper, and you see the exact same thing).  But it was interesting to cross the border and suddenly be pretty much in the ghetto.  Granted we didn't turn into the tourist part of town, but suddenly we saw boarded up windows everywhere.  Contrasted with a Clean Las Vegas -feel from the Canadian side. 

Toronto!

Some have suggested I resurrect the blog to tell of our adventures here in Toronto. We decided to move here for 1 year for a temporary position at Microsoft Canada. We thought it would be a good move for the kids to experience a different culture and an adventure to explore a new place.

We arrived the 28th of August. The next day we house hunted like crazy and found a place, thank goodness! Our current temporary housing is on the 3oth floor of a high-rise building. Very claustrophobic with 3 boys, to be sure! We are now waiting for our shipment of goods to arrive here to be able to move in.

More pictures from Day 2

Micah in the Parque Central

The Cathedral


Lake Nicaragua

The Fort

Parque Central

Ancient "alligator statue from museum

our hotel room

Day 2--Granada

Cathedral San Francisco

The kids were SOO excited to be in Nicaragua that they woke up early. The time change was in our favor, but that didn't stop Micah from coming in at 4am (2 am PT) and announcing that he couldn't sleep anymore. Fortunately Micah did get back to sleep and after a few more hours, we woke up to wonderful sunshine.

The first hotel we stayed at was Hotel Con Corazon in Granada. The hotel was started by a few Dutchmen as a non-profit with all the profits going back into the community to fund education--helping with books and uniforms. The hotel kind of has a youth hostel kind of feel to it but is very neat and very clean. In other words, perfect for families like us with kids. Our room was the family suite with 2 rooms and a "jack-n-jill" bathroom in between. There was a pool, hammocks and a giant chess board. Every morning they served breakfast in the courtyard. Since Granada is a Spanish Colonial city, nearly every building has a courtyard garden. This made the pool nice since the building provided some shade from the sun.

The first day we walked to the Cathedral San Francisco. Next to the church was a museum with art and some ancient artifacts. Micah read the signs to us in Spanish. I understood about every 3rd word or so and could get the general drift of what the displays were about.

We then walked to the Central Park of the city and took a horse-drawn carriage tour around the city. Granada is a Spanish Colonial city, built in 1520, making it one of the oldest cities in the Americas. One thing that is very interesting is that they still use the horse-drawn carriage as a means of transportation. This isn't something they brought in for the tourists. It has been used here continuously for hundreds of years. We'd see regular people riding to the market or work in a carriage-taxi. Horses, bikes, cars and oxen all shared the road. Our carriage-driver spoke English and took us on a tour of the sites of Granada, including some churches, Lake Nicaraua and an old fort which had protected the city from pirates.

At the Cathedral Gardens

The river Rio San Juan connects the Carribean Sea with Lake Nicaragua, on which Granada sits. Pirates would navigate the river up to the Lake and then attack Granada. Lake Nicaragua is a huge lake (think Great Lakes) and is home to the only freshwater shark in the world. Granada was a very important city before the Panama Canal was built because once boats got to Granada, then it was only 50 miles over to the Pacific via horse. During the gold rush this is how everyone got over to California from the East Coast and Europe.

After our city tour the kids were excited to swim in the pool!!

Day One of our trip to Nicaragua

playing at SeaTac while waiting for our flight

I'm going to post date these to when they actually happened, regardless as to when I actually wrote them. =)

Day one began with us waking early to make our 8:30am flight to Houston. We had a 3 hour lay-over there and then on to Managua. The Houston flight was 3hr 30min and the Managua flight was only 3 hours. It was nice to have it broken up like that. I get REAL antsy on flights now that I have a super active 2 year old. Its like claustrophobia sets in on me too. The boys overall were very good. It helped that now we had a seat for Ethan and he had a car seat. I think that made him more comfortable and he was able to sleep in it for at least part of the time.

Customs and Immigration in Managua was very easy. We had some forms to fill out and we had to pay a tax of $5 each. We were the last flight of the night so there were no lines to wait in. All the bags showed up and then we had to haul them over to our waiting van. Right away I noticed chivalrous nature of their culture. Aaron and I both had a luggage cart. An immigration official noticed me struggling and right away came over to help me with the cart. The van driver insisted on opening the doors for us. This happened over and over to us while there.

The ride from Managua to Granada took longer than expected. It is VERY dark and you never know when a cow will meander into the road. Our driver was very safe, so that meant we drove a bit slowly. We made it safe and sound to Hotel Con Corazón.

They whisked our bags away and put them in our room. We all collapsed on our beds. We had actually made it to Nicaragua!!