Dated Mail

We got this in the mail last week and all I could think was, "Are you serious? Digital mail? You guys are about 15 years late on this one!"

She's a Sweets.

I love this girl.

Toilet Paper

It was a little too quiet yesterday morning...

 

then we discovered why!

Prince Charles & Camilla

Prince Charles and Camilla are in Toronto for the day, part of the tour through Canada for the Diamond Jubilee.  They were going to be in Queen's Park (Parliament) at 10:10 this morning so Helena & I headed over.

Knowing that I had a toddler with me, I was hoping for a glance of the two of them.  So when they started walking our way, I picked her up and we I strained to see over people's heads.  But then the excitement got everyone to push move closer and we were at the rope!

So I stuck out my hand and shook his!

I have to admit I was a bit in awe, 

looking straight at the future King of England while he looked straight at me.

Camilla also came along the rope.  She has a very ladylike British accent.

Helena had fun waving the flags that were handed out and clapping along with everyone else. 

I had a lot of fun being part of it.  A life-altering event, no, but still very exciting.

Sharing Daily Life with Grandpa

Grandpa has been gone for 5 days now and he's missed.  Helena loved having him around.  Besides tooting around Toronto, they did a lot of regular activities including

 

 reading

and vacuuming

and more reading.

Thanks for visiting Grandpa!  Please come again!

Chai

With the weather turning nice and warm, delicious cold beverages are wonderful.  Right?  Well, a few months ago I came across this recipe for chai concentrate.  In case you're not familiar with what that is, if you go to the tea aisle in the local grocery store, on the top shelf there are often boxes that look like this:


At Walmart one box like the above costs $7.67. I don't know about you, but that doesn't work in my budget very well. But now we can make our own, which means you can make delicious iced chai lattes!

Ingredients:

• 2 tsp. minced ginger
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 8 whole cloves
• 2 heaping demitasse spoons powdered cardamon (or 15-20 green cardamon pods)
• 2 cap fulls non alcohol vanilla extract
• 2 dashes of nutmeg
• 2 heaping Tbsps sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 4 cups water
• 6 Bigelow Darjeeling Blend tea bags, or other black tea bag (I used English Breakfast)

Directions:
Put everything except the tea bags into the crock pot (recipe called for 1 1/2 qt. crock pot but I used my 5 1/2 qt. and it worked fine). Cook on high for 3-4 hours or low for 7-8 hours. After long simmer, if heat is not on high turn to high. Add tea bags. Let steep for 5-10 minutes. Remove tea bags and press with spoon to get all water out. Pour crock contents over strainer into 1 quart resealable beverage container. Add water to make 1 quart. This will get you what comes in the box pictured above. Serve (see below) or store in fridge.


To serve:

To make iced or hot Chai Latte, add equal parts concentrate to milk and serve over ice or heat in microwave or use conventional steamer. (We like it hot with a mix of skim and whole milk, but iced with just skim. We also tried it in a milkshake!)

Easy - yes
Different - yes
Delicious - absolutely

Recipe found at Vegetarian Slow Cooker

Dim Sum

John's dad (I call him TomDad) likes to eat out when traveling, so we had lots of fun joining him in that activity!  His one rule, though, is that the restaurant's got to be busy.  If the locals aren't going there, then he doesn't want to go there.

So in Chinatown we looked and looked and every restaurant was empty.  It was only 11:45 so maybe it was too early for lunch...then John walked in a door that led to stairs.  He didn't even have to go up them to know this was the place, as the roar of voices and clinking plates was so loud.

It was an authentic Dim Sum restaurant, which means women were walking around the tables pushing carts full of small plates of food.  They'd call out the food names & if you wanted it, you'd motion for them to put it on your table.

We, as obvious foreigners, caught their attention.  We'd hear "Hey!" and then a woman would be displaying her cart for us. It only took us a few minutes to realize that we shouldn't ask what the food was because that only led to a word we didn't understand and the food immediately being put on the table.  We just started saying "No, thank you" left and right, unless the food looked good. (Please note that the photo below only shows half of the table, thus showing only half of the food.)

Helena ate 2/3 of a shrimp roll and then focused on her Ritz peanut butter crackers.  Grandpa, however, helped her eat them Chinese style!

It really was quite a chaotic adventure of a meal.  Eating it was fun but not so fun that the Chinese bakery could be skipped afterwards.

And just in case you ever go out for Dim Sum, try the tofu skin rolls & the shrimp rolls.  They were our favorites.  (We figured these out by Googling dim sum afterwards!)

Grandpa is in town - Why not go to the zoo?

John's dad arrived in Toronto Thursday afternoon and it's great to have him here.  Helena has been busy covering him with stuffed animals, books, and Rubbermaid containers - what a great playmate to go along with it all.  He just bought a new horse so it's also been fun to watch the horse video on his phone :)

We went to the zoo yesterday and had a great time.  John and I noticed a few things:

1) A zoo is fun for all ages.  Really.

2) Visiting a zoo with a toddler is COMPLETELY different than visiting it with just adults.

3) Being in a zoo just makes you take pictures.  A lot of them. 

The lion may be the king of the jungle, but the peacock is obviously the king of the Toronto Zoo.  They are walking all over the place!

One of the animal sounds Helena makes is an elephant sound, and the Toronto elephants are going to soon be moved, so they were the real motivation to get out to the zoo.  We were blessed with lots of interesting time with them & a zoo keeper too!

We're pretty sure this fake hollow log was way more interesting to Helena, though.  A good bit of time was spent going back and forth in it.

The other highlight for Helena was probably all the dandelions.  Too bad some of them were inside the animals' areas!

Seeing the sloths was really great.  I don't know about you but every other time I've seen a sloth, he or she does nothing.  This time, however, there were two sloths - a mother and a 1 year-old - and they moved.  It was heartwarming to see how the mother protected her child. 

He lays on her chest while they move.  Then, he will reach out for the limbs and hang on by himself but she keeps her body under his.  Gives him independence yet is there to catch him if he falls.  I don't usually talk like this, but it was honestly beautiful to see the two of them together.

John's latest joke:

What do you get when you cross a giraffe, a goose and a crab?

Flamingos!

Sand & a Shovel

We found the camera!

The Going-Ons of our 15-Month Old

Helena recently discovered how to use a shovel, which means there is even more reason to run to the door to go outside as soon as we finish breakfast, lunch, anytime the stroller is out and anytime she hears the words park or walk.  I was going to show you the cute girl in the sand but the video camera is hiding.  (You have some items that are hiding too, right?)  So, here are some other regular events in her life...

Condiments - wow, Caesar dressing can really make a girl eat her asparagus!

Brushing teeth - letting her sit on the toilet & brush one of her parent's teeth has really helped in getting her teeth brushed.

Watering the plants - it's hard to understand why some plants need water every day and others don't but either way, it's a lot of fun.

Stroller relaxing - as if chilling in a seat while someone else pushes you around isn't relaxing enough, Helena has discovered if she puts her feet up it's even better.

Tools - Helena's all about the tools and projects.  If Dad's using the screwdriver, Helena's using hers.  And there's basically nothing that can distract her from the work at hand.

Rubber boots - an awesome pair of hand-me-downs that Helena loves wearing inside and outside.

Education Update

John has officially finished his Ph.D. coursework. 

 That means he won't be a student in a class again ever (or as John says, for a long time).  This is after 21 years of sitting in a classroom!

Alright John!

So, what's next?  He has only two simple tasks left:

1) Pass his comprehensive exams. 
2) Write his dissertation.

At the beginning of 2013, he will take 4 exams on subjects that he has studied.  For each exam, he is responsible for knowing everything he has already learned on the subject plus another year's worth of studying the subject.  Thus, for the next 8 months he will be studying and learning a lot. 

He will also be writing his dissertation during this time.  It needs to be turned in to his readers by November 2014 in order to graduate in the Spring 2015.  Here's a very basic description of what it will be about:

It's about using the Septuagint (The Greek translation of the Old Testament) as a witness for textual criticism (determining what the original words were) of the Old Testament.

But all that is in the future...right now we're celebrating that he's done with classes!