Ice Skating

What is one of our favorite activities when it's over 100 outside? Ice skating! We actually decided to try this because sweet daughter was insistent that she wants to be an ice hockey player when she grows up. We figured we should let the kids try skating to see if they actually enjoy it.

Since I don't skate, I took tons of photos of wonderful husband teaching them to skate. They started by just feeling what it's like to be on ice and balancing on skates.

We did put them in pants and even remembered mittens. We didn't think to check the length of her shirt when her hands were up, so her stomach got a little chilly. Oops

Fairly quickly, they were skating while only holding one hand. 

She really thought she could skate by herself... it was a good way to learn how to get back up and try again if nothing else. By the end of our time there, I was approached by one of the ice skating coaches who wanted to recruit sweet daughter to her team. When I pointed out that she was too young, the coach offered to get her a waiver. We turned them down. Right now we just want her ice skating for fun and if she wants to compete later we can wait till she's old enough.

Watering the Lawn

We have trouble keeping our grass green in the Summer. It's too hot and we don't typically water, which certainly doesn't help.

 

Luckily, now we have kids to do that for us! (Both modeling their Canada shirts.) Some people even prefer to get automatic water sprinklers that go back and forth. We prefer child labor... I mean teaching them responsibility.

Halifax, NS Waterfront

One of our other favorite activities when visiting Halifax is going to the waterfront. Since we don't live near a coastline, this is a reasonably unique experience for our kids.

Here we are on the Dartmouth side getting ready to take the ferry across. You can see the entire Halifax skyline.

Sure, you could sit in one of the plastic chairs. You could sit on the bottom deck and not be in full sun and wind. OR you could stand right against the glass for the closest view possible. You can point out every boat, every wave, and every duck you see. While there was a light rain, if you are shorter than the railing it is angled so you stay dry. However if you are slightly taller, you will get wet from the rain and the spray from the boat. At least the kids loved it.

This awesome playground is right on the Halifax waterfront. My kids are in the photo somewhere, though with so many ways to get up and down and hide on top and inside, we did lose track of them a couple of times. 

Forcing the kids to pose for a photo with us before we feed them lunch. Food is a great motivator... haha 

Look! It's Theodore Tugboat. If you are Canadian this may have some sort of meaning for you. It has been explained to me that this is a popular children's show that was on the air in Canada from 1994-2009 (broadcast network). It appears it was also on in the USA from 1994-2002 and 2007-2009 (cable only), but I had never heard of it. My kids were happy to see a smiling, hat wearing tugboat. Then they were frustrated that it wouldn't talk to them. Ah, the life of a two year old.

CARES harness

Happy 4th of July! I don't really have a patriotic post for this because we were flying that day.

Our kids fly a lot. Since we always need their car seats at our destination, we have always just used them on the planes. This has made the kids more comfortable. However, those seats are heavy. They are great for the kids, but they are kind of a pain for us. Once they were big enough to use the CARES harness we decided to give them a try.

The CARES harness hooks over the back of the seat making it a 4 point harness and helps hold them in more safely. Though, you do still have to make sure they don't unbuckle the bottom and take it off. Amazingly, they can still sleep while wearing it. It is light, portable and simple to install. I highly recommend using them if you don't need a car seat at your destination.

I'm sure you noticed the one thing I added in the last paragraph. We will take these and use them anytime we are flying somewhere we don't need car seats. However, on this trip we had checked the car seats for the flights home and let the kids use these. It was international (Canada to USA) and we had a connecting flight. We had to do customs between the two flights, so we had to get the seat in between to move them. At that point the car seats were fine. We were able to see them and check and there were no issues. We happily checked them back in for the second flight.

By the time we made it home one of the seats was broken. A large chunk of the corner had come off. You know the corner that give the seat it's stability when it's installed? The one that would dig into the seat? This was not a cheap plastic car seat. This was a steal framed seat. (For those outside the U.S., not all of the approved seats here are steal framed.) We spent a ton on these seats because they met my many requirements - they are not only approved for use in the U.S., they are approved by the FAA for plane travel, and they are approved in other countries (Canada, most of Europe) where we travel. Canada and Europe both have much higher standards for car seat safety.

So at the airport at home we had to try tracking down someone to file a damage report. We found tons of people from American Airlines, but we flew on Canada Air. They had apparently left the airport already. It took more than an hour, with us paging people in the airport as well as being on the phone with customer service in Canada before we were able to file a report. In the end, we did get a settlement check from them. Canada Air is one of the few airlines that will pay for damage to a car seat. For most airlines if you check a car seat you agree they are not responsible for any damage and they will not pay. The entire process took more than a month and tons of inconvenience.

So, I would highly recommend the CARES harness if you don't need to travel with a car seat. We have used them since this trip and will continue to do so anytime we are traveling somewhere we only need public transportation. The only down side is checking the car seat, which certainly isn't CARES fault.