July 2021 - Happy Canada Day and 4th of July!

[Taitai]

Happy belated Canada Day to August Blooms and the other O17 Canadian moms! 🇨🇦 🇨🇦 Happy 4th of July to all of the Americans! 🇺🇸 🇺🇸

What is everyone planning this weekend? We’re looking forward to seeing a few parades, and we have some small outdoor festivities planned with our family members. I am so excited to eat brats, hot dogs, and burgers on the grill!

[curmudgeon]

We have plans to bbq with the in-laws and my parents, but it is going to storm all weekend which puts a damper on outdoor festivities. I really just want to sit at home.

[duskymonkey]

curmudgeon  to your DS PT!! Yassss!!! We are so far holding strong with the gummy bears and dried mangoes and an episode of If you give a mouse a cookie *head smack* but only for #2 We haven't even gotten to #1 yet.

[duskymonkey]

Taitai yay! to some good ol' greasy burgers   I must admit, other than Oz beef, the meat here is real good after I became accustomed to the taste of beef. Never ate beef until I left home. Could not stomach it the first time. Now I look forward to a good cut of steak off the grill. So glad you are able to be with family and the kids have space to roam about in fresh air. Urban planning with a conscious effort for green spaces is well done in this country even in dense NYC and the NPS is really remarkable and well maintained. Are you close to any NPS and do you have time to visit a few while out here?

[duskymonkey]

We're just keeping it low over here and had plans to go up to the mountains close by but the weather forecast is thunderstorms and rain daily up which is really typical much higher up in elevation but not for where we wanted to go hiking and picnic by the river. Of course the weather is good on the other side of the mountain and it's much farther and that area's Covid transmission is very high so we aren't comfortable taking the kids; not with the mutations plus over 40% of cases in the state are the Delta variant. Anyways we decided to explore a different part of the foothills since the area we like to take the kids to is closed due to last years fire and the boys had such a good time. There was much excitement watching paragliders in the sky while having out picnic. We even stopped to pick up some Arepas for our picnic lunch on the way. So I think we're going to wing it the next few days and see what everyone is feeling up for haha. Everyone was wiped out when we got home in the evening.
PDQ - DS coming down the trail

[Taitai]

duskymonkey Absolutely beautiful scenery! I’m glad you all had a nice hike/picnic, and I hope you are able to have a relaxing 4th of July weekend! We really want to check out one of the national parks (probably Yellowstone), but I think we will try for next summer. This summer, we’re more focused on reconnecting with family that we haven’t seen in 2 years.

curmudgeon - Yay did PT success! It’s such an improvement to the quality of your life when kids are no longer in diapers or pull ups!

[danvers]

PDQ:



We are at the inlaws today for the 4th. FIL had an old truck in the local parade so the girls rode in the back with their cousins and MIL and threw out candy. They are now outside with their cousins and should be thoroughly exhausted tonight by the time fireworks happen.

[curmudgeon]

The forecast was wrong for today so we got to set up a giant slip n slide for the boys. Everyone took a nap when we got home (except me), and now we are waiting for dark so we can watch fireworks that any neighbors are setting off (illegally). I can hear some already but the sun is still high. I’m kicking myself for not getting sparklers.

[curmudgeon]

Oh danvers I bet they had a blast throwing candy! Such fun memories made. Love their patriotic Minnie tees too!

[duskymonkey]

danvers Love the girls matching outfits and they look like they're the best of buds! What a wonderful experience for them riding with their grandpa in a parade. Love that! I am sure my boys would be guzzling as many candies as they throw out lol!

[duskymonkey]

curmudgeon what a sweet photo of your H and DS2. You and I must be living some parallel lives; we too had an incorrect forecast...go the wrong way oops!  Super happy to hear you had a good time though. Eventhuogh you didn't get to nap, at least you had some quiet time right?!

[duskymonkey]

Taitai I've never been to YS and hubs and I really want to take the boys there. We can essentially drive there in a day. That would be a trip. Checkout fs.usda.gov for any national forest possibly close by maybe you can go if you have time this trip. We are so lucky to have close access to so many and have loved exploring them especially during this past year. We have not missed museums or zoos. You do have access to the worlds best beaches though haha!

[duskymonkey]

Hubs and I totally forgot today is the fourth. We don't do much for the fourth and before the kids we've typically spent the weekend biking and hiking so continuing the tradition with the boys I suppose. We headed back out to the foothills again today and the forecast was no rain but that wasn't the case. We got super lucky and made it back to the trailhead and DS and I just about made it to the car before the deluge and as we got on to a main paved road and cell service, we got an emergency warning for flash floods in the area. We did have a great hike and DS got to see bear tracks. From the looks of it pretty fresh and there were quite a few criss crossing the trail so we kept alert. The trail we were on was great too because it wasn't busy at all so we will be gong back for sure. DS loved it because it was muddy with over a dozen stream crossings lol! and of course all the bear tracks he came across. Me: please no bears, no bears and mountain lions.
I think the peaks in the horizon are the mummy range? not certain.

[Taitai]

danvers 🥰 Your girls are just too cute in their matching outfits!! So happy they were able to be in the parade with your ILs! Sounds like a really special 4th of July experience for them!

curmudgeon Awwwww - what a cute picture. Hope the fireworks were fun to watch! We tried to watch our local community’s fireworks from our front lawn, and we could actually see most of them - just not the ground show. I haven’t seen fireworks in….like….maybe 7 years? Glad H and I got to see them from the place we are renting for the summer while the boys slept.

duskymonkey What a beautiful trail! Hiking with the boys and seeing bear tracks sounds like a great way to spend the 4th!! Glad you didn’t actually run into any bears or mountain lions!

[Taitai]

Happy belated 4th of July everyone! We had an awesome day. We rented a house for the summer in the town where I grew up, and it was right along the parade route! The parade was so much fun for us to watch from our front yard, and the boys literally collected about 5lbs of candy 😱😱. This town is famous for its 4th of July parade, and everyone really goes to town with the candy throwing, lol. I need to figure out how to make some of it disappear. Soooooo many tootsie rolls!

My parents joined us for the parade, and then we went to the city park, where they do music, burgers/hotdogs,brats, and many adult beverages, followed by the fireworks. I was worried it would be too crowded, but it wasn’t at all while we were there. A ton of space to spread out, and just a really idyllic, small town American-feeling 4th of July. So glad our boys got to experience that - get them in touch with their American roots!!

Hope you are all enjoying the rest of your holiday weekend!

[August Blooms]

Looks like everyone had a busy weekend celebrating! We didn’t do too much, we just move into the second phase of reopening here, we’ve already met the goal for stage 3 of reopening but the government is waiting 21 days to do so based on the Delta variant. But good news is that vaccine numbers are high.

We tried strawberry picking but a storm came through. We actually went to a patio for dinner for the first time and went to a friends place to enjoy drinks in the backyard. It was nice to feel like a mostly normal summer weekend.


curmudgeon yay for PT, enjoy being diaper free!

Taitai Sounds like you guys are having a ton of fun and making some great memories with the kids. That’s too bad about the cases rising and the lockdowns. Hopefully things can get under control quickly and you can return to in person learning.

duskymonkey Those hikes look like so much fun! Thanks for sharing that artist, I had never heard of him. The artwork is very lovely, I really love some of the landscapes.

[duskymonkey]

PSA! EVERYONE
Taitai if you need something for the kids in your short term stay and won’t break the bank. We have this splash pad and it’s on sale now! Ours ended up being oval but whatever for the price it works great. Im going to get another back up if ours split. 
smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B087B2NVJS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Taitai]

Jul 6, 2021 15:34:30 GMT -6 duskymonkey said:

PSA! EVERYONE
Taitai if you need something for the kids in your short term stay and won’t break the bank. We have this splash pad and it’s on sale now! Ours ended up being oval but whatever for the price it works great. Im going to get another back up if ours split. 
smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B087B2NVJS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thanks so much for the recommendation!! We just bought it! It’s a high of 68 degrees today where we are, but it’s supposed to be back up in the 80s and 90s this weekend! We will totally get some good use out of it - plus, I love that there’s a world map on it. Our kids are so into maps of the world/globes. They will love it!

[duskymonkey]

I forgot to mention Taitai or anyone else for the splash pad, you'll need to get an O ring to stop leakage at the point where the hose connects to the splash pad. You can get a small pack from LHW store for less than a buck. I think they sorta give you a plastic ring of some sort it which sucks, I mean what do you expect for the price amirite lol!  I'll try to see if I have extras tonight to check for what size and update you all. Depending of what the ends of your hose looks like, you may need to fiddle a bit and may need extra connectors. We were lucky and was able to essentially plug and play and was able to troubleshoot with the different sizes O rings hubs has in his collection.

[duskymonkey]

Pretty sure this is the O ring I used and remembering I may have had to use 2 to get a tight fit with our hose connector.

[duskymonkey]

August Blooms  Smart move from the CN side to delay opening due to the Delta variant. Your neighour down south not very smart and lookeee with our rising cases. 
Basically everyone is acting like Covid no longer exist. The last coupe of weeks I've been out, still just once a week still and one day I went in the afternoon with the usual crowd ( families and kids dan all ) and less than a handful of people including me were wearing a mask. I mean at this point vax is easily available but I am in the fringes of the red zone and I don't trust people here. Already I spoke to a neighbor down the street today whom returned from FL on vacation and they have toddlers. Nope...we're doing well here and having fun exploring locally. I may be extra but for me vacations aren't isn't a necessity and donning a mask is really NBD. Sounds like Canada Day was getting a lot backlash over the recent RS findings. My heart is grieving and hubs and I didn't feel like much for July 4th here either.  Taitai I learned that the US had similar schools too and the Sec of Interior has ordered an investigation to these schools here as well. It's no wonder their community is in such despair. Children should't be take away from family and forced to reject their culture. It's a crime and essentially "ethnic cleansing" I am very sickened by that. It's about time the natives have a representative to do something about their land and people. 

[duskymonkey]

Taitai i am so glad to read that your kids are experiencing such diverse and rich cultures. They will have such special memories and will remember times like these. We had a bunch of neighbors a cou[le of doors away shooting fireworks which were pretty much all illegal and my direct neighbor whom has a 6MO was mad understandably so. They were already firing them off 2 weeks prior to and just fired off more last night. We're lucky both kids are already in slumberland and didn't wake them up. Hubs and I made sure we got them into be early on the 4th too plus they were exhausted from being outdoors all day which helped.

[Taitai]

duskymonkey Yeah, the whole COVID is over thing is puzzling to me, because there are still about 200 people per day dying from COVID in the USA. The really sad thing is that 97-99% of those deaths were among unvaccinated individuals, so it’s just a completely preventable situation.

I also don’t trust people to follow the CDC rules and wear masks indoors (in public spaces) if they are unvaccinated. I have a bunch of extended family members who aren’t vaccinated (for political reasons - the stupidity….), and they don’t wear masks anywhere. No masks at the grocery store, or in other stores, or malls….they just never, ever wear masks. How selfish and dishonest they are - how lacking in integrity. So, knowing what those family members are doing, our family will continue to wear masks indoors, especially as the kids are still vulnerable to COVID. I wish people were more empathetic and respectful of others - in Thailand, it’s just not a big deal to wear a mask….and that is a hot, tropical climate year round! I don’t understand why people throw a fit over such a simple thing over here. 🤷‍♀️

[Taitai]

It’s about half way through our trip, and now the kids are asking if they can just stay in America forever, lol. They love the parks and the temperate weather, but I don’t think they understand how long and cold winters can be in many parts of the USA.

It has been wonderful to see family, and we’re feeling very privileged to have been able to make it back for vaccination. The COVID situation in Thailand is now on the same scale as India, when you adjust for population. People are dying waiting for hospital beds, hospitals have people on O2 tanks outside in parking lot spaces, temples are turning into hospitals and filling up….no vaccines for anyone (and the Sinovac/Sinopharm vaccines the country initially relied on don’t seem to be working well against the delta variant). It’s a terrible situation, and I’m trying to do what I can to get my employees vaccinated with Moderna or Pfizer at a private hospital, but the demand is so high (and deliveries won’t be until Oct/Dec at the earliest)….they probably won’t receive an effective vaccine until late 2021 or early 2022. I am just praying that they don’t get sick and can hang on.

[duskymonkey]

Jul 12, 2021 7:50:31 GMT -6 Taitai said:

duskymonkey Yeah, the whole COVID is over thing is puzzling to me, because there are still about 200 people per day dying from COVID in the USA. The really sad thing is that 97-99% of those deaths were among unvaccinated individuals, so it’s just a completely preventable situation.

I also don’t trust people to follow the CDC rules and wear masks indoors (in public spaces) if they are unvaccinated. I have a bunch of extended family members who aren’t vaccinated (for political reasons - the stupidity….), and they don’t wear masks anywhere. No masks at the grocery store, or in other stores, or malls….they just never, ever wear masks. How selfish and dishonest they are - how lacking in integrity. So, knowing what those family members are doing, our family will continue to wear masks indoors, especially as the kids are still vulnerable to COVID. I wish people were more empathetic and respectful of others - in Thailand, it’s just not a big deal to wear a mask….and that is a hot, tropical climate year round! I don’t understand why people throw a fit over such a simple thing over here. 🤷‍♀️

Precisely! Absolutely mind boggling. Also people have largely forgotten about all the healthcare workers and how much they have been impacted and facing the though of going through all that horror again and again because people are selfish and can't tolerate the inconvenience of wearing a mask. I still mask everywhere I go because of the kids but also for them. I am disappointed and I told hubs that even after this is over and if I have a cold, I'll be wearing a mask when I am out in public. 

[August Blooms]

In March everyone here thought the government was completed bungling Covid me included but now it’s looking way more optimistic. Almost 70% of Canada has had one dose and 45% have had their second. The numbers are even higher for my province and we are reopening malls, gyms and indoor dining. The our MLS soccer team is hosting a game with 7000 people, it’s really nice to be semi back to normal. People want the border restrictions lifted but with the Delta variant I don’t see them completely gone until 2022 at the earliest.

Taitai The situation you described sounds horrible. We are getting back to normal but a lot of people around the world are suffering and it just speaks to the great inequity around the world. I am shocked at the timeline to get Pfiser/Moderna there but I guess I really shouldn’t be.

[August Blooms]

duskymonkey I looked at that splash pad a few times and didn’t get it. Maybe I will now 🤔 I really don’t get people with kids not taking precautions, the kids rarely get hospitalized but I don’t get sacrificing your kids so an adult can have a good time. We are still doing stuff with them but with precautions. It’s actually really nice to go places since I know they won’t be busy, as we still have capacity restrictions, I hate crowds in non Covid times.

[August Blooms]

Last weekend we went to this drive through safari zoo, and the kids had a blast! I took today and tomorrow off of work with no real plans. Today I am getting my moles check out by my doctor, my eyebrows waxed (it’s been months!) and an appointment for physio. I messed up my knee biking and my triathlon is in few weeks. I also applied to the graduate program, I was terrified to ask my coworkers to be references but they were so nice I wondered why I was so worried.

[duskymonkey]

OMG! It is happening!!!! FINALLY. curmudgeon must have set off something but we are in an underwear! Waiting for our grocery to be loaded yesterday afternoon lil fella said he needed to go potty ( pee). I was like you have a diaper plus I didn't bring your shoes so we couldn't even go in the bushes. So we started talking about peeing in the potty when we got home. Somehow miraculously he held his pee until we got home about 20 odd minutes later then he ran off into DS' room and got one of his underwear to wear lol! He said he wanter to wear big bros underwear so I gave him one for his size and he was happy. It was barely half a day yesterday and we had a few accidents. Today he took himself to pee a whole bunch of times with only little wet patches so I think we are on a good track. He's got his pooping down well enough now. I am so excited to be done with diapers!!! Of course our amazon S&S arrived yesterday with 2 boxes of diapers. 

[curmudgeon]

Omgggg duskymonkey that is so great!! And he basically decided all on his own that it was time! No threats of violence like over at my house. It’s a whole new diaper-free world out there!