RBG

The day after Rebecca's trip to Balls Falls I was scheduled to take Marietta and her friends to the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG). Marietta has a great fascination with photography. Grandpa (my dad) gave us an extra camera some time ago which is mostly the girls (but used by mom and dad occasionally) and Marietta loves to go out and take pictures of flowers and nature. Last year (see here for last years pictures) we went to the RBG Rock Gardens and I had said we would go back again to see the gardens throughout the summer ... but we never did. Marietta had been asking to go see the tulips again this year and since her friends had also just gotten their own cameras she wanted to go with them. A small reminder was needed that we live much further from the RBG then we used to and gas is not cheap. And so it was decided that if the girls paid for the gas I would be the chauffer. Rebecca thought it would be nice to go along too if she could take a friend ... Marietta thought this would be great as it would decrease their gas price. So Rebecca invited her best friend Meaghan (from her old school) and was very much looking forward to getting together with her as it had been a long time since they had seen each other.


Unfortunately we did not have a very great spring. It was cold and wet. The tulip season was short. Our weekends seemed to be full and so it wasn't until the kids had a long weekend that we were finally able to make it out on a Thursday night. This worked out nice as it meant they could sleep in the next day and we did not have to be rushed to get home. (We went at night because then it was free to get in). Rebecca continued to be sick, but she wanted to go with because she would get to see her Meaghan. On Thursday morning she was feeling bad enough that she was able to make the decision on her own that she would stay home (actually go to a sitters) as she did not have the energy to go with.


The tulips were mostly done when we got there. Many had already been dug out and those that were left we not looking so bring and perky. Marietta was quite disappointed and it put a bit of a damper on the first bit of our trip. The other girls were having fun regardless and after some coaxing and pointing things out to Marietta she began to realize that flowers are lovely to take pictures of but that there were lots of other nice shots she could take of the pathways and trees and garden setup. The gardens are beautiful there and make a lovely place to have pictures taken.

This picture was pretty good timing. Just as I snapped the button Syvannah spotted the gopher that they had been tracking


















I should take some time to try doctor some of these pictures up a bit ... but if I wait until that gets done I'll never get around to bloggin :) Marietta has been having fun figuring out Picnik and playing with some of these pictures, maybe if she comes up with something nice I'll post them.







































Climbing about to figure out different poses and settings. The girls forgot all about tulips, flowers, and nature, they were having too much fun taking pictures of each other. Or should I say, having me take pictures of them in different locations/poses.










































The girls had been talking about and singing the song So Long, Farewell from the Sound of Music on the trip up and so they decided to try out their "Cuckoo" poses.


























































This would look a little nicer if there was actually water in the pond like there is supposed to be ... considering how wet it had been you think it would have been full.

After our garden "tour" we stopped for an ice cream on our way home. It was late by time we got back and then went to pick up Rebecca and Matthew. We found Rebecca, Brent and Mitchell watching Anne of Green Gables and so we let them finish the movie while we enjoyed a cup of tea ... making it really late ... good thing the next day was a holiday.

Balls Falls

Back to May again ...

During those 10 days that Rebecca was sick her class was scheduled for a trip to Balls Falls Conservation Area. The class had been studying pioneers and would be spending a morning learning and seeing different pioneer things and the afternoon hiking/walking. I was scheduled to go along as a mom/helper. Poor Rebecca was devastated by the idea that she would not be able to go. While most kids hate the idea of missing a school/class trip I could especially have empathy for her since I knew how much she loves pioneer days as all the literature she (and her sister) reads is about pioneer times. As time went on and she continued to be oddly sick we questioned how much exposure she should have with other kids. By time they were suppose to go on her trip it was now day 8 of her "illness". We decided that she could go on the trip but I would drive there and if she wasn't feeling well we would come home.


We did not even make it a half hour into the tour and she began to look pale and sick and when I was helping her try to do needle work she began to cry that she didn't feel well and her tummy hurt. Temperature check revealed a fever. Pumped some medicine in her and had her eat something and she was determined to try keep going. She perked up in about half and hour and had a wonderful time the rest of the day. I had trouble holding her back as she wanted to run and play and join the others in all the games and activities.

They had a wonderful tour of the pioneer village. It was especially nice that they didn't just look at the things but they got to try out all the different things they learned about. The tour was well done and a lot of fun for the kids.

Making rag dolls.

















Doing needlework/quilting.




















Making Flatbread and Churing Butter. While the kids were busy making flat bread each of the kids had to stand and churn th butter for a period of time in order to show how this has to be done for a long time, continously and how you are stuck at the churn while other things are going on around you.

Baking the bread. First they had to get the stove ready to put the bread in by closing the chimney and removing all the logs.

The boys got to put the bread in the oven using this paddle.

Building a barn. They were shown how to wedge together the wood and how wooden nails and hammers were used. Each child had a chance to hammer in a nail.

Ploughing the fields ... or in this case the garden.

Pumping water to do the wash.

Carrying water

Washing the clothes

After a few rounds of Red Rover and some lunch we headed down the trail for a walk and to see the falls.

These are remains of the original mill that was on the property.

The Grade 2 class with Grandma (ah hum, I mean Mrs. D) as teacher:

Waterfalls

The Church

I am so glad Rebecca was able to go. She enjoyed the rest of her day and did well with no fevers. She ran and played and seemed to have lots of energy. I kept reminding her to slow down, but she wanted to go. We got home, had snack and she crawled on the couch ... fever again, she was sound asleep in no time and slept for several hours before crawling into bed for a good nights sleep. .

Rebecca's Sick

For 10 days during May Rebecca was sick, we never did figure out what it was.

On Tuesday May 11 she bumped heads with Matthew. Matthew must have rocks in his head because he wasn't the least bit fizzled, but Rebecca was immediately dizzy and had an extreme headache. She spent the remainder of the afternoon on the couch with her eyes closed, complaining she still felt dizzy when they were closed. She ate supper quickly with her eyes closed otherwise she would be too dizzy and immediately went to lay down again. I gave her some tylenol and shortly before bedtime she perked up again.

The next day she arrived home from school crying that she had such a headache and was dizzy. Already by the first recess she was not feeling well and they had given her some tylenol at school. I am not sure why she did not ask to come home. She is usually quiet and reserved and doesn't like to draw attention to herself, but with Grandma as a teacher I would have thought she would just have said she wanted to go home.

So back to the couch she went. By supper time she was complaining that she had a funny feeling in her ears, they didn't feel like a normal ear infection, just funny. When she complained she felt cold I decided to get the thermometer out ... she had a low-grade fever, which later spiked.

The following day she woke okay but it was long and she was feverish, had a headache and was dizzy again. I was perplexed as this all started with her hitting her head. Was it a concussion? fevers don't come with a concussion; or was it a combination of a concussion and a virus? I called our family doctor but they said she would have to go to Emerge. So off to Emerge we went. I did not expect they would do anything but needed to ease my conscious and know that at least I had done something. Sure enough, nothing was done, they suggested a concussion mixed with a virus and if she wasn't better in a couple days to bring her in again.

Four days later we were still dealing with the same thing. She no longer had headaches but would get dizzy, this came with the fevers. Medicine would ease the fevers and she'd function for a bit before she'd tire out and sleep and the fevers would come back. She continued to be very tired, resting or sleeping a lot. So I took her in to our family doctor, who also suggested a virus, maybe mono. They did bloodwork (after which Rebecca nearly collapsed) and said if it continued after ten days to bring her back in. The blood work came back a few days later - Mono was negative but the blood did show some small changes suggesting something was going on.

Day nine arrived and I decided I wasn't waiting until after the weekend since it was a long weekend and we were hoping to go away for a day or so. I again called the doctor, who returned my call a little later and suggested we try an antibiotic. While I usually don't like to just treat the symptom without knowing what the problem was, at this point I figured a dose of antibiotics was worth the try and if that didn't work or the symptoms returned we deal with it more carefully.

So antibiotics it was ... gave her the first dose that night ... next day no more fevers, still a bit tired. Next day, all better!! And it didn't come back. So we have no idea what it was and we're still perplexed about how it started but have to assume it was a concidence. I write this down because I know I will forget the details later. When I took Rebecca to Emerge I had to wrack my brain, I knew she had had a concussion before, I remember sitting in Emerge at Mac with her on a Sunday morning last summer, but for the life of me I cannot remember how she hit her head or where she hit it. I search the blog but it didn't come up with any answers :( I search my old e-mails but no luck. So I figured I better write this one down ... hopefully I'll never have to search for it!!

Rebecca had her ups and downs, studying during the better times, resting, sleeping or watching tv during the nots so good times. Matthew wanted to be just like his sister, so we found him on the couch with her quite regularly.
















Playing together. The couch was certainly well used during those ten days :)

Crawford Lake

On May 3rd (yes, that's almost two months ago, I'm behind agaaaaiiiinnnn!!!) I went with Marietta's class to Crawford Lake for the day. I always enjoy these school trips as it gives a chance to see the kids with their classmates, know the teacher a bit more and see how the class functions as a unit. I have had the extra ability to see this as I have been helping out in the Grade 3/4 class since April doing some marking and helping with the Phys. Ed. class. This has especially been nice to get to know who the students are in their "new" school. It's nice to get a parents perspective of the school, teachers and kids so you can better understand your children when they come home and talk about their day. I have enjoyed it and usually try to make a point of going with on their trips.

The grade 3/4 was studying the Natives and the Iroquoians (the people of the longhouse) and so to compliment this study they had a day trip to Crawford Lake. Through archeology study they discovered that many years ago their was a Iroquois village at Crawford Lake. The kids had an opportunity to see an Iroquois setup, longhouse, and various artifacts that would have been used by the people, helping them to better visualize and understand what they had been learning. And as parents ... we learned lots to, oh to have the time to go back to school - I'm sure most of us would enjoy it and get more out of it the second time around :)




















The Longhouse
















Inside the longhouse the guide lite a small fire to demonstrate how the fire would rise and go up through the roof holes/vents. By this he also demonstrated how much smoke actually remained in the long house and did not go through the vents, thus explaining of the the main reasons why the life expectancy of the Iroquoian people was only around 35 years.
















The flash on the other side of the group is Marietta taking a picture :)































Below they are trying on a baby carrier (cradleboard. The baby was placed in the hide part and carried on their back by placing a strap around their forehead. And I thought I had neck and shoulder problems. Can you imagine the stress this would put on your head and neck to carry a baby all day long in one of these.

Marietta grinding cornmeal - rock on rock

After spending time in the longhouse viewing all the different items applicable to the Iroquois the guide taught the kids a game that the people would play. They would hold their hand out like Marietta is doing and place a stick on the top of their hand. Then they would quickly pull their hand out and catch the stick (without tossing the stick up or anything of that assort, just pull and catch).

Well that wasn't really all that hard, and for those who cheated and would toss the stick upwards to give themselves enough time to catch the stick they quickly learned that this technique was not going to work for the rest of the game. Once you master one stick you move on to two, and then three, etc. and see how many you can do.

Here the kids are trying nine. As you can see Marietta dropped a few :)

After lunch we were free to walk the trails around Crawford lake and view the nature/wild.

Trillium - Ontario's provincial flower (and I just learned from a couple websites that it is not illegal to pick the trillium - although tranplanting this wildflower is very difficult and often results in death - hence the reason they rather you didn't pick or transplant I guess)

My group: Marietta, Tejada, Hailey and Syvannah

I think Marietta took a picture of every bush, shrub, tree, grass, leaf, etc. along the way :) Let's just say she loves photography

A part of the class and their leaders. During our walk we "ran" into a couple other groups and decided to sit down for a group shot.

It was a beautiful day, the weather was gorgeous - warm but not too hot, sunny but not too much. Considering the cool/wet spring we were having it turned out very nice!!