Fantasy Fair

Wow March Break sure seems like a long time ago, a quick reminder of how fast time flies by as it's already two months later.

As previous blogs talk about, our March Break did not start off on the right foot, or should I say arm. With Matthew breaking his arm and needing a cast put on it put a slight change on our plans. Originally we had hoped to go away with my parents for part of the week. The original plan was to go up north snowmobiling ... or at least the guys would go snowmobiling and we would enjoy some relaxing time at the hotel with the kids, some shopping time, and a few kids length snowmobile rides. As time got closer the snow got further away ... melting in most areas and that meant in order to find snow we had to do a lot more driving, which didn't seem all that appealing for a three day trip. The Friday before the March Break I did some calling around and basically found that we had to go to Quebec to find snow, further research suggested it would be about a 10 hour drive to find decent enough snow for snowmobiling. The idea of snowmobiling was put away. Really it's Rob and my Dad that want to snowmobile, altho I don't mind going for a few shorter trip (as in a few hours versus there sun-up to sun-down trips), I would be quite content just to get away from home, from the cooking and cleaning and relax away from things for a bit. The kids would enjoy some swimming, playing int he snow (which we didn't get any of this year) and just carefree fun. Driving ten hours to do this didn't seem worth it. So after some thinking we moved on to Plan B, while not settled, it likely consisted of spending some touristy time in Toronto.

Well with a broken arm Matthew wouldn't be doing any swimming, making the idea of a hotel less appealing and relaxing if we had to avoid the pool and only let the girls go when he didn't know about it ... not very family-like time. We had hoped to leave on Monday, but with Matthew scheduled to have his cast put on that day we could no longer do that ... then we didn't really know how he would feel afterwards so we didn't think it was fair to go away right away.

Meanwhile Dad and Rob both still had snowmobiling stuck in their heads ... they were just waiting for the wives to okay them to go on a trip by themselves. Realizing that we weren't going to have much fun with Matthew's current state and that this would likely be Rob's last opportunity in a long time to take off snowmobiling ... we gave the okay. The smiles spread on their faces and away they went to their planning.

So our March Break was a bit more mellow, but still relaxing. Matthew did fine once his cast was on and so on the Wednesday we headed off to Etobicoke to check out the Fantasy Fair - an indoor fairground.. Well ... we knew it would be busy during the break, but we didn't think it would be quite so bad. In the end it took pretty much all day for us to ride all the rides once and a few of them more then once. While the kids still enjoyed themselves it would only be worthwhile to go to such a place on a day when most kids are in school. It definitely wasn't worth it that day ... but we made the best of it.

Matthew is not a rides kind of boy. There was only one ride he liked and he basically refused to go on the rest of them. All he wanted to do was go on the train ride, which was a little train that drove around the park. He slowly began to understand the concept of waiting in line, and while his patience wasn't the greatest he did get better as the day went on.

The kids on the train:

We went on the train first and then carried on to the next ride. Matthew went on this one also, but this one was not his style and resulted in tears. After that he pretty much had no interest in anymore of the rides.,

This was more his style ... something that doesn't move (because I refuse to pay $1 - or was it $2 - to make a car move for a minute)!

Besides the train Matthew loved the giant playground. His broken arm didn't slow him down in the least as he climb all around and ran back and forth throughout the place. The best part was the bridge where you can see the park from, because from there he could stand above the train and watch it. His little ears would pick out the sound of the train coming and he would make sure he was on the bridge to watch it.

Since the Fair is in the mall my mom went off shopping for a while after lunch and I took all the kids. After standing in line for over half an hour waiting for a ride on the ferris wheel, Matthew took one look at the "car" we had to sit in and threw a fit, refusing to get on it. The girls went by themselves and we went downstairs in the mall to watch them come around on the bottom floor.

The girls wanted to go on the bumper cars so we stood in line for another half hour and then I got three rides in a row out of the deal since the kids could not go on by themselves but had to have an adult with them. Matthew went first and much to my surprise he loved it. "Go faster mom". Marietta took lots of pictures but they were all blurry (as are many indoor pictures on my camera, I can't figure out how to get good indoor pics).

We tried the Carousel, at least one ride didn't have a long line-up. But Matthew again freaked out and refused to go on it.

So in the end we were either on the train or at the playground with Matthew. The girls spent part of the day on their own and my mom and I rotated between watching them or watching Matthew.

Given that Matthew had a broken arm, had just been sedated the day before and his body was out of sorts he did really well. By the end of the day he was getting miserable and less patient and we had him in the stroller more so he didn't have to stand and could rest. All considering he was really good for the day ... if only he had been willing to go on a few more rides.

The rest of the March Break was pretty mellow we had a couple movie nights where we watched Anne of Green Gables. We had just finished reading the book together and it's always fun to watch the movie afterwards. The girls took the lack of trip quite well and didn't complain because they still had lots of fun . They enjoyed Fantasy Fair but even better yet Aunt Val and Aunt Jess took them to an indoor carnival that was in Hamilton for the March Break. I guess the March Break wasn't so mellow afterall ... it just was for me because they were gone. They had a sleepover at Aunt Val's and then the next day went to the carnival. They said the lines were much better there. I had thought it would be much busier being a temporary thing and during the March Break, but sounds like it was all reasonable and the kids had tons of fun. They enjoyed the carnival better then Fantasy Fair ... I'm not sure if that's because of the rides, or because they spent less time in lines and more time on the rides.