149 years young our home country was on the 1st of July of this year. Next year is a big one, who knows we may even find our way back up north to celebrate? But no promises. But displaced Canadians or not, we celebrated as best we could a weekday that meant nothing so spectacular as being the birthday of a nation. It was hard to make a Friday more than a Friday here in Minnesota. Poor Echo wished strangers a Happy Canada on our walk back from a park date and got no response. But she had a blast sharing her celebration with the world so it was a win!

Anyway. We skipped Cluby that morning as I demanded a day where we DIDN’T walk 2 miles two ways and instead filled our mosquito tent with festive red balloons and colouring pages and GLITTER GLUE! Win win right?

We decorated the front yard a little… I am always hoping to add to our Canada stash but it is rough going when you live in the middle of the States. Thankfully Karyn is always keeping an eye peeled for some Dollarama wares.

Of course we did our usual pictures… which are always a lot of fun. Karyn brought us all brand new shirts on her visit this summer. Talk about a well dressed group! Though I have to say, Gavin’s eh? shirt was my favourite.

Even our hammock was the appropriate colour.

We did our favourite fireworks activity.

And had a red and white lunch with Canadian snacks straight from CANADA!

I even had my own Canada in a cup thanks to Karyn and Lauralee at the suggestion of fellow Canadian abroad Caroline.

We snuck in a playdate at the park with our American homeschool buddies who got a kick out of our duds and helped us put a huge smile on our day of Canada-centric joy. Sadly no pictures but Echo did wish random strangers a HAPPY CANADA on our walk and was a little put out that they did not respond in kind. This was corrected on Sunday when Wes our favourite lifeguard called Echo over to wish her a BELATED happy Canada Day after he and I sat and chatted and he realized the event had passed. She had a huge smile and gave him a Happy Canada Day right back! Man do I love the people at the YMCA. Enjoy a favourite rant/commercial.

We also played the national anthem and sang along and of course enjoyed a rendition of the Log Driver’s Waltz… I still know all the words and found a subtitled version for the kids to sing along! Check it out. Well worth the listen.. the tune is so catchy.

I made sure to have a family picture taken – well the natural born CANADIAN family picture. Ken said no to being included as he felt that he was better suited to TAKE this photo than to be in it. Silly man. Of course the kids told him he is just as Canadian as they are since he married me and is such a nice man (ok so maybe they are a wee bit delusional but they really love their dad).

So since it was a week day it wasn’t a fancy celebration. We had fun, ate out, celebrated loudly and plan to make it even more exuberant next year when our special day falls on a weekend. Now, sit back and enjoy the red, white and no blue images that we took to top off our day of all things Canadian…. eh.

(Gavin middle)

Ok so with all my complaints about the government lately a trip to the provincial capital may seem odd… maybe gutsy? Well, not so much! But first… our craft of the day!

Today’s craft was off of a website my cousin in BC actually alerted me to: One Minute Crafts.com and was called Sunny Dais Foot Art… Very simple really (though there was a video to watch first which was nice!). First you trace out your foot (or in our case each child’s foot) on a piece of white or scrap paper and cut it out.

Gavin getting his foot traced.

Then you cut out the feet and trace them onto your coloured paper – 4 for each colour – yellow, red and orange… We did orange for Emanuel, red for Gavin and yellow for Zander… as well as trace a cd on yellow paper for your circle and cut out.

All the cut out shapes!

Next you place them in an alternating pattern to make your sun rays… and glue the circle over the middle… I actually added a second circle on top of that as my white glue dried kind of lumpy to make a smoother finish. And then we placed it on the wall above our tree!

Finished Sun

Lots of fun for the kids, and then we talked about what a sun does for us and whether or not it is warm or cold when the sun shines right now. They were so proud of their feet being the things traced out and used! Would totally suggest for anyone to do BUT we DID cut out all of this ourselves and make the pattern.

Now onto my playdate – while we could not co-ordinate with any of our friends who have children we did plan an outing to the Legislature with Chris and Chris… not to complain about the government – even better – to play in the fountains! There were 3 that you are allowed to go into, one a calm pool we skipped, another with little tiny waterfalls and then a huge one that is a nice deepness and great fun to sit in and float around! Next time I need to bring our floaty we have for babies for that pool! It wasn’t too deep for Trinity to stand in but too deep for her to do anything but hold onto us.

The Leg and the Pool You DON'T Play in!

We brought the boys some of our Ikea kids’ bowls to play with and a cup for Trinity and let them loose… they climbed all over and splashed and played for about 2 hours! Even Trinity got in on the fun a little, though she was not interested in getting anywhere close to the waterfalls and really did not want to wander too far from us where we were sitting and cooling our feet.

Chris, Trinity and Me 🙂

Gavin sitting in the Waterfall!

Zander in the Waterfall!

The deeper pool was great fun for the boys, and hopefully next time we can spent more time over there and actually sit in and relax! The water was surprisingly warm and very clean.

Ken, Chris, Trinity and Emanuel in the Deeper Pool

Emanuel, Zander and Gavin

Snack Time! Emanuel, Gavin and Zander!

I am very happy with my day, it got hot in the house but we had fun in the morning and a BLAST in the evening… a good day to remind oneself that you make your OWN fun and there ARE things to be done on a shoestring budget that don’t FEEL like you are cutting corners! Well it DOES help that the company was terrific too!

Sign of a Successful Outing! Fast Asleep!