Tag: playtime

Oak Bay Tea Party

Every year in early June the municipality of Oak Bay hosts a fun parade, community party and fireworks- The Oak Bay Tea Party. They bring in a mini amusement park which is always fun except it will bankrupt you!

We normally avoid this event because Claire & Rhys don’t do too well with rides. Actually, let’s clarify that… Rhys does not do well with rides. He is always eager to get on but then he gets scared and sick feeling when it starts to run. We thought we would test the waters this year and give it a whirl. It went okay until the end when Rhys sat in a bumper car with Claire. She is a crazy race car driver in those things and Rhys was super bummed. Made for some funny photos though! Post-amusement park cuddles with Dad made it all better ♥.

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Happy times before the rise started:

Once the ride started- poor Rhys! He has to ride it out until it was over:

Cuddles with Dad ♥:

 

Victoria Day long weekend…mini-golf!

This was one of the best May long weekends ever. The sun finally shone a whole four days and the temperature was hot. Yay!

We did a lot of gardening, we re-organized the kids room so it was more ‘big-kid’. Claire is very much like me…she loves organizing! We had a sweet moment when she sat on her bed and said ‘this feels SO good!’. It was a success. Jimmy bought a slip-and-slide and we all had some fun in the yard. We even set-up the kids giant pool for them to splash around in. We also had a nice picnic and play with some friends. Jimmy got in a few skate morning sessions with his friends which he always enjoys!

One of the high-lights was going mini-golfing. We went to Mattick’s Farm mini-golf which was perfect as it is in the woods so nicely shaded. Rhys would hit the balls like he was playing hockey so that was pretty funny and Claire would sweep the balls into the hole. Jimmy won in the end..no surprise there as he is pretty good at golfing compared to the rest of us ;). it was a great way to spend sometime outside on a hot sunny day.

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Claire’s new reading spot in her updated room:

Twinsies:

Mini-golf:

Jimmy skate fun:

Elk Lake

On a hot Sunday morning we decided to pack up our swimming gear and head to Elk Lake which is about a 15 minute drive from our house. Jimmy spent a lot of time at this Lake and the conjoining Beaver Lake in his youth. I ran the trails of this lake when I went to University. The trails are really nice and if you run the whole lake it is 10km. Elk Lake is the training area for Canada’s Olympic Rowing team and is a popular fishing area as they stock the lake with fish annually.

We arrived fairly early so there were not many people. We played in the sand and then quickly made our way into the warm lake water. Claire and Rhys love swimming. Particularly Claire who is a fish and once in the water does not want to come out. After a few hours we packed up and headed home to host our friends for an early evening BBQ. A great Sunday!

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4Claire being a ‘baby turtle’ on her daddy turtles back 🙂

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Art on Four – family funday!

As we’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, we drive A LOT here in Jo’burg. On our travels we often pass an art studio that appears too cool not to visit. Unfortunately, every call we’ve placed ends up unanswered or with no booking spots available. Not this time though!

Art on One is a unique place for families where you paint for social fun rather than instruction. You pay by canvas size and are given two hours to complete your painting, drink coffee, eat treats or go outside and play on their great playground.

It turned out to be a beautiful and warm sunny day for our visit. Claire & Rhys love being creative so we knew this would be a big hit with them. Jimmy even joined in the painting fun. We spent a very fun and leisurely two hours painting several canvases, leaving us plenty of time to run around outside with the kids while the paint dried. What a great Saturday!

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Bunny Park, Benoni

Recently, we read about a park full of bunnies that was in the nearby suburb of Benoni. It was a nice warm day when we visited and although we weren’t completely impressed by the park itself, the kids did have fun with all of the bunnies and we had some good play time. It made for a solid weekend adventure.

Its always nice to find more public parks to visit that are relatively safe.

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Morninghill Green Park

In South Africa the fear of the unknown is always present. Many Johannesburg neighborhoods go so far as to block of certain roads that lead into their areas. They’ll hire a security guard who monitors the one singular main entrance exclusively, taking down license plate numbers, etc. Seeing as this pooling of funds and hiring of security is often privately done, it makes for lots of unmarked dead-ends and unexpected U-turns while driving around. One day, we noticed an unmanned gate and opted to drive in without ill intention. We left without incident after a nice walk. It was very pretty and very quiet and we made some nice conversation with the other people who also chose to stroll on this day.

 

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