It rained for a few days last week and I was feeling a little down. I don’t mind the rain, and in fact prefer cooler weather over sweltering hot. But I do feel like we didn’t get much of a summer this year. Guinevere was born just as summer started, and because of mild blood loss I wasn’t up for doing as much as I’d hoped those first few weeks. Then we had a twelve hour drive to go visit family, and stayed there for three weeks. And while I love my family and we had a lot of fun, it’s not the same when you are visiting and trying to see lots of people and fit various things in to a short time. Then we got home, basically unpacked and cleaned, and had more family come visit us. And then, the week they left, it rained. Ah well, it was still a fun summer, and we did have some pretty great days in there.
Last week, when it was still sunny, we headed to the Discovery Centre. I didn’t get a ton of pictures, but the girls were super excited to see the octopus. They had been talking about it since they heard we were going.
They spent some time colouring and playing with puzzles, looking at the microscopes, creating a mosaic whale, and listening to a talk about how whales eat. We saw a baleen that was taller than Fiona! We learned that generally you don’t feel it when a clear jellyfish sting, unlike colourful ones. (Though I discovered later that is simplistic, and there are some very dangerous clear jellyfish. I now want to find out if it is just that the clear ones in our area aren’t dangerous/painful.) They played in the touch tank, then with some puppets. Then we headed outside. We were waiting for Kris to be done something he needed to get done and come pick us up, so we decided to head to the beach.
On the way, we passed through a park with live music playing, and both girls spontaneously started whirling around and dancing.
It’s hard to get a clear picture of two little girls whirling around, so you’ll have to use your imagination.
We headed to the beach, where I sat with Guinevere enjoying the sunshine and watching the older two play.
Then they headed down to the water and Meredith came racing back up to tell me there were jellyfish. I had never seen jellyfish in this water before, so I was curious what she was seeing and went down to the water to see for myself. Sure enough, tons and tons of jellyfish, all along the shoreline.
Pictures really don’t do them justice. At least, not the pictures I got. Meredith pointed out that they were pink, so must sting. While we were playing at the beach, an elderly lady made her way to near us and came over to talk to me and chat about Guinevere. She mentioned she was from Saskatchewan and had never seen the ocean before. Hard to imagine! Meredith overheard her and came over to join in, and the lady was pretty awesome. Her and Meredith got to chatting, and then she asked Meredith if she would show her the ocean. Down they went, and at first the lady couldn’t see the jellyfish, but Meredith pointed them out to her and told her all about what we had learned about them earlier.
When the girls were done with the beach, we wandered along the coast a bit, walking out on the docks and checking out the fish market. Back to the park for more dancing, and then we were outside the Discovery Centre again, where one of the workers was feeding the creatures in their outdoor pool (which has water directly from the ocean).
It was right around this time Kris showed up, and we headed home just in time for bed, tired, but happy.
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