Thursday, June 04, 2009

A break amid the packing chaos...

The girls are now well on their way to being dual citizens, like me. Yesterday we headed down to Toronto to visit the U.S. Embassy to file the paperwork. Our appointments were actually this morning at 8:30 and 9:00am, but we went down yesterday so we wouldn't have to get up at a horrible hour this morning. We found a great hotel on priceline with a pool and a hot tub, which we enjoyed!

Our first stop on the way down was at a park for a picnic lunch. We love to picnic. The girls had a fun time on the playground and were able to burn off some steam before we continued on to TO.

When we got to the city we headed right downtown so we could figure out where we would be going. I am not a big city girl. I think it is crazy how many people are packed in to such a small space. I was thankful that Dennis was driving so that I was freed up to notice all the nasty steam escaping from the grates in the streets and the buses that were barrelling down on us.

After driving downtown we headed to our hotel. We went down to the pool right away.

The girls are so funny in the water. Squeaky is the only one who has had any swimming lessons. She does pretty well in the water but we have to watch her since she feels too confident for her own good. She really is just a sack of bones that would sink to the bottom in no time if she wasn't being held up by us.

Button has a natural buoyancy and takes to the water like a fish. She is like a little barrel. Her bottom floats to the top first, then her tummy, then her bottom again- round and round she goes, giggling the whole time.


Winnie hasn't been in the water very often. At first she was scared, but she soon started to enjoy it. Her favorite thing was to scoop up the water in her mouth and drink it. I kept telling her that was gross. She kept right on scooping it in saying, "Yum, Uky! Yum, Uky!" as if "Uky" was the name of the water. I don't think she gets it. She also had a couple of face plants while she was sitting on the steps that scared her (and us) a little bit. After that we mainly kept her in our arms and made one of the other girls wait their turn on the steps.






After we put the girls down for the night I went back down by myself to get in the hot tub. Ahhh. Love that.
We had been praying about these appointments at the embassy for a long time and I was very nervous. It turned out that we had a very nice lady helping us and everything went fine. The girls kept saying, "Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!" And Button brought out her standard reminder, "We need Jesus all the time, Mommy." :)

8 comments:

Norm said...

glad to hear that it all went ok! We have done that a couple of times with our boys, it feels so good once all the paperwork is complete!!

Join Us For Breakfast said...

Button's right :)
glad you had fun and had a helpful lady.
Patti

pat ve said...

Quite a trip! Quite a swim! And now...all of my grandchildren are citizens of the U.S.A. I trust that one day they will each be able to say "my citizenship is in Heaven..."
We need Jesus all the time.

Anonymous said...

okay, so I laughed lots reading this, so maybe Button takes after her easton aunts in the bouyancy department but that face is priceless!! I notice squeaky's lips a bit blue...she takes after her dad!! And for Winnie... I didn't even recognize her with her hair wet, she looks so different!! Very cute girls, I'm glad you had a time to relax before you head back to the packing!!
Love yas
B

Anonymous said...

Good for you!
Gramma

Sabrina said...

Awesome.
God is so good, I am glad you all had a great time. What a nice little break after finishing up and before moving!
I love the 8th pic! Can I have a copy?!
Love ya

Kate said...

Ditto, ditto, and ditto. And super-cool shades Val! :)

Jean said...

As I said on FB Welcome to the new fellow American citizens.

Perhaps this summer the girls will have more chances to try out swimming pools and /or lakes. Why didn't Winnie have some water wings or a styrofoam belt to keep her a little more bouyant?