Building our McPhi-ego: Canada Trip 2014 Part 1

Thomas had his first plane ride this summer.

You all remember our fun passport experience, well it was all in preparation for this.

There were three things that stood out to me during our flying experience.

1. Why on earth do they have early boarding for small children? If anything, there should be a special post boarding after everyone else has taken forever to settle.

2. I never noticed that it takes almost an hour from when you board to when you actually take off (usually I jut go right to sleep). This seems ridiculous.

3. Why would you have a plane scheduled to leave at 6:15 when the tarmac doesn't open until 6:30...?

For the first flight Thomas slept for the majority of both plane rides, which was perfect since I was alone. I even had a couple people offer to help and everyone was really nice. He was less good on the way back when Michael was there. Think crying baby on a plane, that was us.

It was a wonderful trip though. My parents were happy and excited to see Thomas, and I was happy and excited to pass him off to them and have a couple weeks of alone time.

Thomas loved the freedom on my parents farm. He learned to crawl the week before we left in preparation for his adventures. His crawl developed into pulling himself up and walking around furniture while he was there...

Above is the first time I caught him pulling himself up to stand. He was pretty pleased with himself.

He was kept so busy that his sleeping also improved. He would go to sleep at 7:30 and sleep until 8:30 the next morning (sometimes with a 5am snack). It was wonderful.

How did we keep him busy?

Garden time. Lots and lots of garden time.

Every baby loves dirt. And surprisingly he didn't eat too much of it.

Except when there were potatoes involved

An afternoon's harvest

Going to work with Grandpa.

Thomas was allowed to try the excavator.

You can never start too young...

And every child should know how to use a sledge hammer :)

My dad is currently building 4 houses, this is one he just finished. So nice! If only we lived in Victoria so he could build us a house.

Playing with chicks.

My parents got day old chicks while we were there.

Thomas was quite amused. The chicks were not.

Fun with horses.

My parents found this adorable rocking horse at a garage sale.

We have a cowboy on our hands.

After some practice it was time to switch to the real thing.

He wasn't as sure about this.

Driving

We went to garage sales the first two Saturdays we were there.

Both times Thomas found himself in a vehicle.

The above vehicle was our favorite. It wasn't for sale and the little boy it belonged to got really upset when he found Thomas in it. He tried to drag it away while Thomas was still inside. Pretty funny.

Lake time.

My friend Rosie and I took Thomas swimming at a lake near my house. He didn't care too much for the water, bu he loved playing with the rocks.

Roaming the house.

One nice thing about my parents house is that there are lots of things around to keep Thomas busy while crawling around on the floor. He loved playing with the kitchen utensils.