after the cake..

the candy bouquet was opened and promptly poured into bowls for snacking in the tent... which the group wasted no time in getting to.I set up a cooler with drinks for them, and I gave out lots of extra comforters, sweaters and socks so they would be wonderfully warm. They had a blast as they watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I popped popcorn and delivered it to the tent. Then they decided to watch High School Musical. The most amazing part of all was that they were all asleep by midnight and I didn't heard a sound until morning. (One girl announced when she arrived for Hunter's party that at the last birthday sleepover she attended that she had stayed up all night, as Ron & I looked at each other with raised eyebrows.) It was a great little party!

the candy bouquet...

the first stop for getting ready for the party involved a stop at the local candy store to order this special candy bouquet. The kids have been salivating over these bouquets forever, we just needed an excuse to buy one. The bouquet included 8 kinds of candy that Hunter picked out herself, and it was to be the candy treat for the movie night.

Of course, we added our own gum stash on the plate below.

hunter's b-day....

Our sweet babycakes recently turned 11. With each passing birthday, we rack our brains with how we can celebrate in a way that is unusual & different from the year before. This year we celebrated with an Ice Cream Dream Party & Sleepover at our house. We convinced Daddy to set up the tent in the backyard with our small tv and dvd player inside so that Hunter and her friends could have their own little drive-in style movie night. After consulting the forecast for a few days, we chose a day that looked like the weather involved no rain and delivered invitations to 4 of her friends. My next challenge was to seek out & find movies that these girls have not seen, which is not an easy task with the techo-savvy kids of today. I decided on Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Mrs. Doubtfire, with Season 1 of Gilmore Girls as backup.

The biggest change that I have noticed with Hunter since her last birthday is that the barbies, polly pockets and the bratz hardly came out of the closet. . Same for the dress-up clothes....sigh...I knew this day would come.

tuckered out....

Chet gets us to the airport at around 7:30 pm to catch our 9 pm flight home. He drops us off and Hunter starts crying while we are going thru security because she has left her ipod in his car. Once we get thru security, I call Chet and he turns around to bring back her ipod and I go back thru security to meet him at the drop off spot. When we board the plane, I get out my book to read a little while the kids are looking out the window.... when it seems very quiet.... why am i reading and no one is bothering me????..... I look over and Tyler is out COLD.... sound asleep before we even taxi to the runway to take off. By this time, we have been up for almost 24 hours... since we got up at Grammie & Grampie's at 3:00 am to leave for the airport at 3:30 am.... to get to the airport by 5am for our 6 am flight. What a day!! But when we land, kids are running off to see Daddy!!!

TO...

Our plane arrived in TO at 7:20 am and my cousin Chet was there to meet us. He just recently graduated from U of T and he lives in downtown TO. We have not seen him for a year and we are so excited to see him. He knows TO like the back of his hand and we set off for the Hockey Hall of Fame. But first we decide to stop for breakfast since everybody is hungry. We go to a place called "3 Peppers" which is just down the street from his apartment. Tyler has toast, Hunter has a breakfast panini and Chet and I have 3 pepper omelet sandwiches. We arrive at the Hall of Fame around 10 am.

viewing more of the exhibits...

shoot out...

one of Tyler's favorite parts of the hall of fame...

the cup...

Yes, this is the REAL Stanley Cup. The Holy Grail of Hockey. We all touched it.

CN Tower...

After we had finished at the Hockey Hall of Fame, we set off to see the CN Tower. We arrived around 12:30 and decided to have lunch on the concourse outside the Tower. Tyler & Chet had hot dogs and Hunter & I had crepes and we all had fresh squeezed lemonade. The weather is very humid and warm. Too hot to walk around almost. The wait to go to the obervation deck on the tower is 2 hours and I know Tyler won't last that long, so we decided to head off to Chet's apartment for while to stay cool.

Legends of the game....

Chet took us to the store in downtown TO which reportedly has the largest collection of hockey cards in the world. Tyler's budget for this store was $10. We saw hockey cards worth more than $1000. Tyler was looking for a Gretsky card... and he managed to find a $3.00 card.

Wii...

When the afternoon got really hot, we went back to his basement apartment to cool off. The kids had a great time playing with Chet's Nintendo Wii, while I dozed a little on the sofa, since we were up so early.

Suishi.....

Chet took us to his favorite suishi place for supper, which was just a 2 minute walk from his apartment. It was really yummy. Hunter and I both had a chicken bento box. Delicious. Tyler had a fruit smoothie for supper.