I made this quick video a little while ago when I needed some cheering up and never really shared it.

So here are my 3 princesses.

We hosted 18 people for a huge breakfast feast this morning, and now I’m cleaning up and watching my Dolphins slowly lose to the *cough* Bills. Soon, it is out for Chinese food–the girls most favourite meal in the world (and one of my top choices as well).

Anyways, here is a quick pic taken today as they unwrapped a pair of Rapunzel plushies. They LOVE anything Disney.

Sauble Beach (on Lake Huron) is known for its sunsets, and we were treated to some gorgeous ones–when it wasn’t cloudy that is.

Madeleine (no, “it’s MADDY!” as she would say) had a blast below:

And then there was Claire, picking stones and collecting them to take home of course:

When the weather was poor, we took off into town for ice cream… and  shopping of course. Charlotte is all about shopping–just like her mother–and decided it would be fun to try on every single pair of sunglasses she could find. Charlie is a fashionista already:

And then there was my wife and I…running around and trying to read and relax when we could. We even found time to take a quick pic:

Her parents came up with us as well, which was fun. They were also a great help with the kids too, and even watched them on occasion so we could take off into town or go for a drive. I got a bit of reading in, ate way too much, drank even more, and gained a few pounds…but isn’t that what vacation is for?

I even wrote a new chapter on the current WIP while there.

I came back relaxed and ready to charge ahead to an encroaching deadline.

Though I already can’t wait to go back to the cottage next year.

Sun and fun. Can’t go wrong.

And as for being unplugged? I did a pretty good job. No tweeting or Facebook. Though I admit I did peek once or twice. And I did check email at one point… But all in all, it was a rather nice break from the internet. I’ll definitely unplug again.

Saturday was spent driving through usual May-2-4 weather: RAIN. But our hopes of good times were not washed away by the 90 minute delay at the border or long-ish drive. Oh no. We had Disney upon Disney movie to watch and listen to while we drove. Good times indeed. We made it to Castaway Bay in Sandusky Ohio around 2:30pm. This place is awesome. Total indoor waterpark chaos. Waterslides, tube slides, wave pool, bar, splash works. So much to do, we ended up spending 5 hours in there. Prunes we were. After cleaning up, we headed out for dinner–and drinks of course.

Sunday consisted of rollercoaster madness. A lot of rollercoaster madness to be exact. That’s right, we hit the heartland of rollercoasters, Cedar Point. And the weather? Wow. Gorgeous and sunny. A perfect day for what is traditionally a rainy weekend. So we hit the park hard with the Raptor, and didn’t look back. Everyone had a blast. Highlights were definitely Millennium Force (310 feet high, 85 degree drop, 92 mph), and the Top Thrill Dragster (420 feet high, 90 degree up/down, 120 mph, ride is over in 17 secs).

This is the Top Thrill Dragster (part of it).

This is me, disappearing in a 120 mph blur (orange shirt, last car).

Everyone had SO much fun. Can’t WAIT to go back next year.

Erika decided to tackle pre-cooking a ton of wonderful food this weekend, making everything from cream of broccoli and potato squash soup, to stuffed pasta shells with spinach and ricotta, to easy lasagna tubes (so good!). She also made a huge batch of homemade pasta sauce to freeze as well. I helped by washing dishes. Yes, I’m actually pretty good at that.

While entertaining the kids, I also got caught up on some web-related stuff and watched a bunch of NFL wildcard games.

On Sunday morning, after Erika whipped up an awesome breakfast of spinach and feta omelettes, we decided to take the girls to a local park that had an ice rink poured where the summertime splash pad is located. Charlotte got skates for Christmas, and prior to Sunday, had never been skating before.

I on the other hand can’t get a skate around my right ankle since I shattered it playing highschool football (unless I get expensive, heat-molded skates), so Erika took Charlotte out onto the ice. I think all of Charlie’s gymnastic and dance training helped with her balance, as she picked up skating like a charm and barely fell. She did amazing for her first time out–and had a lot of fun too.

I spent time taking Claire and Maddy tobogganing, and dragging them around the park. I sure got a good workout from that. The twins also spent a lot of time “excavating snow stones” and placing them in their sled. Actually they did this for a very long time, totally content in digging up chunks of icy snow and stacking them up.

After Charlotte was done skating, she joined her sisters in snow demon making (I don’t call them angels).

Afterward, we treated the girls to lunch and then headed home to warm up.

Here is a really quick video I shot with our camera of Charlotte on the ice skates for the first time, and Claire and Maddy excavating “snow stones”.

What a great weekend.

Then I at least hope to run into these lovelies again…

Yes, that’s right, when I get up tomorrow morning I’m off with the family to Disney World!

Can’t wait for the warm weather and silly fun. And of course I will be taking lots of pics of my various exploits…and hopefully having a few drinks along my merry way.

And similar to most things I do, you can follow along via Twitter.

Back in a week!

It was a very busy Saturday in the Molata household. The girls had a Halloween party at their dance studio in the afternoon, so Erika busily got them ready into their costumes. It was nice, as we were able to drop them off and have 2 hours to ourselves–which involved a rather tasty lunch. After the party we picked them up and headed home where we ran around like decapitated zombies getting things ready for the evening festivities. Erika’s parents came over and we had dinner, and then once again got the kids ready for trick or treating fun.

And wow, did they have a good time. They got SO MUCH CANDY. Mountains. Really, with 3 kids going out, the piles of sugar add up shockingly fast.

Madeleine and Claire both went as fairies, and Charlotte went as Alice.

After we got the kids to bed, Erika and I started working on our own costumes as we had an “adults-only” Fangbangers party to go to, hosted by Erika’s cousin Marcy and her husband George. And what fun–er, chaos–we had!

I was originally aiming for Bon Jovi circa 1986, but ended up looking like Vince Neil circa 1987. Which was fine by me. It was fun being an out-of-control big-hair rocker. Erika went as an 80s new wave girl, complete with bangles and big hair and crazy-bright neon clothes. She looked awesome!

We made it to the party on time and proceeded to get somewhat (okay, maybe “quite”) inebriated. Marcy and George put on an awesome event, including a bottles of Type A Neg (fruit punch Gatorade), which I quickly spiked with vodka. Why not replenish your electolytes while drinking? Exactly. We ended up staying overnight (planned) as we didn’t go to bed (er, pass out) until 3:30AM.

I haven’t had this much fun on Halloween in a long time. Can’t wait for next year!

Do know that the entire family had a wonderful time at the cottage, and the kids are all sun-kissed and happy and wishing they could go back. And they will–we’re going to take a quick trip back to the beach over the Labour Day long weekend.

But before then, I need to busy myself with writing and such. And getting caught up on some blog posts about some great books I’ve read lately.

So need this.

Be good!

It has been nothing but frigid days mixed with rain, rain, and more rain. And like, really frigid. And if it’s not cold outside, it’s raining. Or it’s both.

I mean, come on, where is the hot and steamy July I crave all year? Where is the warm weather that I travel for in the winter months?

This weekend was of the rainy variety. So much so that the streets flooded and people were trapped in cars and homes were wrecked. Luckily we didn’t have any flooding in our basement ourselves, but a lot of people weren’t so fortunate. It was 2 days of solid rain marked by thunderstorms and lightning, with a sprinking of sun showers here and there.

In fact, the closed the highway near my place since it was flooded over, along with several city streets.

I didn’t think we lived in monsoon territory–guess I was wrong.

A week ago we went camping with the kids to our favourite summertime locale–Sauble Beach. But wow, was it cold. We had to pack blankets galore, and long-sleeved shirts and pants and hoodies. On what normally is the hottest weekend of the summer, we froze. Very surreal. The beach was empty, the usually bustling beach-town streets were pretty vacant. Almost to post-apocalyptic proportions. I’ve never seen Sauble Beach that dead in the middle of July.

To give you an idea of how cool it was on the beach, here I am trying to look excited (though that may have been the beer).

Yeah, it was that cold that I had to wear a hoodie over a t-shirt at 2 in the afternoon ON THE BEACH!

Even sacrificing seagulls and drinking their blood did not appease the sun gods.

This coming long-weekend we’re heading back up to Sauble Beach for 4 days of camping and beach fun. I hope that the weather takes a turn for the better being that August kicks off the 2009 season on Saturday. Let’s hope.

But if not, I will not let this horrid summer weather get my spirits down–and will, in fact, drink more spirits to keep me warm.