this weekend was the perfect type of weather. not at all hot but with the right amount of sunlight to make it warm and beautiful. we found ourselves outdoors quite a bit – not wanting to miss the chance to worship the sun.
i started my saturday morning with yoga – a routine that included some very nice sun salutations for warm-up. quite fitting, if you ask me, for the type of weekend we had.
after doug came home from his shift and we had our breakfast, we headed over to the rouge to continue our love for the hiking trails and bio-diversity of nature. it was officially our first hike of the year. we saw many species of birds and butterflies, as well as a slithering gardner snake.
there was one part of the trail that divides into two paths – a lower one taking us to the bottom of the forest/valley and a higher one that continues along the ridge. we opted for the lower one and then found an area clear enough but off-path to exercise our legs as we made the steep climb up.
chaeli wasn’t exactly thrilled about this part but as she started to get use to her body and balance (and learned that on the really steep parts, it’s okay to use her hands on the ground – nature’s dirt, after all, isn’t as dirty as it looks), she started to enjoy herself. at the top, another valuable lesson was learned – pushing forward and positive thinking will get you through it. and yes, she CAN do it. she just had to try. on the way back, she twittered on about how she was able to climb such a steep hill.
as for me, it was just simply exhilarating. moments of feeling my feet about to give and slip away, only to catch my balance right at the last minute and climb my way out of the tricky area – yeah, that felt good. a winter-long period of strengthening my legs seemed to work. but until i had a chance to test it out, i really hadn’t see what my hard work amounted to.
saturday night, we went out for wings, fries and beer (beer is a definite treat – i rarely drink it and when i do, it’s just the occasional one to two on a weekend). chaeli enjoyed her plain wings and shared with us the poutine appetizer we bought. topped off which chocolate milk and eating all our carrot sticks, i say she was well fed.
sunday morning, doug woke up before us and headed to work. the weather continued to bless us and i refused to spend our time inside.
chaeli and i headed to the zoo (thank you zoo membership – once again, you serve us well) and enjoyed our breakfast at the peacock cafe just inside the entrance and then a leisurely stroll to see animals from both the indo malay and african safari areas.
i thought the zoo would be a bore to chaeli by now – what with our almost yearly, annual membership from the year she was born. but now that she is older, she’s more interested in animal facts and so as we stopped to take a look at the different types of species (anywhere from fish to snakes or from birds to lions), she had questions of which i was able to answer most of them (thanks to my own upbringing from my father – who taught me to respect animals, nature and to understand how everything works together).
she’s also much more sensitive to all the ones that are endangered. sadly, a lot of our stops had one of the following signs – endangered, vanishing species or high risk. what will become of our world?
we came back for lunch and some light house choirs (and chaeli had to study for a french spelling test) before heading out to a dog park in order to get hobbes some fresh air and a chance to stretch his legs.
hobbes is not at all worried about helping himself. all the other dog owners laughed at him as he continually came back to help himself with every single water dish that was available. compared to all the dogs there, he was running around the most – made sense that he needed the most water.
it was a great day with chaeli and hobbes – we missed doug, though. on such a beautiful day, of course we wished he could have spent it with us. that said, i’m glad that the reason he had to be away from us was because of his job. not just his job, not even just his career now, but his lifestyle.
.:shy:. 