For the civic holiday weekend, we went back to Ottawa for a visit. We took Fitz and cousin Jack to Moody’s Bay to play in the Rideau River and nearly park.
Dennis decided to get a lot of fireworks. We set them off in a park down by the Rideau, just a block away from from the house of Carly’s Uncle Michael.
ABOVE: Luke, Carly & Fitz, Jack, little Jack, Donna, Bela, Noel, Leslie & Maggie, Michael.
ABOVE & BELOW: The Canada Day long weekend, like most of the weekends this summer, was a wet one. Fitz got to spend a lot of time splashing in puddles and running around the nearby park.
ABOVE: As the weekend progressed, it became clear that Fitz was fighting off something which manifested in a fever. He was up and down as the Advil broke the fever.
ABOVE: As usual, Fitzy requested we see Eli on the weekend so we arranged a visit to the castle park in High Park.
ABOVE & BELOW: Emmett has been in Vermont for a lot of the summer so we’ve barely had time to see him. Luckily, we were able to arrange an after-daycare visit to the wading pool around the corner from our place.
ABOVE & BELOW: Grange Park, behind the AGO, was recently renovated so we took Fitz to explore the new play structures and the relocated Henry Moore sculpture.
ABOVE & BELOW: Fitz and Matt spent some time walking the Humber River with the company of wee Eli.
ABOVE & BELOW: We took Fitz to the Ribfest and midway just north of the city and he got to ride on things he never had for the first time.
ABOVE: This was the first ride he took all by himself and he had this look on his face the whole time. It was a combo of “is this supposed to be fun? Should I be scared?”
We spent a lot of time driving back and forth between Toronto and Ottawa in May. But it allowed Fitz to spend time with his cousins Jack and Maggie at the Experimental Farm.
ABOVE & BELOW: Fitzy has taken a great interest in watering plants. He spends about half his outdoor time watering and refilling his can.
April was a chaotic month but we were still able to squeeze in a lot of fun things. In a spur of the moment decision, prompted by Fitzy saying “I want to see a gorilla today,” we went to the zoo. Both Carly and I have some real issues with the zoo but it’s fun to take Fitz now before he starts asking questions about the moral implications of keeping animals confined to such small spaces. Instead, we can just yell “ZEBRA!” and watch him get excited.
ABOVE: This baby gorilla charmed Fitz very much. He came up and banged on the window, which Fitz referred to as being “high-fived” by the gorilla. Gotta love the deforestation mural. Must make the gorillas feel at home.
BELOW: We went to look at the cherry blossoms blooming in High Park with about another 1-million Torontonians. We were joined by Eli and his parents, Callum and his dad Brian, and Leo and his dad James. The kids were mostly interested in running around on rocks and the hills.
For Easter, we jetted off to Ottawa where Fitz got to spend some time with his cousins Jack and Maggie.
We spent the holidays in Ottawa with Carly’s family. One of our first activities was to go on a wintery hike with Declan, the son of Carly’s cousin Clayton.
 
ABOVE: Waiting for a bird to land in his hand.
BELOW: Not taking guff from anyone.
ABOVE & BELOW: On Christmas Day, Fitz got to unwrap an unholy amount of presents that related to the movie PLANES. Above is Ripslinger.
By the time he reaches drinking age he should be a shark at shuffleboard.
ABOVE & BELOW: Fitz and cousin Jack went to the air and space museum, which Fitz seems to love. They burned off a lot of energy chasing each other around and pretending to have wings.
ABOVE: Carly’s Uncle Jack got caught up in the plane-pretending game.
ABOVE & BELOW: It was a dream come true for Fitz — we walked out one morning to find a digger parked in front of our house. He is beaming.
BELOW: In mid-June we got away to Ottawa where Fitz had a chance to work on his sandboxing, basketball, and swimming skills.
ABOVE & BELOW: We got a chance to hangout with Mae and Jenny.
We spent the Easter long-weekend in Ottawa where we tried to teach Fitz about the morning egg hunt, which he kinda liked but seemed confused about. Instead of chocolate in the eggs there were toys.
ABOVE & BELOW: We took Fitz for an afternoon walk along the path beside Hogg’s Back Falls.
Fitz and his buddy Emmett had some fun time together when Emmett’s mom Andria had a sidewalk sale.
The Labour Day long weekend was spent in Ottawa.
Fitz spent a day up at The Land, a bare bones property about at hour west of Ottawa that has a few cabins and access to the lake. A variety of Dunsters own it so we took Fitz up to play with his cousin Declan.
Declan is clearly a child of the outdoors. He was unafraid of anything in the water, whereas our city clicker boy was apprehensive about mud and the waves.
At the end of the day, Fitz took a deep like to Megan, Declan’s mom. It was hard to get him to move an inch from this position.
We spent the August long-weekend in Ottawa, and Fitz spent most of time in the backyard playing around the pool.
