Dinosaurs, mammals and birds! OH MY!

Is there such a thing as posting too many photos? If so, then this post is sure to exceed even that. C'mon!, 40+ photos of awesomeness is allowed right?...right? There really are a shit tonne of photos, I will try and keep the words limited. Try.
Our marathon hang outs have continued and on this KRIANANTICA adventure we headed to Ottawa. We went up on Thursday to check out the Nature Museum, The Museum Of Civilization and The War Museum. We lucked out and the Nature Museum was only $5 admission and the other 2 were free for Ottawa's Thursday free museums between 4-8 dealy, total deals, steals even. The ride there was quick and painless and as soon as we hit Ottawa things got hairy and we sped through the street swerving buses, the boys were yelling and Metallica was blaring. Talk about the recipe for girl panic attacks in the back seat. The panic - or fear, either way - quickly faded as we got to the Nature Museum and all four of us instantly became 5 again when we stepped inside and began our tour.

....ooookay, Looking good, let's go.

I'm like a bird, I want to fly away. See 5, I told you. I pretty much had to force Brant to take this photo and he kept giving me the "are you serious" eye, yes. I am completely serious, this is happening. You have this to look forward to forever Brant, RUN.

Way to ruin a perfectly nice photo Erica, you win. I'm totally pulling a Brant here.

Brant weighs 990 Blue Jays. I totally prefer this method, it seems less embarrassing to say that you weigh 800 birds, birds are little and cute. Where can I get me one of these? Anyone?

There were all sorts of cute little colourful birds there, ones that we see in my parent's backyard. It was kind of cool seeing them all for longer than 3 seconds when you spot them and they fly away.

What do you see Krista? I actually didn't look through these at all, I was way into looking at the massive Sea Gulls and Loons. I had no clue that Loons were so effing huge. I learned something, surprise!

Maybe she sees this, I will pretend that that's what she's looking at. The displays there were so nice, unbelievable even.

The Blue Jay, one of my favourite birds. The blue was much more vibrant than this picture shows. It was pretttty.

Brian, Krista and Brant took in all of the interactive things - I just hung out and tried my best not to punch idiot people. (There's a good zoo story, wait for that.)

HEY GUYS! LOOK WHO IT IS!!! <3 I looked for this one everywhere, we ended up finding it after I walked around the huge exhibit like 5 times. Of course.

Brant doesn't appreciate the Brant bird goose like I do. I think it's pretty rad. As you can see here he really wanted to be photographed with the goose bird.

I forced him to let me take a normal picture with his twin bird, I think it's cute. I love Brants.

Let's go check out the kind of cool, kind of boring space exhibit. The space rocks were cool and looked like cheese, fo' real. No cool photos from that exhibit except these two of Brant and Krista.

STOP! MAMMAL TIME!
The mammal exhibits were really cool. The show cases were super awesome, I spent a good chunk of time just looking at them and pretending like they were real places and living animals. Like these guys! I know, loooooser, right?

The Polar Bears were neat and huuuuuge. I got to touch the fur here on this little display. The closest I'll ever get.

Oh Brant, don't get eaten. I love you! (most days. <3)

Squirrel! I think I just might, some how, maybe, love squirrels. Who takes a picture of the squirrel displays, honestly? That's what backyards and bird feeders are for, seeing these little dinks.

Moose are SO big. I would not want to see these in the wild. Brant doing his best Moose impression, cute.

No, no. THIS is his best Moose impression. Lol. I'm pretty sure all of the people at the museum had no clue what was happening as I took this photo. All the strange looks and whispers were worth it, anything for a funny picture.

One of the best parts of the museum was the Infrared Camera. We totally hogged it and did inappropriate things like check out how hot our crotches were and make suggestive poses. We managed to take a few good picture, one good video.

There's Krista and I and then Brant and Brian. We are totally hot, Krista and I that is.

Me, Brant and Brian with the Dinos. The Dinosaur exhibit was cool, the fossils were my favourite part, aside from these guys. It reminded me of the Land Before Time and naps. On another note, I miss Jason and Land Before Time and naps. sigh. The guys opted to get their photos taken with the T-Rex, classic boys. I stuck with the good 'ol Triceratops.

Then we headed to the Museum Of Civilaization, they were crazy strict with the whole no pictures thing. I snuck this one of the Pegasus sculpture in the Mythical Beasts exhibit. I wish these existed. I would own seven.

We totally took advantage of the kid zones in this museum while the boys went on to learn about Egyptian stuff, we caught up later. Right after we coloured picture inspired by our favourite Mythical Beasts for the giant Dragon Art Tree thingy.

OH! look who it is, TRACI! Traci met us here and also took advantage of of the kid zone and also drew an awesome piece for the tree.

Here are our masterpieces. To the left you will see Traci's kick ass Norwall drawing. Krista and I drew Mermaids, mine is in the middle and Krista's is upside down. Aw.

We took off to the kids museum where you go through the world and make stops at different Countries and learn about them. You also get a little Passport that we got to stamp as you visited each spot. Great for kids, also great for three in-their-twenty year old's who don't want to grow up yet. This is in the theatre in Paris, I believe.

We also visited the Port where there was a giant boat with fishing nets, mops for swabbin' the deck, a communication centre and three crazies singing "I'M ON A BOOOAT!"....and by crazies I mean us.

We then headed to the War Museum and Photosensitive Photo Exhibit - click on the link to see some amazing photojournalism. My camera died and I had to use Krista's for a few shots, but nothing really good turn out which is cool. And probably good for this post. Ha.

I did like this though. The only thing that us girls loved at the museum, the tank covered in art by kids. It was pretty adorable. I said to the boys that if there were tanks like this there would be no war. Brian said it would cause even more, that it was stupid and people would want to shoot at it. I tooootally disagree. We also went through a trench, saw Hitlers car and learned what shrapnel was. A very productive 2 hours.

The trip was great, we got to hit up three museums, see Traci and eat wicked awesome burgers at The Works. Toronto Zoo was a success and there's a post for that coming as well as the Coldplay post which I've been told better be posted soon or else. This week is going to be busy, we go back to work on Tuesday after our week long holiday and that will take some adjusting. Boo.

Thanks for reading this novel sized post.

ox! e.

Holy whirlwind, Batman!

I know you have all been anxiously awaiting my Coldplay post, ha. It's going to be a doozy let me tell you, I don't even know where to begin really. So it has to wait, I can't half ass it. It'll post it in due time but in the mean time so I don't get backlogged and you aren't reading about summery beaches in December I'll go ahead with this.

Brant and I were forced to take our holidays this week instead of next because the printer at work crapped out and since Brant wouldn't have been able to work, I wouldn't have been able to work either. It's worked out in our favour, I mean how could paid holidays not? ha.

I've been sucked into a whirlwind of family parties, friend hangouts and sushi eat offs - and I'm not complaining one bit!

Family!

Our holidays together (since I started mine earlier to go to Coldplay, more on that later!) started on Friday night when I got back from and excursiating drive from Toronto to Kingston which took 2 hours too long and then another hour and a half drive awaited me when I got back to Kingston as we had to drive to Sharbot Lake to help set up for Brant's Grandparents 50th (yes! 50!) wedding anniversary party. Which was throughly exhusting and totally fun.

It was also Brant's Grandpa's birthday the same day, a wedding anniversary and a birthday, smart guy. He never will forget his anniversary. The cakes were cute, as cute as Costco cakes can be. I was fascinated by the birthday cake, I didn't get a good picture of the fish on the cake but it was so cute.

Family photo time!!! This was the best one out of the bunch - it didn't help that Brant's 7 year old cousin insisted on taking the photo but I think it turned out pretty good. Brant's parents are to the left, his grandparents are in the middle, Brant and I on the right and Brant's brother and girlfriend in the front. I think this is the first family photo that has been taken since the 5 and a half years I've been around and will probably be the last one until we get married.

Brant's family is strange, they never take family photos really - it's such a daunting task for them and then they end up with the sneaky unflattering photos that Brant's mom will take from hip level and they'll complain about it forever.

My family ALWAYS had photos taken. My Grandma always had her camera with her. If you want to see the day I went to the zoo for the first time, got it. The day my eye was viciously scratched out by my brother, got it. The day I first I wore a bra, got it. Seriously every moment we spent with my grandparents there are photos for and I love it and wouldn't have it any other way.

Brant's family better get used to it now, I'm one sparkly belt away from turning into my Grandma.

Friends!

One awesome thing about having holidays this week is that Brian is home from the Navy on his three week leave and so far operation hang-out-with-Brian-and-Krista-everyday is a success! It started with a sushi date on Sunday, they must've thought that we were going to eat them out of business, but it was sooooooooo good, so gut bustingly good!

Brian and Brant loved their lives. They love each others lives. True love always and forever.

This is a true to life, honest to goodness true artists depiction of how we felt half way through. But we were getting our $13.99 worth it dammit!

We then sauntered over to Wal-Mart to walk off our sushi guts and act a fool. The following is case in point.

We tried to get thing boogy boards and beachy things for our Monday Adventure but they have replaced it all with fall and back-to-school crap already, C'mon! There's still good beaching weather. Effing Wal-Mart, bringing us down.

On Monday we went to Wolfe Island to my single most favourite place in the world. Big Sandy Bay. My parents would take us there when we were younger when it wasn't a Provincial Park and we had to work to get there.

When we used to go there we had to walk through waist deep swamps, shoe swallowing mud holes and fight off a million swarming mosquitoes. But then we got to this, soooooooo worth it. Loooooooooooooooooove.

We spent all day here. Mostly in the water fighting massive waves so I didn't take too many photos. Next time the water proof cameras are coming with so we can take picture of the awesome wave fights. We win at life. Tomorrow we are off to Ottawa with Krista and Brian to check out the museums and hang out with Traci, super excited! Hopefully we don't get stuck touring war museums all day and get to see somthing cool, here's hoping.

ox! e.