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With the ice show done, I thought there might be some relaxing in order, or dealing with the clutter that's crept into the house in the last few weeks.

Instead we ended up working on a purely fun project. The Sweetie's work is having a May the Fourth Be With You party tomorrow, and he volunteered to bring some Star Wars cookies. The Sweetie made the cookie dough, I turned it into cookies (I love sugar cookies, but man, they are a pain in the arse to roll out), I put together some designs, and then we all did our best to make some round cookies look like various Star Wars characters.

Full points if you figure out who/what they're all supposed to be. *g*

Ros and I have been pushing through Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and finally finished it earlier this week. She loved it, and has been discussing the books with her friends. (I was all set to retire my spoiler t-shirt, but she already knows that Dumbledore dies!)

Tonight we watched the first movie for family movie night. It's the first movie she's been enthusiastic about since she was a toddler and wanted to watch Snow White over and over again.

It was adorable watching her react to all the bits in the movie she knew from the book. Mostly she kept saying "that's not how I imagined it." Except for Ollivanders Wand Shop, which she said was exactly how she imagined it.

She freaked out a bit at the end--Fluffy and Voldemort appearing in the back of Quirrell's head were just a bit too much for her--but still gave it a firm thumb's up at the end. Yay!

We've already started reading The Chamber of Secrets. The Sweetie picked it up this week whilst I was indisposed. (I'm finally feeling mostly human! Yay!) Ros loves the flying car. The Sweetie, on the other hand, keeps wondering why the heck they keep sending Harry back to spend summers with those horrible Dursleys! (I have to admit I question Dumbledore's wisdom on this point as well.)

The Sweetie's worst nightmare has been confirmed: Benedict Cumberbatch is playing Doctor Strange.

Sweetie: I don't want Cumberbatch playing Doctor Strange! I'd rather they cast Howard Donald!

Ladies and gentlemen, Howard Donald exhibiting his considerable talents:



Oh, Howard.

I was downloading some pictures from the weekend's Soccer Aid charity match, like this...


which prompted this exchange with the Sweetie.

Me: Man, you know I love Mark, but I really just want to tie him down and give him a haircut.

Sweetie: You just want to tie him down.

He possibly knows me too well.

ETA: Just realized this is even more apropos than I realized last night. Because I'm currently working on the cop!Howard story, which also happens to be the kidnapped!Mark story, and at the moment I've got Mark tied up in a basement, awaiting rescue. Heh.

Ros has decided she wants to walk in the local Easter Parade with our martial arts school. Which meant a trip to the dollar store to get Easter accountrements.


The ears also came with a little tail. It should look adorable with her martial arts uniform.

In related news, the Sweetie also got Easter gear to wear. (He'll be walking with her. I, having driven like a maniac down from my mom's to get them to the parade staging area in time, will be having a brief rest before I go to watch the parade.)

The Sweetie made me close my eyes before he modelled his purchase, and then asked me one thing.

Sweetie: So, is this worthy of Howard Donald?

( Click here to see the Sweetie's Howard Donald-worthy outfit )

It's been a bit crazy in the Zed household the last little while. There's been work, and the usual stuff that goes into raising a 6-year-old, the finishing off my Pros BB story, and moderating the Take That BB. But we booked this weekend ages ago for a family overnight trip to Stratford (Ontario, not England) with friends of ours who also have a daughter from China, and it's turned out to be lovely and relaxing and just what I needed.

Today we had no plans, apart from a 5:30 dinner reservation at a swank-but-relaxed pizzeria, so we took our time getting on the road, then had lunch at a new location of our favourite Stratford area tea room, Harry Ten Shilling. The Sweetie and I had a traditional English tea (finger sandwiches, scones and goodies), while La Ros had a bagel and cream cheese, chamomile tea, and nicked goodies from our tray. The food was lovely, the atmosphere was calm and it was totally brilliant.

Then we pottered around downtown Stratford, hit the local awesome toy store for some birthday and Christmas present buying, and partook of the free horse-drawn carriage historical tours the town has laid on. (There were two different carriages going on slightly different routes. We did the first one, then Ros dragged the Sweetie onto the second one for another go 'round whilst I went off to my favourite accessories/shoe store in town. (That would be The Green Room, if you're ever in Stratford and wondering were to get awesome tights, hats, sunglasses and shoes.)

I've been wanting a pair of Frye boots forever--okay, that would be since justacat pointed out that Doyle's got a pair--and I bought a pair of these ones. They're beautiful, more comfortable than I was hoping, and I love them! Ros and the Sweetie got to the store, and shoe-obsessed Ros immediately found the kids shoes in the basement. She talked us into getting her a pair of glittery Tom's shoes, like these ones, but pink.

Then it was off to the hotel to rendesvous with our friends. We had a quick swim in the hotel pool, then went off to a lovely dinner. Then it was back to the hotel for bedtime for Ros, and then relaxing time for us.

I haven't felt this calm since I'm not sure when.

Tomorrow there will be more swimming, and lunch, and then we're all off to see The Pirates of Penzance in what's supposed to be a very good production. (I'm hoping it'll go some ways towards convincing La Ros that theatre is awesome. She remains unconvinced. She also insists she doesn't like movies. Unless they're documentaries. She is one interesting kid.)

Today's score: 4 - 3 for the other lot. But we played a really strong game and we actually leading 1 - 3 for a good chunk of the game. We just had a five minute stretch where one of our less confident goalkeepers was in the net and our defence fell apart completely. But everyone still seems to be having a good time, and they're all coming along, skills-wise. Now I just have to cure them of trying to get the ball from their own teammates.

The Sweetie is taking his duties as bloke in charge of our player rotation very seriously. When I got Ros home from daycare today, he was obsessively going over tonight's line up, trying to sort it so the stronger players were well distributed, and the kids who will wreak havoc of the bad sort on the field together are kept on different lineups. He's so cute when he's organizing things.

Ros continues to be Take That obsessed, bless her. After we got home from the game, I wanted to check the score of the England v. Ukraine game before running off to my acupuncture appointment. (It had been 1 - Nil for England when I left work and then I didn't have time to check the score before we ran off to the soccer field. This resulted in the following exchange.

Me: England won!
Ros: Yay! Does Take That play for England?
Me: Um, no. They just play charity matches, kiddo. They're not that good.
Ros: Oh.

The Sweetie might not be a slash fan himself, but he takes a certain pleasure in pointing out slashiness where he finds it and in coming up with crazy slash pairings and story ideas. He seems to be outdoing himself in this when it comes to Take That.

( In which the Sweetie comes up with a crack-addled story title )

( In which the Sweetie comes up with an elaborate TT vampire AU )

( In which the Sweetie fleshes out his elaborate TT vampire AU )

The Sweetie and I have been together since 1997. That's 14 years. And for 14 years, he's been mocking Sean Bean pretty mercilessly. The nicest thing he's called him is "Sean Bean, the actor who dies." Which admittedly, the Bean does pretty often.

But Game of Thrones has turned the Sweetie around on the Bean. As the series has progressed, he's gone from "Sean's pretty good," to "I really like him," to "I'm really looking forward to the new episode every week."

And today, when I emailed him to warn him that Richard Burgi--another actor he's none too fond of--was in the Chuck finale, this is the response I got:



There you have it; the Sweetie loves Sean Bean. I can totally hold this over him for, like ever.

In other signs of the coming apocalypse, I'd stuck in the DVD of Take That's Abbey Road concert whilst I was cooking dinner last night. (I think it's safe to say that the Sweetie hates TT more than he ever did the Bean.) But he stuck his head in the kitchen when they started playing Shine, and we had this exchange:

Sweetie: What is this, Take That Unplugged?
Me: Pretty much, yeah.
Sweetie: ::listens for a second:: This song, it's pretty good, really.
Me: ::smiles smugly::

I think I'm going to use Mark Owen as the Sweetie's entry drug to TT, since the only other song of their he's had a remotely good word for is Kidz.

I have a feeling I'm not going to be making my pledged word count. On account of the day we've just had.

Our plan was to spend the late morning and afternoon shopping for camping equipment and possibly even the barbeque we've been promising ourselves for, oh, ten years now. So we headed off to Mountain Equipment Co-op for the first leg of the trip. We found Ros' first sleeping bag (she was very excited and wanted to sleep in it immediately) and a new swimsuit for her. We also decided the lovely though their four hundred dollar tent was, we were probably going to be fine with the two hundred dollar tent at Canadian Tire. ( A note to non-Canadians: Canadian Tire isn't really a tire store. It's more like a tire, automotive, hardware, sporting goods, housewares, whatever-else-they-decide-they-can-find-room-for store.)

By this time it's after noon, there's a hot dog stand outside, so we all decide hot dogs would be groovy before heading off on the next leg of our epic shopping journey. There is exactly one bench outside the store, and we manage to score it. The bench is right beside the door to the store.

Ros has a couple of bites of her hotdog, then turns to me and says "Look! I can touch the door." I have a conversation with her about how she shouldn't touch the door, and she could get her fingers caught in it, and this is a safety thing and mommy is very serious about safety things, right? Ros agrees, and I figure we've dodged a bullet.

( Cut, because while this has a happy ending, you can see where this is going right? )