Monday, April 25, 2011

Easter Weekend in Toronto - Royal Ontario Museum & The Lake

 Hope everyone had a Happy Easter.  We greatly enjoyed our weekend, as we were surprised by a mostly sunny, and at times downright warm, weekend during which to explore a bit more of Toronto.  Spring is coming, slowly but surely, with sunny days, moist foggy mornings, and increasing incidents when we feel brave enough to leave a layer at home and just bring light jackets to cover our short sleeves.


We drove into Toronto and visited the Royal Ontario Museum.  I am sure when the new addition to the museum was built, it must have been quite controversial.  We spent most of our visit this time, looking at all the stuffed specimens of various animals and reading about them.  Useful seeing the animals holding still, but much more satisfying getting to view them alive and moving about.

 


This little guy kept nestling himself inside the sea anemone, but seemed to know whenever Alex's finger was getting ready to take a photo and popped out each time.

The one exception to my preference for viewing animals in their live state . . . weeeeelll, actually considering the glass, I think this isn't really an exception to that sentiment after all.

Emily liked the sunfish, but wasn't sure if I was pulling her leg about it being that large . . . for real.

Emily's enjoying the Guardians of Ga'hool series at the moment; and so between that and Harry Potter, has a great interest in owls lately.



The lawn in front of the one of the University buildings made me want to go and roll around.  The smell was intoxicating.

My old house, 640 Annette St.  It's the one I have the clearest memories of during my early childhood in Toronto.  I have heard that the neighborhood went through a rough patch, but is coming back to being a safe place to be again.  Gentrification.  We saw lots of houses in the area that had a lot of work done on them; and it was looking pretty nice.  I think we found my old elementary school too - Runnymede Elementary.

Emily colored some eggs, & then colored some more "eggs."

On Sunday, we were back at Jack Darling Park in in Port Credit - Sans coats!  A bit chillier, but we were grateful for no rain and so long as we kept moving, we were quite comfortable in sweaters.

The stones on the sandy beaches along the shores of Lake Ontario are a great place to find fossils.

Wildlife - tons of red-winged blackbirds from the Rattray Marsh Conservation Area
Evidence of beavers!  
See the marks from gnawing?

3 comments:

  1. Looks like a great weekend! Glad the weather (kinda) cooperated.

    Loved the photo of your childhood home. You didn't take a picture of the plaque identifying it as such for tourists?

    Emily is really growing up and changing! What a doll!

    I zoned in on the lawn covered in blue flowers immediately. Are they forget-me-nots? Something from up North I miss down South.

    Great post!

    Miss you,

    Tricia

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  2. Great pictures! I love seeing all the different stuff and museums and architecture from everyone's travels so thanks for sharing! Loved the log with the beaver marks! And my gosh Emily just keeps growing- she is getting so big! The sun fish is funny- I think Monterey Aquarium in CA has a live one in their tank. It's amazing and impressive! They also have an awesome jellyfish tank too. ;) Cool to see your childhood home (one of them). Most of mine have been torn down for one reason or another).

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  3. Sheesh, I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't know you spent your early childhood in Toronto. So this little sojurn is a tad bit like coming home, huh?!

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