Assimilating, apparently.

This is our fourth Canadian summer. Our fourth Canada Day. And this year, finally, we did something aside from put the girls into a shirt emblazoned with some sort of maple leaf and take a picture.

This morning we got up at o’dark thirty (well, it actually wasn’t dark, as the sun comes up at 5am and doesn’t set until 10pm. Which is fantastic.) and headed downtown for the Canada Day Road Race. Since I wasn’t sure ahead of time how runningish I’d be feeling, a mere 10 days before my due date, I had signed us all up for just the 2.5k FunRun. I kiiiinda wish I’d signed us up for the 5k, after seeing the way Fiona crushed this one I think she could totally handle the 5. And I felt like counting this as my “race” for the month was kind of cheating.

Anyways. This morning I got up early to make sandwiches and set out sneakers and fill water bottles before rousing the hubs and kids, then we all piled into the new car (which can fit 3 carseats and my double jogger! But once the 4th seat is in there we’ll be on the hunt for a bikerack that can accommodate the stroller when the need arises.) and hit the road. (Seriously, my car is the shiz, I should have made the switch long ago. But don’t call it a minivan. It’s a microvan. I will not be told otherwise.)

The race had a 7:40 start, and I thought I’d planned appropriately. Unfortunately, we hit a bit of a snag finding a stroller accessible route out of the parking garage and ended up dragged that beast up a flight of stairs before finally finding daylight, annnnnnnnd so we sort of were a little late to the party.

As we emerged from the recesses of the garage, we saw a whole bunch of kids and people with strollers running/jogging/walking up the hill toward us, so we said screw it, we’re jumping in here. We’re only like a couple minutes late, this must be right near the start. And it was. So we probably ended up just doing 2k instead of 2.5k, but it’s all good. It’s a funrun, nobody’s checking times.

After the run we got our snazzy new pee water bottles (seriously, who thinks translucent (transparent? I can never remember which to use.) bright yellow is a good choice for a water bottle?) and did some picture taking, then realized that a few hundred feet away was an area cordoned off and devoted to a free pancake breakfast.

Onward to the carbs and maple syrup!

From here we got a schedule of the day’s events, and decided to hit up the nearby wading pools to start. Spent some time there, meandered over to the kid’s area to try out stilts, have a picnic lunch, bounce in a bouncy house (of course), listen to some Francophone songs, watch a magic show, get some ice cream, and just generally enjoy the day.

Please be in awe of my mad skillz on the stilts. The first time I tried it (on the higher red ones) I sort of relied completely on momentum, but the second time I tried (on the slightly shorter blue ones) I totally got the hang of it. I’m still a little ticked that the kids started falling apart and we had to leave and get ice cream before I got a chance to try the higher ones again.

It was great, to finally feel like we participated in something uniquely Edmontonian and Canadian. The festivities continue throughout the afternoon, all the way up to a fireworks show at 11pm, but I think we’re in for the night. We’ve got some firewood and some hot dogs and some mallows, plus a couple packs of sparklers we may just crack into. It worked out so so well to go for the early bird set of activities. Wasn’t too hot, wasn’t too crowded, there was minimal traffic and headache to deal with. It was just enjoyable.

In summation- a very nice day. Though as I sipped my iced capp from Tim’s and mildly complained of the “heat” (which is a mother-flipping joke, when we were out there today it was 71°f and “felt like” 71°, as opposed to the temp in Fairfax at the same time, which was 91°f and “feels like” 96°) I realized- I’m pretty sure I’ve fully become accustomed to life here. I’m even almost used to leaving the doctor’s office without paying a co-pay. My kids say “zed” at the end of the alphabet. It’s weird and it’s good, I guess. Maybe someday I’ll even start thinking in kilometers and celsius.

But let’s not rush things.