Stamp collecting

I bear two reminders of the weekend.

The first is on my left hand. At this point it's barely visible. But once it was a red compass, courtesy of the Pirate Festival.

More visible on my right hand, not only because it is more recent, but also because the ink seems to be a bit more stubborn, is the triple circle logo of the Ontario Science Centre in blue.

On Saturday, the whole family headed out to the Pirate Festival. It was opening weekend--just in time since we're headed out of the country later this week. The cool weather made it quite pleasant to stroll around the grounds, although it did mean that Scooter was wearing a sweater over his red- and white-striped shirt. But that was OK since he sported plenty of other pirate paraphernalia. We had cooked this up the night before; he strapped on his eye patch, grabbed his hook and money-bag, and helped me clip his pirate flag onto his stroller.

We made several rounds to check everything out. Scooter was not as scared of the pirates as last year (when he did the ambivalent they scare me, but I don't want to leave them). Last year, his favorite part was sitting in the tavern, eating their snack mix. It was Frito-Lay's Munchies Snack Mix, but has since that day been known in our house as "Pirates." This year, the biggest hit was the games. He especially enjoyed a game where the object was to catapult pirate-themed duckies into a barrel of water. He didn't do particularly well on any of them (with me helping a little, he did get some duckies to their target), but he also didn't care. It was simply a blast to watch the duckies fly, toss rings, and fling balls at a castle wall.

(One side note. Walk or take public transportation. We were glad we weren't driving since the festival is near the Ex and traffic was heavy. If you're riding a streetcar along Lake Shore, I'd even suggest getting out a few stops early--whenever traffic gets heavy--and walking the last few blocks.)

On Sunday, Scooter and I made a trip to the Science Centre. Trillian's been a little under the weather, so this was a way to give her some down time. We got there right at opening and headed directly to KidSpark. Construction on a house, waterfalls, ball roller coasters, so much other fun--and without a crowd!

Of course for Scooter, no trip to the Science Centre is complete until we've visited the toy store upstairs. After a busy week and weekend, however, it was overwhelming for Scooter and he had a bit of a meltdown. I had been hoping to get him a bag of marbles--I remembered that they had a big bin of them where one could fill a bag for a set price--but they didn't have them anymore. Eventually, I directed Scooter to a marble run set that's compatible with the one he already has. He has not yet allowed me to mingle sets, but I imagine we'll get there sometime soon. And then we can build things that rival the kinetic sculpture he can't get enough of.