Day 6.324: Quarter quelled

We spent the morning and the evening doing a family jigsaw, but the middle of the day was taken with a trip to the cinema to see Catching Fire. The girls have both read it and seen the first film, so we risked the PG-13 certificate and some warnings of the dark nature of it and took them (E5N1 went to be doted on by three teenage girls - tough for him I'm sure!)

The film was, in my opinion, pretty much perfect - it captured the spirit and content of the book without losing anything in film-craft or pacing.

And the girls...seemed fine at the end as they posed with my favourite of at least three different movie posters we've seen.

Day 6.214: Despicable? Me too!

I know we're late to the party, but we went to see Despicable Me 2 in between the running and the cycling on Saturday and we all loved it.

But, although the story was pretty good for a sequel and the characters were as endearing as ever, it has to be said that E5N1 just loved the minions - bottom and fart jokes in particular!

Day 6.114: May the 4th be Derby Day

E5N1 was pretty excited when he heard about the "May the Fourth Be With You" event at a local library a few weeks ago. It appealed to his interests and his goofy sense of humour - so there was no avoiding that. In the end he and Exile #4 entered a competition each and they spent a pretty good hour or so doing various Star Wars activities while Exile #3 settled down with a book.

In the early evening, we were invited over to some friends for a Kentucky Derby gathering. Grilling, sitting outside, a few mint juleps and ten minutes or so gathered inside to cheer on fairly randomly selected horses in one of the shortest races I've ever seen.

We had to reflect on the differences with the only horse race that most British people that know nothing about horse racing watch each year - The Grand National - and have to say that that a two minute flat race is a whole lot less stressful to watch than a 9 minute steeplechase!

It was a lovely evening - we sat outside until it got dark around 8.30pm, and the company of 8 adults and 11 children was very convivial.

Day 6.086: Butter flies like a banana

We're home. We had an uneventful drive back from Montreal through the late afternoon and evening. But first, we had some more visiting to do.

Today's destination was the Botanical Gardens. They are hardly at their best right now, but the highlight is a series of greenhouses that were in excellent condition including one which currently houses a huge collection of live and uncaged butterflies. We were lucky to coincide with this - and it was definitely worth the wait to get in.

Here are some pictures - some butterflies, but also E5N1 experiencing the life cycle of a monarch butterfly - egg, caterpillar and chrysalis - and my hand alongside a moth, perhaps it's just as well that these giants were not flying around, but quietly sleeping!

Talking of monarchs, yesterday, at the Science Center we watched an IMAX movie - they have a real giant-screen IMAX setup like the ones that I first encountered in the 80's, not the pale imitation that movie theaters use.  The 3D film is called L'Incroyable voyage des papillons or in the English-language version we saw (the only English-language showing of any film during the middle of the day) rather more prosaically: Flight of the Butterflies.  Of course, living here, we knew all about the monarchs and their long migration flights - or so we thought.

It turns out there was masses we did not know.  The film tells the parallel stories of a butterfly, her daughter and her granddaughter in the three-generation, year-long migration and of the man who made his life-work to  understand the migration, discovering - in the early 1970's that they congregate in the winter in huge colonies - huddling together on wooded mountain tops in Mexico where they look like this (an exhibit from the Insectarium at the Botanical Gardens today):

Amazing stuff!

Oh, yes and apologies for the kerning error above, here's the evidence:

Day 6.011: While I was away...

...all kinds of awesomeness happened.

I can tell you that the Lego model is Exile #4's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (after they watched the film together) and I already knew about E5N1 chosing "Kindle" as one of his "things that begin with the /k/ sound", I know that E5N1 told Exile #2 last Sunday that he wanted "to wear a necktie" and went on to visit church and Exile #4's skating lesson dressed like that, but as for any stories behind the other two pictures...I'm as in the dark as you are.

Of course this is all in addition to the TARDIS - which is still going strong.