From headstands to pioneers to biking to veterans!

Today was a day full of random stuff for us.

This morning, Jaymi got to make breakfast for everyone.
This is what she made (all in a bowl):
plain yogurt, ground flax, cornflakes, granola, sliced almonds, pecans, vanilla extract, and diced apple.
She loved it.  Mark wasn't thrilled with the pecans.  He doesn't like nuts in things, really.
;)

After that, Mark and Jaymi went to our store, where she did lots of drawing and stuff, while he got some work done.

Then they made a deal.  Last week, after telling Jaymi that she has entirely too many stuffies, she came up with the brilliant idea that she could give away 40 stuffies and get some new ones.  Of course, getting a bunch of new stuffies would defeat the purpose of giving the old ones away, so her idea was much better than that.  She said that she would give 40 stuffies away, and get 1 new Webkinz stuffie.
I think it was a pretty good idea, so I said yes.
So Mark said he would take her after school tomorrow, to buy the new stuffie.  She's thinking of getting the Webkinz ferret.

Jaymi and I then practiced doing headstands together, in the basement on the carpeted floor, with the wall to help us.  She is getting better at them!  Her arms are much stronger than they have been recently.  All of that hanging on the monkey bars at school is helping! 

Her physio-therapist would be proud!

And yes, you read that correctly - I said that both of us practiced.  She wanted me to do one, and I was proud to realize that I still can!  Yay, me!

After that, we spontaneously decided do look at some information on pioneers from 1800. Jaymi has a learned a lot about that topic in school recently, and we just did an extension on it here at home.
She played a fun game on this website, where she had to make decisions about her pioneer life in Upper Canada, in order to have a prosperous life.
Then, we learned about what people wore, what they ate, what the rules were in school, how they traveled, etc..
Jaymi and I both thought the rules for school were funny.  Like, that the teacher would sometimes cook soup for lunch, for the kids.  And, if the teacher got married, she would be fired.  And, that one student was chosen each day, after school, to dust, mop, and tidy up the schoolroom.

We were planning on going out to Sooke to see the dead, beached whale that has been there for a few days, but then we read that it wasn't there anymore.

So, we did more Pioneer studying.
We pretended that we were pioneers making lunch, and we made "hoe hotcakes" with honey.
Basically, it's corn meal and boiling water, formed into patties, and fried in lard (shortening) like pancakes.  And some honey on top, to serve.
They used to cook them on a hoe, but we used our frying pan.

While we cooking the hotcakes, we tried to make a baby food jar of 1/2-and-1/2 into butter, by shaking it......forever!   I think it doesn't work well with 1/2-and-1/2.  We should have bought heavy cream.

We also made a yummy smoothie to go with our hotcakes.  Not very pioneer though...just a yummy smoothie.
A frozen banana, a bit of milk, lots of orange juice, and cinnamon.

After that we decided that it was such a nice day...it was finally time to take our bikes out of hibernation, and start bike riding again!
So we went for a bike ride.  Jaymi was awesome!  She can get much further up our huge hill than last year, and if weren't limited on time today, we would have gone way past where we did.

And tonight (after dinner), Jaymi attended a special ceremony commemorating the victory at Vimy Ridge, with the veterans here.  The Girl Guides (including her Brownie unit) were invited to take part in the parade, listen to the ceremony, parade back, and then they all got to have a hot dog and hot chocolate before heading back home.