Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Expedition to the Exhibition
Today was the day we decided to make our annual pilgrimage to the C.N.E.. Erika had what proved to be a great idea and invited Naomi, one of Vanessa's friends to come and join us. After Annie finished her morning nap, we bundled the kids and ourselves together into the Land Rover and headed off.

Note to self for next year: if free parking is unavailable (hah!) the way to go is to use the underground parking -- it's only $2 more than outdoor parking, it's right on (or "in") the grounds, and you can also buy your admission ticket there too. Cost for 2 adults and 3 kids under six years of age: $41.

A perennial kids favourite is the Eukanuba dog show. We had an hour-and-a-half to kill prior to showtime, and it was a hot day outside, so we stayed inside the {name building}. This was where Erika's idea of bringing Naomi along paid off, as both girls dashes from one International stall to the other, ohh-ing and ahh-ing over various trinkets. They collectively marveled and endlessly commented on everything ranging from Finnish furs to the winning costumes from the recent Carnival parade to various bits of jewelry, to Middle-Eastern beaded headdresses. It was there that Erika made the single best purchase of the day, a pair of paper fans from a Chinese pavilion for the both of them, costing a twoony apiece. Both girls loved them and played with (and used them effectively) the rest of the day. Erika commented that she was given a similar fan when she was a girl, and she remembered how thrilled she was by it, hence the purchase.

The girls also got the chance to climb into the cockpit of a snowbird airplane before we headed over to get seats for the dog show. After seeing it for 3 years in a row, I can't help thinking that the whole thing is getting kind of tired. The girls enjoyed it though, and Vanessa was singing "Who Let the Dogs Out?!?" for some after we left the show.

We then headed straight for the children's midway. While Erika waited in the long lineup for the Ferris wheel, I took the girls to a couple of always-wins-a-prize types of games, and managed to get them on a ride with a short line up with Erika stayed in line. It was perfect timing as well, since they went straight from that ride and on to the Ferris wheel.

Annie was hot, tired and hungry, so I found some shade by the old Music Conservatory building where I could set her down to do some serious crawling around. After about three-quarters of an hour of this I realized that Erika probably didn't understand my hand signals as to where I was going when she and the kids were on the Ferris wheel, so I packed a baby nearing the edge of meltdown and went looking for them. I spotted Vanessa near the top of a fun house-style set-up, and soon tracked down the rest. Annie had calmed down by that time, which was just as well, as it turned out that both Vanessa and Naomi were having a blast. I had misjudged things base on last-year's experience where Vanessa didn't seem so keen on the rides, and only bought a few "tickets" (by "tickets" a mean a swipe card -- the old tickets seem to be going the way of the dinos; "credits" would now be a better term, as in "This Ride 4 Credits"). Erika ended up buying a day pass which gave the kids virtual carte blanche to go on the rides. I kept Annie in the shade with me while the two girls and Erika rode the Merry-Go Round one last time before we started to head out.

By this point it was about 5:30pm, and we started to make our way back to the truck. Along the way Erika picked up some cotton candy for the girls -- boy did that make them happy -- and I managed to grab a much-needed ice cappuccino while going through the Food Building. In the International Centre we found a small restaurant indoors that actually had seating, so we collapsed onto the seats and dined on overpriced hot dogs.

A fun day's outing, but we were all exhausted by the end of the day. Not exactly cheap either: we spent about $140 or so total. Still, it was a fun day.