Boxing Day

Well, Boxing Day began as any other day off. Sleep in, mosy out of bed, hang out, have late breakfast. I asked if anyone was interested in doing a bit of shopping on this 'deal of a day'. But my question was met with hums and hos, and not reallys. I'm sure there were bargains to be had out there in consumer land, but in this day and age where boxing day shopping has turned into boxing week shopping and even 'week before Christmas day bargain shopping', why the rush to be part of the rush to spend all that hard earned Christmas cash on super duper deals.......when they will probably be there tomorrow, or the next day, or even for the next week, if I haven't already got them before Christmas? Confused yet? Ok, then just stay home and pig out on more Christmas treats. The diet re-starts tomorrow!

We decided to do a field trip on Boxing Day. We loaded up the vehicles and headed out to the Muttart Conservatory to get in a little plant life and just burn off some of those calories we'd been pigging out on. The conservatory consists of 4 different pyramids that represent the different climates present on the earth; temperate, arid, rainforesty and then a special pyramid where the display represents a theme of some sort. For this Christmas, the theme pyramid  was the Snow Queen's pyramid. Apparently there were 1000 pots of pointsettia displayed in the pyramid around the 'Snow Queen's castle'. For Lil' Miss it represented a really large stage for her to dance on.

It was a beautiful setting, and the entertainment was equally as beautiful and graceful (if you don't count the times she stumbled or fell into the pointsettias...oops...)

We even got the ballerina to take a break from her dancing for a quick pose by the Snow Queen's castle.

After about 15 minutes of watching and clapping at the appropriate times, we moved on to the next pyramid. The desert climate. I think Gramma thought she might be back in Arizona. The cacti might have looked familiar, but I'll bet she doesn't get to watch 'the swan dance' in the Arizona desert!

Such dramatics and variety in this particular performance.....

Oh the energy. Sure wish I could bottle that up and sell it. There was no stopping the Lil' Miss. And then......

Mr. Mister decided it was high time he got some action as well.

I mean, really. Why should he have to be stuck in the stroller the whole time while Lil'Miss gets to exercise her creative impulses....and her leggies and cardiovascular system as well???? He took off crawling as fast as his little leggies would take him. It was kind of dangerous to let him loose amoungst the cacti....But then it was kind of dangerous to let Lil'Miss pirouette in her clumpy boots amoungst the cacti as well...(as visions of her falling into the 'crown of thorns' plants whizzed through my mind....). But I let her! And I let him! Take note that he was crawling so fast he lost a boot. He didn't care.

But yes, even a ballerina needs her down time. Onto the next pyramid (the temperate one...so just like home in the spring/fall time!) and she decided to relax on the park bench.

Lil'Miss: 'Mommy, I'm tired.' You are?????????? And she proceeded to stretch out on the bench to rest. Of course, that doesn't last all that long and we ended up back in the Snow Queen's pyramid watching her act out several different princess stories. All of them somewhat related to Sleeping Beauty. With some confusion about 'falling in love' and 'falling asleep'. (Apparently the two parts of the story are interchangeable. I was told to 'fall in love' several times and then instructed to lie down and fall asleep. Ok.)

Here comes the dragon/prince to either blow flames at me or kiss me to make me wake up. It's too bad he didn't really care about his part of the story. He just wanted to motor around and bat at the pointsettia leaves. Then he found the dirt and thought he should start gardening. At that point it was time to head home.

All in all, a good Boxing Day outing!