a peek inside the fishbowl

I secretly fear that one day I’m going to be asked to appear on a witness stand and a lawyer is going to ask me what I was doing the night of the 16th and I’m going to have to say: “I can’t even remember what I had for dinner last week. How can I remember where I was doing on any particular day?” And then I’ll break down and cry. And then I’ll be shipped off to prison and only get to see my family on weekends.

All this to say, my memory is crap. I blame the kids. When they left my body they took a whole bunch of my brain cells with them.

ANYWAY, that is neither here nor there, but I will say that I’m glad I have photographic evidence of our advent activities because had you asked me what we’ve been up to it would be a real struggle to remember.

Day 4 – Chocolate-covered marshmallows

They were so easy, and so good. All you do is spear a big marshmallow with a small candy cane, dip it in melted chocolate, THEN follow it up with crushed candy canes or other seasonal sprinkles of your choosing. Let them harden in the fridge for about 30 minutes and they are done.

For what it’s worth, they’re very good in hot chocolate but I prefer eating them AS IS:

Day 5 – Borax crystal snowflakes

This was a bit of a Pinterest fail. We followed the instructions exactly but there was uneven crystallization. Hmph. Oh well. The crystals that ARE there are pretty cool. (Here’s where I got the idea from if you want to have a look.)

Day 6 – Mini tree!

I wanted to buy the girls a Charlie Brown Christmas tree to decorate but quickly learned that small trees cost just as much as big trees so I bought a small fake tree at Ikea. Most fake trees I see in the stores are pretty darn ugly – I think it comes from the fact they have too many branches and they’re a little TOO perfectly arranged – but the Ikea tree was pretty nice. It’s not too full, and the branches look quite realistic. I set it up late the night before, right outside their bedrooms. Amazingly, Sarah walked right past it and didn’t see it until later. Ha! Here is a super closeup I took after the girls decorated it.

Day 7 – Dessert before dinner. This is perhaps the easiest activity, and one of the most popular. :)

Day 8 – More tree decorating! This time it was grandma and grandpa’s tree.

Day 9 – We walked to Westboro village to do some window shopping and enjoy some hot candy cane chocolate WITH whipped cream thankyouverymuch…

…which was later followed up by a special pizza and game night with friends. Pictured here is S’quarrels, which we brought at Tag Along Toys a few years ago. It’s one of our favourite games!

And today is December 10th. I can hardly believe it. There is still so much left to do!

This post is part of our 2012 Family Advent, a.k.a. 25 Days of Christmas. You can read more about that here. Looking for some Christmas-related activities to try out yourself? Check out my Pinterest board.

Thanks for your entries! We have our winners!

I recently had the pleasure of attending a sneak preview of the newly renovated Vale Earth Gallery at the Canadian Museum of Nature. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to check it out. Not only is the Museum a longtime patron of mine, but we are big fans here at Casa Fishbowl.

The Vale Gallery (pronounced Vall-eh by the way, I always thought it rhymed with SHALE or HAIL) has always been one of our favourite places to visit. With rocks, minerals, and precious gems aplenty, my kids have taken to referring to it as the World’s Best Rock Collection. With just cause. There is major kid appeal here (I mean really, what kid hasn’t come home with a pocketful of rocks??) but grownups will surely ooh and ahh over the amazing collections. There is plenty of sparkle, and lots of learning.

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I’m so happy to welcome Funhaven to the Fishbowl today.

I’ve written about Funhaven before. We’ve had birthday parties here and on top of that, had many many hours of fun as a family (which you can also read about here).

There are not enough words to describe how much my kids love Funhaven. Everytime we drive by (which is OFTEN) they remind us of their deep desire to go back. We are so lucky to have them in Ottawa.

If you haven’t been, I think the best way to describe Funhaven is as a giant newfangled arcade… but it’s more than just video games if you catch my meaning. There are a lot of other activities to be found here: laser tag (the dads seem to like it just as much as the kids IF NOT MORE), a climber/jungle gym with built-in ball cannons… shown here:

There are mini bowling lanes, simulators, bumper cars (I am pretty sure they’re the best in town), and something called Laser Frenzy which has participants creeping and crawling over a web of laserbeams with the goal of not touching them. (Think about every movie you’ve seen with a heist that takes place in an art gallery and you’ll get the picture.)

To summarize: if you’re looking for things for kids to do in Ottawa, this is it.

I like Funhaven because it’s safe, clean (this is very important to me), comfortable for parents, and I know the kids are going to have a great time. Our only issue is that the kids never want to leave, even when they’re clearly tired and falling flat on their faces. (KIDDING. Sort of.) But when energy is running low there’s pizza to be had, or you can dip into their self-serve sundae bar… 10 flavours of frozen yogurt and 50+ toppings to decorate it with.

The amazing thing is that I see kids of all ages at Funhaven, doing what they do best. Older children congregate at the Dance Dance Revolution machine and the video games and around the climbing wall, and the younger kids, well, they’re everywhere… but no one seems to be stepping on each another’s toes. It’s funny. When we had Sarah’s birthday there last year we started off in the climbing area (see picture above) while we waited for the guests to arrive. I assumed they wouldn’t be thrilled but they couldn’t tear themselves away.

Sidebar: In case you’re wondering about Funhaven as an Ottawa birthday party locale I will say that it was pretty close to perfect. The staff are incredibly organized and most importantly the kids totally wore themselves out (in the most fun way possible of course). It made for an unforgettable birthday.

Important things to note:

1) Funhaven is on Facebook, and I really recommend following them there for special deals and other insider scoop.

2) They’re started selling annual memberships. You can get the details right here but I will say that I think this would make a very welcome and unique family Christmas gift so FORWARD THIS POST TO GRANDMA AND GRANDPA RIGHT NOW. Only 1000 passes will be available and they must be purchased before Dec. 31st.

Thank you for your patronage Funhaven! You’ll be seeing us over the holidays for sure.