Man, you write a blog post and then before you know it two weeks have passed and a bunch of stuff has happened and you haven't blogged about any of it. This is definitely a serious problem of the modern age.
So first up, I am now a certified lead climber at the Toronto Climbing Academy. I've been out lead climbing twice and it's going well. I'm gradually getting over the fear part which is important because I find the fear really hurts my climbing. I had to deal with that when I first started climbing top-rope and I found once I stopped thinking about falling I climbed much better. Now that falling is a much bigger deal it's back in my mind and making me more tentative in my moves. Hopefully I'll get control of that soon. I did a 5.11+ on lead this weekend, and I was able to get to the top, but I was over-gripping the holds so much that I still feel sore in my arms today.
Two weekends ago I visited my mom for her birthday and had a really good time. My brother and I got her a new LCD monitor and so I set that up and I think she liked it quite a bit. On the Saturday I helped put together her new patio furniture and then made this really yummy chocolate mousse to have after supper. The recipe is from one of my random blogs, David Lebovitz...Living the Sweet Life in Paris and it was soooooo good. The author of the blog was originally a famous pastry chef and he also writes cookbooks. The blog generally talks about food and restaurants in Paris with a focus on chocolate and dessert. He often posts recipes and always posts photos of the food that make you want to lick your monitor. Anyway, the mousse turned out very well, but it was the richest stuff I've ever made. I accidentally ate too much of it too quickly and was in pain for about an hour afterwards! But I'm getting ahead of myself now. Before eating the mousse Kim and I took my mom out to a nice new Italian restaurant in Byron and had a delicious meal. Then we went back and ate the mousse before watching the movie, The Golden Compass. The movie was pretty well done, but I don't think the books translate well to movie form. Also, they chose to cut the movie off before the end of the first book so that they could have a happy ending instead of a devastating one. I was a bit disappointed in that because I wanted to see how they would do it. Oh well.
Last weekend was hot and I was happy because I like summer. Kim and I went to Toronto Island on Saturday to explore and stuff because neither of us had really been there (well I went to a concert that, but that didn't really count). It was nice! It was like a giant park combined with huge stretches of beach. It also has a small county fair-style amusement park for kids that was as tasteful and untacky as such a thing could be. Oh, and they have a "clothing-optional" beach too. We were walking along the beaches and basically stumbled onto it. There were no signs marking it from the direction we came in and thus we suddenly were walking through a bunch of naked people. And there were a lot of them! It's apparently a very popular place. I feel sorry for the guy who fell asleep on his stomach without putting sunscreen on his bum though. It was sooooo red!! Although we spent a good amount of time by the water, we never went in and we didn't really see anyone else in it either. It's not that the water was dirty, it's just that it was barely above freezing. Lake Ontario is deep and I think it must take most of the summer for it to warm up to something tolerable (but never actually warm). I tried wading out and had to stop quite quickly because the water was so cold it hurt my feet.
Now that I'm caught up on the past, it's time for a quick look to the future. I'm going places! First, in two weeks I'm going camping with Matt and Patrick and Toni and Verna and someone else in Bruce Peninsula National Park. It should be fun, although I don't think we're super organized yet. Then, I have the first week of July off due to a company-wide shutdown. So Kim and I are going to New York for four nights to see New York type things. We're flying Porter from Toronto island so it should be super convenient. It's also pretty cheap too, although the fuel surcharges are getting hefty. I wonder how much longer flying will be affordable? Finally, on Civic Holiday weekend, I'm going camping again. This time it is a canoe trip in Algonquin, similar to the one I did last year. Matt's coming this time and I can't wait. Algonquin is awesome.
I'm going to end this post with some photos I took recently. The first three are from doors open Toronto, while rest are from Toronto island. Enjoy!
