This is a pumpkin field, or field of pumpkins..however you want to call it. It looks like a truck came by and just dumped them there, right? When you are see this in real life, it takes a minute to digest that it is an actual field of pumpkins. One of those things you have to see to believe!!

For Halloween, which is on the 31st of October, most families decorate their homes with pumpkins carved out to look like scary faces, spider webs, black cats, skeletons and some even have fake grave stones. Read my post of the origins of Halloween and you will get an idea of why all the gore! This is a picture of the outside of our house. The web is made of a nylon net material, and it sticks to the wall with the fibre. You can stretch and pull it in any direction.......very cool.....as my kids say!

The spider web on our door..one of the decorations we put up for Halloween.

HaLlOweEN .................

Ramblings..

With no specific topic in mind...I thought I'd begin this post with something that has been happening here in a place called Barrie, near Toronto.

About two weeks ago, a fifteen year old boy had a fight with his parents because he had been playing with his Xbox day and night, until it had became an addiction. He was playing online with friends as well as with strangers, and his behaviour at home had changed to the extent that he would break things whenever his parents confiscated the Xbox.

He ran away from home on Thanksgiving day. He has been missing ever since. The day before yesterday, his parents said they would give five thousand dollars to anyone who has any information on the missing teen. Today, after the parents kept adding to the amount and made it 25 thousand, Microsoft Canada added another 25k making it a total reward of 50,000 dollars.

The police suspect that someone who had been playing the online version of the game may have lured the boy away for 'whatever' reasons. Because of the reward money ,people from hundreds of kilometres away are driving in to Barrie to help find the missing boy. (I have to say that many people are also joining the search, not for the reward, but because they just feel like helping)

Microsoft is looking at the boys Xbox to find out who the online players were. So far the Xbox had about two hundred online tagged names. The police are now looking at that list to look for leads. His bicycle was found in a ditch, which was not good news.....anyway, will keep you posted.

But why I brought this up was to warn parents who are reading this about the dangers of kids playing games online. Stranger Danger is out there....so please make sure you know what your kids are doing online!!

Driving around today we noticed many houses with pumpkins, skeletons, spider webs and scare crows outside...............which can mean only one thing here..........Halloween!


Speaking of Halloween, we decorated the outside of our house today too! With a fake spider web going across the wall outside the house, to a cute halloween sign hanging from our doorway. This is so that kids know they can come to our house for candy. (will put up pictures by tomorrow) Homes with no decor means that there is no candy being given away there. Both my kids are very excited and have already planned to go to all the houses on our street.

Here's wishing everyone a HAPPY DIWALI!! Firecrackers are on sale here in stores but so far don't know if you can actually burst them on the street in front of your house or not. Will wait and see what others are doing and then write about it here!

It was down to minus two degrees with wind chills of minus ten this last week and snow is predicted for Tuesday. So it looks like winter is about to begin..........something I'm not sure I'm looking forward too!!

Until later............

take care!

The change of colours...........I never knew how beautiful it really was!

We raked up all these leaves yesterday and this morning our lawn had been covered with leaves again! We were hoping some strong wind would blow the leaves somewhere else, but no such luck!

After raking up all those leaves from your drive way and lawn, you have to empty it out into these bags that you buy from any home convenience store. You leave it outside the house on garbage day, and it gets picked up. If you put it into the wrong kind of bag..say a plastic one...they will just leave it there for you to dispose of yourself. You have to use the right bags..or else!!

This is how it looked just yesterday. (Oct 15th)

Look at how bald the tree looks now!!

Licensed to drive!!

I started this post the day before but finished writing it only this morning:

What a nerve wracking day it was yesterday......I had my drive test scheduled for 2.20pm and by 12.30 I was a nervous wreck! I don't even know why I was so nervous...I was confident about my ability to drive, but I think it was more of the 'how is the examiner going to be?' sort of thoughts running through my mind.



Not of any help, was hearing many people relate their stories to me about how they failed the test so many number of times and for what reasons. Some of them:



There are people here who have done the entire test perfectly, only to be told at the end that they failed. Why? Because they forgot to put their seatbelt on. Automatic fail!!



Another lady backed up into a concrete post when asked to reverse park and another man (both from India) parallel parked hitting both cars he was trying to park between. These are not novice drivers, but just nervous drivers because you have this examiner watching your every move!



So I sat in the car for half an hour and waited for the examiner. It turned out to be this really nice Lady, who asked me to show her that the left and right signal lights and brake lights were working on the car that I had brought with me for the test. You have to come in your own car. Since I did go for lessons with a driving insturctor, I took his car for the test. Then after asking routine questions like if I wore glasses, how was my health etc she asked me to start the engine and move out of the parking slot.



Then she asked me to drive onto the main road, with regular traffic and take left or right turns in advance of signals to give me time to change lanes if I had to. Once inside a residential area, she asked me to show her 'down hill parking, a three point turn and a left turn on the four way junction'. By this time, I was not nervous at all and just followed her instructions. She then asked me to drive back to the test drive centre and reverse park into one of the parking slots. Luckily I had practiced and managed to put the car in perfectly! She immediately told me that I passed and after giving a thumbs up to my instructor who was nervously waiting for me, I went inside the Drive Test office to get my new license!!



What a feeling of instant freedom. I drove my kids to the library in the evening and my daughter to school this morning.

So one more thing done in Canada..........next on the list is to go to the police station.........I'll tell you why in my next post.

Bye for now

Election Day today!

Today is October 14th, the day after Thanksgiving...and also Canada's election day. It has been so low key compared to the U.S election fever, but interesting none the less. Todays 'Toronto Star', our newspaper, had the different parties put up a small writing on their last overall say in why people should vote for them.

Today our lawn is COVERED with half of the leaves from the tree outside, and I guess we have to clean it up. Didn't realise what a mess it makes as well as the eye sore it becomes when all your neighbors clean up their yards and you don't!

Today I met two Ladies, one who is from Tamilnadu originally and has been in Canada for eight years. Her family became Canadian citizens and are voting for the first time. The second lady I met, was an anaesthetist in India but could not practice here because she has to first get a degree from Canada for her license. So she goes twice a week to Toronto from Brampton for her classes and works on the weekends at the cash register in a petrol pump. Her five year old son is dropped by her in the morning in school, and is picked up by another family memeber. It is not easy for many immigrants coming here. She will finish her course and then be eligible to try for a job in the hospitals here.

Our shipment from India should reach Canada today, and I guess reach our house sometime later this week.

Hope things are fine with all my readers out there......

Have to go rake up the leaves from the yard.........................see you!

Come October, come the Turkey and the Crazy!

Hi and a Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there from Canada!

Today, the second Monday of October is the Thanksgiving holiday, and everyone is closed to celebrate.

Thanks is given at the close of the Harvest season for the bounty of crops. If you heard of the term, the Thanksgiving Classic, no it is nothing to do with some old fashioned way of eating a turkey. This is one of the biggest football events in Canada, and it is played and televised nationally on Thanksgiving day. So, today, many Canadian families will cook and eat a big turkey dinner, with mashed potatoes, peas, corn and blueberry pie. Many will watch the football game on t.v and celebrate the day with other family members and friends.

The day, the second Monday in October was proclaimed to be the official day of Thanks by the Canadian parliament on January 31t, 1957.

Many stores are selling their turkeys at half price today, and all pie fillings, pie crusts etc are all selling at bargain prices. After tomorrow, no one is going to need these items and I wonder what the store does with all the left over stocks!!

What are most Indian families doing today? Probably what we are doing.......household chores, cooking for the week, taking the kids out for a meal....of their choice.......and catching up on emails to family and friends in India!!

Now, I mentioned the Turkey......here is the crazy.............Halloween!!

You should see Walmart. Went there yesterday, and it looks like half the store is just set up for the wonderful marketing magic of Halloween. From decorations like paper streamers to plastic skeletons, scarecrows, lighted up pumpkins, costumes of everything from witches, to Harry Potter and Princesses, to loot bags, make up, and tons of sweets, candy and give aways. The prices range for any income group to be able to slurge on that one day...a day that the kids look forward to as much as Christmas or their birthday!

History says that Halloween actually started from the Celtic days, when after the harvest they would take stock of their animals and see how much meat they had to see them through the winter. At times, the killing of these animals resulted in sickness or diseased crops. This fine line between the alive and dead......somewhere crossed into Halloween. A night where people started a tradition of bonfires with scary stories, visits to haunted homes, and decorating the home or lawn with a pumpkin or Jack-o-lantern.

Halloween is celebrated on Ocober the 31st and on this day, especially children, dress up in whatever costume they like, and have parties in schools as well as community centers etc. In the evening, once its dark, children walk door to door with their costumes on, and say, 'trick or treat', and the person in the house will give the children some candy. Some people give baked goods, candy apples or even stickers and small toys.

Adults and teenagers have dress up or costume parties to celebrate Halloween and it is generally a day of crazy fun!!

My son has decided to be Harry Potter, and my daughter wants to be Hannah Montana. We picked up the blonde wig yesterday, and I have to say that she looks nothing like Hannah Montana and its hard to say what or who she looks like.

Will write more about this after Halloween and take some pictures too.

Yesterday we went to the Queens Quay in Toronto. If you are in Canada and have not taken a walk there.....do it today. It was an amazing experience, just walking along the deck, with all the ferry's and boats rocking in the water and the sounds of the waves hitting the rocks surrounding the atmosphere. There was a Chinese man playing a stringed instrument, and it just sounded so beautiful in the background. There was also a guy, who called himself the Fire Guy, who did tricks with whatelse, fire!

We took a short ferry ride and saw a lot of people with different kinds of boats out, enjoying the afternoon.

There are many eateries here, things to do like music shows to watch and street performances that pop out in front of you as you walk.

It cost us 12 dollars to park the car for two hours. You need at least two to three hours minimum to enjoy what the Queens Quay has to offer. They also have child friendly activities in the main pier building.

We saw many people riding their bikes, roller blading, taking buses and trams and also just walking with thier pets.

Enjoy the pictures...........and will catch up with you later.

Love to hear your comments or questions...........keep them coming.

Oh and from my earlier post, Jim Carrey was the right answer for my question.........and the only person to answer right on that one was Anitha Bennett from Chennai!!

Bye for now........

Pictures....!!

Just put up lots of pictures that we took this weekend. Some of Lake Ontario, downtown Toronto and the Queens Quay where we went today.

The pictures say it all........................

A tram in downtown Toronto.

I call this one, ' Smoke stack coming out of smoke'.

One of the boat docking areas. Many people own boats here and pay to 'park' it at designated areas like this one.

That's a Weeping Willow in the middle. After you see sights like this.......you slowly begin to understand why people say that this is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Here is a man fishing.....out with his comfortable chair, bait and rod.

We took a 45 minute Ferry ride on the Lake and came across this sign. It was part of the bird sanctuary, and our Ferry driver had to make sure the boat was exactly in the middle of the shallow waterway we were going on.

Two people on Canoe's.

Two guys enjoying an afternoon on a raft with a motor.

Before winter sets in, you see many people with various kinds of boats out.........enjoying themselves sailing and having a good time.

The Queens Quay at the Toronto harbour.

Close up view of the Rogers Centre

Close up of the CN tower

Another sign.

While you drive on the freeway, you see signs like this along the way telling motorists about traffic jams, driving advice and other important information.

One of the huge skyscrapers that makes up the Downtown Toronto skyline.

The Rogers Centre.