So off we went in the car. The trip was a little long, so both K and Big C took a little nap. 
Big C was pretty tired out from playing with Paul and daddy at Monkey's soccer practice. We arrived and paid our admission, then were off to check out the fair. I told the boys that they would play one game and go on one ride after we checked it all out. They were quite compliant and waited patiently. We took it all in and they decided on ski-ball (I think it's been around since about the 1800's) as their game. Monkey got pretty good at rolling it rather than throwing. He had a great time.
Big C was pretty tired out from playing with Paul and daddy at Monkey's soccer practice. We arrived and paid our admission, then were off to check out the fair. I told the boys that they would play one game and go on one ride after we checked it all out. They were quite compliant and waited patiently. We took it all in and they decided on ski-ball (I think it's been around since about the 1800's) as their game. Monkey got pretty good at rolling it rather than throwing. He had a great time. 
Then we were off to Grandpa's Train Show. The boys were glued silently to the window for about 10 minutes. Then they started to point stuff out to each other. The steam train. The other steam train. The school bus. The excavator. The tunnels. They were both in awe. They also both agreed that it was almost as cool as grandpa's trains in his basement.
Then we were off to their ride. We stopped briefly at the Batmobile and the Fire Truck, but that didn't count since Daddy didn't out in the required loonie to make them go.
They both chose the airplane ride and got in line early enough to get into red planes. I think that we can hit the aviation museum soon! Here are some of the shots as they went around and around, smiling, giggly and laughing with one another.
The next step was the lumberjack show. Big C was excited about the chainsaws and tractor that were parked nearby. At the beginning they needed some volunteers. Daddy thought 'why not?'. Off he went, giving Monkey the camera. Daddy did his best, but lost his heat by about 1000th of a second. Ah well, I got loads of cheers from my little guys and K. Oh, and Monkey took about 100 pictures in the 5 minutes that daddy was up there. Here are some of the keepers.
After 2 hours and a snack of banana/ blueberry muffins we were all tired. We piled back in the car for supper at home with mommy. 
And about supper. At the local grocery store they sell pre-made for 5$ each. That was 30$ for 6 of them. I decided to price out a really nice rib eye steak, a chicken breast and 3 peppers. Grand total about 17$. With 15 minutes at the cutting board I'd made 8 kabobs for abaout 57% the cost of 6. And mine were bigger and jucier. I appreciate that I have to pay the butcher (or his high school assistant) to put them together, but at that cost difference I won't be buying from the butcher in the foreseeable future.
They each took turns going back and forth, using surprisingly little water from the barrel (the level dropped maybe 6 inches). Here's looking forward to giving it lots of use in the coming months and years!
K gave us both beautiful fans. We like them very much. We have put them above the mantle in our home for all of our guests to see. They are very beautiful.
But here is was warm and sunny! This is me literally turning around after the above picture was taken and then shooting in the other direction. Amazing
and then hit the driveway for a turn on the pedal cars. It was difficult for the little guys to leave, but hopefully we'll be seeing them again all too soon. Thanks for coming to play M and D !!!
I also didn't have a pipe wrench and vice to tighten the coupling to the faucet, so we'll see if that holds up. Hand tightening it seemed to make it water tight, though I wasn't about to waste many liters of water to find out. I'll re-evaulate after the first few rainfalls.
Fortunately I'm quite tall. Otherwise, I'm not sure how I'd install the bushing into the hole for the faucet. I was at an arm's length to hammer it into the hole, since I used a 1" drill bit and tried make it as narrow as possible in drilling. 
If you follow any of this advice, have any ideas to add, or end up making your own rain barrel then please leave me a comment.
The meal was very delicious. The soya sauce and mustard was delightful with the boiled pork. It was very flavourful. The rice was very different from the rice in Canada and was easy to pick up with the chopsticks. K complimented us in that we were quite good at using chopsticks. The soup was also very good. The vegetables in soya sauce were something that Saje and I had never tried, but was delicious.
