Toronto, Take Three

By Thursday morning the kids were begging for some down time. We've been running them since we left Pittsburgh last Sunday so we spent the morning at the hotel pool.  Coincidentally, a long-time blog follower, Heather from Ontario was in Toronto today to visit her daughter. We've been emailing back and forth the last few days to set up meeting each other. She and her husband Ralph were gracious enough to come spend some time with our family pool-side.

It's always fun to meet internet friends in real life and learn more about them. Heather and Ralph run a dairy farm a little ways from Toronto and travel when they can. We talked about places we'd all visited and recommended some favorite spots. I'm so glad they were able to fit coming to see us into their day!

After a morning of leisure we took the kids to Toronto's Bata Museum... a museum dedicated to shoes. We figured with Ainsley's love of fashion she would get a kick out of seeing the different styles on display. 

I hardly ever give anything a bad review. Really. I'm pretty easy going and aim to like everyone. If I had a mulligan I'd take the kids to see the Picasso exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario instead of to the Bata Shoe Museum.  It was a tiny museum and did not keep their attention like I thought it would. I was under the impression there were outrageous designer shoes on display. Instead there was the history of shoes, a few famous people's shoes and an exhibit from a Christian Dior designer. Interesting, but certainly not earth shattering. 

The most exciting thing for the girls was designing their own shoes.... 

and (for Natalie) seeing the display of Native American moccasins. When she saw them she said, "Which one of these should we make? What colors do we need?"  They had two sets of moccasins made by Cherokee women in the 1800s. She loved that they were made by her ancestors. (The pair on the right are Cherokee)  Poor Ryan was bored out of his mind. 

Our time in Toronto comes to an end Friday. We may take in one more thing before we leave... we'll play it by ear. There's still so much the city has to offer that we didn't have time to do. In fact we didn't really do any of the things they have geared toward kids - like Toronto Island, the Zoo, or the Science Center. We're happy with what we were able to see though. We have a great overview of the city and saw a lot of neat things. Now on to the east side of Pennsylvania for the weekend before heading back to the Burgh.