Rideau Canal Skating

Thursday was remarkably Spring like. With very little planning, the kids and I, with my mom, jumped in the car and drove the hour and a bit to Dow's Lake Pavilion in Ottawa to do a little skating on the Rideau Canal. It's great the way they make skating on the canal so convenient. It lessens the blow of a $12 parking lot.

We stashed our boots in the white dome everyone is headed to in the pic below and we started out.

For those of you who have been so kind as to post pics of your adventures (Cristina and Marina) and your wonderful countryside (Dorothy) I figured I'd throw in some stark contrast. Having a scant 400 years of history in this country, there's little in the way of 'ancient architecture'. But, the canal itself is a marvel and the other bits are interesting.

Here we have the football stadium and below that, Lansdowne Park.
A bit closer to downtown you can see the YMCA tower to the left of the old Museum of Civilization 'castle' behind the bridge. There's another canal access point as well. They are all over the place. There's little to no official parking for the canal, but there's a lot of steps and seats and 'you are here' maps.

There's K skating by the University of Ottawa building. There's a big, lit up greenhouse on the top of the high rise.

I think anyone who has seen any advertising at all for the Rideau Canal Skating Rink has seen a picture like this. The roof line of the Chateau Laurier can be seen on the horizon.

Here we are in the heart of Ottawa. The Parliament buildings to the left and the old train station on the right. How I ever got to the ripe old age of 34 without ever eating a Beaver Tail, I don't know. But I couldn't let the same unfortunate thing happen to my kids. R's not a fan of sticky-sugary-sweet, so he held out for fries. I tell you, one Maple Beaver Tail is about as much stick-sugary-sweet as any one person can take. And that's saying something coming from this professional sweet tooth.

R eventually got his fries. Most of which were eaten on the go.

A kilometre from the end of our skate, all 13km of it, the kids took a brief break. The temperature had started to drop noticeably and we were definitely done. It was a great afternoon. Really, so easy to do. Living so close to Ottawa, it's really something we should do more. But, it's not to be this year. It was the last day of the season to skate. I'm glad we were able to fit it in.

Sickies

After our skating adventure on the Rideau Canal on Thursday (pics and blog to follow) we came home with an additional house guest. At least R did.

For 12 hours, he hosted the wonderful effects of food poisoning.

This was especially disappointing as R had a Friday night boys' night with friends planned - dinner and a '67s game in Ottawa. I called and cancelled for R on Friday morning. I wasn't very popular with anyone. I'm glad I did, though, as R certainly wasn't bouncing back very quickly.

R slept most of Friday away with a curious little fever. K made plans to get picked up by my mom and spend the night with her. They do girl stuff together like watch old episodes of Full House for hours on end. R and I hung out reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid. He thought he might like some gelato so we took a short car trip. He only had two small bites, but it stayed down. We were making progress!

K arrived home this morning, pale as death. She flopped on the couch and hasn't moved. No fever (yet?) but no appetite, energy or joie de vivre. Interesting.

I'd just like to note that when they were babies, the kids never got sick together. Any cold or other ailment was always spared the other until the first was mostly recovered. Most recently, this was experienced last Spring with the Chicken Spox. A lovely month-long affair.

R didn't appreciate being left alone in his bed while I was taking care of things around the house. K didn't feel up to moving over on the couch to make room for her brother. I was getting frustrated running up and down with pillows and water and the dog underfoot and can you get the curtains now mom and maybe I would like a straw now that I think about it and arrgh!

The cot! Years ago I bought a cot when the family bed was shrinking. It's come in handy over the years. Today I employed it in the living room.

So here we are on a lovely Spring-link Saturday afternoon. Cooped up in the darkened living room feeling very run down. R is perking up and is keeping down a generous helping (for a sick person) of soup. K just feels like dozing. Everyone is much more content now that they are lying down - separate but together. The dog is happier - and less underfoot - as well.


♥Bonni

Testing...Testing...

Hey all,

Sorry to be playing with things. Sometimes it's fun to clean things up and freshen up the wall paper. Of course, the procrastinator in me much prefers to play with blog colours than the hall closet shelf that's been a catch-all for years.

*photo courtesy of K and her new camera

♥Bonni

Fundraising For Me

All year I have been fundraising by throwing my spare change into this biscotti container. Sometimes, I've even had a $5 or $10 in my wallet for a week or so...or I washed a bill in the laundry and claimed it...and into the container it went.

B and I sat one evening and rolled. We rolled until we hit $309 and ran out of nickel rollers. I'm using the money to attend the Kitchener-Waterloo Home School Conference.

I know not everyone is a conference person, but I am. I leave the conference feeling motivated. I like bringing home hurriedly scrawled notes of good ideas. I like hearing the authors of a program/curriculum/method talk about how to implement a subject into your homeschool. I know it's a sales pitch. But don't knock it until you've heard Donna Ward talk about Canadian History.

This conference will be a special trip for me. I'm making a weekend of it. I'm carpooling with a fellow-homeschooling-girlfriend. I'm staying in a hotel. There might be evening entertainment or a yarn shop or a cafe visit or who knows what!? I'm taking suggestions. (Please keep in mind it's totally possible that I will ignore all advice and choose to hole up in the hotel all weekend reading stuff I've gleaned from seminars and new books I bought at the vendor fair.)

My fundraising has been particularly successful since we gave up Tim Horton's coffee. There are definitely greater amounts of change present when one doesn't make an almost daily trip there.

Further fundraising happened at my birthday party a couple of weekends ago when my family contributed a few bills to my efforts. They don't get the whole homeschooling thing, however, they understand being excited to go weekend adventuring. Remind me to blog about my siblings' weekend stopover in Paris, France to be at the Tour de France finish line one year.

The fundraising will continue the weekend before my conference at the annual RVHEA Used Book Sale. I've totally stepped out of my box and I've booked a table at which I will attempt to sell the books and things I'm done with. I need to make more than $20 to cover gas. However, to this event I am also carpooling!

I just had to share. Thanks for listening.
♥Bonni

Christmas...Finally Packed Away

I'm embarrassed to admit that Christmas has been hanging over my head. Hopefully my procrastination will make someone feel accomplished...on the ball...or at least seasonally aligned.

It's March 1 and I still have garland on the stairwell. I've been telling myself...and anyone who asks...that it's 'Winter-y', not necessarily 'Christmas-y'. Then I nonchalantly move my hand to cover up the Season's Greetings - From Our Family To Yours! on the hanging ornament.

And here on the hall shelf, I still have 'Winter' things going on. Snowmen...that's not Christmas-y, right?

<--- This is why things have been languishing upstairs. This is the overflowing Christmas bin...and basket...and bag. It's all clogging up my laundry area. Which is causing the ironing to get behind...

See how one too-small-bin can throw a wrench in the works?

So today I finally got to it. I emptied a larger bin whose contents could be streamlined to fit in the smaller bin....

...and made a bigger mess.

But in the end, all is well. Christmas is packed away in the larger bin. I feel better.