Category Archives: travel

keep…

06 Monday Jan 2020

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so far, we’ve had two chocolate tastings, and a pairing…

I’ve had a number of tastings over the years and always enjoy them… this last one was all about chocolate with coconut flavours… and I love coconut;-)…

our pairing was chocolate and an orchid tea… lots of fun preparing and doing the tasting…

I’ve also earned my keep by helping with data entry for the list of all the bars that are located in her office, or maybe chocolate room would be a better description, lol…

Tulip…

05 Sunday Jan 2020

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I always try to work in some public transportation while I am visiting my kids, lol… I love bendy buses and for the longest time we didn’t have any in Winnipeg… they also have double decker buses here… and recently the train has been added…

so, took a bus and the train to get downtown where we had lunch at Tulip, in the Hilton Garden Inn…

the modern decor is amazing… tons of purple and beautifully done… delightful space to be in…

we had two appetizers… polenta and tuna, both were delicious…

our mains were not as exciting, or a tasty, and unfortunately they didn’t have the dessert we had been looking forward to, but we had a wonderful time together and fun with buses, trains and even a bit of walking to finally get home;-)…

digs…

04 Saturday Jan 2020

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for the first week in Ottawa I slept on the pull-out couch in the living room as my son-in-law’s mom had the bedroom…

these were my digs, lol…

my suitcase was in my daughter’s office, where I would change… with all the chocolate, lol… at night we’d pull out the bed and I had the window ledge for my stuff… the whole system worked fine…

once my son-in-law’s mom left on New Year’s Day, I moved into new digs;-)…

there was a lovely message on their Airbnb board just for us;-)…

I added my new very soft purple blanket to the bottom of the bed…

and then, they added flowers and I added a new laptop;-)…

village…

02 Thursday Jan 2020

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last night we went to Upper Canada Village to see the lights…

the weather was balmy, with a bit of wind blowing now and again…

we wandered around and admired the hundreds of thousands of lights that lit up buildings and trees, had two horse and wagon rides, ate cookies with hot chocolate, sang Christmas carols in the church and had a wonderful train ride around the property…

unfortunately we couldn’t ride the carousel because you had to weigh less than 100 pounds;-(…

an excellent way to get in some walking…

new…

01 Wednesday Jan 2020

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had a very eventful last day with my son-in-law’s mom, lol…

started with a 7 am call to have the plumber come out to fix an issue in the bathroom… this also meant we were up early…

meanwhile my son-in-law was outside shovelling snow while the neighbour snowblowed both driveways…

then we got dressed in our finery for a photo shoot by one of my daughter’s friends…

we worked from a list to be sure that we covered every combination we could think of… wore two different outfits, had pictures of various combinations of people taken outside and inside and had lots of laughs throughout…

a visit with the photographer, breakfast for lunch, and then I built a tiny snow person before enjoying a wonderful walk around the block in the falling snow…

many pictures later I returned, just in time to join the nap club;-)…

we had appies, homemade and store bought crackers and toasted the new year – at 10:30, which was New Year’s in Newfoundland, where my son-in-law’s mom is from…

we watched a movie, recognized the New Year in Ottawa and went to bed… we did not stay up for the Manitoba time, lol…

afternoon…

30 Monday Dec 2019

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yesterday we had a delightful afternoon tea at Zoe’s in the Fairmont Chateau Laurier…

we dressed up a bit… nothing like when we went for tea at the Empress a few years back… at that time we even wore white gloves;-)…

the host took great care to seat us at a window with a lovely view of Rideau and McKenzie Street… we saw lots of bendy buses drive past;-)…

the settings were reminiscent of days gone by with lovely old cups and cute tea strainers… tea was delicious… between us we tried three different varieties and they were all tasty…

we shared two towers of treats and were very full by the time we were finished… we even brought home some of the dainties… our server, Dave, was extremely attentive to all of our needs and even recommended a few other places we might go…

my favourite item was the scones with clotted cream and freshly made strawberry jam…

we are having a delightful time and being treated like royalty by the kids;-)…

eventful…

29 Sunday Dec 2019

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what an eventful day yesterday was…

in the morning my daughter and I headed to Bulk Barn for bird seed and then on to Mer Bleue where it was way too slippery for a walk but we spent a lovely time feeding the birds from our hands… such fun;-)…

chickadees came and went from the surrounding trees… we saw blue jays, two types of woodpeckers, a nuthatch and maybe a partridge…

it was great fun… my daughter took the picture of the chickadee looking at me, lol…

then we picked up my son-in-law and his mom and went to the Canadian Museum of Nature where we saw exhibits about the arctic, the earth and Canadian birds… and we spent some quality time in the butterfly exhibit…

here are a few of my favourite photos…

birds AND butterflies…

finished the day off with a BeaverTail;-)…

those were for sharing, I only had half of one;-)…

meeting…

28 Saturday Dec 2019

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had a great time making Christmas dinner a few days ago…

made the stuffing, cooked a very small turnip and simmered the neck and liver for hours to make a great stock for the gravy…

after the turkey was stuffed and in the oven we enjoyed the smell as we set the table…

potatoes were mashed, gravy was made, turkey was carved, sides turned up on the counter, and dinner was served…

it has been lovely to get to spend time with Ron’s mom… in all the time they’ve been married we’ve never met… we ended the evening with some selfie fun…

celebrations…

27 Friday Dec 2019

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yesterday we celebrated Christmas… I arrived here the evening before, so we put Christmas off by a day, lol…

when we got up in the morning – not until 7 am;-)… we opened the very full stockings and then all the gifts under the tree were distributed… our family tradition is that the youngest passes out the presents and they are opened one-by-one around the circle so that we can see what everyone got…

the same process is followed for stockings (which come from Santa) and that happens first… it was a wonderful time and the gifts were all carefully chosen…

then we prepped for our Christmas breakfast… crepes, made the night before, in the crepe pan that my beloved gave the kids a number of years ago… to fill them there were scrambled eggs, cooked onions and peppers, turkey bacon, grated cheese, strawberries with whipped cream, apples and cinnamon…

delicious meal after all the fun of sharing gifts…

engine…

25 Wednesday Dec 2019

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for the first time ever, I was alone on Christmas morning…

it was odd and I spent some time thinking back to so many Christmas morning celebrations over the years…

there were no stockings to open as the kids had come over on Sunday and had fun opening them then…

part way through the morning, as I was watching a Christmas movie, I heard an engine running so came downstairs to see what was going on…

it was a fire truck and ambulance parked across the street in front of a neighbour’s house… took a while to figure out which house they were at, and the good news is they took someone out who was using oxygen… they didn’t rush off, so that was also good news… I don’t know this particular neighbour and hope they are going to be okay…

did bring back some memories… some of losing my beloved, but others of some of the crazy things that have happened to us over Christmas Eves in the past, lol… from water heaters needing to be replaced, furnaces not producing heat, to sewers backing up… we went through a number of special times, lol…

but, issues would always be resolved by Christmas morning…

here is a photo of our last Christmas season with my beloved…

as I was looking back through my posts I came across this one that was also titled engine, lol… seemed to fit with the theme…

later today I am heading to Ottawa to spend time with my kids there and meet my son-in-law’s mom for the first time…

my grandson will be house sitting while I am gone;-)…

how blessed I have been and continue to be…