Tag Archives: Ottawa

hosts…

10 Friday Jan 2020

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recently I flew home from Ottawa… I spent the majority of the trip with my eyes glued to the window… it was like the entire sky was filled with a sunset for the entire flight… what a gift…

I had the most wonderful visit with my daughter and son-in-law… also had a fun time meeting and getting to know his mom…

it was quite a different Christmas for me… flew out on Christmas Day and celebrated New Year’s there as well… his mom was with us for a week and then I spent another six days with the kids…

had so much fun… the kids are wonderful hosts* and offer up all kinds of interesting things to do… I stayed in their AirBnB room which was very cozy…

while I was there we ate great home cooked meals, fed birds out of our hands, went to see butterflies, had afternoon tea, went to the Market and restaurants, spent a day at the spa, had a photo shoot, and two chocolate tastings…

and enjoyed great conversations…

now I am home and able to begin retirement living…

*AirBnB Cozy Blue Room Ottawa

market…

08 Wednesday Jan 2020

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on Sunday we had breakfast out at Stan’s Diner, which seems to be similar to the “A”…

then a trip to pick up mushrooms, maple syrup, bread, a raspberry scone, and squash…

we also tasted truffle butter and truffle ice cream;-)…

then home for a relaxing day…

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…

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…

Jericho…

24 Sunday Mar 2019

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I was tidying up one of the kitchen junk drawers yesterday and I found the resurrection plant that we bought when my youngest grandson and I were in Ottawa last year about this time…

its actual name is Rose of Jericho… thank you Google;-)…

I took pictures as it opened…

12:07, 12:22, 1:31, 3:23…

4:20, 6:23 yesterday and 8:08 am and 5:06 pm today…

it is now a beautiful green floating plant… I am interested to see how it will end up…

arrived…

10 Sunday Feb 2019

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my older daughter, who lives in Ottawa, surprised me on Wednesday… she arrived to help with a big event I’ve been working on…

after the event, she was able to visit with a few of her friends and we spent Saturday in our jammies doing nothing…

it was divine as both of us have been very busy for the last month…

we made macaroni and cheese with lobster for supper… at the same time I learned more about Instagram stories and a new app that slices videos to Instagram size;-)… as I was going through my photos looking for one of the mac and cheese to put in this post, I was giggling because we took two sets of videos and there wasn’t a single photo of the process that was good enough to use, lol…

we did manage to get into the hot tub once… our usual routine is to spend a few minutes at the end of each evening there…

this morning we were up early and took our requisite selfie, lol… we used her fancy Huawei phone which has some smoothing aspect in the pic… we look pretty fine…

I got her to the airport by 6:30 am for her flight… and took our final selfie…

a wonderful gift…

courier…

17 Monday Dec 2018

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been thinking of how blessed my life is…

this morning I packed up a parcel for my kids in Ottawa who are not coming home for Christmas this year…

called a courier (integrated freight and parcel solutions provider – fancy title, lol) and arranged for it to be picked up…

without much thought, was able to be sure it will be delivered in the next few days… it cost a bit more, but meant I wouldn’t need to worry about when it would arrive…

tonight we talked about how we take so many things for granted… a secure place to live… clean flowing water at the turn of a tap… warm comfortable beds to sleep in… pantries full of food… health care… safe vehicles to travel in… and friends who care for us…

yummy…

21 Wednesday Nov 2018

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been pretty lucky in the chocolate department recently…

picked up some Decadence Chocolate a while back… took my grandsons to the shop and they each chose a bar and we got the last chocolate-dipped strawberries for our supper… oh my, oh my…

might also have had some of my Berrilicious Chocolate bar…

Amanda, of Melt Chocolate Company, delivered a couple of boxes of bonbons…

I only had one and it was delicious… I shared the rest with my BS buddies and work colleagues…

I had planned to send some to my daughter in Ottawa, but with the rotating postal strikes we decided it didn’t make sense to send them as they need to be eaten while they are still fresh…

yummy;-)…

bowls…

28 Thursday Jun 2018

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received these sweet bowls from my daughter when my youngest grandson and I visited Ottawa in March…

she had been using them while waiting for us to arrive, lol, and really liked them… there was some talk about not giving them to me…

when I first brought them home I didn’t use them, but decided one day that the largest one would be great for my evening chip nibble… it is about the same size as one of the cereal bowls I’d been using for ages… and much prettier;-)…

then I discovered that pretzels fit beautifully in the one the next size down… and finally, things like olives or almonds and chocolate wafers fit perfectly in the smallest one…

having appropriate sized snack containers is very helpful for portion control…

now I use them all the time, lol…

a lovely gift…

peace…

26 Thursday Apr 2018

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it was exciting to get to visit the Peace Tower while we were in Ottawa, but also sad…

the last time I was in the Parliament Buildings was over 40 years ago ago…

at that time you just walked in and looked around…

now you have to go through security twice, once outside the building and then again inside…

there are security guards everywhere and many parts of the building are blocked off…

sad commentary on the world we live in…