The Ottawa Adventure

Friday, July 28 - Gatineau/Ottawa
I'm not sure what time we left, but it wasn't too bad. We brought food with us, the idea being that we wouldn't need to stop on the three hour and fifty minute trip. But of course we needed to stop! When we were coming out of the Enroute who did we run into?! The Lim-Andersons! We had a fun parking lot party for a couple of minutes (they were also traveling to Ottawa but only for the night to see Emily's sister and La Machine and then further east) and then we were back on our way.

We made it to the museum about one in the afternoon, found parking and walked up. The building is so cool. The fountains are beautiful. There was a wedding party taking pictures. We enjoyed the outside for a few minutes, snapped some pics and then went inside.

We headed straight for the Children's Area. The girls were in HEAVEN!! They love a good children's museum! They were handed a passport, Kate and Alice did some arts and crafts, and then they explored. The children's area is set up like you're going on a voyage - there's a bus, a station(?) and then you travel around the world. They have houses, markets and displays that take you around the world. We all had such a great time exploring. Half way through our time there my dear friend Sonia showed up with her husband and boys and we enjoyed such a lovely visit. I got a cute picture of Moses and his Aunt Yannick (Sonia's sister who works there) and a cute pic of Moses and Kate, but not so much a group photo! Knox was not willing to do that! Moses and Kate are the same year, and Alice and Knox are the same year and I thought it would be fun to have pics of the birth year babies, oh well.

After we parted with the Elliots we were off to see more of the museum. The girls did a good job - they were tired and weren't terribly interested in the non-kid stuff, but they did a good job. Part of our admission included an omnimax film about Canada. I think that was a highlight for all of us. After we finished up at the museum we joined in a community event for a little bit - complete with a bouncy castle and a slide. The girls had lot of fun and Kate got to practice her French a little.

 

I think the entire first floor of the museum is devoted to the First Nations of Canada? There is so much pain in this history. I had some tender feelings while seeing and reading different things. When Kate saw this picture she asked me "Who is that? Is that Queen Victoria?" Her question stopped me in my tracks. It made me cry a little. She saw a beautiful woman dressed like a princess.

We went back the car, drove back across the bridge to Ottawa and Ken and I waffled. We weren't sure what to do, where to eat or where to go. There were massive crowds in town because of La Machine, there were roads under construction, we don't know the city very well, and we were tired and hungry. We finally decided just to check into the hotel and find somewhere to eat. The hotel was in Vanier - the eastern part of Ottawa. There wasn't really very much around the hotel and we eventually ended up at an Italian Restaurant - Roger's Italian Bistro. The restaurant was nice, we all loved our food and we had the whole place to ourselves. After dinner we went back the hotel and upon finding there were no children's channels, the girls eventually went to sleep.

Saturday, July 29 - Val de Bois

Today was the main event!! Our formerly Ottawa cousins, who were then the Morocco cousins, and are now the Japan cousins came home for a little visit. Ezra wanted to be baptized at the cottage like his brothers, and so it was arranged. (Morocco and Japan pics for fun.)

It was a beautiful day and we made it up to the cottage on time! The baptism itself was so lovely. It was so peaceful and beautiful by the lake and the spirit was there in abundance. Jennifer spoke a little bit about baptism and lots about Ezra. Laura spoke about the Holy Ghost. One of their friends - a bishop of a ward in Gatineau, Rob Graham spoke briefly. Eric baptized Ezra, and friends and family (including Ken) helped confirm him. Konrad and Anders said the opening and closing prayers and Eric's brother and his family sang some hymns as an interlude while Eric and Ezra got changed. Everything was beautiful and perfect.

After the baptism everyone got changed and it was BBQ, swimming, visiting, catching frogs and having fun time. It was such a lovely gathering. Jennifer and Eric have lovely friends. The kids all had so much fun catching frogs. Visiting was lovely. I didn't go in the lake but the girls were in and out. Konrad took the girls out for canoe rides. Kate didn't like it, Alice liked it okay, but Fiona, she LOVED it! She actually went out twice. It was really cute.

I think we left around 5? We drove up the highway a little bit and found a fry shack. We had yummy poutine, fries, hot dogs and Ken and I split a BLT.

We got back in the van and headed towards Ottawa, thinking that maybe we might go check out La Machine. Ken was really keen to go. I wasn't so much, but the decision was made for us when Fiona fell asleep on the drive back. She fell asleep around 7. We carried her up to the room and she slept until morning.

Sunday, July 30 - Ottawa, Gatineau, Ottawa, Home
We decided to go to Riverside Ward because it met at the earliest time. I think we were all a little sad that we didn't get to swim in the hotel pool but we all enjoyed the complementary hot breakfast. We decided that we would go to sacrament meeting and then leave. After sacrament I had two fun conversations. The first was with Heather - Emily Lim's sister. I don't remember ever meeting her before so it was so lovely to chat with her. The second was a sister in the ward that I had met at Heidi's house in Seneca Falls when Heidi invited her and her traveling companion to Canadian Thanksgiving dinner. I feel silly that I didn't ask her name, but we did have a fun chat for a minute.

We left church and drove back to Quebec. MosaiCanada 150 was something that we hadn't heard about until we were in Ottawa. It was just down the block from the Museum of History in Jacques Cartier park. It is called a horticultural event on the MosaiCanada web page. It was amazing. It is part history of Canada, part history of the First Nations people, and really just wonderful. We parked a few blocks away, and walked to the park. When we saw the line we almost left. We were worried it would take an hour to get in, but the line moved and maybe 10-15 minutes later we were enjoying the display!

 

The girls were pretty good. It was hot and dusty and we hadn't brought water. We ended up buying one bottle of water. Ken was a star and went back to get the van so we only had to walk out of the park. We were all tired and hungry. We drove back across the bridge into Ottawa and looked for parking. Ken was determined to see La Machine and the girls, they were totally on board. We found parking in an underground parking garage and then we went in search of lunch. There were so many people downtown and most places were closed because it was Sunday. We finally found a place and waited a long time for a table, then a little longer for food.

Once everyone was fed and happy we set out to find La Machine. I was really hard to win over. I really didn't feel like hanging out with masses of people, truly a crush of people to see some weird robot thing. I still don't exactly understand the whole thing but Ken had really really pitched it to the girls and they were so excited so I couldn't stand in their way. I looked at the website - La Machine is a street theatre company. The two beasts that were roaming around the city were Long Ma the dragon horse, and Kumo the spider.

Both creatures were departing from the Supreme Court building. We missed Kumo, but we were there to see Long Ma. I got totally caught up in the moment and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience. Ken figured out how to get us into the centre of the commotion and Alice pushed further and further into the crowd. Between the two of them we enjoyed the thrill of live performance surrounded by thousands of people.

I should note that we lost Ken. I put Fiona on my shoulders to give Ken a break and then I was following Kate and Alice. I told Kate and Alice several times that they were to hold onto each other and not let go. They were great and I stuck as close to them as possible and in doing so, lost Ken. We were able to find each other again - thank goodness for cell phones.

After finding each other we walked back to the parking garage and headed home. The drive home seemed long - we took highway 7 home. I'm not sure if it was really that much longer than the 401 but going through little towns, it just felt longer. The girls were pretty good really, we stopped somewhere for dinner - the girls had Subway. And then we were home. It was a wonderful weekend with family and friends. I'm so thankful for the many good people in my life!

Stop #? on the Devenney Family Cross Canada Tour

How do you end a two week trip to Connecticut visiting your sister? By entertaining immediately so you can't sit around being sad! The Devenneys, goodness, we met in Don Valley ward in Toronto many moons ago! Nikki and Spencer got married just before they arrived in Toronto - Spencer was starting at the Chiropractic College (Nikki was already a nurse). I just looked at Nikki's Facebook page - 2005. Wow. Twelve years ago. There were a group of us "young" marrieds and we had activities and formed friendships. It was a good group and we had fun together.

Maybe two months ago, Nikki reached out to see if she could stay with anyone while she was in Toronto. The Devenneys live in Chilliwack, British Columbia. Nikki wanted to bring her kids out here but never thought she'd be able to afford the flights. Then she started thinking about driving out. She has now driven out here, solo with four kids aged 10, 8, 6 and 2. Spencer flew out and joined them in Toronto. I am absolutely in awe of her doing this trip with her kids. (Camping and seeing Canada along the way - seriously - she is Wonder Woman!)

After having spent the day in Niagara Falls on Friday, they met us at the Mandarin Buffet in Pickering. We've taken our kids once before several years ago, and they enjoyed it just as much now, as they did then!

After dinner we took them to "our beach" for a quick walk by the water. Ollie went in the water for a little swim - in his clothes, and everyone else enjoyed skipping rocks.

 

Kate however had a pretty bad headache and was moaning and begging to go back home - so we did. I was worried about Kate - when she moans it often means barf. We got everyone settled, Addie in Kate's bed, Owen on the floor in Kate's room, Alice in her room with Rosie on the floor, Kate on the floor in our room, Fiona in our bed, Spencer and Nikki in Fiona's bed, and Ollie in a pack'n'play in Fiona's room too. FULL HOUSE! Kate had some advil and went to sleep really quickly. (She'd actually fallen asleep on the couch when we got home.) Everyone slept in the hot non-airconditioned house (we're waiting on a part from Sears to fix the A/C), and no one barfed! Thank goodness!

Saturday morning, Ken got up and made a breakfast extraordinaire! We had bacon, sausage, eggs, pancakes, strawberries, with whipped cream and maple syrup of course. We all ate so much that we didn't really eat lunch! With the kitchen sort of cleaned up we made our way to the zoo.

It was so humid, it rained a little, but thankfully not too much, and of course the pavillions are the same kind of sticky humid places too, so there was really no relief anywhere!  We took the girls on the carousel as we waited for them to go through the lines - no lines for us with our passes.

Then after the obligatory pose by the panda sign, we were off to see the animals!

We saw a ferret (the kids got to pet it too), the Rhinos, the Malayan Woods Pavillion, then up the hill to the Indo-Malay Pavillion. We watched the keeper put out all the food for the Orangutans, and then watched one come out and start finding his food, saw the tigers, then up the hill to Africa... This is where it kind of went sideways for Fiona.

No one got enough sleep last night - well maybe Kate, but no one else. Fiona didn't want to go into the African Pavillion and after a "traumatic" bathroom event (humidity and clothing are not a good combination) was content to chase around a Peahen.

After everyone else had their fill of Gorillas, we moved on to the Penguins. They did not disappoint. Kate and I went to the underwater viewing area at the perfect time. I'd never seen so many swim underwater at once. It was amazing. They look like they're flying underwater, it is so beautiful.

This was pretty much it where our kids were concerned. They were hot and very bothered, so we said see you in a bit to the Devenneys and took the Zoomobile back to the main gate, got Frosters at Macs and went home.

The Devenneys came back and Ken had BBQ'd up a storm. He really loves to cook for people, which is so awesome. We had cheeseburgers, hot dogs and such yummy veg, not too mention chips and ice cream treats too. The kids all played so well. They had so much fun together. They didn't want the fun to end - but bath time and bed time interrupted the fun.

After the kids were down the four of us grown ups were actually able to sit and visit. We had a really lovely visit. It sure didn't feel like eight years had passed since our last visit. This picture is from June 15, 2009. They came up to see us in Tottenham before they left Toronto and moved to BC.

We said goodbye this morning as they went to Don Valley Ward to say hello and we went to our own ward. 

I'm so glad that we were able to have such a fun visit. Until the next time Devenneys!

The Zoo

I didn't bring the DSLR on purpose. Every time we go to the zoo Ken is still amazed that I continue to take photos. I'm not sure why? I suppose I might take too many photos... maybe? I love taking photos. I love going to the zoo. I love taking photos at the zoo! May the fun continue!!!! FOREVER!!

And especially when friends visit from out of town! The Devenney family came to visit from British Columbia. We met Nikki and Spencer when Spencer was going to the chiropractic college in Toronto.