The sugar bush: our annual outing

Yesterday we took our annual trip to the sugar camp.  We've tried different ones over the years but have pretty much settled on Sand Road Sugar Camp as our favourite.  It satisfies a few things for me: (1) great food which must include des oreilles de crisse (cured smoked pig jowls) which I would describe as pretty much the best bacon you will ever taste; (2) nice setting with good walking trails; (3) sleigh ride; (4) maple syrup lines, buckets, operation close to the food building so the kids can discover; (5) not overly busy.  The kids would add maple taffy to that, which of course they have.  You can't be a sugar camp in Eastern Ontario/Western Quebec without offering maple taffy.

As an aside, if you're not from these parts, you might wonder what the deal is with sugar camps... or what the heck it is.  A sugar camp/sugar shack/cabane à sucre is pretty much a maple syrup farm.  And every one of them in this part of Canada has a sugar shack where you come and have a huge brunch (Ontario) or supper (Quebec).  The food is good, bountiful and there is lots and lots of maple syrup to pour on top and to buy.  After stuffing yourself you can usually watch the farmers make syrup, walk trails, have a sleigh ride, etc.  Each camp does it a bit differently.  And there are a lot of camps in the Ottawa area.

For me, Sand Road meets all of my requirements to a tee and if you go at breakfast time instead of lunch, which we always do, you really don't even have to wait in line. 

The forecast for Ottawa yesterday was a little bit of gorgeous at 8 degrees and sunny.  There was still a good amount of snow so the sleigh rides hadn't turned into wagon rides yet, which meant that the ride was still through the gorgeous sugar maple forest.  The cold temperatures of the last few days meant they weren't boiling sap (the lines were frozen) but by the time we left the sap was running through the lines (it's pretty loud!) so the kids had lots of fun watching that and checking the few old-style buckets they have around.

Hello Sand Road!

Henry is primed for a sugar high!

The traditional-style buckets.  The sap was frozen when we arrived.

The view looking at the food building. 

Well-fueled after a big breakfast, the kiddies must top it off with maple taffy on the snow.

Time for a sleigh ride.

Old friends, Nevan and Emily, cozy up for the ride.

Hope, who I just diagnosed with Fifth Disease (more on that later), snuggled into the corner and didn't really move.

A stop halfway allowed the kiddies (and adults) to pet the horses.

The two academics talk shop.

Why play with snow or sap lines when there is this exposed pile of dirty gravel to see about?

Sneaking in on my gravel, are you?

Still loving the gravel!

You do realize this is gravell?!  Why am I the only one who is fascinated?

Winterluding a little bit

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Ottawa.  It was a high of minus 1 or so and sunny and only a light wind.  I decided it was high time for a skate on the canal since we've stuck to our local outdoor rink thus far.  But when I checked the canal conditions, it looked sketchy.

I had a Plan B: the newly installed Rink of Dreams, still downtown amidst the action, still outdoors, perfectly human-made ice and right in front of City Hall.... beside the canal.  So I packed the kids up - it was unfortunately 4:00 pm by the time we were organized enough to leave the house - and headed downtown.

I parked at the National Arts Centre's underground parking.  It took us a looooong time to find our way to a door that would get us out of the parking garage and I was decidedly grumpy by the time we hit the outdoors.  My mood vastly improved with fresh air though and with the girls' excitement about getting to walk through one of the main Winterlude sites: Confederation Park.  It's the site of the best ice sculptures and other great Winterlude public art.

They (and I) and Henry were not disappointed. They ooed and awwed at the ice sculptures and even got to sit on one (these photos were all iPhone specials (and not the 4GS... so sorry for the quality).

Emily and Hope try out the ice chair... and keep sliding off.

 We loved the lost mitten sculpture (I'm sure that red and white number is mine.... I lost it earlier this winter.  I loved those mitts but I'm not really willing to knit another at this point).

Dancing by the lost mitten sculpture.  Henry is showing that he knows what mittens are.

That red and white one... there!  Mine! (maybe)

More cool public art... hockey related, of course.  This is Ottawa after all.

We stopped for a while to look at the infared wolves.  These were very cool and I think they would be even better in the dark.

Favourite public art.

And finally we made it to the rink.  We stayed in the middle so the kids wouldn't be run over by the speedy gonzaleses whipping around the perimeter and so Henry didn't get in the way in his stroller.  There weren't may people using it (most people were on the canal) and the ice was perfect.  My kids couldn't get over the condition of the ice.  They'd never skated on perfect ice before.  Emily was amazed at how well she was doing.  Wait until I introduce them to an arena.  Their minds will be blown.

Just starting out.  Love Hope's laces.

Henry was content to be pushed around by me.  Didn't like it so much when we stopped.

And with a gorgeous view of Parliament and downtown.

The lights on the boards change colours.  Sounds tacky but actually really funky.

This is a shot I took of the new Convention Centre, which looked amazing all lit up.  Couldn't get it on the iPhone but thought this was a cool effect anyway.

 We headed back to the parking garage after only about 20 minutes of skating (and I realized we parked right around the corner from the door out... I just headed in the wrong direction when we left the first time).  We were hungry and John was waiting for us at home.  This was just a first taste.  We'll certainly be back.  I give a thumbs up to the Rink of Dreams.  We'll definitely head there one day right after school and have a longer skate.  For tomorrow however, it's back to our local outdoor rink where the ice is choppy but the parking is easy.

Why hula-hooping by an almost-40-year-old should only be attempted under the supervision of a qualified physician

I was lazily preparing breakfast on Saturday morning (not rushing to make school lunches and breakfast at the same time like I do from Monday to Friday) when I heard Rob Burwash's sleep-inducing voice announce that there would be a hoop-a-thon/hoop dance/hoop thingy on Sunday afternoon in front of the National Art Gallery.  A woman came on to talk all about it - hoopers (yes, that's what they're called) from all over Ottawa would gather with their hoops and hoop til the sun went down.

It took me all of about 4 seconds to decide where I would be on Sunday afternoon.  Because hooping = awesome.

Emily and Hope really like hula-hooping and so does their mother (not that I imbibe often but when I have I rather love it).  Emily is especially fond of it along with her friend, Rebecca.  In fact, I even made hoops for them all last year (it is really fun to make your own hoops and they are SUPERIOR quality to the poor excuse for a hula hoop that you find at Canadian Tire).  And so, I invited Rebecca and our neighbour, Anna, to join Emily, Hope and me on Sunday afternoon to hoop the day away.

Here is what we saw when we arrived (after driving all over God's green Byward Market to find a parking spot):

Coordinated hoop dancing!

There were piles of hoops to be tried - all homemade jobbies of course - and we tried many.

The favourite was this giant hoop:

I hooped right along with all the girls while trying to perfect some tricks (or at least get them to a point where the hoop wasn't hurtling across the brickwork at breakneck speed aiming to remove a tooth from an unsuspecting hooper or non-hooping innocent bystander).

We stayed for two hours.  I was hooping for about 90 minutes of that.

As I said, I don't exactly hoop a lot.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that the next day I was whining incessantly mentioning on Facebook that my back was hurting.  And later that day, I tried to bend over and pick something up and could barely stand upright without the help of that "I've fallen and can't get up" contraption due to my abdominals being in shreds.  Oh and also, my neck hurt.  I think I hurt my neck when I was perfecting my neck spin/launch the hoop to my hands trick that was oh-so-awesome and yes, it will appear on Youtube someday or at least on Canada's Got Talent.

A good number of people were there - it seems mostly hooping teachers and their families/friends - and us.  And then a slightly strange woman who attached herself to our little posse.  She was nice and friendly and really liked kids and I assumed she was there with her own kids but then she said and did a few things that made me realize that there is no way she has kids.  Like, for example, she was INSISTENT that we pose for a photo with the hoops arranged JUST SO and everyone SMILING and LOOKING AT HER... RIGHT NOW.  SIGH.  WHY AREN'T YOU LOOKING OVER HERE?  And me thinking... you do not have kids because someone with kids would not even attempt to get a staged artistic shot with four girls, one of whom is five years old and all of whom have been HOOPING for almost two hours.  Because we all know that that would only be attempted in order to illustrate why you should never attempt it.

That grimace is me wondering why I didn't stop this idea in its tracks.

And then she insisted on drawing portraits of the girls right after I suggested I take them for hot chocolate before heading home.  So now we have four tired girls with the hot chocolate carrot dangling in front of them being asked to sit quietly and NOT MOVE after hooping for two hours.

Recipe for success!

It would have gone more quickly if Emily's damn hair hadn't been so difficult to translate to the page.

But we did finally get the hot chocolate, and a sketch of the girls, and lots of stories to tell.

And possibly a hernia.

Canada Day our way

With three little kids, we generally try to avoid big crowds. I'm not talking about regular crowds like you'd find at a fair or a festival. I'm talking REALLY big crowds such as several hundred thousand people collecting in and around Parliament Hill on Canada Day.

We tried that when Emily was about 20 months old and decided that we wouldn't be back until she was at least 18 or so. It just isn't a fun experience for either the kids or the parents. You're constantly worried that you'll lose one of them and they can't see a thing given that they're about thigh high on a good day.

This year we found ourselves in Ottawa on Canada Day which is rather remarkable to be honest given that, although we live here, we tend to flee Ottawa for a good chunk of the summer and spend it at the cottage. This year, however, we decided to ease into the summer and have some downtime at home right after school ended. This was largely Emily's preference but we fully supported it (and we've been having a great time right here in little old Ottawa).

Anyhoo.

We needed to find something to do on Canada Day and given that we're a family of history nerds, we decided to check out the goings on at Pinhey's Point. Pinhey's Point is one of the City of Ottawa's historic sites. It's way out in middle-of-nowhere Kanata (Dunrobin, actually) but from now on I'll be referring to it as a hidden gem (in middle-of-nowhere Kanata). It's the remains of the estate of Hamnett Pinhey who was granted that land for his service as the King's Messenger during some war or other (yeah, that's me with the Masters Degree in History being all precise and whatnot). He wisely chose pretty much the best piece of land in the west end, right on the Ottawa River, gorgeous views of Quebec, and made himself into a very rich man. You can walk through the house and poke around in most of the rooms learning about the history of the family, see some special exhibits (I particularly liked the one on 19th century toilets) and of course view the furnishings and learn about the architecture of the house.

The house that Hamnett built (that name really rolls of the tongue, doesn't it?)

On Canada Day, there were other special activities as well: a barbecue, wagon rides, a petting zoo, period music and historical games. Most things were free or really reasonably priced. And, while the parking lots seemed pretty full, it was not at all crowded. We didn't have to wait in any lines. Not once.

It was a lovely day. We all had a great time. The girls splashed in the river, we rode the wagon twice. We ate freezies and hot dogs and drank pop and listened to lovely music.

Time for a cool-down in the lovely Ottawa River.

Hope decided that "cool-down" means "fall-down" and get entirely soaked. To be honest, I was a little jealous of her wet clothes: built-in air conditioning.

Wagon ride number two.

Taking in the music.

Pinhey's will be our go-to from now on for Canada Day in Ottawa.

I'm thinking Will and Kate would have preferred it to all the crowds they had to deal with at that other site.

It has taken me a while to get a decent shot of how blue this boy's eyes are but I got the shot at Pinhey's. I could stare into these baby blues all day. And sometimes do.

Change of plans

We were supposed to be driving to my dad's in Gravenhurst right about now but Emily's stomach had a different idea for the weekend.

Yesterday morning Emily got up around 6:00 coughing and crying (I should have known what was to come... coughing for her is a sure sign of digestive distress - and impending yakking). She went back to bed until about 7:30 when she got up and ralphed. She had some water later. And then up came the water.

She spent from about 8:00 until 11:30 asleep. The rest of the day she lazed about feeling sort of okay when she had Motrin in her but really not okay when the Motrin wore off. Fevery.

After a lovely bubble bath last night (soothing and useful to wash barf out of hair) she felt GREAT! I thought maybe, just maybe, we'd be able to go to Muskoka for the weekend. But alas, this morning, she got up and laid right back down on my lap and didn't move for about 20 minutes. She still isn't herself so we've decided to stay put. Also, the risk that another member of the clan may fall to this flu also weighed on my mind. When you're barfing, you really want to do it in your own bathroom.

So, here we are: a long weekend ahead of us (as today is a P.D. day - no school) and Monday is a holiday. So, as long as everyone is healthy or near-healthy, here is our plan:

Today: a trip to the library this afternoon or Chapters (this is really more for me - I'm feeling like I need to breathe air outside these walls)? Emily may stay home for this.
Saturday: maybe go to The Farm. We haven't been there since we moved back to Ottawa. The museum isn't open yet (although will be open on Monday for Family Day) but we can still see the animals. Nice little piggies.
Sunday: Jacques Cartier Park for some Winterlude, Beavertails and sliding down the ice slides. Late afternoon - first swimming lessons (at least for Hope).
Monday: There's a winter festival at our local park from 11am to 3pm that I think we may go to. Of course, today feels like spring, but I hear that Winter plans to show his face again this weekend.

What are you doing this weekend?

Making up for lost canal time

Last year was the first winter I didn't skate on The Rideau Canal since about 1997. We were living in Waterloo last winter, a long commute to the Canal, and the one weekend I did make it here I was about 6 months pregnant and already Large And In Charge and wasn't willing to risk catching my blade in a crack in the ice. Henry would have been fine but my body wouldn't have liked the 165 pounds of momentum behind that fall.

I'm making up for lost time this winter. I've been out three times on the Canal and twice on our local rink helping the girls learn to skate. Next weekend, we'll be in Gravenhurst skating on Kahshe Lake in front of my dad's house if all goes according to plan. My legs are slowly remembering what to do and how to recover. Pushing Henry in a heavy stroller (Peg Peregos are great but not exactly lightweight) makes it an even better workout... especially if I'm skating into the wind.


My sort-of routine is to go to the Canal on Wednesday and Friday afternoons while both girls are in school. I hope to keep doing this as long as the ice is decent. Wouldn't you with scenes like this?


My only complaint up to this point has been the lack of decent food on the canal for a gluten-sensitive girl like me. Beavertails? Yum but fully-glutened and not exactly a healthy choice for lunch. Poutine? That gravy is likely chalk-full of wheat or something related (if it is even identifiable outside of a lab) and it tastes like shite. Why can't we get a decent poutine on the Canal? We're in a city ripe with good poutine. It's about LAYERS, friends, LAYERS. Fries, cheese curd, GOOD gravy, repeat. NOT fries, more fries, a bit more fries, a few curds, a brown sludge poorly resembling gravy.


Of course, poutine is definitely not going to make the list of healthy lunch choices, even when done well.

And then along came the soup lady. Stone Soup Foodworks was profiled in The Ottawa Citizen this week so I, like many other people on the Canal yesterday, sought her out. I had her Thai Squash Soup for lunch. It was delicious and nice and spicy. Clearly Ottawans have been wanting this because the line was huge by the time I joined it. I bought the last bowl of squash soup and she was almost out of bread (which I didn't take - she gave me 50 cents off as a result. Very friendly.). I hope she's a new fixture on the Canal because she's set a new standard.


So, for all of those Ottawa mums out there who are feeling a little house-bound: get out there, get skating and have some soup. Henry says so! (Don't worry, Rose, he survived the cold!)

A whirlwind tour of the nation's capital

I'm back after my longish weekend in Ottawa, sans kids or husband. It was fun but fast and tiring. I accomplished everything I set out to do. I also came home with an aching back after driving there and back on my own, with my pregnant belly sitting leisurely on my hips and lower back for five hours each way.

I spent most of my weekend with my good friend Meredith who, although she refused to let me eat until 10:00 pm on Friday, still gets the big kudos for letting me drag her around all weekend looking for our things in storage, in our basement and then helping me to buy a fridge.

We found almost all of the baby stuff I was looking for save for half of the baby monitor set and my Ergo baby carrier. Clearly I found these near the end of our move and just shoved them in unmarked boxes somewhere.

I'm very happy with the fridge I got. It is decidedly larger than the previous antique that is dying a slow death in our kitchen in Ottawa. The new one is 20 cubic feet, very suitable for a family of 5 (!) but still able to fit in the space we have available, standard freezer on top and Energy Star so we should see a nice drop in the hydro bill after the existing energy-sucking beast is removed.

I ate my fill of shawarma on the weekend, spent some nice time with my brother-in-law and his wife (I never know what to call her - she isn't really my sister-in-law then is she? I just call her Cibele). I had dinner with Pam and Jim and kids and sat around talking until my contact lenses were begging to be removed and I also visited the knitting store that I really like. Not to mention that I bought a new battery for the car and had Meredith's husband, Ron, and Meredith's dad install it for me. I'm good like that.

To top the weekend off, on Monday I visited the new T&T Supermarket - a monster Asian grocery store recently opened near our house - and swooned over everything. I will be shopping there frequently in the years to come. From there I went to our school and registered Hope and Emily for the fall. Emily's teacher from last year (and Hope's for the coming year) Mrs. B, gave me a big hug and told me how much she missed us all and how excited she is that we're coming back. I got a similar reception from Mme C, Emily's French teacher. Now that's a school where I want to hang my hat. It's a wonderful example of what a community school is all about.

I really love Ottawa and I'm glad we're going back at the end of the summer. I miss our house, I miss our friends, I miss the school and our neighbourhood. I miss the entirety of what Ottawa is - the people enmass, the draw people have to be outside no matter the weather, the canal, the buildings, just the placeness of it.

And yet I was so happy to pull into our Waterloo driveway yesterday and hug the three people inside the house. I missed them so much. Home is wherever they are.

Apparently you can go back home again

We had a great weekend in Ottawa last weekend. It was a whirlwind tour but nice nonetheless. I would have liked a little more time so that we weren't feeling so frenzied seeing everyone and getting things from our house. The girls had a great time but were also up until 10:00 two nights in a row. That's never good.

We spent Friday night at a hotel in Peterborough. It had a pool which was the big sell for the girls. The big sell for me was that the pool was set about one degree above body temperature. Lovely. The hotel also offered a continental breakfast which usually, in my experience, consists of dry muffins and bad coffee. This hotel had a full breakfast (muffins, cinnamon buns, hot and cold cereal, toast, bagels, juice, coffee, tea) which included something the girls are still talking about: wall-mounted cereal dispensers. You had to twist a handle and the cereal, which you could see through the big transparent tube, fell into your bowl. It was pretty cool. Do you think Starfrit makes those?

On Saturday we drove to Ottawa and started our buzzing around - first to Meredith and Ron's to drop off our things and have a quick visits, then to Pam and Jim's for playtime and visiting and dinner, then back to Meredith and Ron's in Chelsea. The next morning our friends John and Dawn and their daughter Emily arrived in Chelsea for a visit, then everyone else showed up at noon for a brunch. After that it was to our house to pick up some Christmas decorations and other things, then to John's brother's in Riverside South for supper. Back to Chelsea and then I drove the girls home with me the next morning. It was a full day's drive and we made it without resorting to buying a DVD player. That is the sign of a good car trip. I think we can say goodbye to that technology for good (fingers crossed). We did stop at the Sandlion Sticker Outlet in Richmond Hill and stocked up on about 5 years of stickers.

Did I take photos? Not one. And that is the problem with having such a crappy camera. I often don't even bother to pull it out anymore. So sad.

Capital Cupcake Camp

So, although I've put the baking business on hold while I work out my abdominal issues, that still won't stop me from taking some cupcakes to Capital Cupcake Camp on March 29. My friend, Jenn, alerted me to it and not caring whether I win or not, I think it will be so much fun! If you live in Ottawa, be sure to register as a taster and come out to eat cupcakes and support a great cause.

Tulip time is happy time

It's tulip time in Ottawa. That usually means tourists driving very slowly (not considering that people actually live here) on the Queen Elizabeth Parkway, bus loads of Japanese tourists, lemonade stands charging $3 a glass, and rainy weather. Of course, it also means loads and loads of beautiful tulips; tulips so overwhelming in their colour that your eyes have trouble processing it and I can never get a photo that really captures how beautiful it is. I'm going to subject you to my feeble attempts nonetheless.

We decided to go down to Dow's Lake last night, the main site of the Tulip Festival, since it was great weather and it seemed we wouldn't really get another chance before I left for Austin (just six more days!). We had an early-ish supper and headed out hoping the crowds and parking wouldn't be too difficult. We were right on both counts.

The tulips were beautiful. The National Capital Commission never fails to impress me with the stunning colours and variety of tulips they plant. The beds look like ocean waves swelling through the park. It is truly amazing every year and probably my favourite festival for its shear beauty (although the Beaver Tails at Winterlude make that festival a contender for top spot).

This year Emily was wowed by the tulips, stopping to sniff each bed, point out the ones we were coming up to, running ahead to get to them first. I love her enthusiasm for life. Going to an event like this is a showcase for that part of her personality and I look forward to it every time we do something special or out of the ordinary. I can't wait for our trip to Austin and her first ride in a big plane since she was a baby. I imagine she won't stop talking for the full five hours it takes to get there.

I took several decent photos but as hard as I tried neither kid would allow me to get a family photo in front of the tulips. In fact, I really don't have any good photos of a parent with these two. It's a pipe dream. This is as good as it got:


Emily however hammed it up a few times for the camera.


One of my favourite little games at the Tulip Festival is to spot the imperfections in the beds: a tulip bulb moved by a squirrel or a few mixed up with the wrong variety. This year was the winner; look at this tulip:


One loan red petal on a yellow tulip. So cool.

And I did find one bed with a few adoptees. These little surprises remind me of Old Order Mennonite quilts. The women who make them purposely place one piece of fabric in the wrong direction or in the wrong place because, they say, that only God can make anything perfect. I really like the beauty you find in things that are considered to be imperfect.


Hope practised her sniffing which I had to capture on video. Do you hear that snort? (Admittedly, it is a little hard to hear.) That is Hope's method of sniffing.



Emily walked the whole time we were there. Hope begged to be carried most of the time. So, Emily and I were both tired at the end but I managed to stay awake on the ride home. I can't say the same for her.

Inside the hallowed halls of the ding dongs

Yesterday Emily got her wish. She saw the culmination of a dream that began almost a year ago to the day. She finally got to go inside the Ding Dong Castle.

When Emily renamed Parliament Hill the Ding Dong Castle last year she was in the midst of a fascination with the place. Soon after that started she asked, continually, when we could go inside. I promised that when she was three I would take her in. With the crocuses blooming and my dad and Donna to help me out, I decided it was time.


Emily enjoyed the neo-gothic architecture, the library, the stained glass, the carvings, the marble, the splendour of it all but mostly she enjoyed the fire. The fire of 1917 that burned the place to the ground. The tour guide referred to it a few times and for Emily that was what it was all about. The stain on the sink? Must have happened during the fire. The clock on the peace tower? They put it up because of the fire. Those stairs right there? I think they used that during the fire. I was pleased that her first question was about how the people got out of the building. She had a hard time getting her mind around the fact that the buildings burned to the ground and they build new ones. That's a hard concept for the three-year-old mind it turns out. How can something that was there just disappear? Aside from the fire, the highlights for her were riding the train and bus to get there, drinking cream soda with Papa and Mummy getting a parking ticket. Damned OCTranspo and their inferior parking lot.


It was the first beautiful day of what is a beautiful week. I have flowers peeking out of the back garden, the snow pile in the front yard is well below the tree branches now and Hope spent supper with a streak of dirt across her face from her enthusiastic sliding all afternoon in the backyard.

Spring rules.