Paulette

I went to New York city this weekend with Melody. We left on Thursday afternoon from Ottawa airport and arrived at La Guardia a short while later. The flight was fine. The taxi ride was reasonable. We stayed at The Washington Jefferson Hotel which was within walking distance of Times Square and the theaters.

What did we do? We shopped, ate and went to see some musicals.

Here we are on Thursday night eating our first meal.

Shopping!

After dinner Thursday we headed to Times Square and shopped at stores nearby. Melody bought a beautiful watch. We both picked up some chocolate at the Hershey store.

We spent the day Friday shopping. We took a bus down to Canal Street and walked back up Broadway. We stopped at so many shops and boutiques along the way. Melody bought a few things and I picked up a dress at Macy’s department store.

Saturday we headed out to Century 21. No not the real estate place. This is a huge department store with designer items at reduced prices. We both bought a purse & shoes. The prices were excellent.

We dropped into the M&M shop. Can’t play favourites so we picked up more chocolate.

Here’s some of our take – my purse on the left, Melody’s on the right.

My shoes are the brown sandals and the black sling backs. Melody bought the white & gold sandals, the red & white pumps and the black pointy pumps. Her feet are so tiny. I was always looking for wide shoes so my selection was much more limited.

Musicals!

We didn’t spend all our time shopping. On Friday night we went to see Chicago. I have seen the movie and I really enjoyed the musical.

Our Chicago Playbill included a special on Curtains (a musical with David Hyde Pierce) . We picked up matinee tickets for that and went to see it Saturday afternoon. It’s a murder mystery and Pierce plays the detective. It was a lot of fun.

Saturday night we went to see Wicked. I had seen it in Toronto and was happy to see it again. I always wondered how well the Toronto productions compared to the Broadway ones. The Toronto show was just as good as the NY one.

We decided to finish off our last day with another matinee. We picked up tickets to The Lion King. It was a really good show.

I am asked which musical was my favourite. Chicago has powerful songs and great dancing. Curtains was completely new to me and fun. Wicked is a story I enjoy immensely and the musical didn’t disappoint. The Lion King is a great production with innovative ways of portraying the animals and of course a musical track that is memorable. So there you go, all were my favourites.

The weather was chilly but at least it was dry and there was no snow. It was a nice break.

Melody and I traveled well together. We both enjoy musicals, shopping and good food. Maybe we’ll do it again sometime.

Kat put chicken bones in her crockpot last night to make a broth. It cooked all night and this morning she strained the liquid and put it in the fridge to cool.

A little later she wanted to take the broth out and make broth cubes out of them so they can be used easily in recipes.

She reached into the fridge and grabbed the broth. Grimace tripped her as she went to put it on the counter. The broth went flying and the entire contents spilled on the floor.

The cat couldn’t believe her luck. Chicken broth all over the floor. She started licking it up.

Kat got the mop and pail. She is trying to clean it up but the cat is attacking the mop. I guess she was protecting her new food source!

She tries to grab the cat who does not want to be caught. The cat freaks out and jumps into the pail of water spilling that onto the floor.

Now Kat is determined to get cat out of the house. She finally manages to capture her and throws her out of the house.

I get a phone call from Kat. “What? Again a kitchen incident? That’s twice this week!”

When I got home Kat said “When I move out I’m not taking the cat.” Then she smiled. Of course she is taking the cat. Not even a morning like this one can make her turn away.

She is our Kitty Kathryn!

We got home from Tremblant in the evening. The new appliances have been left to the kids for the weekend. I’m anxious to see how they liked them.

The fridge has the freezer on the bottom so this is a new setup for us.

“How did the fridge work out? Are the shelves in the fridge spaced properly? Do we need to change things around?”

“The fridge is fine. The shelves are OK the way they are.”

“How about the stove? Did you cook anything? Did you figure out the controls? Anyone try the oven?”

“Um yeah we used the oven. We were all in the kitchen making food. I reached in to take something out and the oven mitt caught on fire. ”

“Oh my gosh are you OK?”

“Yes, I’m fine. When the others saw the mitt on fire they yelled at me and it sounded like they said ‘Your hair is on fire’ so I hit myself with the mitt that was on fire. Then they yelled at me to stop. I managed to not set myself on fire.”

“OH MY GOSH”

Kat only burned the oven mitt. Brian is still recovering from his sister’s latest kitchen incident.

The new appliances are fine. What’s next?

Al, Doreen, Christopher and Alex came to stay with us at Tremblant for well basically just over 24 hours.  They arrived on Saturday and left Sunday night.

The boys went skiing with Dave.  Al, Doreen and I chatted and watched a movie “Kundun”.

They brought along The Canadian Trivia Board game.  I’m not that good at trivia.  I used to know a lot of things but I’ve don’t remember most of it now.

In particular History and Geography are bad for me.  I never liked learning about the wars so I memorized it long enough to write a test and then erased it.  Geography just wasn’t interesting for me.

One of the questions we got was “On which peninsula is the Bruce Trail located?”   I immediately went into “I don’t do Geography” mode.  Doreen gave me a look that said “Don’t leave me alone with this”.   She finally says “ummm Bruce peninsula?”.  I think for a few seconds and say “Yeah I can’t think of anything better.  That’s our answer.  Bruce peninsula”.

The guys are killing themselves because yes it is Bruce peninsula.  How easy can the question get?  Yet there I am saying I don’t know before I even think it over.

I still don’t like History or Geography.

We went snowshoeing with Jean & Helene.  The winds were so strong we decided to head into the bush instead of battling it on the ski hills.

We have 2 pairs of old-school snowshoes and 2 pair of new ones.  Guess who got the new ones?

We were going along nicely until all of a sudden… I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!

She just wanted to rest a minute that’s all.  She popped back up as if nothing happened.

The boys just watched from afar.  Is that a deer on the ground?

We followed the trail and didn’t get lost this time.  Sorry Carla!

We turned back and went home uphill the whole way along the path.  It was quite a workout.

A nice fun snowshoe day with dear old friends.

The new appliances arrived.  Just in time too because our old stove pretty much died on Wednesday.  The electrical wiring started to burn up.  That’s not a good sign or smell!

Here it is one last time.  This old stove.  The delivery guys took it away.  It’s gone!

The new stove came with a big sticker on the glass door.   It wouldn’t come off cleanly.  Why do they do that?

Here’s Grimace taking an up close look at it.  You can faintly see me in the reflection taking a picture of the goo.  Grimace just didn’t want to leave.  She seemed to enjoy watching me in the glass door.  It’s not TV silly cat.

I found something that removes goo very well.  It’s called Goo Gone.  I bought it at Canadian Tire a few years back.  I thought I would give it a try.  It is amazing.  It’s just like the commercial says.  Imagine that!

You only need to put enough on to wet the goo and wait a little bit.  It then comes off cleanly and smells like lemons.  You then wash off the lemon oil and it is done.  No scrapping or scratching, just gentle cleaning.

Just like that the goo is gone.

The new stove is almost in place.  The plug on the wall needs to be moved so we can push the stove back.

The fridge didn’t quite fit under the upper cabinet so it is off to the side.  The old fridge is in the living room.  Lovely…

The dishwasher gets installed next week.  It’s near the patio door.

The microwave is in the box.  The hood is in the box.   We’ll get to those later.

Snow friends are good friends!

Carla & Paul and their 2 children Kristen & Thomas joined us at Tremblant for the weekend. We were lucky to have good weather and snow conditions for outdoor activities.

We arrived Friday night to a wonderful dinner prepared for us by Carla. She made an amazing beef stir-fry. Oh yes we had some wine – but not too much.

On Saturday we went skiing. The 4 of them had skied the previous day but seemed full of energy for another day on the slopes.

Carla says I wore her out by skiing too fast. She thinks she owes me now. I think I got even for the cross-country skiing she tortures me with!

Dinner Saturday night was again supplied by Carla. She really spoiled us! We had lasagna, caesar salad, garlic bread. Oh yes we had some wine – but not too much.

We played some board games with the kids. I’m terrible at Scattergories but it is fun. Carla won. She’s one up on me again. We also played Cranium but the boys won over the girls only because the dice rolled in their favour. (Am I a sore loser or what?!).

Sunday morning Carla and I went snowshoeing through the bush. It was untracked snow and I admit I got lost. The trail looked so different with 8 feet of snow on it.

Carla again was leading most of the way. She is amazing! I can barely keep up to her. It was a very pleasant trek through the woods. We took the road back because one of us didn’t want to go back uphill through the bush.

While we were gone, Dave stamped out a couple of runs in the backyard for the kids to toboggan on.

Here’s a run by Thomas:

And one of Kristen’s:

We sure packed a lot of fun into one weekend. The kids were terrific. Carla & Paul feel like old friends already. That’s a good thing.

We are looking forward to doing it again next year.

Today is Brian’s birthday.

He likes to celebrate it so it’s fitting that it happens to be on St. Patrick’s day. Everywhere he goes there is a party. He enjoyed his birthday all weekend long followed by a nice home-cooked dinner made by his sister Kat and dinner at Baton Rouge coming up on Tuesday.

Here’s the birthday boy!

Happy Birthday!

Love Mom & Dad

I arranged my pictures from Big White. I didn’t have a lot of really good pictures due to the weather being cloudy a lot of the time and the fact that skiing and picture taking just don’t go well together.

The group didn’t want to do a group photo so there are few people pictures. I just got lazy with the camera. Next trip I have to be pushy and take better pictures.

Anyway check them out here: Big White 2008

Dave drove Ronnie & Pauline to the airport just before 7:00 AM this morning. Our hotel room comes with a free breakfast. I’m never impressed but food is food. We head down to the main floor and enter the dining area.

It’s a self-serve setup. They have cheese omelets ready to pop in the microwave to warm up. Wow they are creamy and taste great. Next they have waffle makers. The mix is pre-measured into cups. You pour the batter in, close the lid and flip it. A timer counts down and beeps when your waffle is done. Again they taste amazing. Coffee, juice everything you need is readily available. What a nice surprise.

Our trip home doesn’t start until 1:00 PM. We decide to drive along the lakeshore. Our first stop is in Peachland. It is a small community by the lake. We walk around a bit and everyone is very friendly and says hello. I get the impression we’d need to own 2 dogs to live here as people are out in couples each walking a dog.

We stop for a coffee & hot chocolate (the wind is chilly off the lake) at a little bakery. It seems to be the destination of choice on a sunny Sunday morning. A running group is meeting there. We manage to get seats before the whole group arrives.

We look at real estate brochures and are wowed by the prices. Living in or near Kelowna is not cheap especially if you want to be near the lake.

We continue along the highway and reach Summerland. Again it’s a nice little community near the lake. We only stop briefly to turn around and head back to Kelowna. It was a nice drive on a sunny morning.

We arrive at the first of 4 airports we will visit today. Our first leg is to Vancouver and our plane leaves on time. We have a tight connection to make there but luckily we arrive as expected and the gate is close to where we get off the first plane.

Our second leg is to Calgary. We wait in airport #2 and realize that we are going to be late. Our plane is not ready, we board late, leave late and with only a 45 minute gap between flights we are thinking we aren’t going to make it.

Our next flight is at 3:45 with boarding at 3:10 and we are only now arriving at the gate at 3:25. We still have to wait for the plane to stop, unload everyone and as we are almost at the end of the plane that takes more time. We finally run off the plane to our next gate at 3:35. I’m sure I’ve heard that they don’t allow you on in the last 10 minutes. We may be too late. Airport #3 might be our downfall.

We run up to the gate and notice a lot of people still hanging around. We are informed that the plane is late as they are repairing a seat. They haven’t even started boarding yet. It’s our lucky day. Maybe our luggage will make it on the plane too?

We finally board and lift off. We are on our last leg to Ottawa. I’m ready to go home. The pilot makes up the time and we arrive at exactly the scheduled time. Funny how that happens. Will our luggage have arrived? We had a couple of quick connections.

Brian comes to pick us up. It is now midnight in airport #4. We wait for our bags and they all show up. We can’t believe our luck. Lessons learned on this trip – no 3 hop flights, leave more time between connections and come home a little earlier especially when you have a 3 hour time difference!