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Every Ottawaian (sp?) knows that Canada Day in Ottawa is the best. I planned our trip so that we could spend Canada Day there! And this years’ party did not disappoint. I had a top notch day.

We started off the day with Rosemarie, busing downtown and going to the Museum of Nature to look at bugs and freak animals. After that we went to the hill to see the crowds.

Her and I scarfed down a poutine surrounded by people all crowded around trying to get a glimpse of Will and Kate. We didn’t see anything really, only on the video screen.

Then she went off to meet her friends and Scott and I went to a party at Leslie’s for beer, Canadian music and patriotic snacks.

After a few hours of that we headed back to Parliament Hill to stake out a spot for the evening concert. We met up with way more people and had quite a large group. I thought the concert was actually better than usual. I had actually heard of some of the bands (ha) and even heard a new guy that I really like (Dan Mangan). There were acrobatics and drumming too.

Scott and I snuck out about 20 minutes early to race around to Major’s Hill Park where we grabbed a nutritious dinner (a popsicle) and watched an unobstructed view of the fireworks. Noice.

It took us ages to get home due to some unusual bus patterns but we made it home (reunited with Rosemarie) where we scrubbed off the sweaty filth of the day and ate a midnight snack of two kinds of cheese and two kinds of crackers. Awesome.

Ummm then the next day (the last day), we did some frantic packing and a quick coffee with the scrapbook ladies and then Jill drove us to the airport. Our flight back was uneventful.

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THURSDAY did errands and packed up and sorted a lot of stuff from my old room. Scott and I made banh mi for dinner and then we rushed off for games night at the Haberl’s house.

Tons o’ games. Tons o’ friends. Homemade salsa (thanks Natasha!) and beer and cider and champagne.

At one point we had THREE simultaneous games of Settlers going on. Awesome.

There was also birthday cheesecake for David and I. :D

quality picture taking Katrina :/

Finished the night off drinking games and beer pong and then crawled up to (the ultra comfy) bed.

It was a really fun day. I especially like that all my friends are becoming friends with each other too! Thank you Monica for planning it.

Next morning I didn’t feel that great but we had to come home fairly early to catch dad and Kate to say goodbye before they left for the cottage. We did a little more box sorting and C-Day planning and then Rosemarie, Scott and I bused downtown for Canada Day. Stay tuned for the next entry!

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On Wednesday we went to Calypso water park. It was very cold (about 14ºC if I remember correctly), cloudy, and it even rained quite hard for a while. But a combination of warm water, a lot of stairs, and great company meant we still had an awesome day. There were NO LINES. I think the max time we had to wait was about 5 minutes, and really most of the time we just climbed right in. We got to try every slide, and lots more than once.

We climbed SO MANY STAIRS. It was especially apparent after climbing the new slide tower two times in a row with no breaks. Rosemarie calculated that we climbed the equivalent of about 170 stories throughout the day! OMG! No wonder my legs were all wobbly.

Mandatory water park shot

The new waterslide tower. 10 stories tall!!

AQUALOOP!!!

4 toilet slides (2 with tubes, 2 without)

Family slides are the best slides

Mega racing, and two mega wedgie inducing slides

The park was soooooooo busy. Haha

Oh and the lazy river, kids play area, and crazy wave pool were also awesome. We went in those about every 4 slides or so to warm up.

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After the party everyone left but Scott and I got to stay at the Monnon’s overnight. We watched the video my dad made (which we forgot to get a copy of… oops!!) again and looked at some of the pictures from the day. Then we crawled to our guest suite, aka the Monnon’s enormous campervan that is actually 100 square feet BIGGER THAN OUR APARTMENT. IT HAS A KING SIZE BED! Unfortunately it took me about 5 hours to fall asleep from all the adrenaline of the big day, and possibly the chocolate cake.

The next day was warm and sunny so (after a quick couple games of Settlers) we headed out into the water for boating, tubing, kneeboarding, and jetskiing. It was awesome. They even let me drive the jetski!

Life jacket issues

Calm

Medium

EXTREME!

Out on the boat

Chillin'

Then we came home, ate party leftovers for dinner, and played games with Rosemarie.

Up to Tuesday now. We did some typical tourist things during the day. Picnic lunch by the river, War Museum, market, Lois N’ Frima’s. I’d never been to the museum before, so that was neat. I learned some things that I don’t think I caught in Mr. Couturier’s grade 10 histoire class. I have to say thought that after finishing the WWII section I was quite war-ed out and was ready to leave. So we caught the bus to the market and scarfed down some ice cream before it melted down our arms (semi successfully). It was really hot out.

View from Mackenzie King bridge on a muggy Ottawa day

What a great look for Scott

Then bused over for dinner at my aunt and uncles’ house with my cousin as well. Lots of chatting and quite delicious veggie burgers (Costco brand!). I’m not sold on those weird thin buns for burgers though. :D

Since Rose didn’t have to work the next day we stayed up quite late playing the new game she gave us, Carcasonne. I like it so far, but we’re all still getting the hang of it. It’s not as complicated as some of the others ones though, although we did have to do some Googling for tile clarification!

Playing Carcasonne

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The main reason for our Ottawa trip was the ‘wedding-ish’ party. Scott and I were married almost a year ago in Australia, but because of the distance and last minute-ness, a lot of people didn’t get to be there. So we decided to have one final party in Ottawa where we would renew our vows and all my family and friends could finally be included. It took us a long time to finally be able to make the trip but I think it was worth the wait because the party was amazing.

So many great people came together to help make the party a super success. The Monnon’s, Kate, Jane, the Dafoe’s, Rosemarie, dad, MEP and Paul, and more, all helped out so much I am incredibly grateful. Also it was super fun to see everyone again and I loved all the speeches and how much fun everyone seemed to be having. Overall, great success!!!

Oh quickly before I forget. Our Friday overnight flight to Ottawa the day before was ok. We had a lot of turbulence but both managed to get a few hours sleep. We arrive at 9:00 am on Saturday and immediately had to shop for the food we were to prepare. We cooked our dishes on adrenaline and then my grandparents came over to finally meet Scott. We had shishkabobs (sp?), including delicious squeaky haloumi cheese, and Kate’s homemade ice cream, then passed out. Sunday morning we quickly got ready to head over to the Monnon’s for the part-ay.

After the party everyone went home, except Scott and I slept over (in a motor home that is ACTUALLY bigger than our apartment (by ~100 sq feet!!)) and then went boating and jet skiing and stuff, which I will post about later.