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Women Talking by Miriam Toews

Summer is my spirit animal. I love the long, sunny, warm days. I love the green grass, leaves on the trees, the flowers and the vegetable gardens. I love laundry on the line, open windows and the smell of fresh mown lawns.

My birthday is in the summer. I might not need to have anymore birthdays per se, but when it’s summer I am happy to celebrate.

When Ohm announced their new line of zodiac…

March Break 2018: Atlanta #ATL

The question was “how far would we have to drive to get to Spring?” The winning answer was Atlanta, a 13 hour drive from London, Ontario. Only we didn’t end up driving because John got an awesome seat sale the day before we were set to drive. #winning Detroit airport bead pic with Cheez-Its #pepperjackforthewin Flying the day we planned to start driving meant we were not going to struggle getting…

Family Day Weekend 2018

It was feeling like forever since all my boys were in the same place, so a mini holiday in Toronto was organized by John ( away from home = no video games, eating at the same table, shared experiences) We stayed at the Hilton which is across the street from one of my favourite restaurants We celebrated the Lunar New Year a day late at Momofuku by ordering WAY to much food Beckett had soccer on…

Back to School Culinary Adventures

I like to cook.  And I LOVE cookbooks ( to be fair I love all books)  Some are better than others, some are weeknight inspiration, some are special occasion inspiration, some are if I had all day and no laundry and a cleaning lady inspiration. Sometimes ( because I have been making dinner FOREVER) I just wing it. I bought a new cookbook this summer that was written by 2 Canadians. I have been…

Our Nation’s Capital

You can’t celebrate Canada turning 150 and not go to Ottawa #itaintright We got to Ottawa later than planned. There is a LOT of construction in Montréal, like unreal amounts -Londoners can not complain, and there is just as much on Quebec highways. This means by the time we made it from Shawinigan to Montreal, it was rush hour and that means a 3 – 3 1/2 hour drive to Ottawa took almost 6 hours 😬…

As part of the National Park’s open doors event in 2017, they have put pairs of red muskoka/adirondack chairs in all of their parks for people to use and photograph themselves in or with and then share on social media platforms with the #sharethechair hashtag. Take a peak on twitter and you will see some awesome pics and views. I wasn’t leaving without seeing them and as I explained in an earlier…

Deuxième partie de nos vacances: La Mauricie National Park

We actually stayed in Shawinigan instead of camping #crazytimes Beckett spent enough time in a tent while on out trip and I can’t bear the packing and unpacking of all that stuff anymore. Canada’s Birthday meant free National Park passes for all Canadians with access to parks all year long. John was all over this as soon as they were available. We wanted to visit one we hadn’t been to before and…

My connection to the internets has been tenuous, so blogging is at a snail’s pace Last day in Montréal means subway rides and lots of walking.  We headed to Olympic Park and the biodôme first thing ( still working on it 40 years later 😏) It’s a bit smaller than we thought and even though you walk through the first 2 climate zones, you only get to view the third ( arctic) one John was using his…

There has been a lot of walking. We bought subway passes but we get walking and looking around and something catches our eye; art, live music, cool shops, gorgeous old/funky modernist architecture and the next thing you know we are almost wherever we were going, so we just walk. We sleep well. The Musèe d’art contemporain MAC ( museum of contemporary art) had a really great exhibit on Expo67. The…

Summer 2017: First stop Montréal

It’s just the 3 of us on the road this summer because Gunnar is a second year counsellor at CQE. We wanted to stay in Canada this summer to celebrate the 150th and since Montréal is celebrating her 375th, this seemed the place to start. John drove and with a stop for gas and lunch, it took 8 hours. Traffic was kind of nuts past Toronto around Bowmanville, not sure where they were all going to on…

Today we went on a wild Wednesday adventure, just John, Beckett and me. We went to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington. What a beautiful artistic space this is! Teachers get in free 🎉and students get a discounted rate 🎉 We went this week, instead of when Beckett was at camp, because there is a joint collaboration with LEGO at the RBG until mid September. It’s sort of a scavenger hunt to…

Mondays have me like 🙃😣

Monday morning: the alarm goes off, I jump out of bed.  Seriously, I jump.  I always get up as soon as the alarm goes off. Nobody else in my house does. By 7:30 I have showered, checked emails, put the kettle on ( for tea to take to school)  made coffee, organized breakfast and put on table for boys and started eating mine, put all lunches together and am heading back upstairs to finish getting…

Well the day started promising enough. I heard the alarm go at 5:30 and got right up and in the shower. The boys didn’t require 15 wake up prompts! There was a little bit of food left for breakfast to tide us over until we got to the airport. The taxi app we used to get a taxi to pick us up at our apartment worked like a charm ( if you could see the crazy, convoluted, tiny warren of streets we…

We’ve had a lovely Spanish holiday! The weather has been beautiful for sightseeing and eating on patios. Our Spanish has improved because it only had one way to go 🤣 We have eaten amazing food and seen awesome things and thoroughly enjoyed pretending to live in Madrid.  Last walk through the hood Everyday surrealism  One more trip to mecca ( football headquarters) A last lunch in tourist central;…