Conclusion to March Break Vacation...

On Sat Mar 8 (and the last day of our vacation) - we went to see Matthew (#11) & Tyler(#17) play hockey. Talk about fast moving after watching 5 & 6 year olds!! They both played fantastic!



After Tyler & Matthew's game (and the whole purpose of our trip) we went to see High School Musical - ON ICE. We're still not sure who was more excited - Noah, Mommy or Daddy! I've been listening to the music on my MP3 at work for months now (since October, when the 2nd one premiered) - and it's no secret! I LOVE bopping to that music! We all LOVED the show - it was FANTASTIC! But then again we all LOVE musicals in this house. Some of our favourites - Annie, Grease, Dirty Dancing, etc - you name them, we love 'em all!

A great highlight to my night was that we met up with an old friend of mine, who I hadn't seen in over 10 years - BARB. It was so nice to meet her husband and 2 boys. They joined us at the Ice Show then we all went out for supper after (MAJOR STORM & all)! The poor kids, they couldn't really relax and let loose in a restaurant. It was - well - fun and ummm, interesting? We couldn't chat much - but luckily Barb and her family live only about 1 hour from Ottawa. So I think we all agreed that the next time we are headed the Ottawa way, we will definitely plan a more 'child friendly' activity so the kids can let loose as well as the adults!



We left Sunday morning (despite the over 40 cm of snow Ottawa received over the night) and this is what we got stuck in on the way home....YUP, the remnants of the storm. Quebec City and area (Levis, to be exact) got hit really bad with winds and lots of snow. The highway was closed between Levis & Riviere du Loup.....12 feet snow drifts across the highway. We drove for 3 hours (with the help of Jacques new toy - his GPS) to try and find an alternate route (which we found 3 routes in all - all of which were CLOSED). Finally, we surrendered and got a hotel room (in VERY cranky states of minds)!!! This was an adventure in itself - lineups out the doors and parking lots FILLED with New Brunswick & Nova Scotia license plates!

We got a good night sleep and headed out in the morning.....yippy, homeward bound!


We arrived safely to Edmundston where we dropped Jacques off then Noah & I kept going. We were really happy to be home - as was Mimi to see us (God love our little pup)!!

All in all - we had an AWESOME vacation TOGETHER! It wouldn't have mattered WHERE we went for our March Break vacation - as long as we were TOGETHER!!!

PS....Sorry Tricia if there are spelling mistakes - I just want to get off the computer, so I'm not checking! LOL

March Break Vacation - to Ottawa

Our trip so far - excellent. Our drive here, thankfully was uneventful and fast (thanks to our new electronics - mostly Jacques GPS as well as my new PINK DS that Noah & I played for much of our drive). Thankfully we left a day early and missed a nasty storm for driving in. Now we are faced with ANOTHER storm heading our way on Saturday night (the night we have tickets to see High School Musical ON ICE and are meeting an old friend of mine) into Sunday (the day in the early morning we intend to leave). We'll wait and see what happens!

During the storm on Wednesday, Jacques (my honey was a trooper) took me to IKEA. I was disappointed and proud of myself all in one - I only spent $12! How weird is that - we even had lots of room!!! It was nice to drive around a town (you have no idea how to get around) with the GPS!!

Yesterday - Noah went ice fishing with Mathew & Tyler and their dad. What an experience for him. A limo picked them up from Lise's to take them to their destination (about 45 minutes from here). They left around 9:30 am and did not arrive home until after 7:00 pm. He was SOAKED and one happy boy! The report from the adults (who had never met him before) was that he was a SUPER polite, VERY well behaved little boy. WOW - something is paying off - now too bad he couldn't ALWAYS be like this with us!!! :) Guess that's the way it goes and a very proud moment! After our late supper his eyes were pretty much rolling into the back of his eye sockets. He went straight to bed - and when I went into check on him 30 minutes later he hadn't even moved an inch. He was WIPED out!While Noah was gone, Jacques and I went to the Royal Canadian Mint. Talk about COOL! Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos during the tour (dahh, I wonder why!) but we did manage to get these below photos prior to entering the building to remember our visit. We had the chance to hold a $400,000 piece of REAL PURE 24K GOLD (heavily guarded with an armed Mountie) - it was massively heavy (28 lbs). Talk about a thrill!

The absolute highlight (I know this seems small but it was for me) of my day was when we were walking around a little room of 'money' momentos. There were some displays with old money, videos and some activities to do. One of them, was a HUGE bucket of $2 TOONIES and the question was how much money do you think is in the bucket? Jacques asked me, I did my quick calculation in my head and said $6000. He said 'you read the answer already'. AND I swear on my LIFE that I had not already seen the answer. I almost fell over - WOW, how cool was that?

So today we are heading to the Civilization museum - Jacques to finish his tour around the museum and me, with the 3 boys to do the IMAX and the kids section. Will post more later!

Below: Jacques & I - our famous self-portrait infront of the Royal Canadian Mint.

Below: Touristy photos at the Mint!