Last Wednesday afternoon our friends, Marge, Malcolm, Trevor, Guy and Nicki all came to visit. The men went to the hockey game (Ottawa Senators vs the Tampa Bay Lightning [Senators won]) while we ladies watched 2 chick flicks (Moonstruck and Bella). The next morning Eddie fixed us a big breakfast and then we had a mini tour of Hogs Back Falls and downtown. It was bitterly cold so we didn’t linger at the falls but we did walk around the ByWard Market. We saw the shops that Pres. Obama visited when he was here in February. Apparently business inside the Market has gone up 25% since his visit! Guy and Nicki left for Toronto just before lunch. The rest of us had a leisurely lunch at an Irish Pub. By 1:30 we had said our good byes. It was a really short visit but we had enough time to make some nice memories.
Jason, Irene and Gordon came to visit us during the Winterlude Festival. Unfortunately the temps rose just enough to cause a mini-melt of the canal and ice sculptures so we had an indoor visit together. By Saturday the canal was open again for skating but we decided to stay in. The day they left Eddie and I did go for our first stroll on the canal with our friends Lisa and Ronni and their girls.
The following week Scott and April and their boys came for a visit and we walked the canal again while they skated. There were so many people enjoying the festivities. There were horse-drawn sleigh rides, tee pees and refreshment stands set up and colonial demonstrations of all kinds. It was so “Ottawa”!. You can see our pics here. Now, of course, the water is starting to flow again and the stands are starting to be disassembled. It’s nice to see the beginnings of spring and our next big festival will be the Tulip Festival in May. Ottawa is a very colourful town and we are having fun enjoying all it has to offer.
Back on Feb. 19 my friend Lisa and I went downtown to see President Obama’s motorcade when he came to Ottawa for a quick visit. If not for Lisa I wouldn’t have known where to go. We took the bus downtown because so many streets were closed for security reasons. In fact, the paper said that people living near the airport were not to open their windows or doors.
We found a great spot and could hear the walkie talkies that the police were holding. It was very exciting when we heard, “Airforce One has just landed!” We decided that I would take the videos and Lisa the snap shots. I managed to put together a little video on my new MacBook (a huge accomplishment!). You may have seen the first clip that I posted on YouTube showing all 42 cars in the procession. This new post includes part of that one as well as the stills.
I will be posting photos from Winterlude soon so please drop by again soon.
