Anniversary Weekend

This weekend we celebrated our 2nd anniversary (which is really on Tuesday).  John planned out the whole weekend and I had no idea what we were going to do.  We left Friday night after work.  We came home and packed first before leaving because we needed to leave after the traffic had died down a bit.  All I was told was that I was going to need something warm, for 0 degrees temperature and then something nice to wear for dinner.  It made packing a little interesting as I didn't know exactly what to pack, but I was able to do it.  We left the house by 6pm and then proceeded to go to dinner at Moxie's at Riverside and Hunt Club. Not going to lie, I was wondering if we were just going to be staying in Ottawa for the weekend, which would have been ok, but I had been prepared to leave the city.  It turned out though that it was just a stop so that we could wait for traffic to be not as bad.  Dinner was really nice.  John got steak and I got salmon and we shared a banana cheesecake dessert.  

Then we were off to our destination. As we drove through downtown, I had figured that we were going to Quebec (which I had kind of assumed).  While I had been wondering if we were going to go to Montreal, once we drove past the turn off for Chelsea, I realized we weren't going there.  Finally, we made it to our destination, which was Wakefield (this I only found out because we missed our turn off and had to drive through the town and I saw the Canada Post with the sign on it for Wakefield, haha).  John had booked us in a little country B&B, called La Grange.  It is a converted barn, which houses the B&B on the lower level, the owner on the main level and a yoga studio on the 2nd level.  It was very nice.  We got a nice suite room which included a small kitchenette, our own bathroom and exit from the house.  We got settled in around 8:30pm and realized that we didn't bring anything to do, so once we explored the lounge, we found a 1,000 piece puzzle we figured we would tackle.  It was the first time we had done a puzzle together.  Below is the beginning stages. 

The next morning, after a nice breakfast, we set out to explore the town and see the sights.  We found a covered bridge which runs over the Gatineau River from the 1800s which was rebuilt after a fire in 1987.

The scenery there was so beautiful, the fall colours were very rich.  John said the reason he picked it was because he knew I would like it.  I probably said "look, it's so pretty" about a million times because the trees everywhere were red, yellow and orange.  It made me wish for a nicer camera to take better pictures.  These will have to do.

One view from the side of the covered bridge.

Next we drove up around the Wakefield Mill, which is a big deal because it was sort of the center of the town and the MacLaren family who essentially founded/owned the town.  The Mill is now a fancy resort (which apparently books up fast as John tried to get in there, but only Friday night was available) and spa.  Just past the Mill is the MacLaren Place, the house the family lived, and the cemetery.  We decided to drive up to the cemetery to see why they had signs up to it.  I wanted to see if someone famous was buried there.  Well, the scenery up there was so beautiful up and around it.  I took many pictures, but I'll just share one.

 

After taking a bunch of pictures, we drove up and got out to see the cemetery.  We found a plaque there for Lester B. Pearson which the Government of Canada had placed there and then a cement sign on the ground saying "L.B. Pearson" and an arrow pointing up.    

I figured it meant that he was buried there, but John didn't think so because there had been a sign at the entrance saying that it held the MacLaren family and town residents. But we went to investigate the cemetery anyways and what do we find but Lester B. Pearson's grave. Apparently people like to put rocks on it?

 After our little adventure, we came back to the B&B for a bit before lunch and our afternoon activity.  We worked on our puzzle a little bit, see the progress?

We went for lunch at Tim Horton's and then went to the location of our afternoon event.  We ended up at Adventure Lafleche to go for a cave exploration!  Lafleche is an aerial park along with cave exploration.  At first I thought that we were going to go zip lining as there were a lot of people outside getting ready to go, but once we went into register, I found out we were going to the caves. It was really cool!  We started off going through a tunnel where there were a bunch of bats already hibernating for the winter.  Then we climbed down one flight of very narrow stairs and saw some pools of water with the cave.  The guide explained a little bit of how they were digging it out and where all the tunnels led.  Next we went up 7 stories high to the top of the cave.  It didn't seem like it, but I think it's because it was dark and you can't see down when you are climbing up (which was just as good because I may not have been able to do it otherwise!).  While up there, we went into one room which the guide had us turn off our lights and see the true definition of pitch black.  No natural light can get into this room.  It was really interesting to see how your brain plays tricks on you when there is absolutely no light for you to see.  I kept thinking I could see a faint light to the left, even though I knew there was not.  Finally we ended up in a great room, which the guide told us they had found blue whale bones in.  They have some theories as to how it would have ended up there, but no conclusive evidence.  Unfortunately it was too hard to get many pictures in the cave, but I got some when we exited looking back it.

Marble stone which is all in the cave. This is what it looks like when it has just
broken off.

This is what it looks like once water has rubbed against it.

After the caves, we went back into Wakefield and toured the shops.  John got some almond bark and fudge.  I think that made the day for him.  Afterwards, we went back to the B&B to relax before supper.

We had supper at the Wakfield Mill restaurant.  We got a seat overlooking the waterfalls they have there, which was so nice.  They had different dining options on their menu, we decided to go with their 'Discovery Menu'.  This included 6 courses of the chef's choice.  It was very interesting.  We had a lot of things we had never have before, many of which I can't even name and most of them we did not enjoy too much.  While it was not the most enjoyable meal, it was a really nice evening, as I really enjoyed our conversations throughout the meal.  It felt rather relaxing.

Back at the B&B after supper, we ended up working on our puzzle until almost 2am!  John wanted to finish it before we left and we didn't keep track of the time too well.  We just kept working on it until it got to the point that none of the pieces would fit, so we gave up.  This is the progress through the evening.

Sunday morning we slept in and finally I finished off the puzzle!  It felt like such a huge accomplishment! 

We checked out after 10am and went to a little bakery to get pastries for breakfast.  We were going to find a trail to go on, but it was really damp, so instead we decided to come home, unpack, do some laundry and then relax for the rest of the day before starting our weeks again.  I really enjoyed the time away with John, particularly because I had him for the entire time (unlike in Hawaii).  It was romantic and I could see that a lot of thought went into it.  I can't wait to have more weekends like this with him in our future!

Happy Birthday to me!

Well I'm officially another year!  Yesterday was my 25th birthday.  While I had some reservations about becoming 25, I had quite a lovely day and felt very loved by my friends and family.  

As usual, I have been able to spread my birthday out over a long period of time. In September, I celebrated my birthday with my parents, sister and Nanny as I was not going to be home for Thanksgiving, when I usually celebrate it with them.  It was nice to have them up and be able to celebrate with them, even if it was a month early.  Of course this meant that when I called my Nanny last night, she had completely forgotten it was my actual birthday, seeing as she had already celebrated it!  

This past weekend, my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and nephew came up and brought my birthday gift, a nice Ontario cookbook and a new Kinect dance game.  The game has a workout mode, which I am excited about using over the winter!  

On Monday, my small group celebrated with me by having party hats, non-noise makers, cupcakes and a gift!  My favourite party was when I came in and they all jumped up and shouted happy birthday and Chrissy slid on one knee to the floor doing jazz hands...the only one doing it.  :)  THAT is one reason I love you, Chrissy Vance.

On Tuesday, my actual birthday, John sent me a beautiful fall bouquet of flowers to my work.  It's complete with a small pumpkin in it!

My work got me a cake and card for me.  While I knew they were doing it, I did wonder at first if they had forgotten, but then realized when I went to get the mail that they were going to have the cake ready when I came back, which they did. You can trick the woman who plans everyone else's birthdays in the office :P

Tuesday night John planned a lovely special dinner for me. He told me that I was not allowed to come home until after 6pm, so I went grocery shopping after work and then into some other stores at College Square until I was allowed to come home.  When I got home, John was waiting at the door to take the bags from me, with my slippers all ready :)  He had all the curtains closed with candles lit leading to the dinning room...

He had the table all set up with an appetizer bread tower with vinegar to dip in it.  It was really cool!

Then we had a main course of lemon pepper shrimp fettucini, with a giant brownie and lemon-blueberry tart for dessert.  John won't sing in front of me, so he had a youtube video set up on his phone to play "happy birthday" while he brought out the desserts with candles.

It was a wonderful dinner, followed by a movie and some time in the hot tub.  All in all, it was a great birthday!

Hawaii Day 7 & 8 & Back to Reality

After a great time at Pearl Harbor, John and I made it back to out hotel, picked up our bags and headed for the airport.  Our flight didn't leave until 7:30pm, but we didn't have anywhere to put our bags, so we were at the airport at 2pm.  The time went quickly though.  We got lunch once we got there then over to Cold Stone for some ice cream, and then hung out at our gate until it was time to leave.

United Airlines made for another exciting trip for us/me.  We ended up being delayed due to mechanical issues and didn't actually leave until 10pm, which meant we missed our connection flight in Newark to Ottawa.  However, they did provide us with a coupon for a free alcoholic beverage and 10% off our next flight with them.  Can I just say that this is the most ridiculous coupon I've ever received from an airline?  What airline provides a coupon for a free alcoholic beverage when at least 50% of the flight don't or can't drink?  I realize it ends up saving them money instead of having to provide everyone with a free meal, but still, this is just show their crappy customer service!

Anyway, the flight to Newark was uneventful.  Mostly just slept and tried to watch Madagascar 3, I fell asleep 3 times while trying to watch it, the 3rd time I saw most of it though, very funny. We got put on a new flight later on in the afternoon on Sunday.  And made it to Ottawa by 5pm.  I have never been so happy to be home before!  Safe to say, we are now more than willing to spend the money to go with anyone other than United when we fly next!

Once we got home, we went grocery shopping, had dinner, watched Battleship (since we went on the USS Missouri the day before, we both wanted to watch the movie again to see what we could recognize) and went to bed.

Thanksgiving Monday was spent doing laundry, fall chores around the house and preparing dishes to take to a Thanksgiving meal at a friend's house.  While it was a different Thanksgiving for us, it was nice to get together with our group of friends and share in a meal together.  We don't get to do it very often, but I hope it will be able to happen more in the future.

Now we are back into our regular work week and John's off to a board meeting at the church.  I feel like we are back into our busy schedule and the relaxation of Hawaii is behind us.  I'm hoping for more trips like this in the future (maybe with less flight hassles and me not getting hurt at all).  I'm out now to catch up on some tv shows and try to remain awake until bed time, as jetlag has not been my friend today.  Thanks for reading!

Hawaii Day #7 - Pearl Harbor

After a terrible night sleep and a lot of begging, we ended up going to Pearl Harbor Saturday morning.  We had planned all week to go Saturday morning, but after Friday night's incident with my knee, John was pretty adamant about not going.  But after a lot of begging and walking around the room to show him I could do it, we went :D  (AND I'm happy to say that it didn't hurt at all!  I was just slow getting around).

We had ordered a shuttle to come pick us up and drop us off at Pearl Harbor.  We got that at 7am and got to Pearl Harbor around 7:30am.  They suggest being there as early as possible as they have a limited number of tickets for the USS Arizona Memorial (as it is free), so it is a first come first serve basis.  We were able to get 8:15am tickets and then also bought tickets to go on the USS Missouri (aka Mighty Mo).  We had a bit of time to kill, so we walked around a bit and looked at some of the things they had at the Visitor Center. Here are a few pictures from the visitor center...

Map on the ground when you first come in of what the Pacific looked like in 1941

Anchor from the USS Arizona, it weighs almost 20,000lbs!

USS Bowfin

Mk 45 Nuclear Torpedo

I think this is the MK14

Two Ballistic Missiles

The USS Arizona Memorial begins with a 20 minute video of real footage from the attacks on Pearl Harbor taken from Japanese fighter plane footage.  It helps to explain what happened leading up to the attack and on the day of the attack.  It was very moving and sad to watch.  Once the movie is over, we then go over to a boat which takes us out to the memorial.  Here are a few pictures from the boat ride over.

One of the moors which all the battleships were tied up to the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The USS Arizona Memorial.

Once inside, there are two guides who give you a brief history on the boat that lays in the water and the monument built over top of it.  It turns out the man who built the monument was a Austrian-born American who had been detained for three months in a detainment camp after December 7, 1941 attack.  Despite this, he didn't feel any resentment towards the Americans, and later settled down in Hawaii.  He made it so that the lowest point was directly over the boat and the two higher ends represent the war in Europe and the war in the Pacific.

One of the turret sticking up out of the water

There is still oil seeping out of the boat more than 50 years later.

Shrine room with all the names of the men who lost their lives on the Arizona

Mighty Mo in the background.  Mo is in the location of where the  fighting stopped at Pearl,
while Arizona is resting where the fighting began.

After this, we went back to the Visitor Center and made our way over to the shuttle which takes us over to Ford Island to Mighty Mo.  We were detoured around the island a bit because there was a cancer run going on, so we got to see a bit of the old airfield and building.  We were told that some of the buildings still contain the bullet holes from the attack.  Here are some pictures from the drive..

Radar Station

Pearl Harbor Airplane Museum

The famous red and white control tower, seen in such movies as Pearl Harbor.
Apparently it's in need of repair so they are trying to raise money for that.

Once we got the the Missouri, we were given the option of the type of tour we wanted, we opted for the Ipod, although we sort of followed a group who were getting a guided tour.  There are only 5 levels you can go on the bridge, 3 above and one below.  We did all but the one below.  They saw to give yourself a good 2 hours for the tour, we had about 1 and a half and with me hobbling around, it made it a bit slower.  It was really cool though to see all the old guns, the rooms the officers slept, the officers mess, the drivers room, the tactical room and the captain's rooms (yes, the captain had multiple rooms).  It's surprising how many rooms there were on the boat.  You would have needed to know the ship really really well to get around because it was easy to get lost.  Here are a few pictures from the boat.

After we were done, we had to leave for our hotel so we could check out and then get to the airport.  Watch for the next post for all the details of our return!

Hawaii Day #6

Day 6 was another relaxing day, my last of the trip.  I spent the morning down by the pool reading and soaking in the sun, after another great breakfast with John from Jamba Juice on our balcony.  I left the pool to have lunch (leftovers from the previous night), finish up the last of our souvenir shopping.  Finally, it was time to come back and pack.  I wasn't really looking forward to this, seeing as it was Friday and we didn't fly out until Saturday at 7:30pm, but I figured if I wanted to get to spend time together with John doing things on the island, I should probably pack for us.  I had us all packed in about two hours and then headed back down to the pool to wait until John came back.

Once John got from work, we headed down to the beach and rented some boogie boards.  They were so much fun!! We wished we had rented them earlier in the trip.  We were able to go out further in the ocean because of them, and we found out that there was a major sandbar not that much further out than where we normally just swam too.  It explained why all the surfers looked like they were standing in the water, because they actually were standing out there!  So, once we go out there, we most just had a great time jumping over the waves and being pushed back to shore by the waves.  We got knocked off the boards a couple times, it took me a bit to understand how to use it so that I didn't get water all in my face or get knocked off.  It was probably the most fun thing we did on the trip.

After we were done, we headed back to our hotel to get ready for our fancy dinner at Ruth Chris.  Unfortunately we never made it as I ended up popping my knee out and could barely walk (it popped back in, it just was in a lot of pain).  We ended up ordering pizza and watching a movie as I couldn't make it out of the building. :(  Luckily, this didn't slow me down for too long...read the next blog for our final day and flight back!

Hawaii day #5

Today was another relaxing day. Went to Jamba Juice with John for breakfast, which we brought back to our room and are on our balcony. I love having a balcony, I wish we had one at home. I think I would use it more than our deck, I think it's because I like being up high.

My morning consisted of looking for and buying souvenirs for our family and going the beach. The waves were really good today, but I forgot my sunscreen so I didn't want to stay out too long. As it was I'm a little pink from the hour I did spend at the beach.

I went to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch as their Caesar salad is amazing! It's a little weird to eat at a restaurant alone, especially when the waiter seemed surprised I knew exactly what I wanted and didn't want to ask any questions.

The rest of the afternoon was relaxing in the shade and my room as I didn't want to get any more pink.

John worked a full day today, so we went for a later supper and did a bit more souvenir shopping. We went into the hot tub and pool at the hotel before getting some ice cream for dessert and then turning in for the night.

That's all for today!

Hawaii day #4

UPDATE: Pictures from the walk below.

Today was a little slower starting for me as my throat hurt and I have been up once in the night. Once I got up, I got a great breakfast at Jomba Juice and came back to our room to sit on the balcony to eat and do my devos. Then I spent the rest of the morning at the beach. Today was so hot I could just lay on the beach, I had to go in the water (which I don't like doing without John as I'm afraid of being swept way with the waves).

John got off early today, so we decided to go to Diamond Head, except we ended up walking to it and got lost and when we got on the city bus but it was already past Diamond Head so we just went for a tour of the East side of the island. Pictures from the walk below.

Once we got back, we went to the beach and then for dinner and are finishing our movie.

Cool tree outside the Zoo.

Diamond Head

Diamond Head Lighthouse.  Found out that it's named Diamond Head because
British sailors who came over mistook the calcite crystals in the mountain as diamonds.