Adventure #4 - New House and a Mustang

With no great travelling adventures happening but with a desire not to lose momentum, I have loosely called this post an Adventure, but you'll just have to take that with a healthy dose of Maple Syrup!

So after much gnashing of teeth, I bit the bullet and purchased the Blue 1968 Mustang Coupe. It looks awesome and it has a couple of easy jobs for me to sink my teeth into. Unfortunately though, due to the weather and the amount of salt on the roads, the Mustang has to stay inside and undercover until we reach the spring thaw. I did get a good drive in it, to bring it back to Kingston. Thomas still refuses to go in it, because its a Ford, but he is just worried it will turn him back to Fords! Here are some pics of the 'Stang!

Snuggled up in the Garage just before throwing the cover on.

So onto less important matters now.....the house. So it has four walls and a roof and generally keeps us warm and the snow off us. Here is a picture of the roof and one of the walls.

So eventually we had everything moved into the house except for all of our belongings from Australia, because the Customs guys had better things to be doing apparently, other than inspecting our stuff. So I headed off to Walmart (yes those photos in the emails are true) and bought enough kitchenware to cook and eat a meal. I then bashed out a very quick Spag Bol. Here we are hooking into our first meal in the house.

Importantly the boys are all very happy with all of the arrangements so far: school is great and they are enjoying all aspects of it; the bedroom allocation is also popular; as has been Jac's decorating. 

Benny all tucked up.

Benny's Room

Jared's Room

Tom's Room

The boys Lounge Room

The rest of the house is good to go, with the exception of the study / gym and there are a few pictures that we haven't been put up yet. Here is the sitting room, with Australian flag and map, as well as our map of Canada with pins in it, representing all the places we have been or still want to go to.  

The Sitting Room.

The mandatory shot of the kitchen!

 The next couple of weeks will hopefully see an increase in the adventure activity. This weekend will be quiet with a mess function and then an Australia Day gathering at our house. The following weekend might see some pictures posted from hospital as we plan on going to the snow for lessons!

All for now.

MIMS

Adventure #3 - Rideau Canal with warmed up Maple Syrup

The last week has been dominated by school and work out of the hotel apartment. Whilst a bit of a challenge its not too bad but we are definitely looking forward to moving into the house, which will happen on the 21st. 

Well this weekend has seen some warmer weather with two days in double digits (above zero this time). We spent Saturday buying Ice Skates and helmets for the boys - a surprisingly long and painful process. Nope, you don't just tell them your size and away you go, you have to walk around in the blasted things, then they have to be handed to Tim the Toolman to have them sharpened to a surgical standard! We then checked out the 1968 Mustang that I will hopefully have soon - a mostly finished restoration (only a couple of bits to go).

So anyway, we shot off this morning without snow boots because there was no snow in Kingston, overnight rain had melted it all. This was soon to be realised as a bit of a mistake.

Warming up but still a bit foggy....

 We made it to Smith Falls on the route of the Rideau Canal, which connects the cities of Ottawa and Kingston at about 202 km in length. It was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007 and in February it hosts the Winterlude Festival, where about 7.8 km of the canal is cleared for public ice skating. We are hoping to get up there for a Beavertail or two!! But today we decided to dine with friends, the Harvey's from Puckapunyal - we took a photo for you - great burgers too!

Lunch with the Harvey's.

 We have been very interested in the variety of road signs that are around the place and have added a couple of our favourites here....

A Deer Sign.

Snow mobile crossing.

 After lunch we decided to head off to Perth just to say we have been there.

Welcome to Perth.

Rideau Canal - Perth.

 We then headed off to Mount Foley which sits above the town of Westport. All of these places look great for fishing a bit later in the year too.

Mt Foley looking across the lake.

Looking down to Westport.

 It was while I was out taking these photos (remember snow boots were forgotten - I drew the short straw) that I almost suffered from an involuntary loss of bowel control, when I spied some rather large footprints in the snow....

What is this?

Its big!

 As it turns out we searched footprints when we got home and found out it was probably a dog and not the big brown bear that I thought it might have been!

We then headed off towards Jones Falls, but we stopped randomly on the way home and found a spot at Newboro Lock which wasn't too slushy for the boys to get out. I ended up piggy backing Ben as he had zero foot protection with just a pair of runners on. It was here that I had my second brush with involuntary bowel movements when I decided I might just check how solid the ice was - the answer is, not solid enough to hold 105kgs!

Tom at the Lock

Benny boy loving his shoulder ride.

Jared at the Lock.

The place where I almost went swimming.

 We made it to Jones Falls, but it was a bit of a construction site, so what we could see was limited and by the way, in winter time waterfalls normally freeze, who would of thunk it? But it was a nice spot anyway.

Jonses Falls.

Well that's about it for a while  We will probably start moving into our house next weekend, so the last of the adventures for a little while, although that in itself may be an adventure!!!

Adventure #2 - Niagara Falls overflowing.....with Maple Syrup

The day started off with an early breakfast and departure for Toronto where we would look at and pick the furniture for our house. The roads were initially quiet but with strong winds around 60 km/h – and still very cold. 

The boys settling in for the drive to Toronto.

The road to Toronto

 We got to Toronto in around 2.5 hours and the proceeded to look at furniture. I was mildly interested for the first 5 minutes then looked for other things to amuse myself.....like stopping the boys from destroying the place; stealing Hershey Kisses from someone’s candy jar and eating them without the boys noticing; getting a nano-nap or two. All the while Jac was dealing with the task well, I simply have no idea. It seemed like 8 hours or so but in actual fact it was only a bit under 2, so after a stop at Subway for lunch we headed for Niagara Falls. 

Exit to Niagara Falls

We arrived in Niagara Falls to very average weather. It was cold, around 0 degrees but there was a vicious wind that when stopped at traffic lights, it felt like our car would move. Despite this we looked up and saw the falls themselves straight down the road.

Falls from the Traffic Lights

Here is a selection of the photos we took at the falls itself. As you can see it is freezing cold (wind chill was around -8).

Freeeeeezing!

Right at the edge.

Chris Buxton mentioned the tourist trap element to the falls. He is quite right if you allow it to be I guess. We just got in, looked around and left. We will do the touristy thing later but will stay in a hotel there, go on a boat etc. But the boys really enjoyed meeting Murray the Moose in the extensive tourist trap gift shop.

All for now!

Murray the Moose!