This year the “World’s Largest Skating Rink” will celebrate its 40th year of skating on the canal. I am all in favor of the improvements in amenities and services the canal provides. As we found out yesterday during our first skate, there are heated washrooms, change rooms, nice dry huts to put your skates on. Yummy Beaver Tails, Hot Chocolate, Hot Dogs and French Fries. Also, skate and children’s sled rentals.
We didn’t get on the ice until about 4pm (I needed to shop for snow pants) but enjoyed skating even when it got dark. Dylan is doing really well on her skates, especially since we got her a skate bar. It has boasted her confidence and she will soon be skating without it. Jack prefers the sled. He has skates but can’t stand up on them yet. Soon he’ll start using the skate bar.
This was the first weekend the canal was open, so the ice beckoned all skate enthusiasts experienced and novice. What quickly became apparent to me was to avoid the newbies. Unlike an indoor rink which has boards to hold up new skaters, outdoors its whatevers closest. If your not paying attention you will become someones breaks or crash pillow.
Many people bring their strollers on the ice and push the kids up and down the canal. Or use a sled like us. The only thing you can’t bring on are dogs and hockey sticks. Hockey sticks? Doesn’t seem very Canadian does it?
Note: For our Aussie relatives, Beaver Tails are large flat doughnuts served warm with sugar and cinnamon. Very tasty.
Last weekend we hooked up with Dario, Nicole and Elio (who is the happiest and most well behaved child). Before dinner we went sledding. The the kids, big and small had a fun.
Dylan hosted the best Hawaiian New Years party for Nardine, Jack and myself. It was hands down the best party that I’d been to in years! Hope you all have a wonderful 2010 and please take a moment over the next few days to think of all the families who have sacrificed so much in 2009.
Happy Holidays from Nardine, Dylan, Jack and myself! We’ve had a great Christmas here in Ottawa and a big thanks goes out to everyone for the wonderful gifts you sent. Dylan and Jack had an absolute blast Christmas morning opening the mountain of gifts that had accumulated under our tree. Since then they have been going non-stop, forgoing food, water, sleep and sanity, in their quest to try out every new toy and craft! Unfortunately our white Christmas has turned into an ice Christmas, with freezing rain over the last couple of days, meaning that the kids haven’t been able to get outside to play since Christmas Eve. Thankfully, Nardine and I stocked up on lots of Christmas cheer before the start of the holidays and are managing to get by.
Hope you all are enjoying the holidays, next stop New Years!
They don’t call them Christmas Concerts anymore and Dylan’ s class didn’t actually sing any traditional songs. But honestly since half of them were in french I could have been mistaken. I ‘m happy that we live in a multicultural city/country, we all benefit from learning about and participating in difference cultural traditions and events. But, by pulling all of the “Christian” elements out of Christmas in the event to make the religious holiday nonreligious, makes me feel as though we are celebrating nothing. I empathize with the schools who are pressured by society and parents to make the school year inclusive. But neutering St. Nick is not the action we need to take. Perhaps Dylan’s concert could have represented multiple traditions and practices. “Around the world Holiday Celebrations”? I would love to see a glimpse into the Muslim celebration of Eid, which just occurred Nov 28th. The lighting of the Manohra a Jewish celebration which I also don’t know anything about. If the schools could enlighten us with an inclusive seasonal celebration I know my family and I would welcome the experience. Ok, on with the reason you actually visit our blog.
Photos of the kids in there Seasonal Concerts! Please excuse the poor photo quality, we need a new camera.
As you can tell by the photos Jack’s class was your typically pre-school production. Chaos.
When Cory gets home he will insert the video’s, I can’t seem to make them work.
If I were to be completely honest I would have to admit that there are times in our relationship where I feel I’m getting the short end of the stick. Here in Ottawa we have had the most mild and beautiful fall and winter. Then two weeks ago Cory informed us that he was needed back in KAF (Afghan) for 10 days. No problem I thought, kids are still in school, the weather is great, how hard can two weeks solo possibly be? A foot of snow, freezing winds and calling for more snow the day after Cory leaves is a sick cosmic joke.
Feeling my animosity Cory worked very hard shoveling as much snow as he could before he flew out last night. This was the first shovel job in the morning with Jack.
The second shoveling after dinner before he left.
And just so you have a clear picture of how badly the fates have it in for me, here are my before and after shots. The first one is what it was like the day before Cory left, the second is what I woke up to the morning after he flew out.
(Ok, the first shot might be a slight exaggeration, but the second shot was taken this morning).
The holiday season has officially arrived at the Kwasny’s house and what would they be without Christmas Trees and Gingerbread Houses??
Today, Dylan and I went to the Thomas Tree Farm here in Ottawa and picked out our tree. Dylan did a great job finding the perfect one – next step: decorations!!
On Friday we put together the annual Gingerbread house. It was meant to be a two stories mansion with more candies than you could count but after Jack got finished with the supplies we barely had enough left for a small garden shed!
We had a busy weekend, since the snow has yet to fall and stick we went out geo caching. All the leaves have fallen and the trails are not as pretty as they once were, but with Dylan as our fearless leader we had a fun and successful hunt. I wish I could say the same for Cory, who while trying to lead us back to the car, took a wrong turn into a swamp. Women are just better navigators I guess
After all that hard work outside the kids baked cookies and played dress up. Dylan didn’t want to play with the train set again so Jack compromised by being a princess.
