On a whim, we decided to head to Ottawa during our Spring Break (except for poor doc, he doesn't get Spring Break, he just got a few days off due to the law mandating medical residents to have at least 24 hours off every 10 straight days of work... So he earned it).
Ottawa. Our neighboring nation's capitol. It was a very European city. No direct route anywhere. (Thank God for Nicole's new best friend, Tom-Tom!) After circling the city 5 times due to no seeing the turnoff for our hotel's parking, and having no side streets, and touring the ancient roadways of Canada, we finally found our hotel. In the middle of the city! It was pretty cool! Our room had a view of a little bit of the canal, the streets, the people... It was lovely. And the hotel butted up against the mall. Pretty convenient for food and commodities access... But it was a little strange to take the elevator in the mall and press the button marked 'Westin Hotel.' We toured the Canadian Mint and the Contemporary Arts Gallery. In the art gallery, we were greeted by a 40 foot sculpture of a just born infant. Interesting. (But most contemporary art is) They also had an exhibit for children to attempt their own art. Nicole made a beautiful 'bug' perched on a coffee filter (I couldn't think what else to call it!). We also dined in a restaurant called 'Elephant & Castle.' Not sure of the name, but I loved the food! It was a cozy little pub. Dave and I both ordered the Stuffed Yorkshire Pudding. (I crave it now, perhaps that's what I will make for dinner this weekend!) But as we were seated, we noticed we were next to a table of college girls. By eavesdropping, we concluded they were all 'travellers' of sorts and were trying to 'one up' each other with their stories and experiences. Kinda funny! We giggled a bit at their comparisons of belongings and adventures! But the thing that threw us over the line of giggling and straight into rolling our eyes was the invitation to the other girls to come and visit her house. "No, better yet, come to my cottage, you'll love it." This girl owns a house and a cottage? Listening a little more, we discovered the house, the cottage, both belong to the 'rents and all of their travels were family vacations! Yes, cool to visit so many places with family, but not cool to brag about your solo travels and personal properties. We enjoyed out meal much more after the afore mentioned party paid for their meal...
But the beginning of the week, I was determined to paint the office. I have had the paint IN the office since August... Same time I painted our bedroom. I had even taped half of the office in September. I also invited some of our previous house guests to take a whack and the paint job themselves.... However, after the doc became disgusted to realize I have still waited this long and the week was coming to a close, I decided to tape the whole thing off and get started. It took 3 or 4 hours, but it wasn't really THAT hard! The office is now a gorgeous shade of barn red. That's how I describe it! I think the actual name of that particular shade is 'Sun Dried Tomato' or something like that. It's lovely, but I will have to post pictures later.
So now that things are back to normal, I am the car-pooling, lunch-making, hard-working mom again that I was before break. But something seems to have died in my car while we were gone! It smells. (That is as graphic as I will get!) Nicole tells me it smells like Beef Stew (a reference to the movie 'Benchwarmers' with John Heder) The Beef-Stew-mobile. The one that had a crack in the tranny's filter (I had that fixed Monday and now it's running...... better!), the black jelly bean has changed its name.
