Category: Ottawa Family Fun

Ottawa family fun this weekend: Manotick’s Picnic in the Park and Soapbox Derby

Phew, I’ve been so busy telling you about family fun on the Mayan Riviera that I almost forgot to tell you about terrific family fun this weekend right here in Manotick!

Sunday August 26 will be Manotick’s annual Picnic in the Park, with a reprise of last year’s very successful soapbox derby. Details from the MVCA website:

Picnic-in the Park, Manotick’s happy celebration of a fine summer is slated to take place in Centennial Park and features fun for the whole family. Hot dogs, hamburgers, soft drinks, popcorn and cotton candy will be available at very reasonable prices beginning at noon until 3 PM. We are hoping that corn-on-the-cob will be available at no charge, donated by Shouldice Farms. Pizza Pizza have generously offered their “bouncy castle” for young children and there will be face painting and balloons. Bring chairs so you can sit in the park and listen to live music.

Please arrive early so that racing can start on at 9:00 sharp! Winners will be announced immediately after completion of all the races. Pre-registration is required. Further details and registration form are available on the MVCA website.

There was a bit of a delay in between when I got my latest update about the picnic and when I managed to get this post up, but as of early in the week there were even a few soap-box derby cars available for those without the means or talent to make one, courtesy of the Manotick Lions, the Legion, the Kiwanis and Watson’s Mill. (I find new reasons to love this community every year!)

Don’t miss the fun this Sunday at Manotick’s Centennial Park. Be there early if you’re interested in the soapbox races, or at from noon till 3 pm for the picnic.

Dani’s excellent birthday adventure in Wakefield

Yesterday was my (gasp!) 43rd birthday. I was going to write a post about wondering about how I got to be so old, but I don’t really feel that way. The number still freaks me out a bit — it’s a really far stretch from my 30s, where I seem to live in my heart — but I had a really terrific day with my menfolk and so I thought I’d ramble on a bit about that instead.

We had no real plan for the day except to do something when Beloved mentioned a road trip to Wakefield Quebec, somewhere we’ve idly chatted about going several times. There’s a bakery there that had been recommended to him (it’s one of Beloved’s ongoing laments that there’s no decent bakery in Manotick) and I’d wanted to visit the covered bridge for ages. Less than 20 minutes later, we were in the car.

Wakefield, if you don’t know it, is a tiny little community about 20 minutes north of Ottawa on the Quebec side of the Ottawa river. In fact, I called our day trip the three rivers tour, because we followed the Rideau north, crossed the Ottawa, and ended up on the shores of the Gatineau. If you’ve heard of Wakefield, it’s probably either for the Black Sheep Inn, a great spot for live music, or because of this gorgeous covered bridge.

Wakefield

Wakefield

Wakefield

The original bridge burned down in 1984, and the community came together to rebuild it. It was re-opened in 1997. There’s a set of steps down to the river from one side that leads to a set of flat (and as Lucas wetly discovered, very slippery) rocks where you can wade to cut the heat of a muggy summer day.

Wakefield

I’m taking an on-location portrait lighting workshop right now, and I had a homework assignment to complete. (On my birthday! Shameful!) One of my goals in taking this workshop was to master this type of shot, where you use your flash in a fairly bright daylight situation. I had a few very patient models, especially when they were able to take turns being my “voice activated lighting stands.”

Wakefield

Wakefield

This may be my favourite shot of a very photogenic day:

Wakefield

The covered bridge isn’t quite within comfortable walking distance of the heart of the village, especially when you’re wrangling a hungry herd and the skies are growing more threatening by the minute, so we hopped in the car and looped back into town for lunch. Maybe it was because I was hungry myself, but everything looked delicious and on a summer Wednesday at lunch time, we had our choice of places to eat. We settled on Kaffe 1870 because they seemed reasonably kid-friendly, and had a delicious and inexpensive lunch. The light in the front room was also delicious:

Wakefield

And then we just wandered for a bit, in and out of some interesting shops including the bakery and a candy store and the eclectic fun of Jamboree. It’s an incredibly picturesque little village.

Wakefield

Wakefield

Wakefield

The one thing I didn’t get a picture of (hard to do it while you’re driving through looping mountain roads at 90 km/h) is the fact that the trees are already starting to change colour in many places. Can you believe that? It must be the drought this year. I’ve been surprised to see shoots of red in the forest on Labour Day weekend, but I can’t think of a year when I’ve seen fall colour creeping in as early as my birthday. What a crazy year.

I can’t think of a better way to spend my birthday than exploring a beautiful new place with my favourite people, and I can’t believe we’ve never gotten around to visiting Wakefield before. It certainly won’t be long before we go back.

Celebrate Ottawa’s history with free family fun at the Rideau Canal Festival this weekend

All summer long, I have been meaning to write a series of posts about the history of the Rideau Canal and how it is tied up with the history of Manotick. Each day I work I drive 20 km back and forth beside our gorgeous Canal, and I often think about how integral it is to everything that Ottawa is today. And what better reason to get out and celebrate the Canal than the Rideau Canal Festival, coming up this weekend? Did I mention it was free? From the press release:

From August 3rd to 6th , the Rideau Canal Festival, will be taking place at two different sites, the Bytown Museum/ Ottawa Locks and the Dow’s Lake Site. This festival, which was voted one of Ontario’s TOP 100 Festivals in 2011, is entertaining, educational and best of all free.

For its 5th anniversary and the 180th birthday of the Rideau Canal, the festival has even more activities for you and your family than ever before! Over 100 000 visitors will partake in the Festival’s free programming, live entertainment, tons of culture, heritage, and contemporary activities that appeal to all ages.

FREE Festival Activities include:

· Outdoor shows on stage; live bands & DJs, Celtic music, and Céili on the Canal

· Buskers, jugglers, stilt walkers, fire weavers & face painters etc.

· Connecting Children with World Heritage; children’s crafts and activities

· Stone carvers & canoe carver exhibition

· The UNESCO World Heritage photo exhibit

· Rideau Canal heritage walking tours

· Kayak tours, canoe and paddle boat rentals, hula-hoop workshops

· Pirate adventures

· Parade of lights, Dows Lake Pavillion Fireworks, and Rideau Canal Festival Flotilla

· Acrobatic dance shows

· Colonel By Day celebrations,

· And More!

Parliamentary post card

For more information and details on the events, you can check out the Rideau Canal Festival website. Sounds like a great way to learn a little bit of history and have some fun on a perfect summer long week end!

Five favourite summer traditions

Ahhhh, summer vacation at last! We spent the first week of our family summer vacation driving madly across the province and back. We visited with siblings and cousins on both sides of the family and made a few new friends as well. There may or may not be a blog post about all that (oy, how am I still THIS BUSY on vacation???) but you can see several thousand words’ worth of pictures on Flickr.

But now we’re home, and we have two more glorious weeks of vacation. While I’m trying not to be too neurotic about the planning and scheduling of activities, I do have a mental checklist of things I would like to do with the family before I have to go back to work after the long weekend. It’s kind of a bucket list for summer family fun!

1. Britannia Beach

It kind of pales by comparison to our visit to Lake Huron, but I still love to visit the beach at Britannia at least once every summer. The kids love to play in the water, and I love to sit on the sand on a blanket at watch them. We must also bring lemonade and plain potato chips, because that’s what we eat on the beach. There will also be sand toys. And probably pictures.

2. Used books and ice cream

I love that we can walk to “downtown” Manotick from our place. There’s no better way to pass an idle summer morning than wandering down to the used book sale in the carriage house of Watson’s Mill and then making our way over to the Hodge Podge Shoppe for ice cream.

189:365 Ice cream at the Hodge Podge Shoppe

3. Upper Canada Village and McHaffie’s Flea Market

If you shoot straight down Bank Street for less than an hour, just before you hit Morrisburg you’ll find McHaffie’s Flea Market, one of the best in the region. (It’s where I got my delightful red wagon, star of many recent family photography sessions!) Once you’ve made it that far, it’s only a skip down Highway 2 to Upper Canada Village. One of our favourite traditions within a tradition is buying a hunk of cheese and a loaf of bread, both made on site at Upper Canada Village, and having lunch on the porch of the little general store. Also terrific for photos, if you’re so inclined!

4. Uno on the porch

Who says you have to spend money to have fun? An after-dinner Uno tournament on the porch is the perfect way to while away a sultry summer evening when it’s too hot in the house.

Uno Boys 2

5. An afternoon at the splash pad

We love the Barrhaven splash pad, but there’s a great one at Riverside South as well. This is another great (and free) way to spend a hot summer day. I love the fact that the boys are now old enough to play on their own, so I can get wet or just sit in the shade and supervise from a distance. An excuse to sit under a tree and do nothing on a sunny summer afternoon? Hook me up!! Got a fave splash pad in your ‘hood? I’m up for a neighbourhood splash pad tour if you care to share. 🙂

Wait, I’m at five already? What about camping in the back yard? A picnic in the park? Andrew Haydon Park? Feeding the ducks at the dam? Maybe I should have made this a list of ten favourite summer traditions. You think maybe this is why I’m feeling so busy, even on summer vacation? 😉

Thanks to my friends at Fisher-Price Canada for inspiring this blog post. I love working with Fisher-Price because they promote the value of play, including families playing together. And aren’t summers supposed to be about play?

Disclosure: I am part of the Fisher-Price Play Panel and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

Summer family fun doesn’t have to break the bank!

First, I’d like to say hello and welcome if you’re stopping by after this morning’s segment on CBC Ottawa Morning. Hi! It was a great honour to finally meet Robin, Dave and my co-speaker Chris, aka Canadian Dad.

If you missed it, we were talking about the cost of summer with kids. Vacation season is great, but it sure can be pricy. I brought up this topic on Facebook yesterday, and one parent mentioned she and her husband are actually taking consecutive vacations to help minimize the cost of daycare and camps while the kids are out of school. That doesn’t even broach the idea of a $250 day at your favourite water park, or even a $75 afternoon at the movies.

Andrew Haydon Park splash play, Ottawa

I think the city of Ottawa offers some great low-cost and free alternatives for families. I just enrolled the boys in a city-run camp in our community for $160 per kid for a week, which is not outrageous compared to some of the specialty camps I’ve seen. (I’m really glad that Beloved can be home with the kids for most of the summer!)

At our local library, there are some really neat free workshops on Wednesday afternoons, if you want to get in out of the sun for a while. Head back outdoors to one of the dozens of free splash pads and wading pools operated by the city. Many of them even offer free swim lessons, crafts and other free programing. A few years back, I made up a big list of 40 free family activities, most of which are still available. (Note to self, time to revisit and update that post!)

Speaking of old posts, I did an entire series last summer on fun family activities in Ottawa, and family fun in general. I hope to add a few more in the next few weeks when my vacation officially starts.

Fun with sidewalk chalk paint (2 of 6)

You don’t have to break the bank to have a fun summer right here at home. What are your family’s favourite summer excursions?

The kiddie “bucket list” – 50 things kids should do before age 12, with an Ottawa-centric twist

Okay, this? Best parenting advice I’ve read in a long time, and very in line with my ever-strengthening philosophy of giving kids room to be kids. Thank you to my friend and longtime reader Kim for sharing this article in the weekend Globe and Mail: Bucket list for kids: 50 things to do before they’re 12

I love this, because I think each and every one of these is an excellent activity — and yet it makes me sad and kind of tired. Do we as parents really need to make an itemized checklist of experiences our kids must achieve? Meh, maybe the grey Ottawa skies and cold, damp temperatures are making me cantankerous. It actually sounds like a road map to a pretty great summer, if spring ever decides to return.

Here’s the official list, editorialized with my own local spin:

1. Climb a tree

2. Roll down a really big hill (Mooney’s Bay has a great one for this!)

3. Camp out in the wild (did you know there’s a campground on Prince of Wales just north of Hunt Club? Practically downtown!)

4. Build a den

5. Skim a stone (I recommend Britannia Beach for this one!)

6. Run around in the rain (or puddles, maybe?)

7. Fly a kite

8. Catch a fish with a net

9. Eat an apple straight from a tree (we love Kilmarnock and Cannamore orchards)

10. Play conkers

11. Throw some snow (can we wait until December for this one, please?)

12. Hunt for treasure on the beach

13. Make a mud pie

14. Dam a stream

15. Go sledging

16. Bury someone in the sand

17. Set up a snail race

18. Balance on a fallen tree

19. Swing on a rope swing (the rope swing is hands down the kid-favourite feature in our backyard)

20. Make a mud slide

21. Eat blackberries growing in the wild (there are – or were – wild raspberries growing along the boardwalk at the Chapman Mills Conservation Area)

22. Take a look inside a tree

23. Visit an island

24. Feel like you’re flying in the wind

25. Make a grass trumpet

26. Hunt for fossils and bones

27. Watch the sun wake up

28. Climb a huge hill

29. Get behind a waterfall (or maybe go caving?)

30. Feed a bird from your hand (bring some seed to the Lime Kiln Trail or Hogsback Falls for this one!)

31. Hunt for bugs

32. Find some frogspawn

33. Catch a butterfly in a net

34. Track wild animals

35. Discover what’s in a pond (Mud Lake is great for this!)

36. Call an owl

37. Check out the crazy creatures in a rock pool

38. Bring up a butterfly

39. Catch a crab

40. Go on a nature walk at night

41. Plant it, grow it, eat it

42. Go wild swimming

43. Go rafting

44. Light a fire without matches (um, no thanks)

45. Find your way with a map and a compass

46. Try bouldering

47. Cook on a campfire

48. Try abseiling

49. Find a geocache

50. Canoe down a river (although you might want to wait until they’re older than 3 and 5 yrs old!)

I figure the boys have a good half of the items crossed off, and I can tell you for sure I won’t be taking them abseiling any time soon – although the zip-line at a local aerial park is not out of question. What do you think? Is there anything on here a child of 12 can or cannot live without doing? Something you’d add to the list?

Ottawa Humane Society open house this weekend

Looking for a fun idea for family fun this weekend? How about hopping over to the Ottawa Humane Society to celebrate spring during their open house? Here’s some info:

Come visit our new shelter and enjoy lots of family-friendly spring activities – including an Easter egg hunt, crafts and having your photos taken with the Easter Bunny!

When: Sunday, April 1, 2012
Where: 245 West Hunt Club Rd between Merivale and Price of Wales
Time: from 11am-2pm

Leap over to the OHS with your friends and family. For more information check out our website at: http://ottawahumane.ca/events/easter.cfm. If you still have questions, call 613-725-3166 ext 298 or email programs@ottawahumane.ca.

I love this idea, as I haven’t been out to see the new OHS since their renovation — but I fear I would not make it home without another furry, photogenic addition to our family!

Five ideas for five days of March Break family fun in Ottawa

Holy cow, did you see the weather forecast for March Break in Ottawa? Sunny and 10C to 15C! Glad we’re staying in town to enjoy it!

If you’re also staying around town and looking for ideas to keep the kids entertained, here’s a handful of ideas for you!

1. RCMP Musical Ride Stables
I wrote about the RCMP Stables earlier this week, and I said then that it shot to the number one spot for my recommendations for FREE family fun in Ottawa. Gorgeous horses, a bit of history, and completely free. You can read the blog post here!

RCMP stables tour

2. Movies and Popcorn
The Rainbow Cinema at St Laurent have some fun kids movies playing this week, and admission is only $5 per person (or $2 if you go on Tuesday!) This week, you can see The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, Hugo and (yay!) The Muppets.

3. Visit a Museum
Do your kids like airplanes? Visit the Aviation Museum. Animals? Visit the Experimental Farm. Dinosaurs? They’ll love the Museum of Nature. Art? Take ’em to the National Gallery. Trains and rocketships? You’ve got to go to the Museum of Science and Technology. Really, you could spend the whole March Break museum-hopping and not double-up once!

4. It’s Maple Season!
I’m a fan of the Log Farm sugarbush off Cedarview Rd in Barrhaven, but there are tonnes of sugar shacks around Ottawa. We’ve been to Stanley’s Old Time Farm, too. It will be great weather to get out and enjoy one of Canada’s best seasonal treats!

411:1000 From tree to taffy!

5. Take a day off
It’s fun to be doing stuff, but it’s also fun to be doing nothing. Make sure you schedule some downtime with quiet activities like board games, crafty projects and other fun stuff that doesn’t require you to get dressed and leave the house!

Still looking for ideas? Check out these blog posts in my archives for more suggestions!

Five warm and frost-free indoor places to visit on Family Day

Seven days of free family fun in Ottawa!

Five crafty ideas to keep kids busy

What will YOU be doing this March Break?

Edited to add: Ha! Listen to the scheduling mom with a plan (me), a bunch of kids and a laid-back dad named Pedro are all approaching March Break from our own perspectives with this fun clip that aired on CBC radio Ottawa Morning today. Warning – funky music alert!! 🙂

Ottawa’s Hidden Treasures: RCMP Stables

I have been blogging about raising a family in Ottawa for seven years and this? May be the best discovery of them all. I’ve recommended a tour of the RCMP Musical Ride Centre a couple of times as an excellent idea for free family fun in Ottawa, but I’ve never actually gotten around to doing it before now. This one has just shot to the top of my list of awesome (free!) things to do with kids in Ottawa!

Most people have heard of the RCMP’s Musical Ride, featured on the back of the Canadian $50 bill, but did you know the stables where they keep and train those magnificent horses is right here in Ottawa? I’d been meaning to take the boys down there for ages, but never got around to it. On Sunday morning, we were invited to join Simon’s Beaver scout colony for a private tour, and I have to tell you, I was amazed that I don’t hear more people raving about this.

There’s a bit of a museum, with a history of the Musical Ride, and a tack station and a farrier’s station. You can see the landau that Princess Kate and Prince William promenaded in when they visited – it was hand-crafted in 1890 in Austria and is still used for ceremonial transport of heads of state. But the real treat is the horses themselves. They’re beautiful, friendly, docile creatures (with a few exceptions!) and I was completely enamoured by Turbo in particular. He was so tall I had to stand on my tiptoes to pat his downy forehead, which he willingly crammed his face into the bars of his stall to allow me to do!

Our tour guide was Constable Ben Macconnell (how cool is THIS? they even have their own Musical Ride trading cards!), and I wish I could remember half of the interesting tidbits and lore he shared with us. For example, did you know the RCMP’s horses are at minimum 16 hands tall, which is a couple of hands taller than they were even 20 years ago, and they’re always black, and have been since, um, a former RCMP Commissioner at some point in the past (sorry, I forgot to take notes!) decreed they would all look the same. Each year, 16 new RCMP members train to join 16 existing members of the team, and they tour Canada and the world as the Musical Ride. Some members who join the team have never even been on a horse before, and they go through an intensive training program and during their 18-week lead up to touring season they spending hours each day putting the horses (and the riders!) through their paces. This year, they will be travelling to England to perform for the Queen for her diamond jubilee. (Can you imagine the logistics of getting 36 horses across the pond? Yikes!)

Since we toured on a Sunday morning, we didn’t get to see the exercises, which is why we’ll be heading back during the March Break! What a great March Break activity, eh? Here’s a peek at our tour.

RCMP stables tour

This is my new number-one favourite Ottawa family activity, and I can’t recommend it highly enough! I’m not entirely clear on whether you can see the horses and riders going through their paces all the time or just in the 18 weeks that lead up to the summer performance season, so you might want to check ahead of time. Here’s the information from the Musical Ride Centre website:

Musical Ride Visitors’ Centre information: tours@rcmp-f.ca

Tours are available:

May 1 – August 31: daily 9:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
September – April: Tuesday and Thursday 10:00 – 2:00 p.m.

Don’t miss this one! 🙂

Fun and FREE fitness for Ottawa’s new moms: Strollercize!

It’s hard to believe a whole ten years (!) have passed since I showed up for my first Strollercize outing at Boomerang Kids on Bank Street. I can barely remember being that girl, shy and still overwhelmed by being a new mom, looking for any excuse to get out of the house and interacting with grown-ups for a change.

I remember showing up clutching my signed waiver, trying to stand near the back and getting pulled in with a warm welcome. I remember loving the circuitous loop we did along Queen Elizabeth Drive and the Canal, and the way the instructors made it possible for everyone to work at their own speed and their own level while still challenging us and keeping us energized. I remember sitting in the sun on the grassy bank near Lansdowne Park doing stretches, and doing pushups against benches and the rail along the Canal. I remember those outings becoming the highlight of my week. And I remember in October of that year I ran my first 5K, pushing Tristan’s stroller in the CIBC Run for the Cure, something I’d worked toward that whole summer at strollercize.

It’s a shame, really, that I haven’t blogged about how great that experience was before now. I’d more or less forgotten all of it, though, until I got an e-mail a few weeks ago from Jules Hilliker. She’s the coordinator for the (completely FREE!) strollercize program offered through Boomerang Kids stores in Ottawa, and the energy behind Fitness with Jules. You can’t read an e-mail from Jules without feeling energized and enthusiastic — she’s got that infectious kind of energy that radiates out of even her written words. And when she asked for my help to spread the word about the strollercize program, I couldn’t help but say yes. Jules’ e-mail said in part: ‘Over the years hundreds of new families have found Strollercize through word of mouth, the only thing that saddens me is when a Mom shows up with an 8 month old and says, “This is amazing, how come I did not know about this earlier?”‘ And I was smiling, both from Jules’ enthusiasm and from the warm memories from my own strollercize experience.

Strollercize runs all year long out of the Bank Street location, but the program will be returning to all stores in March. If you’re looking for a fantastic FREE way to get out of the house, meet other moms and get a little exercise, I can’t say enough great things about it. Interested? Here’s the details from the website:

WHAT you need…

The baby!
Comfortable walking shoes
Dress appropriately for the weather – we walk rain or shine
Water bottle (for you)
Small snack

HOW to join…

Just show up on the day of your choice, and bring the signed waiver (available at the stores, or download one from the site).

Call Boomerang Kids if the weather forecast is calling for +30C or -30C.

Thanks to Jules for reaching out and reminding me about this terrific program. Makes me want to have another baby — or maybe I can borrow one and join in?

If you’re looking for another great suggestion for free outdoor fitness, stay tuned! I have a great suggestion for you coming up. No babies required!!