Our summer 2016 bucket list for Ottawa family fun

Yay, it’s officially summer! I’ve got a short list of five great activities I’d like to do this summer with the boys, and I thought I’d share in case you needed a little inspiration for planning your Ottawa family fun in the next couple of weeks. It’s a sort of a Bucket List of Ottawa Family Fun. If we get most of these checked off, it will have been a summer of awesome adventures. And surprisingly, most of these are things we’ve never tried before.

1. Go zip-lining at Camp Fortune

I loved this idea from the first time I heard about it, and I loved it even more when I got discounted coupons through Groupon earlier this summer. “Visit Camp Fortune for an adventurous zip lining and aerial park excursion. Glide through the trees from stand to stand through one of two courses available. Trekking through the ropes course will include climbing ladders and bridges, while enjoying the beautiful scenery.” Fun, right?

2. Check out the balanced rock sculptures on the Ottawa River

I’ve been meaning to do this for years, if not decades. It’s surprising how few people know about the amazing balanced rock sculptures created by John Ceprano at the Remic rapids on the Ottawa River. I think the boys will be fascinated by them.

3. Go canoeing and/or kayaking

We rented kayaks at the end of last summer at Chapman Mills, and despite the fact that one of our party went swimming unexpectedly, we still had a good time. This may be the summer we try stand-up paddling!

Paddling

4. Learn to Geocache

I know there isn’t a lot to “learn” with Geocaching, but despite having it on my radar for years and knowing the boys would love the idea of treasure hunting, I’ve still never actually gotten started with this fun family activity. I finally downloaded the Geocaching app to my iPhone this week and was amazed by the sheer number of caches even in our immediate neighbourhood.

5. Visit the dinosaurs at Prehistoric World

This is another one I’ve had on my radar for years, and we really need to get out there while Lucas is still in his dino-fascinated phase. Prehistoric World is a small park near Morrisburg with meandering paths featuring over 50 life-sized and apparently mostly scientifically accurate dinosaur sculptures. This would be a great side trip to pair with our other favourite Morrisburg adventure, McHaffie’s flea market.

If you’re looking for more inspiration, I’ve got a dedicated category full of blog posts about fun family adventures in Ottawa. What’s on YOUR Ottawa summer fun to-do list?

Photo(s) of the day: An overdue visit to Lansdowne Park

I‘m trying to remember when they opened the new and improved Landsdowne Park. Was it summer 2015? Maybe summer 2014? Regardless, we haven’t had the chance to make our way down there until this past weekend. I have to say, we were impressed. It’s a beautiful, bright and spacious area, and we felt like tourists in our own city poking around it yesterday afternoon.

We went down specifically for the farmer’s market, and it’s definitely one of the best in the city. I was surprised, though, that on a blazingly sunny Sunday afternoon on a long holiday weekend that there weren’t more people. I was braced for crowds, especially after having brought the boys downtown on Friday for their first Canada Day festival in Ottawa (north of the Queensway twice in one weekend!) but it felt more like a Tuesday morning with the amount of people around.

We poked about the shops for a bit, managing to miss entirely the Whole Foods (maybe for the best?), collecting our free sample at Lindt, and then stopped for lunch at South Street Burger. (Five thumbs up.) Our favourite part, though, was definitely the playground and the water feature. Any time you can get an eight-year-old, a tween and a teen all engaged in the same activity, that’s a win. Like most of the families present, we ignored the rather odd differentiation between the art side of the water park and the play side of the water park, and all three kids played WITH the art.

Then Lucas noticed the giant roll of hill off in the distance, across a wide open and completely empty green space. “Can I run up the hill?” he asked, eyes bright. Of course! And with that, a sibling gauntlet was thrown, and all three charged up the hill.

I couldn’t resist using the rolling shape of the hill and the, um, whatever that weird structure is, to frame up a photograph. Picture me at the bottom of the hill, yelling up to my agreeable subjects. “Tristan, move left one step. Great! Simon, two steps left. That’s it! Now – band pose!”

Boys at play at Lansdowne park

Yes, a photographer’s kids know a handful of poses by name. What, yours don’t?

Simon and I had earlier been discussing a new summer challenge we’re undertaking together. One minute of planking every day for the entire summer, with the idea of working up to two minutes of planking every day for, well, forever.

Here’s Simon getting started.

Boys at play at Lansdowne park

I’m seeing the birth of a photography-fitness mash-up here. How many interesting places can we photograph Simon doing a plank this summer?

We had a lovely, low-key day exploring Lansdowne park with the family on a sunny, summer Sunday that also happened to be our 17th wedding anniversary. (Happy Anniversary, my sweet Beloved!)

Have you spent any time there? What did you think?

Awesome Ottawa family fun: Ultimate Dinosaurs at the Museum of Nature

Did you know the Giganotosaurus, a giant meat-eating dinosaur from the southern hemisphere, was even bigger (and probably meaner!) than the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the so-called “king of the dinosaurs”? The T. Rex lived in North America about 65 million years ago, but the 13m Giganotosaurus roamed near what is now Argentina 95 to 100 million years ago.

#UltimateDinos at the Canadian Museum of Nature!

That’s just one of the wicked cool things the boys and I learned at the Canadian Museum of Nature’s summer blockbuster exhibition called Ultimate Dinosaurs, featuring 16 fully articulated dinosaur skeletons. It’s a fascinating and must-see exhibit for even the most casual dinosaur fan.

Ultimate Dinosaurs at the Museum of Nature

Like most eight year old boys, Lucas is fascinated by dinosaurs, and never misses an episode of Dino Dan on TVO. We had just finished reading a detailed book about dinosaur facts when I came across an article in the Citizen a few weeks ago about Jordan Mallon, a palaeontologist with the Museum of Nature, who introduced a new species of horned dinosaur earlier this year. I was fascinated by the idea of a local scientist doing something so cool, and Lucas and I were engaged by the story of “Judith”, a horned ceratops dinosaur the size of a small elephant whose bones were discovered by an amateur fossil prospector in Montana.

You won’t see Judith’s skeleton in the Ultimate Dino exhibition, though you can find her a few floors down in the Museum’s Fossil Gallery. The Ultimate Dinosaur exhibition is all about dinosaurs from the ancient super-continent of Gondwana, the southern breakaway piece of Pangaea that eventually became South America, Africa, Australia and Antarctica. We learned that as Gondwana formed 145 million years ago, the dinosaur species that lived there evolved in isolation from their Laurasian (northern) counterparts. The exhibit is not just about dinosaur bones, but about evolution, biodiversity, climate change, and geology. The Gondwana dinos are bigger and more bizarre than their northern cousins. The teeth of Giganotosaurus, for example, had blade-like teeth well suited to slicing meet, whereas T. Rex’s teeth and jaws were designed to crush bones outright.

Not all of the dinosaurs were giant “titanosaurs”, though one sauropod was so huge that only its leg bones can fit into the exhibition. The Eoraptor was a relatively petite meter or so long, but is known as one of the earliest species of dinosaurs, having lived more than 200 million years ago. In all, there are 16 dinosaur skeletons you can see, but there is so much more to the exhibition. They have a very cool augmented reality feature where you can look through mounted, mobile screens to see the skeleton in front of you transformed into a fully fleshed (pardon the pun) dinosaur.

#UltimateDinos at the Canadian Museum of Nature!

There’s lots of hands-on things to do as well. You can make a replica of a fossil tooth or claw in the fossil lab, hold casts and actual fossilized dino bones and teeth (hint: the casts are lighter than the actual fossils), see fossil replicas made from a 3D printer, and use plasticine to build muscles and veins on a velociraptor skull. In the Dino Zone, the littlest dino fans can engage in dress-up and shadow theatre play, and have fun with the magnet board and giant building blocks. Lucas loved finding the stations to emboss his dinosaur fact sheet throughout the Ultimate Dino exhibition.

#UltimateDinos at the Canadian Museum of Nature!

#UltimateDinos at the Canadian Museum of Nature!

The kids were definitely engaged by all aspects of the exhibit, but I learned a lot, too. For example, I knew that one doesn’t find giant dinosaur bones in this part of Canada, but why not? Well, for one thing, the rock here is generally so old that it pre-dates the dinosaur giants. You can find some really neat marine fossils that are local to the Ottawa area from a spectacular 450 or so million years ago and excavate them from limestone as part of the museum’s summer programming in the Nature Live gallery.

A trip to the amazing Museum of Nature is always at the top of my list of recommendations for awesome family fun in Ottawa, but the world-class Ultimate Dinosaur show will bring us back more than once before the exhibit ends in September 2016. Note that admission to the Ultimate Dinosaur exhibit is in addition to regular Museum of Nature fees. See the Museum of Nature website for full details about rates and hours of admission. If you don’t want to pay the premium to visit the Ultimate Dinosaurs exhibition, you can still have an awesome dinosaur adventure in the Fossil Lab and Dino Zone, as well as seeing the local Ordovician fossils, and visit “Judith” in the Fossil Gallery, all as part of regular museum admission.

Disclosure: We were invited to the media preview of the Ultimate Dinosaurs exhibit. While I tried hard to fact-check my references, any errors in dino facts and figures are completely on my part!

Photos of the day: Diefenbunker revisited

We had family in town this weekend and it was just too cold to convince everyone outside for a Winterlude adventure, so we opted for one of Ottawa’s quirkiest family adventures: a visit to the Diefenbunker in Carp.

We first visited the Diefenbunker almost exactly two years ago; I remember it was another bitterly cold day as well and joked to the girl at the admissions desk that the next trip would definitely be in the sweltering heat of July. Not much had changed since our last visit, except for the fact that on a cold January morning we had the place almost entirely to ourselves, and on this visit the place was lousy with people seeking Winterlude alternatives to freezing on the Canal. While the kids followed clues on a Winterlude scavenger hunt and my brother and sister-in-law took in the exhibits, I entertained myself looking for fun photo opportunities.

Like this one! Tristan is generally resistant to anyone foisting their rules, world-view or peccadilloes on him, and he knew where I was going with this one the moment I pointed the sign out to him.

Diefenbunker 2016

The kids could not walk past a rotary dial phone without stopping to pick one up and play with the dials. My niece was equally fascinated with every keyboard she encountered. I’m going to start calling her “Miss Moneypenny.”

Diefenbunker 2016

My brother gets that I like to play and is patient enough to play along when I notice the really interesting shapes and shadows that appeared when he was framed in the door of the giant bank vault in the basement of the Diefenbunker.

Diefenbunker 2016

Some stuff is just cool. I had a turntable in a box like a suitcase, but mine wasn’t as old as this one. What year do you figure this is from? Maybe mid-1950s?

Diefenbunker 2016

And finally, you know you’re with your tribe when you say, “Pop a Charlie’s Angel’s back to back pose!” and your brother and sister-in-law instantly do this:

Diefenbunker 2016

Even though nothing has changed since our last visit, and we had the disadvantage of no tours AND visiting on a very busy day, we still really enjoyed this excursion. And did you hear that the Diefenbunker is partering with Escape Manor to turn the Diefenbunker into the world’s largest escape room adventure? From the website:

You are on the final guided tour of the day, when you and your friends duck into a room and hide so that you can spend a night at the museum. You soon discover that it is not a museum at all. It is actually a cover for an enemy spy organization. You overhear some people talking behind closed doors of an imminent attack scheduled for tonight! You must escape! But first, you must find the communications room, stop the launch sequence and phone-in the Red Alert transmission to the outside world before it is too late! 12 people, 60 minutes. Do you have what it takes to save the world?

I can tell you that we’ll be going back for another visit to check THAT out! It sounds awesome! Even without the Escape Manor adventure, though, the Diefenbunker remains one of my favourite Ottawa family adventures.

Photos of the day: An amazing birthday party at the Ottawa Humane Society

We’ve had a LOT of birthday party experience over the years, from bowling to trampolines to movies to art to Lego. Our new favourite party by far, though, is one hosted at the Ottawa Humane Society.

We all love animals, but Lucas has shown a real affinity for them. When he did a school project last year on “People In Your Neighbourhood” he chose our vet Heather Ann to profile, and every time I see a cute kitty video on Facebook, I make a note to save it and show it to him. We support the Ottawa Humane Society already as one of our preferred charities, and so hosting a birthday party there was an easy choice – all profits beyond the direct costs of the party are invested back into the OHS.

They did an amazing job with the party. All we had to do was show up! They provided decorations, cups and plates, napkins and cutlery, and even candles. Our party leader Stephanie was patient and knowledgeable, good with kids, and just the right personality to wrangle a few boys who might have been a wee bit overexcited. She introduced us to her friendly pet rat Phoebe, who was a definite hit with party-goers big and small.

A birthday party at the Ottawa Humane Society

A birthday party at the Ottawa Humane Society

A birthday party at the Ottawa Humane Society

First, we decorated our treat bags (Lucas looked up at me and said blissfully, “I didn’t know there would be art at my animal party!” as his worlds of happiness collided) and then the kids made doggie treats out of oats, flour and peanut-free nut butter. We chose the dog treat activity, but could have also made cat toys or hide-and-perch boxes for the shelter cats.

A birthday party at the Ottawa Humane Society

Then we went on a tour of the shelter, where we saw the animals waiting for adoption. There was a beautiful malamute that very nearly went home with Granny and Papa Lou, had his papers not said he would prefer a home without other dogs. I was really pleased that the kids got to go “behind the scenes” to learn about what the OHS does, and how they take care of the animals that come to the shelter. The highlight of the tour, though, was being allowed to pet the cats waiting for adoption.

A birthday party at the Ottawa Humane Society

A birthday party at the Ottawa Humane Society

A birthday party at the Ottawa Humane Society

I have to tell you, I was secretly pleased at how few animals we saw at the shelter. We’ve visited a few times before to pet the kitties, and always found dozens of cats waiting for homes, but there were just a few this weekend. In fact, while we were there two kittens and one dog were adopted. What a great lesson for the kids! What I didn’t point out to the kids was the family who were obviously surrendering their pet, as they brought in armloads of pet gear and left empty-handed and in tears. It must be heart-wrenching to work with the shelter, and I have so much admiration for the staff and volunteers.

After our tour, we had the usual party fun: cake, presents and loot bags. A giant cookie cake, in fact, baked at Lucas’ request by Beloved.

A birthday party at the Ottawa Humane Society

A birthday party at the Ottawa Humane Society

I can’t say enough good things about the Ottawa Humane Society or the party they helped us host for Lucas. He loved every minute of it and has already said that he wants his ninth birthday party to be at the OHS, too. And did you know they have camps for PD Days and March Break, too?

A birthday party at the Ottawa Humane Society

Happy birthday, Lucas! Thanks for having a birthday so we could have fun visiting the OHS!

Photo(s) of the day: Christmas parades and tree hunting

For weeks, I’d kept an eye on the forecast, hoping for just a wee crust of snow to be on the ground for this weekend. Alas, with sunshine and temperatures well above zero, there was not a flake in sight (heh, except maybe the one behind the camera) as we launched our family Christmas season in the traditional way.

First, the annual Santa Claus parade in Manotick. You can never have too much sunshine for a parade!

Christmas traditions

Can I just take a moment to say that there is a special place in my heart for people walking in parades who make the effort to ensure that even the tallest, gangliest and peach-fuzzed kids get a piece or two of Christmas candy along the parade route? I was touched by the number of people who offered candy canes and other treats to all three boys, even though one is now as tall as me. He may be big, but he still loves Christmas AND candy. 🙂

And then, lack of snow be damned, we took a lovely autumnal walk through our favourite Christmas tree farm. This year, the saw was handed down to the middlest boy for the first time. It’s the first year we’ve had to worry about mud instead of snow on the ground, but the tree is as lovely as ever.

Christmas traditions-2

Jackets unzipped, or carried casually in hands, and nobody thought to bring gloves to protect our hands from sticky sap and picky needles instead of frostnip, but we managed to get by without the snow.

Christmas tree and reindeer

And though I didn’t catch it here, Lucas even took a turn carrying the tree this year. My boys, they’re growing up fast!

Did you catch the reindeer in the background? Shockingly, nobody seemed to notice him lounging in the forest when we were getting our tree. He only became obvious when I was processing the photos. Oh the magic of Christmas!! (I’m sort of like a toddler who learns a new trick and then must repeat it ad nauseum. I promise, I’ll get it out of my system in time for spring 2016’s porch portrait season! Probably.)

Turns out we didn’t really need that snow after all. I’m happy enough if it holds off until December 20 or so, now. You can take plenty of lovely Christmas photos even without a snowy backdrop, and a magical reindeer or two. 🙂

10th anniversary edition: The 2015 Christmas parade post

Edited to add: Click this link for the 2018 Santa Claus and holiday parade info!

Welcome to one of my favourite holiday traditions! 2015 marks TEN YEARS since I’ve been collating and publishing all the Christmas, Holiday and Santa Claus parades for Ottawa and Eastern Ontario and West Quebec.

I feel a little bit like Costco selling its Christmas trees in July by putting up a blog post about Christmas when Halloween has barely slipped from our consciousness, but the first parades are THIS WEEK. One breath and we’re all golden leaves and pumpkins, and then you blink and it’s ho-ho-ho and shovel the driveway! Here’s all the info I could scare up about 2015 Santa Claus parade line-up, in chronological order:

Photo of Santa Claus at the Christmas parade 2013

Continue reading “10th anniversary edition: The 2015 Christmas parade post”

Watson’s Mill reflected, and a history lesson

There’s been a lot of coverage in the media this week of 24 Sussex Drive, the Prime Minister’s official residence. Did you know that the history of 24 Sussex Drive is linked directly with Watson’s Mill here in Manotick?

Watson's Mill

The mill was built in 1860 by partners Moss Kent Dickinson and Joseph Currier. Shortly after it was built, Joseph Currier met his second bride-to-be, Anne Crosby, in Lake George, New York. She had never been to Manotick, and after their January 1861 wedding and month-long honeymoon, he brought her home to celebrate the Mill’s first year of operation. The very day she arrived, tragedy struck: as she was ascending the stairs to the second floor of the mill, her long, hooped crinoline got caught one of the turbines powered by the river, and she was flung against a support post and killed instantly. They say her spirit still haunts the mill.

Currier never set foot in the Mill nor Manotick again. He went on to become a Member of Parliament, and eight years later married his third wife, the granddaughter of Philemon Wright. He commissioned a house be built for her as a wedding gift, and called it Gorffwysfa, Welsh for “place of rest.” The address? 24 Sussex Drive.

Photo of the day: A rainbow over the Rideau Canal

It’s dark this time of year when I leave for work, but light creeps into the sky as I make my way downtown. On this particular morning, I had a feeling that sunrise would be spectacular – even before the sun broke the horizon, I was intrigued by the textures of the clouds that mostly covered the deep gray sky.

By the time I’d parked and was walking to the office, the clouds were afire with pink and orange. I had my camera with me, as I’d been thinking of shooting some pretty leaf shots on my lunch break, and I started looking for a good spot with an open sky and interesting downtown skyline for the foreground.

Instead, to my delight, I found this!

Rainbow over downtown

Look at the light on those Gatineau hills in the background! I actually kept walking, after fawning over the rainbow for a while and actually stopping passers-by to point it out to them, and tried to get a better vantage spot to photograph the hills. Hmmm, where near the Canal and downtown can I get a clear shot of the Gatineau Hills? And off I ran to Parliament Hill. Like, RUNNING, because that light was not going to last. And to my great dismay, the construction on the Hill had completely blocked off all access to the view across the river and on to Quebec. Boo!

Also, more than one person has asked me if I’d ever consider giving up my dSLR now that camera phones are so sophisticated. It’s true, the iPhone 6S has 12 megapixels, same as my trusty old D40 starter dSLR. I would never rely solely on an iPhone, unless it was the only camera I had with me, no matter how big the sensor – here’s why:

It looks a little bit like the fountain at the Lac Leamy casino has gone nuclear, doesn’t it?

The dynamic range, the subtle variation from one tone to the next, is just non-existent in low light for the iPhone, as compared to what my D600 can do. But you sure can’t beat it for instant gratification! I had to download the “good” photos from my camera to my computer, edit them and then upload them, so it took more than 24 hours so I could share them with you.

And rainbows at sunrise are definitely worth sharing, right? 🙂