Back from Holidays
Well, we'd been gone for 2 weeks; approximately one week with Toby's parents in Nova Scotia, then one week in Montreal visiting our brothers. And what a fun time it was!
Toby's younger cousin Nathan was in N.S. for a few days when we arrived. Toby taught him some juggling tricks, he got to go tubing down the river (where you sit in a giant inner tube and float down the river), and searching for snakes and turtles. We ate lobster, had tonnes of desserts, picked raspberries, went canoeing, watched the tide roll into the Bay of Fundy, and played Yatzhee!
We also go to visit the Oaklawn Zoo, which is a small, but really neat, facility in N.S. Got to go behind the scenes and see snake and turtle eggs incubating, and feed the marmosets and tamarins! Whee!
Then, we convoyed out to Montreal. Toby got to fix the muffler strap on his mom's car in the rain. We noticed something was sounding weird, and it took a few stops and investigations to figure out what. It was, unfortunately, Sunday afternoon in the Maritimes. We made it to a Canadian Tire in Fredericton just before closing, and changed the strap in the parking lot. A kind and chatty tow-truck driver was also at the parking lot, dealing with another problem, and lent Toby a bit of a tarp to lie on and some grease-cutting paper towels to clean up afterwards. Toby did get a few scrapes and cuts from the procedure, but it wasn't as bad as it might have been (say, if we hadn't noticed and the muffler fell off the car!).
In Montreal, we were treated to a lovely dinner for Toby's mom's birthday at Le Poisson Rouge, and went to the Botannical Gardens. Les Jardins is a huge place; we'll have to go back another time and see the rest of the gardens! We did see the fabulous Chinese and Japanese gardens, huge lotus flowers, gorgeous bonsai (one was 265 years old!), and Turkish mosaics. Really nifty. My brother and his girlfriend also made us a lovely dinner and we enjoyed ice cream in the humid evening air afterwards. Yay!
Now we're back in NYC. Can you believe it's over 100F today?! That's nearly 40C. Ugh. With the recent blackouts in other boroughs (Queens, for 10 days) and Staten Island (intermittent, over several hours), there's definitely a worry that the entire city will lose power during this heat wave. Let's hope people are heeding the 'conserve power' advice so we're not all left in the dark, and, more importantly, not left without air-conditioning and fans!
Toby's younger cousin Nathan was in N.S. for a few days when we arrived. Toby taught him some juggling tricks, he got to go tubing down the river (where you sit in a giant inner tube and float down the river), and searching for snakes and turtles. We ate lobster, had tonnes of desserts, picked raspberries, went canoeing, watched the tide roll into the Bay of Fundy, and played Yatzhee!
We also go to visit the Oaklawn Zoo, which is a small, but really neat, facility in N.S. Got to go behind the scenes and see snake and turtle eggs incubating, and feed the marmosets and tamarins! Whee!
Then, we convoyed out to Montreal. Toby got to fix the muffler strap on his mom's car in the rain. We noticed something was sounding weird, and it took a few stops and investigations to figure out what. It was, unfortunately, Sunday afternoon in the Maritimes. We made it to a Canadian Tire in Fredericton just before closing, and changed the strap in the parking lot. A kind and chatty tow-truck driver was also at the parking lot, dealing with another problem, and lent Toby a bit of a tarp to lie on and some grease-cutting paper towels to clean up afterwards. Toby did get a few scrapes and cuts from the procedure, but it wasn't as bad as it might have been (say, if we hadn't noticed and the muffler fell off the car!).
In Montreal, we were treated to a lovely dinner for Toby's mom's birthday at Le Poisson Rouge, and went to the Botannical Gardens. Les Jardins is a huge place; we'll have to go back another time and see the rest of the gardens! We did see the fabulous Chinese and Japanese gardens, huge lotus flowers, gorgeous bonsai (one was 265 years old!), and Turkish mosaics. Really nifty. My brother and his girlfriend also made us a lovely dinner and we enjoyed ice cream in the humid evening air afterwards. Yay!
Now we're back in NYC. Can you believe it's over 100F today?! That's nearly 40C. Ugh. With the recent blackouts in other boroughs (Queens, for 10 days) and Staten Island (intermittent, over several hours), there's definitely a worry that the entire city will lose power during this heat wave. Let's hope people are heeding the 'conserve power' advice so we're not all left in the dark, and, more importantly, not left without air-conditioning and fans!
posted by blumaroo at
3:05 PM
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