Merrickville

This has been a great week, as my Mom and my sister arrived for a nice visit. It's been a long time since they have both been here. We are enjoying our time together.
Today we drove down to Merrickville (except for Mom who wasn't feeling up to the trip) and enjoyed the day. Here you can see Sissy and I at the canal.

We particularly enjoyed eating at the Charles Dickens Restaurant and doing some shopping as well. We ended the day by having some delicious homemade gelatto.

Tulip Festival

We finally had a lovely day here in Ottawa so off the three of us went on our bikes, with our picnic lunch to see the Tulips. Here was a bike break, since it was a rather long ride.

The weather was warm, so we thoroughly enjoyed walking around and seeing the flowers, watching the buskers, and generally being glad that Ottawa has a great Tulip Festival. I've been able to go every year since we've been here, so this was my 5th Tulip Festival.
They were magnificent, but our "flower" threatened to outshine them all.

It's that Time of Year

It's that time of year is a Christmas song, that says "It's that time of year, when all the world seems to fall in love..." Don't you think those lyrics are more appropriate for Spring? Just can't seem to get them out of my head today. I just LOVE spring. I can't resist going outside several times a day to look at the flowers... as if I could see daily growth or something. There is nothing quite so rewarding as watching the growth of plants I put into the ground. Of course being Tulip festival time, around here, there are lots of flowers to be seen. Tomorrow, if the weather holds out, we all plan to get down to see the festival, although there are tulips everywhere, like below (These are in front of the Prime Minister's house).
I am making my list to start a vegetable garden, since I think we've seen our last frost. Up til now I've stuck with planting flowers. So let's see if there is any possibility of making other things grow. We'll see, right? Wish me luck.

50th Birthday

Today was João's 50th Birthday. We tried to give him a surprise party. Didn't really suceed in surprising him, although did manage to fool him to at least thinking it would be at night, not right after church. It was so much fun to gather together and wish the man I love a wonderful birthday. Here he is blowing out the candle on his ice cream cake.

After the party had pretty well wound down Brian took João for a ride in his 1955 Chrysler - that he had remodeled. It was gorgeous. We asked everyone who was in better condition... I won't tell you the answer! But it was a great day.

I'm home from the convention

I am just home from a fantastic weekend! I was in Waterloo, ON, for the convention of the Baptist Women of Ontario and Quebec. We had a group of 410 women, a part of which you can see below.

I rode down and back with Carol Sollows in her car and we had a GREAT trip together - we even roomed together as well.
So many good things happened, that it's hard to give the "highlights". The speakers were stimulating, the fellowship fantastic, the hotel and service was super. To sum it up, I came back flying high.
One of the fun things I participated in on Saturday was the "Project Inasmuch", in which about 50 of us went out into the community to participate in various projects. Below you can see me loading up the materials the women had brought for the women's shelter that my small group went to. We had such a good time! In fact everyone did.

Now, we from Ottawa are dreaming about having the convention here in 2007. Wouldn't that be terrific?
It was a little tiring, but it was worth it all.