What a Week!

Well, out of all of our weeks here in Kingston so far, I might say that this has been our busiest and I could probably go as far saying maybe our most fun week in Kingston yet!

We started the week with Monday (as most people do) and spent the evening preparing for our long awaited guests.

On Tuesday, we could hardly wait for the day to be done because we knew that that night, our first visitors from home would be arriving! Carl's cousin Andrea and her husband Nick arrived after a flight from home and a long journey through Toronto rush hour! We picked them up from the bus depot and headed downtown for dinner and a bit of catching up! It was so nice to see familiar faces from home!

On Wednesday, I took a "personal day" to tour Nick and Andrea around town! We decided to do a boat cruise around the 1000 Islands! We drove in to Gananoque (ask Nick to pronounce it!) which is about 30 minutes from here and hopped on our boat! In and around the area of Lake Ontario and the St Lawrence River which crosses over into New York, there are about 1805 islands! Some are man made and they all vary in sizes as you can see from the pictures below...

Wouldn't it be nice to have your own private island?

This one is a bit small for me...

And this one...Where is the island?!

The tour took us into New York where the well known Boldt Castle resides!

The castle was built by some rich guy for his wife (sorry, I don't remember names). But during the process of it being built, the rich man's wife died! He was so upset that he left the castle and never returned. It sat vacant for years until it became a tourist attraction! If you're on the right cruise, you can hop off and explore the island and the castle!

After the cruise, Nick, Andrea and I explored Gananoque a bit and had lunch at a little diner where everyone knew everyone (except us)! From there we headed back to Kingston to explore the downtown area and the local Penitentiary Museum! Since we do have about eight jails in the surrounding area, its kind of a must see! It was actually ended up being quite interesting! From there, it was time to meet Carl for dinner!

From dinner, we headed to Fanatics, the local sports bar to watch the Canucks win their first game against Boston!

Thursday was a sad day - our guests came for a quick stay and today was the day we had to say farewell. Carl and I both had to work which gave Nick and Andrea some time to explore on their own...Although I think they decided to just sleep in! At noon, I left work, picked up Nick and Andrea, we drove to Carl's work, picked up Carl and were able to have a quick lunch together before dropping our guests off at the bus station so they could head to their next destination, Montreal!

Carl and I knew it would be a rough night, being alone again so we made sure we had plans for the evening! We met up with our friends Matt and Andy and went for a long bike ride! We stole the idea from Aunt Jane and Uncle Chuck to go for a long ride and then have spaghetti at the end...A spaghetti ride! Which is exactly what we did!

On Friday, we got home from work, made a quick dinner and decided to rush out and see a movie! We saw the movie Bridesmaids - it was hilarious but slightly crude, so beware!

Saturday morning, we had no plans...So we made some! We ended up driving to Frontenac Provincial Park, about 40minutes away where we did a 3 hours/12km hike!

We discovered that hiking in Ontario is like going for a long walk in the woods! There isn't much uphill and not to many scenic views! But it was still enjoyable!

That night, it was off to our friend Andy's, for her birthday! We headed downtown for a roof top party at her boyfriends apartment! We of course, went in style, being that it was the night of game 2!

Here are some views of Kingston from the apartment!

Little did we know at this point that we'd be on that little red boat to the far left, the next day!

Yup, Sunday after church we headed out on Matt's sailboat for 6 hours, enjoying Lake Ontario! It was my first time ever on a sail boat!

It was a lot fun!

Overall, we had a very busy week but it was a good one! Looking ahead at our summer, it is also starting to look quite busy but we can't wait for all the adventures to come!