Happy Family Day

Carl and I just arrived back home today after spending the long weekend in Ottawa! We left on Saturday morning and took the Rideau Heritage route down winding farm roads, through old small towns and along several lakes, stopping in Perth for at a small town bakery for a snack! We arrived in Ottawa about 2 hours after our departure and after dropping our friend Carolyn off at her hotel, we headed to ours! We relaxed for the first few hours, soaking in some television! We have discovered since not having cable that when a T.V is on we are easily fixated on it! That evening we rounded up the troops, all 8 of us and headed to a pub for some drinks and dinner in the Byward Market.

The following morning, after a nice brunch Carl and I headed to the Rideau Canal, the worlds largest skating rink and a UNESCO world heritage site.

The canal winds all the way from Ottawa to Kingston but only 7.8 kilometres is open for skating on! When we first arrived in Ottawa, we were told the canal was closed for the season due to the temperatures rising. However, when we went the next morning they had opened 4.6 kilometres. We took our time skating along the canal and soaking in the scenery. It's not quite as smooth as skating on an ice rink, in fact it's quite bumpy in some parts and you have to watch out for the large cracks! We saw a few people go down pretty hard but we took it pretty easy and managed to escape without injury! Along the sides of the canal, but still on the ice, they have different kiosks and huts set up selling food, hot chocolate and of course Beaver Tails, of which we sampled!

West Jet happened to be a big sponsor of "Winterlude", the winter festival going on in Ottawa, and they had a booth set up where you had a chance to win free flights. Carl and I visited several times, hoping we could win our next flight home but it didn't happen. We did however win several coupons for 5 and 10% off flights redeemed by June 29th! Sooooo, if anyone wants to come visit us before June 29th, we will give you a discount :)

After meeting up with some of our friends on the canal, we then ventured to the Parliament buildings and did some sight seeing. Saturday night we all got dressed up and went out for a fancy dinner! Call me crazy but one of the hardest thing I am finding adjusting to in the winter out here is what to wear on my feet! When you dress up here, you still have to be warm - but snow boots really don't look good with dresses...And really even to wear a dress is a challenge! Us gals toughed it out, wore our dresses, bare legs and dress shoes and of course it just had to be snowing, with an average temperature for the weekend of about -24 with the wind chill! Luckily I have an amazing husband that gave us door to door service from our hotel to the restaurant!

This morning we checked out of our hotel and took a short drive across the border to Gatineau/Hull, Quebec. They had more Winterlude festivities over there including snow slides! Unfortunately all the ice sculptures had melted in the warm weather a few days prior!

From Hull, you get a beautiful view of the Parliament buildings!

As a last minute decision Carl and I decided to go skating one last time before heading home!

Overall, we had lot's of fun and were able to forget about work and school and just relax! Now to get focused again...

The Badback's

So the last 2 weeks have been mildly uneventful except for the fact that on Monday morning I received a call from my mom. I knew something was up right away because her calling me at 7:30am meant it was 4:30am at home. Sure enough, she had some bad news. My older brother Dan had had an accident snowboarding at Manning and was airlifted to Vancouver General Hospital where it was discovered that he broke a vertabrae in his lower back. Monday morning he had surgery to have 2 metal rods and 6 screws put in his back. Although I had thought the worst at first, Dan is already back at home and on the mend. From what I've heard, he may be able to return to school on Monday and within a year he should be able to do all that he was able to do prior to the accident. We appreciate all the prayers from those of you that had heard about the accident and continued prayers for a quick recovery are also appreciated! I myself have been having issues with my back more so lately. Although they are nothing compared to a broken back, I have started seeing a physiotherapist. And most of you know that my Dad has been off work for almost a year due to a herniated disc. So I have decided that we should change our last name from Balback to Badback, whaddya think?

Well, after 25 days in a row with no days off, I finally have some time away from work! We here in Ontario get what they call "Family Day" on Monday! I requested time off from Starbucks so that we could go to Ottawa for a couple nights and enjoy Winterlude! We are both just excited for some much needed R&R! Our plans were to go skating on the canal but just today we heard that because temperatures have risen, it's actually just closed! I never thought I would hope for colder weather but it would be nice to go skating! We'll see! We are leaving tomorrow with our friend Carolyn who is meeting a friend there. Our friends Kris and Kellie will also be there with another couple so we are looking forward to some fun!

I have to send a shout out to Aunt Irene for sending us a beautiful family photo for our wall, to Grandma Funk for the lovely letter and photos and to Aunt Jane for the selection of family photos! We love getting the photos and letters! Our photo wall is looking more and complete!

Way down yonder on the chattahoochee...

For any country fans out there, you would know that the title of this blog refers to a song sung by the one and only Alan Jackson of whom I got the pleasure of seeing in concert this past week! My friend Julie just happened to have an extra ticket and knew that I liked country so she brought me along! We sat the closest I've ever sat at a concert, right in the box where the hockey players would sit if they were playing a hockey game! It was nice to have a gals night out and to sing along to some good ol' country tunes!

Me and Julie

Alan, giving us a big ol' smile for the camera!

And me with Alan...Sort of...

Besides the concert, this week was like any other week, full of work and school! Between church and work on Sunday, we went downtown to check out "Feb Fest". It's an annual festival where they have snow slides, snow carvings, outdoor skating, rivalry teams play hockey, some retired NHL player appearances, etc.

These are the snow slides - Carl and I were pretty excited about them and brought our snow pants but when we only saw kids going down them we felt a little embarrassed and decided to just watch!

A snow sculpture of the coliseum

We opted out of the hay ride too...

In other news, Carl applied for his first summer internship today! There are only about 3 internships that come up in Kingston and about 30 students in the program. While some will go home or elsewhere to do their internship, some like to stay in Kingston and there is therefore some competition for Kingston placements. We are hoping and praying that Carl gets one of them!

The snow is still falling but we actually saw temperatures above zero! Yup, 1 degree feels pretty warm these days! Lastly, a shout out to my Dad today - Happy Birthday!!! Hope ya'll have a good week now ya hear...Ohhhh way down yonder on the chattahoochee.....

Storm Survivors!

So the storm has come and gone and we can officially say we survived our first blizzard! It wasn't so bad! It was cold, it snowed a lot and it was windy! Just to give you an idea of how much snow we have now...

The picture on the left was taken in the summer when we arrived. The picture on the right was taken today, after the storm!

The picture on the left is one that was on the blog the day before yesterday and right before all the snow came! The picture on the right was taken today, all the bikes are still there, you just can't see them!

The roads are pretty good, they do a pretty good job of keeping them clear and the snow here is much crunchier and I find grips your tires a little better! As for the sidewalks though, they were horrible today! They usually clear them and although some were cleared, it seemed that once the snow plow couldn't push anymore snow, it just stopped and left a huge mound of snow for me to crawl over! Always an adventure!

Oh February, You Bring Me One Month Closer to Home

Another day, another week, another month goes by and we get closer to coming home! I know I shouldn't look at it like that, I should enjoy the "adventure" we are on but I do look forward to coming home for good...And sometimes I can't help myself from visualizing the giant garage sale we are going have when we leave! Having said all that, this past week I felt the farthest from coming home as we officially became Ontario residents! We were in limbo for awhile about what to about our car insurance, what to do about or drivers licenses, what to do about our health coverage, etc. Through a long process of trying to find out what is the "right" thing to do, we learned we had to switch all our driving stuff over and due to my work (and the fact that its free), we decided to switch our health coverage to Ontario too! A part of my heart got taken away as I handed in my BC drivers license and took my BC plates off my car...It was an emotional (and expensive) day!

On a lighter note, and to show you that we are making the best of what we have, this is how we spent some of our evening last Sunday night...

Carl started playing his guitar and I caught onto to the rhythm so I pulled out some of our (ok, all three) of our pots, grabbed a pencil and a pen and voila, I had my own drum set! We jammed for a bit. I dunno, I thought we were pretty good...

I also took this picture to show you how much snow is here - these are the bikes outside our front window...

The thing is, there is a storm warning in effect for tonight for Southwestern Ontario aka Kingston! The wind is a blowin, itsa cold and we are supposed to get about 30 more centimetres tonight! I'll take another picture tomorrow!

Thanks to my Grandpa Joe for sending us 3 fabulous pictures to add to our picture wall and to my friend Laura for the picture of her and her bunny! Can't wait to get everyone else's photos - the mail must be getting held up somewhere :)

Thinking Warm Thoughts

Imagine waking up in the morning after a nice long sleep, wrapped in a warm cozy blanket, with a soft pillow under your head and the smell of coffee drifting into your room. You get out of bed and into something cozy and warm. You sip and enjoy your sweet, sweet hot coffee. After a warm and relaxing shower, you slip into some thermal pants, a thermal top, another pair of pants, an extra sweater, wool socks, snow boots, a thick jacket, gloves and a toque, keeping that warm feeling you've felt all morning, close to your body. Then you open the door to -23 degree weather and the warmth gets sucked right outta you, the boogers in your nose freeze and the hairs from your head that didn't get dried from your shower, turn to ice. You turn to walk to your car and a freezing gust of wind slaps you in the face. You pry your car door open, having a fight with the ice to see who is stronger and pray that your car starts, at least by the third try. While the car attempts to warm up, you start brushing and scraping the snow and ice off your windows, hoping that the wind doesn't catch the snow coming off the car, giving you a face wash, again. Back in the car, you settle into your seat, placing your feet on the floor mat that is still covered in snow and ice from the day before. You start heading to your destination and just as you pull into the parking lot, the car finally starts to warm up but its time to face the cold again. You open your door, as another freezing gust of wind takes your breath away and you think to yourself, "why did we leave Vancouver again?"

Yes, so it's been a cold week! We were planning on going skating after church today, but even with several layers on, it was much to cold! Besides the cold, our week was somewhat exciting. On Monday our sink started backing up and filling with water again. As we were bailing it out so it didn't overflow (again), we called the building maintenance people to find out that this is a regular occurrence! They came and put a "rod" through the pipes which I guess clears it out for awhile but next time we hear the gurgling, we are to call them again!

I worked Wednesday, Thursday night at Starbucks and had my first opening shift on Saturday morning. I had forgotten what 5am was like and discovered that I am ok not seeing it again! On Saturday night Carl and I went to the Kingston Symphony. We were able to get cheap tickets and enjoyed watching "Broadway Beauties", a story of 3 Broadway singers at different stages in their careers. The whole storyline flowed with a compilation of different songs from different Broadway shows. We actually liked it more than we thought we would!

As for other news, I read in the local paper that there was a hoarding situation in town. The SPCA has taken over 77 rodents from a house and is now looking for homes for several rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, rats, etc. Let me know if you're interested!

I think that's it for this week! I'll leave you with some pictures that we took today as we risked our lives in the cold, for the sake of having pictures for this blog!

Looking down Lake Ontario - not sure what the smoke stack is from but the bumps on the side of the lake are ice chunks!

A closer look at the massive ice chunks! Ok, so they looked more interesting in real life!

Some cold blooded people going for a run...Well, they are either cold blooded or crazy?!

My intrigued husband who was experimenting to see if his spit would freeze before it hit the ground. His conclusion...No. So special!

P.S. I haven't gotten your picture for our wall yet so I'll just assume it's in the mail!

Bringing Home Here...

It's funny how when we went home for Christmas, it kind of felt like we had never left. And now that we are back in Kingston, it feels like we never left here either. It's been a week since we got back and we are right back into the swing of the things, me with my 2 jobs and Carl with a full schedule of classes and homework! On our time off, we are both studying! I can't wait to be done my mutual funds exam - what will I do with all my spare time?!

So, being back here, we not only miss our family and friends but we miss the Vancouver weather! It snowed all day yesterday so we now have about a foot of snow. It will snow for a day and then be sunny for a day and then snow again, and then be sunny. The snow never melts. It's beautiful but it's COLD! Today is a sunny day and even though it says it is only -10, with the wind chill it is about -18...But I still think it feels even colder than that! Carl walks to school and I walk to the bank so we make sure to wear our thermals and bundle up!

So since we've been here and over the holidays, we have accumulated a small collection of pictures from friends and family. Our fridge was starting to get full and I didn't want to throw the pictures out so I decided to use one of our empty walls and start a collage!

There is still a whole lotta room on this wall and my goal is to have it filled by the time we leave! I want to bring a little home here! So this is the challenge for YOU - If you don't see your picture on here (or if you want more of you on our wall - cuz we do), send us your picture! If you need our address, let me know and I can get it to you! If I find out that you read this blog and I don't have a picture of you on our wall ASAP, I am going to be very sad

Put a picture in the mail today and make me happy!

Looking forward to seeing your smiles!