Ice Breakers

It is coming up on that time of the year again when little puddles of water start freezing over. The time of the year when you can walk over the newly formed ice and break it. I get a weird sense of satisfaction from breaking little pockets of ice like this. Unfortunately this time period is followed up by the freaking freezing Ottawa winter wherein everything gets covered by a metre of snow and all the drivers become idiots incapable of sensible driving. But let’s focus on the ice pockets that we get to break soon instead of all that nastiness.

My Big News

As some of you already know, I have some  big news to share with you. Over the holidays, Dave proposed to me. It was perfect and amazing and I of course said yes. The story, since I have been asked so many times, goes like this:

On Thursday, December 30, 2010 Dave and I went to Upper Canada Village in Morrisburg to take night photos of the Alight at Night Festival. During our 2-3 hours there we walked around and took many photos of the night lights and even had fresh gingerbread, so yummy. We then got back to our car where Dave brought out the hot chocolate he had made for us and snuck in our thermos. We then drove back to Ottawa listening to the Glee soundtrack that he had so nicely downloaded and put on his new Google phone. When we got back to town he drove us towards downtown and I thought he was driving us to Parliament Hill as I had also wanted to take photos of the lights on the Parliament buildings. Instead he turned onto Sussex and parked overlooking the Ottawa River. He had music playing on his phone and had packed blankets and pillows for sitting in the back of the car - it was very nice. The evening was great and because it was so cold (it is Winter in Ottawa), the ring actually fit me.
It is now at the jewellery store being resized as even though Dave took his iron ring as a reference, it was still too small (only be about one size though). His iron ring fits my right hand but not my left unfortunately.
I am very happy and looking forward to all the planning and organization that is involved in getting a wedding set up. But first things first, Dave and I are still planning on getting a house this Spring.

Vacation Recap

So vacations #3 and #4 are officially over and I am slowly working my way through the photos. As per usual, my summer collection of photos has grown at a much faster rate than I can edit. As a result I will likely be dealing with a great deal of summer photos through the Fall and Winter seasons (well more like the Winter as I tend to take a lot of photos in the Fall as well).
Despite the fact that I don't really have any photos to show you, the trips to Toronto and Quebec City were great. I have realized that Quebec City is awesome and far superior to Montreal, in my opinion and I am sure Dave and I will be going back again.
As previously mentioned, both of these trips revolved around Cirque du Soleil shows. They were both good shows but Totem has definitely won the title of favourite Cirque show so far. We absolutely loved it! Not only were the performers great, but the clowns had actual acts and the stage was amazing (especially when you consider that this is a travelling show)! Totally worth the money and I highly recommend seeing this one if it comes even remotely close to you. I am sure I will post more about the trips but for now, hopefully that answers some questions about how they went.
As usual, the end of a vacation has made me start planning the next one - not entirely sure what it will be though Dave is interested in going camping at Bon Echo and we both still want to go to Vegas sometime soon. I will of course keep you all updated on what we do next.

Tulip Festival 2010

Yesterday was the first day of the tulip festival – my favourite festival in Ottawa.
I ventured out to Commissioners Park, the tulip site I visit the most during the festival, a week before it all started to see how the tulips were doing and was able to get some shots of the early bloomers. You see, like the tulips in my backyard, the Tulip Festival tulips also bloomed early, I suspect due to the odd weather we had at the end of winter/beginning of spring.
Dave and I went out on the starting day of the Festival as we had the day off from work (a nice reward for working 20 hours the weekend before – 14.5 of which were consecutive). There weren’t too many people out and about as it was a Friday, but there were enough that I actually had to be patient and wait for tourists to take photos with their iPhones and of course the obligatory self-portraits.
I was able to get a few good shots, though not as many as I would have liked.
Anyway, the point of this post was to direct you to my photography blog and my Flickr site as both will have numerous tulip shots from the festival for the next little while. Photos on my blog will be interspersed with 100 Possibilities shots and a few other things I have done recently, but worry not as the tulips are out in full force and my camera is more than ready for them.

Above Photo: White Stuff

Garden 2010 Part I & II

PART I

I wasn’t sure if they would make it through the winter, as they weren’t very deep in the ground when the snow finally came, but the tulips lived. I first noticed they were sprouting in early March.

As you can see from the photo above, the snow was still around when they started coming up. What you likely can’t see is the the flowers in the middle elliptical bed are not nearly as tall as the ones on the outer bed – likely because the snow took longer to leave that area.
I was really worried when they came up so early as a couple more nights of frost came after they had sprouted. But they made it through that too.
PART II
I unfortunately I didn’t get out in the garden until this past weekend to take some shots of the tulips. This photo was taken the second day of April – don’t they look much livelier?! I do love my tulips.

Groundhog Day

(the above Stephanie Beach photo was originally posted here.)

Happy Groundhog Day!!

According to folklore, if the groundhog leaves its burrow today after failing to see its shadow, it signifies that winter will soon end. On the other hand, if it sees its shadow, it will go back into his home and winter will continue for another 6 weeks. As much as I prefer the cold over the heat, I really hope he pops his head out, and keeps it out.

(bottom image from National Geographic.)

9/9/9

For the last couple of years there have been an abundance of weddings on the dates where all the numbers are identical (e.g. June 6, 2006, July 7, 2007, etc). Today is September 9, 2009 (9/9/9) and it got me thinking - will this trait continue into the winter months? Typically weddings are significantly less frequent in the winter months and I wonder if the appeal of the matching numbers wedding dates will be greater than the standard dislike of getting married in the winter. Any thoughts?

Today...

Today is officially the first day of spring and to reward us for a long, cold winter Mother Nature has delivered us ... a freaking cold Spring day. Anyway, the spring equinox is basically the day when both sides of the Earth receive the same amount of light, in other words the Earth isn't tilting above or below the equator. Neato huh?!


Spring is not my favourite season, as discussed in a previous post, but it is up there. I am not a huge fan of the heat in the summer, or the blistering cold of the Ottawa winter. Spring leads to the tulips and other flowers and generally pretty things, which I love so much as it is slowly but surely getting to the point where I can go outside and take photos pretty much whenever I want.

Today is also the 40th anniversary of the Hungry Caterpillar, the book by Eric Carle. Admittedly I didn't know his name until Google told me, but I definitely remember this book. It was everywhere when I was growing up. My family didn't own a copy that I know of, but it was at school and daycare and most of the babysitters had it as did the majority of my friends. The book follows a little caterpillar growing from egg to cocoon to a beautiful butterfly as it munches away all the time teaching children good nutrition and other valuable information.

Winter Anxiety

It is freaking freezing here in Ottawa and the snow just keeps coming. I normally don't dread winter or wish that it would end, but this year is different - I can't wait for Spring to come to the city. The cold weather, frigid wind and copious amounts of snow have lead to a very unhappy car.

It mutters mean things when it starts in the morning and has to sit around for 10-15 minutes before it can be driven nicely. It has no snow tires and therefore can't grip anything. If more than 5cm of snow falls overnight, I get anxious about whether or not the car will behave properly on the roads. It is even worse if I have to go to a site for work as they are usually construction sites and have no regular snow removal in place.

I can't wait for Spring 2009.

Skating

I bought myself new skates this past weekend, kind of on a whim but also kind of necessary. I tried to teach Dave how to skate about two or three years ago after my parents bought him hockey skates for Christmas - only to learn that my skates where too small and really hurt my feet. Weird how skates you bought when you were 12 are too small for you when you are 20+. Anyway, I spent $80 on really good, comfortable ones that should last me a good long time but now I really want to go skating and none of the rinks around me are even close to ready. Mind you I still need to get the darn things sharpened.

Winter Activities

In two days it will be December and therefore undeniably winter. I don't hate winter but am not a big fan of it either. I prefer to be cold than hot, but the degree to which it gets cold here in Canada, Ottawa to be specific, is almost unbearable at times. This year I am going to try an take in the winter activities a bit more than I have in the past but don't really know everything there is to do in the winter months. I know there is skating on the canal and Winterlude when it comes in February, but that is pretty much all I know. What do you enjoy doing during winter in Ottawa? I am also looking to practice my photography during the winter. I have very few winter pictures as I tend not to want to go out when it is that cold and am not the greatest at dealing with the white-white snow. Is there any place in Ottawa that you know of that looks really great and prestine during the winter months?

Fall

Fall is my absolute favourite season for many reasons. The first of which is of course the beautiful fall colours. They give pictures a wonderful backdrop and pop that the regular greens do not.

A perfect example is the above photo that I took this past weekend at Beechwood Cemetery here in Ottawa.

I also love the season because it gets to the perfect temperature - not too hot or too cold. You can wear a sweater and not sweat to death and you can go outside for long leisurely walks without fear of getting burned. The only thing I dislike about fall is that it means that winter is coming soon and my photography seems to dwindle a little in winter - although this year I plan on making more effort to keep it alive, I still believe it will decrease significantly with the cold weather and mass amounts of snow. Snow is really only pretty in pictures if it is perfect, crisp, white snow, but here in Ottawa we get a lot of mucky, rock-filled, grey snow slush piling up beside the streets and it leads to ugly photos.

For now, however, I plan on taking full advantage of my favourite season while it lasts and going out to different places every weekend with my camera in hand.