The Bonney's take on Ottawa - Wednesday

Today started with some lazing about.  We watched TV, played with my I-phone and just generally did nothing.  It was great.  We were all tired.

And then the boys started to gain momentum and our hotel room could no longer contain their energy.  So I said the magic word.

Swim.

Down to the pool we went.  I could get used to hotel living!

2 hours later, and we were all marching back to our rooms to head to the Rideau Centre.  An old friend of mine just happened to be in town with the grade 7 and 8's from her school and she had time to squeeze us in for lunch.

I was a bit nervous to drive there.  I'm not very confident when it comes to city driving (funny enough, my university job was driving in downtown Toronto for the whole day).  I wasn't sure where I was going, and the parking garage in our hotel scares the crap out of me.

A few choice words later, and we were walking in the mall.  Our first stop was the toy store.  I wanted to pick the boys up something that would be new and exciting and would occupy them for a few minutes so Robyn and I could have at least 5 minutes to chat.

Hunter fell asleep, so I only had to worry about getting Drew something.....lego it is!

We finally found our friend, through the crazy pre-pubescent crowd and found a seat for our food-court lunch.

It was great to see her, but man that mall is a nightmare with a stroller.  Hardly any ramps or elevators.  I wasn't impressed.  A few nice strangers helped us down stairs and we ended up walking in circles to find ramps.

From here, my plan was to head to the Museum of Civilization and spend the afternoon there.  I drove there, but drove around and could not find any parking.  I did find one lot, but it was full.  I decided I didn't want to drive around in circles anymore and took a chance on the Museum of Science and Technology.  I knew nothing of this museum except that I got in free...I figured I didn't have much to lose, if the kids hated it, we'd just leave.  No big deal.

The museum is a bit outside of downtown, which meant there was a giant parking lot (which was free) and there weren't many people there.

The first exhibit we went to was a giant steam train exhibit.

Hello, have you met my kids?  Their heads almost exploded they were so excited!

They were giant, real-life, steam trains.......wait for it.......that they were allowed to climb inside.

There were a couple of old CP trains there, so Drew asked if I could take their pictures and send them to uncle Jamie with "his" trains.  Done.  With tears in my eyes.

Hunter was tired!

Did I luck out, or what???

Also in the museum were exhibits on cars, space, a wonky kitchen they could walk through and lots of other fun sciency and techy things.  I kept thinking about my dad while we were there....he would LOVE this place.

Drew really liked this activity.  You could put a bunch of car parts together to make your own "car".

...an back to the trains before we left.

We spent the entire afternoon there, and when we were leaving the boys got to check out a real, giant rocket.

Too cool.

I should mention that I hate museums.  Seriously hate them.  When James and I used to come to Ottawa for fun weekends away before we had kids, we tried out a few of the museums and both said we would rather be sitting in a pub somewhere.  Hell, we went to the musee du louvre in Paris, France and were both bored to tears.  We're not that cultured.

That being said, I have had a BLAST taking the boys to these places.  It's so fun to see the wonder on their faces and explore things that are brand new to them.....sometimes life surprises you.

We arrived back at the hotel after a quick McDonald's ice cream stop to meet James at the entrance to our hotel.  He parked the van for me in the parking garage...did I mention it's horrible?

We all got dressed and headed down to the pool.

After a fun swim, James ordered pizza and we ate in our room.

While James was getting the pizza, he spotted a big park, so we headed there after we ate.

Hunter fell asleep on the walk home from the park......the walk home was pretty cool.  We had to walk past a million pubs, which were all full with people watching game 7 of the Stanley cup.  The energy was really great.  After reading the news, I guess that energy changed somewhat in Vancouver after they lost.  Rioting and such.  Sometimes people can be so stupid.

Anyways, I put H to bed and James took Drew for another swim.

Another day on our "workcation" over with!