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!

The Bonney's take on Ottawa - Tuesday

Today was a great day.

James went off to work, and the boys and I got ready to head over to the museum of nature.  It was a slow walk, as there was some construction going on along the way and obviously we had to spend some time watching the diggers work.

Once we finally arrived at the museum, we headed straight for the dinosaur exhibit.  Drew's first words once we entered the doors were, "mom, this place is awesome".  There was lots to see and explore and we covered every inch of that exhibit.

This was to depict how life was once the dinosaurs were killed off and the mammals took over the world.  If you look closely, you'll see mice running over the t-rex's skull.

There was a preschooler activity zone on one of the upper floors, where the boys explored some shells and got to make a book mark.

 After a quick cookie snack in the cafeteria we headed to the water exhibit where they have a giant blue whale skeleton on display.  It is seriously impressive, you don't realize how big those things are until you are standing right next to it.  Crazy.

The boys were much more impressed with the mock-up of the submarine with working buttons and such for them to play with.  We had plans to meet James for lunch at 12, so I dragged them out of the museum kicking and screaming.  Seriously...who knew my kids would love museums so much!?!?!

We met James at the Fox and Fiddle pub, which was right around the corner from our hotel (how convenient!).  Our lunches were delicious (Hunter slept through the entire thing) as were our drinks...;)

After that, James was back to work and the boys and I headed back to our room for some R and R.  The afternoon was spent swimming and playing in both the indoor and outdoor playgrounds.  Soon enough, James came walking through the door.  I LOVE this arrangement....day shift rocks!

Another short walk found us at the Fox and Fiddle for dinner (did I mention we loved this place?).  This time we sat on the rooftop patio, where Drew had a bird's eye view of "sugar mountain".  This was our next destination for dessert....a pile of jelly beans and gummy candies later and we were strolling down by the Rideau Canal.

The boys busy at work waiting for their dinner.

"I'm not sure which to choose, there are so many yummy things!"

Drew and Hunter were excited to see the locks, which were eventually upstaged by a gopher and his hole in the side of the hill.  Too funny.

A long walk back home, broken up by a stop at a coffee shop for smoothies and brownies, and we were back.

Flash back to James in university...lol...

 Drew and James headed for yet another swim while I attempted to put H down for the night.  He would have NOTHING to do with sleeping, and an hour later he was still wide awake.  This was the pre-curser to the night from hell.  He was up most of the night.  I eventually brought him out to the living room area and pulled out the pull-out couch.  I think I got a few minutes of sleep.

I'm not sure I mentioned, but H has this nasty rash all over his stomach and back now.  It's literally covering him.  I did some frantic google searches and think that he has Roseola aka the 3 day fever.  It's characterized by a sudden onset, high fever, which when it drops, results in a rash.

Poor little man.

The Bonney's take on Ottawa - Monday

James e-mailed me last week saying that he might have to spend the week in Ottawa, to do some training.  I e-mailed back, laughing while I typed, "can we come too??"  TOTALLY JOKING!!!  James wrote back, "probably, I'll look into it" and here we are!

We drove up last night, from the cottage.  It took us a bit over 3 hours to get here from Peterborough.  Glad we decided to break it up that way, not sure the boys could have handled 6 hours from our house.  Drew slept most of the way, and H slept for about an hour.  We stopped at what could have been the slowest McDonald's EVER for dinner and then kept on our way.  It was a pretty drive.  We took Hwy 7 all the way up, passed by lots of lakes, cottages, and farms.

We found our hotel and checked in.  James took Drew swimming, I dosed H up with advil and tempra (see previous post....still not feeling very well) and put him to bed.  Once Drew got back from swimming, he was way too wound up to sleep and ended up staying up until 10:30.....H woke up several times during the night too...only to wake for the morning at 4:30.  I got him to sleep with me for a bit on the couch, and then James carried him back to his crib at 7ish (he slept until 9 from there).

When H woke up, he was burning up and would not stop crying.  I was on my own at this point, James had left for his training (a 5 minute walk from our hotel), so I loaded the boys up and we started out on foot to the walk-in clinic.  It ended up being about a 25 minute walk, with a smoothie stop half-way through (thank god for booster juice).

This place could not have shown up at a better time!

We waited at the walk-in clinic for close to 3 hours (H slept, thank god) where we met a complete jackass of a doctor ("why are you here, this is an adult clinic")...it would have been nice if someone had told me that 3 1/2 hours ago!  GRRRR

Anyways, it turned out to be no help, he told me to go to the Children's hospital to get H checked out...he wasn't sure what was wrong, his ears and throat seemed fine.  He was thinking chicken pox because of the spots on H's back, but they were just bug bites.......I left in almost tears, H was freaking out and it was pouring rain for our walk home.  Thankfully, James was on his lunch break, so he had joined us at the clinic.  He walked back with us (carrying Drew...a BIG help) and then left us once we got back to his building.  Drew was starving, so we stopped at Pizza pizza and had some lunch.  H ate some too, which was a big change from the day before.

Once back at the hotel, H seemed totally fine.  He was still a little warm, but seemed to be back to his normal self.  I opted to stay away from the hospital and see how things went.  The rest of the afternoon went fairly well.  Drew and I went swimming (H stayed on deck and threw pools toys at us) and we all played in the playroom here.  Once James got home, we all headed out to dinner (East side mario's - kids eat free mondays!) and then walked around a mall.

James took Drew swimming again once back at the hotel and I attempted to put H to bed.  He did NOT want to sleep...an hour later and he was still yelling, "done" to me.  Finally he went to bed, once Drew came back he was exhausted and easily put to bed.

This morning I was questioning why the hell I decided to bring the boys here...but the afternoon/evening made up for it.  Hopefully the rest of the week is just as fun!

We should just start planning on sickness when we go away....

....cause that's what we always get.

Here's how this weekend went down.  My doctor wanted me to get some blood work done, due to the lump on my neck, so I went friday morning.  I dropped James and the boys off at Rotary park and headed to the lab on Commercial street in Milton.  This lab rocks, quick and it only took one attempt to get blood from me....seriously usually takes at least 5 jabs.......I'm always astounded, and thrilled when it only takes one try.
The boys had a great time at the park, Drew made some friends and even made them play with Hunter too.

Once our new park friends left, we were able to drag the boys away.  We walked over to the Ivy Arms (or Ivy Army, as Drew calls it) for lunch (I was starving, had to fast for my test).

We had a yummy lunch, and then headed home so Hunter could have a nap.  Once home,  I put Hunter down for his nap, and hung out with Drew while James headed out to cut the grass, check the fences, check on the cows, the water, etc.

Hunter woke up, we packed the van and headed to Ikea (in Vaughn).  We wanted to pick up the bunk-beds for the cottage and they were on sale.  Unfortunately, they were all sold out when we got there.  We shouldn't be surprised, as they are fairly cheap, look alright, and were sold out the entire summer last year  (the first year they introduced them).  We did have dinner there, and I was able to pick up some picture frames for the cottage...not the hooks I wanted though.  They don't seem to be carrying them anymore....grrr

From there, we headed to the cottage.  Both boys were asleep, and were easily transferred to their beds.

Saturday morning seemed to be ok too.  Hunter and I woke up first, and he seemed ok then.  Once Drew and James woke up, we all headed outside and Drew met up with his buddies.  They played all morning, making a fort out of the climbing dome by adding blankets and the picnic table (I wish I had a picture, it was really cute).  Hunter seemed tired, and even responded yes when I asked him if he was tired...but I waited until normal nap time to put him down.  He went down easily and slept for 2 1/2 hours.  He seemed warm when he woke up, but I thought that was just from being cozy while he slept.  Boy was I wrong.  Shortly after he woke up, he asked to go back to bed.  I went and cuddled with him on our bed and we slept the afternoon away.

While we were doing this, the boys hung out in our cottage as there was a crazy thunder storm.

Once H finally woke up, I took his temperature and he had a temp. of 103!  He then puked and puked again.  James took Drew into town as he had to get some things for our adventures this week (more on that in a later post) and H and I hung out at the cottage.  Essentially just cuddled, read books and watched movies.  There was a point where he ate some cereal, but then puked that right back up.  I was freaking out a bit when James got home, as he was squinting a bit.  But after some advil and tempra, he seemed to be ok.  Back to bed for him...I wasn't sure how he'd do, since he slept all day, but he slept the entire night.

On the way out of the cottages, Drew and and James found a turtle!  This helped Drew's mood, as he did NOT want to go into town!

Hunter finally eating something.  I took this pic to send to James to show him he was feeling better.  Before I could send it, he puked.  Crap.

Drew drinking "fizzy lemonade pop" (diet spritz-up).  I was drinking it, and some of his buddies are allowed to have pop, so I caved and gave it to him.  His first time, and he was SOOOO excited.  We've now told him it's a special treat at the cottage.

James took Drew to meet his buddies at the campfire and I watched the movie, "leap year" (really good chick flick!)

Both boys slept through the night again, Hunter woke up sunday morning, looking better, but asking to go back to bed 2 hours later.  He did eat some bacon before he went down, and there was no puking!

The day went by in somewhat of a blur.  We had tons of laundry to do (because of all the puking) and trying to keep Hunter inside was very difficult.  After his morning nap, we let him out to get some fresh air....it was pretty cool out though.

Drew played with his friends and then wanted to go swimming, so we did that.

We left around 3 to head to our next adventure.....Hunter still not feeling the greatest, but seemed to be doing ok on a regular dose of tempra and advil.

Here's to a better week!