The last post of 2009

This was our tree. Same old plastic tree we have had for years, and, as ever, we said we must get a bigger one because our ornaments collection keeps getting bigger. I think you can see a souvenir of Newfoundland, an old heat sink from a computer, kid-crafted items of all shapes and sizes, a bit of plastic from a broken bike reflector... The usual assortment at our place!

We had a fine Christmas morning, with goodies all around. Next year just might be the year of cooking, instead of the year of lace or the year of socks. I got a new Jamie Oliver book and the kids and I decided Stephen needed a book about Asian dumplings and a bamboo steamer! Everything sounds so yummy!

We spent Boxing Day lolling around, and then got in a rental car and went for a little trip:

Destination: Ottawa. Not quite the Caribbean, but Mommy didn't have to cook! We stayed in a hotel where we actually had plenty of room and a little kitchen so we could keep milk and make toast and coffee for breakfast. We just spent a couple of days there, going to museums (Civilization, and then Nature for the girls and Aviation for the boys) and visiting friends and relations.

This is, of course, a real Tyrannosaurus Rex, about to chomp the hand of some unsuspecting child. Actually, it's a model in the Nature museum ... It was fun to see the "flesh and blood" dinosaurs along with the skeletons. This T Rex had been in a little skirmish and our 8-year-old tour guide, a friend's daughter, happily showed us the wounds on its flank!

A ceiling at the Civilization Museum! My kind of colour wheel!


My uncle showed Arthur and Stephen the Aviation Museum, complete with Lancaster bomber from WWII.


Some gates on Parliament Hill,


and a stone pillar, covered in a thin layer of ice. Luckily we missed the freezing rain by a day or two!




The ride home. I was bored; Stephen was driving. I had taken some yarn and needles for the ride, but found that I needed smaller needles. Aha, a good excuse to go to a yarn shop on the way to a museum... But when I got back in the passenger seat with nothing to do, I was sick of the yarn and had no ideas about what I wanted to do with it! Perhaps another day I'll show you the doodle I knitted...

Tonight, who knows? Nothing very exciting will happen, and tomorrow it will be 2010! There will be knitting Olympics, and I am chuffed about that -- more later!