Craig and I have been together for nearly 5 years, so clearly this wasn’t truly the first Valentines Day that has come and gone while we’ve been together, however this is the first time in nearly three years of marriage that Craig has been home for the day of Loooove. In the way of all good wives, I sprinkled suggestions of what we could do and let him take the reins and do all the planning, and he surprised me with a trip to Ottawa, our Capital city.
I’ll let you know in advance that this post will be pretty picture laden!
We stayed at the Marriot in downtown Ottawa on the 24th floor and could see the river, canal and some of the parliament buildings from our window.
We had a king sized bed and Emily (and Craig) loved the special bedding they had:
We decided to go for a walk our first afternoon there before we went out for dinner, so we walked to the Rideau center (a mall) to buy me some new jeans and to browse around. We’ve both been to the parliament buildings a couple of times (Craig worked a couple blocks from there when he was working in Ottawa for the Military during university), so we didn’t bother to stop there this year, but I did snap a few shots during our walk.
The Chateau Laurier Hotel:
The Rideau Canal, frozen over to make a skating rink:
A war memorial next to Parliament:
The parliament buildings:
More offices of parliament:
And a few more shots of our hotel. It was Winterlude while we were there, so they had tons of ice sculptures everywhere, including a small ice village where they have club music and dancing each night. Not meant for parents with babies in tow unfortunately.
It got really cold in Ottawa while we were there, and Emily didn’t want to be covered up by her blankets, so we pushed the canopy of the stroller forward so it protected her from the wind at least. Poor rosy little face!
After that we went out for Valentine’s dinner at Red Lobster, including a 45 minute wait to be seated. Emily was patient the whole time we waited at the bar and just sat on the table and played with her toys, but the second we got seated she was fussy and wanted to eat and sleep (in my arms). Good thing I got coconut shrimp and could eat it with one hand!
The next morning we decided to go skating on the Rideau Canal.
I hadn’t had my skates sharpened since my second year of university (2005) so needless to say, my skates were a little dull. In fact, they had patches of rust along the bottom of the blade and when I would try and glide they would catch and act like little brakes. So below, I’m not pushing the stroller to be mama. I’m holding on for dear life as every step I felt like I was going to face plant, which is embarrassing for someone who figure skated for years.
And what’s a trip to Ottawa and the canal without a Beaver Tail? Yummy! I get the cinnamon sugar one with lemon to cut some of the sweetness. Admittedly, there is one at the Village at Blue Mountain, 5 minutes from my house, but when in Rome Ottawa you know?!
And of course Emily slept bundled up the whole time!
Later that night we went to a hockey game. I would like to preface this with the statement that we are die hard Leafs fans. Or at least Craig is. So do not hold it against us that we went to a Senators game while in Ottawa; we just wanted to watch some good hockey and it is cost us less than $200 for both tickets and would have been nearly $600 at a Leafs game. ‘Nuf said.
ZOMG! What’s that sound! She may or may not have bit me while nursing during the game but there was lots of cheering and loud buzzers, so she gets a pass.
Clearly our presence was not helpful to the Senators!
We made it the 7 hour drive back home without too much fussing from the baby, in fact she did the first almost 4 hours sleeping.
Thank you to my hubby for a great mini getaway; hopefully sometime soon we can get away just the two of us!
