A Wee Outing to the Sugar Bush

This past Saturday, we made plans with the Osbornes to hit up the sugar bush (for the second year in a row... how do you say no to pancakes and maple syrup?).

We made arrangements to meet at 10am and Saturday was the foggiest day! I am usually very prepared for weather conditions, but for some reason, I forgot to wear my durable snowboots or even my rainboots (because clearly dress boots are appropriate sugar bush footwear!).

After waiting for a bit in the line for the horse wagon ride, we got on: here's steph, me and little Chase's head.

Aleksy, Al & Colton on the horse wagon... Colton loved the horsies!

And we made all of our pit stops to learn how maple syrup was made through time: from first nations to early settlers to modern times. Colton did well with patience going through the stations and Chase needing a little comforting at first (with Al singing him some Christmas songs) then fell asleep until pancake time!

My toes were a bit frozen toward the end, but I knew we had some pancakes waiting for us!

The men who volunteer at the sugar bush tried for some recruiting of Aleksy and Al to do some volunteer work (they recruited last year too!).

There was a pretty long line to get the food and most spots in the place were taken so Steph and I held some spots (the most sticky-free spots we could find) while Aleksy and Al got us pancakes, sausages and hot chocolate. So good! We were a little distracted by the super loud music + yodeling but Colton stared at the performers for a good amount of time and seemed to like them!


After the sugar bush, our weekend was filled with little people birthday celebrations.... Natalia on Saturday later in the day and Rachel's rollerskating birthday party on the Sunday!

Frozen Niagara Weekend Away

For Valentines Day, I bought Aleksy and a weekend away in Niagara! Actually, it was a groupon (We sure love us some groupons) and it was a pretty sweet Valentine's Day gift that I also reaped the benefits of. We went the last weekend of February. The Group was a sweet deal, all included in around the $100 price was a 1 night stay at the Wyndham Garden hotel, $20 off at the Outback Steakhouse, 2 free drinks in the hotel lobby, 25% off at the restaurant in the hotel, 3 wine tastings at wineries and a chocolate tour! Its nice that Groupon plans the whole weekend for you :)

We left London around 11:30am on Saturday and arrived to Niagara around 1:30pm. We popped into a store to buy some lunch to have at the hotel before heading to the falls. We were able to check in early around 2pm, had sandwiches and salads then started walking down Clifton hill to the falls! It was friggin cold (-10). But it was the first time we went to the falls in the winter: it was like a waterfall ice sculpture. I guess this year was so cold that the falls were the most frozen they have been in years. Once we got closer the the falls, our faces were frozen and we needed to de-frost in a souvenir shop.

We made a stop on Clifton hill to the wax museum of the stars (its the one with Katy Perry and Heath Ledger as the Joker in the front windows). It was about $12 per person and well worth getting out of the cold.

There were some really good wax stars... and some really really bad ones that I wouldn't have recognized if they didn't have a plaque with their names on it. Obama and Michelle weren't too bad!

The Simpsons wax figures were hilarious. These were probably some of the older sculptures in the museum (they seem to keep updating the figures since there was Katniss and Peta from the Hunger games in the museum already). Bart looked like he was on something and looked more like an old man than anything. But they did have a photo opportunity that we took advantage of!

Also, walking down Clifton hill, we owned our tourist status and bough some friggin delicous maple cookies (and some cider and hot chocolate) from one of the souvenir shops. We had most of these later that night when we returned to the hotel!

After seeing the falls, walking Clifton Hill and seeing the wax museum, we stopped in at the Niagara Casino! I put $10 into a slot machine and when it got "stuck" I had to call for help (that's when the lady showed me how to use the slot machine... such a bad gambler!) then I instantly turned by $10 into $17.25 and cashed out! Anytime i'm up some money, I take advantage! Aleksy lost his $5, but we still left with more than we came with! After the casino, we headed out to supper at the Outback Steakhouse where we had lots of ribs (and chicken for me, steak for Aleksy) then walked back to our hotel and redeemed our 2 drink vouchers in out lobby bar!

The next morning, we had breakfast at the restaurant that was in the hotel. It was such a good breakfast!! Pancakes, ham & cheese omelette and hashbrowns for me and Aleksy had some fried chicken on buttermilk biscuits. And we had 25% off with the groupon :)

After breakfast we headed to Niagara on the lake (that's where this ice sculpture picture is from). The chocolate tour was located in between Niagara falls and Niagara on the lake, but it was too early to eat lots of chocolate at 12pm, so we went to Niagara on the Lake first and strolled into the little shops to buy some jams, coffee, and baked goods.

After Niagara on the Lake, we headed back to chocolate fx for our tour at 2pm. They talked about where they get their source of chocolate from (Africa), what makes good chocolate (not dollar store chocolate that adds wax to the chocolate instead of the cocoa butter, which is more expensive), and then we got some free chocolate tastings (incl. a choc dipped strawberry!). We bought chocolate covered licorice (my fav!) then starting heading back to London!




On the way back to London, we made a pit stop to Hamilton to buy supper from one of our old favourite places: the Sana Grill! We grabbed our delicious chicken rice dish to go and enjoyed when we got back home!

New Friggin Wheels!

So... the time has come. At last. I said good-bye, so long, farewell to my ol' faithful 2005 Sunfire. That baby was the best $4000 I ever spent, lasting me well over 6 years (bought it in 2008!).

The first weekend of February, I began my test driving! I looked at a bunch of compact SUV's in the same class that passed my "aesthetically pleasing" test. These included the jeep cherokee, mazda cx5, toyota rav 4, and the volkswagen tiguan. I also had the mitsubishi rvr on my radar, but did not end up considered it due to low recommendations for mitsubishi.

After test driving the cars, I felt like I had the hardest biggest decision to make (I thought it may have been even harder than buying a house because the differences between the vehicles is so minimal!). But I kinda had my heart set on.....

My awesome new Tiguan! I officially filed the paperwork and bought it on Valentines Day (happy valentines day to me!). Picked it up the 21st!
The Sunfire to the Tiguan is night and day. Such a safer winter car that I feel way better driving in the snow in. So happy with my new wheels!