We said good-bye to family and friends in Toronto and headed west.

We were eagerly awaited by loving family in Vancouver. We had a get-together the next day and it was another wonderful Hunt-Kerfoot celebration. The guys are gettin’ their man on with this great looking hunk o’ beef.

We had a great meal, topped off with these cute cakes:

All this celebrating can be pretty tiring for a jet-lagged three year old…

But it’s always fun hanging out with other kids, espcially their friend Imogen.

We made a visit to our dear adoptive family, Jacques et Nadine. They have a wonderful chalet in the woods on Lac Doré north of Ottawa. It is very quiet and relaxing there. This year there is still almost a metre of snow there so we had some fun sledding.


The girls love to feed the local deer, who come to the house twice daily for corn and alfalfa pellets.

On this visit, a neighbour left her dog, Fluffy, with us for a few days. She was well loved.

Nous sommes tristes de dites au revoir aux Jacques et Nadine…à la prochaine!!

Although it is always hard to come to an end to one’s travels, we were very excited to come back to Canada. I can’t say why exactly we were so excited, perhaps it’s the familiarity of being surrounded by English-speaking people, or perhaps the knowledge that we are in a relatively safe environment, but definitely coming home to mom’s cooking is always a treat!
Our travels have not ended yet, we spent a week in Toronto visiting friends and relatives. We visited the McMichael Gallery, which has a large number of paintings by the Group of Seven. Lawren Harris is one of my favourite painters. This modern interpretation of a totem pole was quite interesting.

Simon had a jam night with our friend Carl, while our kids played with theirs. We never would have imagined this scenario way back when Carl and I were in college together!

The girls had a chance to play with more children of our friends, which is always a bonus for all of us.

Also not previously imaginable is Simon’s past fire crew-mate, Dean, reading bedtime stories to all of our girls. Life is so full of irony!

Just a quick trip to Montreal; to visit Simon’s dear friend Julie and her family. It was a multi-lingual day as Julie and her partner Isra speak French, English and Spanish. Isra’s parent’s from Mexico just arrived this day, and Julie’s father from France joined us; we all had a lovely tri-lingual dinner celebration together. The girls enjoyed a day with 3 year old Gael and baby Mattias.

The next day we went for lunch to have some world-famous Montreal smoked meat on rye. And boy, was it good! Back on the train to Toronto…au revoir Quebec!

We have made it a a little piece of paradise.

We are now situated on remote Lac Simon (yes, really) where our friends, Jacques et Nadine, live. This cabin-turned house is really homey now that Jacques has fully fixed it up. It has been pretty cool and blustery while we’re here, so we content ourselves to relax in the cabin, do a little yard work and hike up the ‘mountains’ in this area.

We are actually in the foothills or the very edge of the Laurentians, whichever way you look at it. Jacques took us on a ride on his six-wheeler, which the girls thought was pretty fun. I thought the maze of maple sap collecting lines attached to the trees around here were quite interesting.

We are sad to go, as we enjoy the quiet surroundings and company of Jacques and Nadine so much. A la prochaine!

We took the VIA train to Ottawa, that is the way to go. Very comfy and great for little kids who don’t really want to sit still for long. We were met at the station by Simon’s buddy, Dean and his daughter, Shae. She is the same age as Emily and they became fast friends instantly. So much to do at their house, so many new toys! The girls were in heaven!

Simon brought his new film, The Burning Question, to show to the National office for Parks Canada. The event was well attended and we believe the film was enjoyed by all. After that we went to the Museum of Canadian Civilization in Gatineau, where there is an awesome kids area. Check it out here… It is set up like small scenarios from different countries; from a bedouin tent to a outdoor fruit market, from a tea or dressmaker’s shop to a sushi bistro where the kids pretend to serve you. Really cool for kids of many ages.

After a quick 24 hours stop-over in Vancouver, giving us enough time to switch from summer wear to unknown-weather spring clothes, we flew to my parent’s place in Toronto.

We celebrated Emily’s 5th birthday at her grandparents’ house with the requisite chocolate cake. Just a few days later was Easter, and the bunny managed to find the girls even when they were across the country. We visited the Metro Toronto Zoo, which is really quiet this time of year. The extra sections are not open though, like the camel rides, water park and petting zoo. Regardless, we enjoyed having the place almost all to ourselves.

The girls especially like the cheetah, tigers, elephants and gorillas. My fave has always been the polar bears, they were laying low and just chillin’ while we were there.

Another fun thing we did in Toronto was to visit the CN Tower. At 500+ metres, it’s a long way down! It was definitely a highlight of our trip. We had the world’s highest beer and the girls enjoyed the world’s highest fries. Ok, at least OUR world’s highest.