themcdonalds.ca Weblog

Time at the Cottage

themcdonaldsca — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:37:11 +0000

At the beginning of July we spent some time at the cottage on Lower Rideau Lake, Ontario. It has been thrilling that the Rideau Canal has been acknowledged at a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The lake we are on is rather non-descript, yet it forms part of the canal and has for decades been a natural haven from city life with its fishing, swimming, canoeing and great wildlife watching.

Right after school was out, Allison went up with Grami and Grandpa to spend a week with her cousins Xander and Zach. They had a great time while Laurie and Terry spent a few days in Ottawa visiting Cathy and seeing the new War Museum (excellent!) and the Civilization Museum (also excellent!).

Days at the cottage were lazy: fishing, swimming, canoeing, resting, reading, eating, wining, dining, more of the same, day after day, and lots of euchre at night.

Here are a few photos of life at the cottage and the surrounding area. More photos of the cottage area may be viewed at Terry’s “One Square Mile” web gallery.

What a weekend – Good news all around…

themcdonaldsca — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:08:36 +0000

Peter and Sally dilly have arrived from Chelmsford, England and are now off in their rented RV to discover Tobermory, Manitoulin, Sudbury, Algonquin and Midland-Penetanguishene. They spent the week end with us which culminated in the Sunday “Afternoon at the Proms” concert at River Run Centre put on by the Guelph Chamber Choir in which Laurie sings alto. It was a great concert filled with some new gems and the old Pomp and Circumstance favourites. It was great because we had a real contingent of family members at the concert – 10 in all.

Afterwards, we all trooped back to our house for a BBQ under summer perfect skies. Salads, meat from the BBQ and desserts – mmmm. Surprise of Surprises awaited our return. Laurie was checking phone messages and there was one from Ian at St. John’s-Kilmarnock School offering me a job for September – YAHOOOOOOOOOOOO! The final piece of the puzzle is in place – at least for a year. More on that another time.

Allison has returned to reality!

themcdonaldsca — Sun, 25 May 2008 19:34:40 +0000

After a fun-filled week, we picked up Allison today at 12:45pm at the Guelph Youth Music Centre and she hasn’t stopped talking since!! She has a million things to tell us about all the rides and shows and food and… but the bottom line is – she and all the choristers had a great time! Here are two more pics. You can see more at their blog. Hopefully I can convince Allison to write a post with some of her own pictures.

Allison with GYS at Disney World

themcdonaldsca — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:48:12 +0000

On Monday morning at 6:30 Laurie and I dropped Allison off to begin her great adventure with the Guelph Youth Singers to Disney World. The GYS was invited with the Bach Children’s Chorus to be the Honour Choir at the week-long Children in Harmony Choral Festival at Disney World. We understand from their blog that they arrived safely and are having a blast. Tuesday morning they had their first rehearsal followed by an afternoon at the Animal Kingdom and dinner at the Rainforest Café. What an adventure! Stay tuned for more or visit their blog.

Winter in Ontario

themcdonaldsca — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:10:57 +0000

I know how much Canadians are appreciating the spring weather. We’ve had a particularly long winter with much more snow than is usual. However, winter is, in my opinion, the most beautiful season for photography.

I finally had some time to update my winter photos and have added them to the Web Gallery – Winter in Ontario. In particular, I’ve added some photos from a spectacular day of hoar frost and great skiing at the Arboretum, University of Guelph.

Enjoy!

Hello world!

themcdonaldsca — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:12:03 +0000

The great thing about blogs is that you can keep up-to-date with people, but only if they update their blog on a regular basis. I had been using the blogging feature in iWeb, but unlike virtually all other Mac products, updating the blog was neither seamless nor intuitive. So here we are at WordPress. Of all the blog sites, WordPress appears the best fit for us – no unnecessary eye candy and few (if any) ads.

All of our previous blogs from Tanzania, the UK and Canada are still available online: