Prince Edward County

Okay. New plan with the blog. Regular blogging is apparently a bit of a challenge. Maybe monthly is a little more realistic.

Missing our weekend and day trips in the UK, we are trying to discover more of Ontario. Our goal is to go away – at least a day trip – somewhere in Ontario (or nearby) - every month.

Fittingly though, I’m already behind.

In October, we went to stay in Wellington in Prince Edward County. We have friends who live there, so it was a good excuse to go and visit them, and to finally try some of the PEC wines.

We arrived Saturday early afternoon, dropped our things off at the B&B and spent the rest of the afternoon visiting wineries.

Here are some of the wineries we visited, where we tasted (and bought) some great wines.

Chadsey’s Cairns (loved their Gamay Noir)

Carmela Estates (nice blended red called "Conversation")

The Grange (found some great shortbread there!)

Huff EstatesWaupoos Estates

Sunday, we went for a walk on the beach and stopped in to visit our friends who live not far from the beach.

Curling and apples

Okay, so this is basically for Philip who I think is the only person who still occasionally checks this to see if I've added anything new.

It's not quite as exciting as photos of weddings or honeymoons in Belize, but I'm being lazy about sorting through all of those photos.

So, here is this weekend...

On Saturday, we went into Toronto to attend a curling clinic with some friends from work. If you count the one time I tried curling as a girl guide, then this is my second time. For the amount of learning that stayed with me though from that first attempt, I'm really not sure it's worth counting.

It was harder - and more fun - than we'd both expected. There were a few falls (mostly me - that ice is slippery!) but by the end of three hours we were starting to get the hang of it thanks to our coaches. And afterwards (and during apparently), we sit around and drink beer in sweatpants!

On Sunday, we took advantage of fall weather and fall harvests and went apple picking with Amy. We came home with about 80 apples (and a pumpkin!) so lots of pies, crumbles, and well .. apples in our near future.

Whine and Cheese, and Wine and Cheese

Here you go Phil - an update so you stop giving me a hard time.


I love Niagara Falls. Where else can you see an amazing natural wonder (in the snow in April .. hence the whine) and do Glow-in-the-Dark mini golf after eating at the Rainforest Cafe - a bit of cheesy good fun. We also went to the Niagara Imax - still the same one I saw on the Grade 7 trip to Niagara .. when the teacher puts her black cat in the barrel and it comes out white!




(And, I wonder how many people end up visiting the greenhouse just to get out the cold? It is always a good excuse for a visit -and always beautiful inside.)

Then, just 15 minutes down the road are wineries, more than 100 little B&Bs, huge houses and a pretty little town.

I really never get tired of seeing this sign - is it really that hard to notice the change in water level at Niagara Falls?

We stayed a nice B&B run by a Mennonite couple who fed us very well at breakfast!

We visited a few of the wineries (including some small ones we had not heard of before) and then went and did a wine tour at Jackson Triggs. By 1 p.m. Brad had tried about 16 different kinds of wine (including three ice wines!). The tour was pretty interesting and included more sampling.

After the tour, we had a wine and cheese plate (more sampling). They matched up three different kinds of cheeses with wine - including blue cheese with ice wine - I even ate the blue cheese. It was delicious!

OH - and surprised Dad with tickets to the Rocky Horror Show on Thursday night for an early birthday gift. Will have to post the pictures of him in the fishnets - sorry you missed it Phil (ha ha joking). It was great though - definitely worth seeing.

And more snow ...

No jumping this weekend - had a hard enough time staying upright going down the hills (with turns at the bottom).

We went cross-country skiing just oustide Barrie with my parents. It was a little tiring, but great exercise and the weather was perfect. There was some wonderfully soft snow to break my fall when I didn't make the corner at the bottom of the hill .. luckily I missed the tree.

The Great White North (of Toronto)

We finally have snow .. and to celebrate, Brad and I went for a wintery walk (and jump) in a nearby forest.





Brad is good at the jumping ... not so good at taking pictures of jumpers ...

There are a few more than this, but I won't bore you with all of the attempts.

No Home Depot, but I have a giraffe

We thankfully have enough nosy friends at the moment who want to come and snoop around our new place that we didn't really have to go anywhere this weekend - and that includes Home Depot.

Dad, I hope you're not reading this, but a good weekend over the last few weeks has turned into one where we don't have to go to Home Depot or Home Hardware. Because I had a "good" weekend however, there is still a giraffe, two sheep and two bunnies painted on the wall of the "office".

J's new blog inspired me to write more without feeling the need to post pictures - although I only have a giraffe to talk about and not an extremely cute son.

Except I have promised to put some photos of our new house up here ..

And sadly, after all that going on about the giraffe, I don't have a photo of him. You can see the bunnies though.

We're moving ..

I'm getting in trouble again for leaving such a long time between posts.

We are moving. Brad and I have bought a townhouse in Newmarket - 3 bedrooms, so as long as you can put up with the (temporary) Noah's ark motif on the walls, or a light blue/pale green combo, we will welcome guests.

It's very close to Brad's school and only a few minutes from the train station for me. We will post pictures as soon as we have them.

Playing VIP

We went up to Ottawa again for a bit of a reunion for Brad with the lacrosse boys and a reunion with our old neighbours - "the men at ten".

It's always nice to go up to Ottawa and see the girls. I'm not sure I can say much that Courtney's blog doesn't already say - but the "chicks are six" are all like family to me.

We met up with our friend Pat on Friday - and went to the Honest Lawyer for drinks a little Buck Hunter for Brad.

Saturday, I went wedding dress shopping with the girls - so much fun!

We went and watched the alumni lacrosse game, listening to all those poor old men whining about their hips after the game - that was something new.


Jess, Courtney and I had a wonderful evening:
Dinner at Jessica's (always delicious), martinis at social, poutine, and then just when our energy was fading, we were invited over to The Drink. Brad insisted it would be worth it, and was it ever!

We were ushered through the VIP line, and into the VIP booth where a friend of Brad's had a personal wet bar with Grey Goose vodka waiting for us. But, that wasn't what we had to drink.

The girls were offered champagne, and Courtney was asked if we prefer Dom Perignon or Cristal!! No Cristal, so Dom Perignon it was.

Courtney and I are obviously inexperience and had some trouble opening the bottle!

And, we didn't just have one!

We had two.

Spent Sunday morning with Jessica and one of the cutest little boys I know!

Hanging out with the girls!

Sipping some Dom!