Mother's Day weekend recap

I just finished reading about what XUP did on her Mother's Day weekend, and I shamelessly copied the idea was inspired to share my own weekend with you all.

It was a really great weekend. The antibiotics kicked in, and although I'm still coughing like a chain-smoking rhinoceros, I have most of my energy back. I declared a weekend moratorium on housework (except for the ongoing loading/unloading of the dishwasher to keep us in dishes) and the girls and I had fun. The weather was lovely - about 19 and sunny, though Sunday was really windy.

Saturday morning we walked to the first Carp Farmers' Market of the season. How we made it through the winter without bacon on a bun is truly incomprehensible. Once we had them in hand and were happily chomping away, we ran into lots of people from the village that we really haven't seen since November or so. Once the snow starts flying, about the most you see of the neighbours is a hand waving from a car window, and with last winter's snowbanks, you couldn't see many cars at all. Now that spring is here, we get to see everyone again. (I think it must have been like this in the olden days out on the prairies where the settlers ventured out from their farms to see who had died or had babies over the winter.) We also met, very unexpectedly, Pat and Gerry, close friends from Ottawa and sat and visited with them as well. We headed home with our supplies of butter tarts, citrus cookies, and pansies to plant in the garden, and Shell and Becca dropped by for tea (and butter tarts - a coincidence? Maybe.)

After lunch we went to Andrew Haydon Park and the girls ran wild on the play structures. We came home and barbecued dinner (steak and baked potato and red wine for Mom), and I still had enough energy to mow half the lawn.

On Sunday, I got the home-made cards and a lovely wooden box that Rae decorated for me at daycare. It had chocolates in it that she wanted to 'share' with me. Hmmmm, I kinda thought they were for me. I shared. Leah made peanut butter toast and juice for breakfast, having just learned to use the toaster oven. Rachel pronounced Leah's toast far superior to the toast I make and asked Leah if she would make her toast from now on. (I took the blow to my ego rather well, I think. If it means less work for me, I'm all for it.) We had decided on a Mother's Day picnic at the beach. Though it's too cold to swim yet, I thought that the girls could paddle in the water and build sand castles while I read a book. We packed up and headed to the beach (Rae insisted on wearing her bathing suit). When we arrived, we were very surprised. The beach had disappeared.

It was a small beach, width-wise, but a good 30 to 40 feet of sand stretched from the parking area out to the Ottawa River. Not anymore, or not right now -- the river is running so high (probably from the increased snowmelt from the record levels of snow we had) that the beach is under water.

Those trees underwater on the left of the photo above are about halfway between the upper edge of the beach and the water's edge. Or at least they were last summer.

I looked through some old pictures, but couldn't find any taken from the same spot. The one below was taken a couple of summers ago. I was at the water's edge taking a picture back towards the parking area. I was standing near the trees you can see to the left of Leah's head when I took the photos above. You can see the expanse of sand that's now under water.


We picnicked anyway, and the girls played in the thin strip of sand. Then we went home and I mowed the rest of the lawn while the girls made me a cake. All by themselves. It was beautiful -- chocolate, with fudge icing, decorated artistically and served on a pink and blue plate (you can click on the photo to enlarge it and appreciate the decorations even more).