When in Ottawa...

Popsicle stick rafts, and a quick respite from the rain

Ottawa has a lot going for it, truly.  I may be an east coast girl at heart, but I know enough to take advantage of a good thing when I have it.  And around here, there are many good things.  In our immediate dwelling, there are (as I have mentioned many times over), an abundance of lovely wooded adventurelands. We explore and enjoy these areas year round, rain or shine.  This weekend, for instance, we donned all of our best rain gear, and spent a drizzly morning launching popsicle stick rafts in a flowing wooded stream:

Linden's raft even started out with a sail!

Launching into full-on rapids

Juniper choosing a spot higher up

What's more fun than launching a boat?  Retrieving it with a big stick, of course

Juniper's cure for cold hands

The boys

 With the risk of sounding geeky, one of the best things about this Canadian capital are the many super cool museums and galleries.  We go to the Museum of Nature on a regular basis, and will often skip off to the Museum of History/Children's museum as well.  This weekend, however, we explored not one, but TWO places we had not yet been:  The National Gallery, and the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum. I really don't take these places for granted - especially when there are library passes that (if you act very quickly and snatch them up before someone else), can get you in for free.

The National Gallery:

The day's art project: making clay figures

All dressed up and ready to go find the paintings where the costumes are featured

Juniper finds her painting, and poses just so

Linden doing exactly the same thing with his

Juniper and the big spider outside the gallery 

the spider from a distance, with a cathedral in the background

Another cool outside statue, with the sun behind it

Playing tag with parliament in the background

One handsome fella

The Aviation and Space Museum:

Trying their skills in a cockpit

In front of some very yellow planes

By Sunday night, we were all one tired little family.  But full of both nature and culture - what more could you ask for?