Summertime

Hello there!

Today I am sharing a few more photos from my summer vacation. I miss Toronto! While I was there I had the chance to visit Hamilton, Ontario. I can tell you is was nothing like what I had expected. We were there to install some of Judith's works for this show. These are two of the works...

Afterwards there was some time to explore.....

There are of course very cool modern buildings as well but I don't have photos of them. It was the hottest day I had in Toronto and I was a little wilted by the end of our explorations.

I also loved putting together some pretty fabulous food this vacation, though not on the same day! While in Toronto, I have to say I took full advantage of the fact that I could eat the things I like without having to consider what my husband would eat. Sorry René! Judith and I both love fish and it was so nice to eat it!

These are called Blackberry Crush...you can find them here. Simple and delightful...

 Judith's shrimp in avocado. Still classic and delicious.

The main course

Ice cream cake brought by lovely dinner guest Margret.

 I hope that you are all enjoying a beautiful summer with fresh food and fancy drinks.

Megan

That's me!

Saint John, New Brunswick

Hi! Cara here. So, it turns out I actually have a lot of photos I like from Saint John, New Brunswick. Here is some of what I took during my four-hour excursion around the must-see sights of the area--toddler-free--just myself, my camera and roughly ten other individuals with digital SLRs accompanied by a local professional photographer (whose name I unfortunately did not write down at the time).

Located on the north shore of the beautiful Bay of Fundy, Saint John is famous amongst other things for the Moosehead Brewery, the Reversing Falls, its lobster, and being Canada's first city. Here is some of what I saw:

An ad for Moosehead brewery, founded in 1867 by a woman! This is just off the pier; you can see the reflection of our cruiseship in the bus window. This is near King St., the steepest street in Canada.

The Bay of Fundy experiences the highest tidal rise and fall in the world; in high tide when the Bay waters get funnelled into the St. John River rapids, it causes the water to flow in reverse. One of the main attractions in Saint John is the Reversing Falls where you can witness this. It was quite lovely, but I wasn't prepared for the unabashed presence of grey, smoke-spewing industry so close to this natural wonder. This is taken from the lookout point at the Reversing Falls; the natural wonder ends up being how the birds can breathe flying through the smokestacks of the Irving paper and pulp mill. 

This little guy didn't seem to mind the crowds.

New Brunswick is sparsely populated and 80 percent of it is woodland. I was blown away by how much space and untouched natural beauty is there. However, photographically, I was most looking forward to the "working wharf" segment of the excursion because I was imagining grizzled, sea-worn men, word-shy and labouring in the grey mist with their lobster traps. As it turns out, the wharf was a tranquil and almost deserted place visited by a few kayakers. There was mainly inanimate evidence that the fishing industry is still strong here, so I got a lot of photos of fishing apparatus. It was a ghostly but sensory experience, with the smell of sea air and wet sand, the lapping of slow waves, and the chilly wind in my face.

The only sign it was literally a "working wharf," and they seemed like a cheerful bunch.

That's it for now. I hope you all have a wonderful week. There are a lot of exciting things brewing for Field Day in the next month! Stay tuned for updates and more travel journal posts!

Summer Vacations

Happy Wednesday!

Has there ever been anything more magical than a summer vacation? When I was young those magical months were filled with sunshine and road trips. They were the months to eat ice cream and sit on the deck until the sun went down at 10pm. Living in Mexico can sometimes be like a permanent summer vacation, with all the sunshine and beaches a girl could ask for. But there is still nothing more enjoyable than a little summer getaway! This month I was super lucky to travel to Toronto to visit with my aunt and catch up with some old friends, and you know what? It was just like those summer vacations as a kid.

I arrived in Toronto smack dab in the middle of Pride, which if you're from Toronto, you know is a huge deal. But I am not from Toronto, so I had no idea how amazing it was. Over a million people come to the city to celebrate. There are parades and parties and whole blocks are shut down for the week. What a blast!

Why are you looking at a bowl of soup you may wonder? Well here is the thing, I love this soup. This soup is what sustained me in university and it is manna from heaven as far as I am concerned. Barbecue Pork Wonton Noodle Soup. Yum. Try as I might I have found it impossible to find all the ingredients to make this soup here in Mexico and even if I could I am not sure I could do it justice. I could have eaten this everyday for the entirety of my trip.

My good friend James sampling the delightful soup.

 Yup it is that good.

Toronto skyline

This trip I explored Center Island. I was intrigued after watching Sarah Polley's latest film Take this Waltz. I love any trip that involves a ferry ride especially one that affords views like this one.

The Islands have a amusement park straight out of a story book.

As well as a small farm with brand new piglets. Seriously how cute are they?

You can rent bikes to explore the island and that is exactly what I did. It was an incredible day and in typical Canadian fashion the weather was different from one hour to the next. There is just over an hour between the two photos below, but a completely different look.

The whole time I was on the Islands I was thinking what a beautiful place it would be to shoot a wedding. Any brides out there that feel the same way? This bench is so great ... it makes you feel like you are entering a wonderland. I wish I had one of these for my garden.

This is one of my aunt's sculptures in Toronto. It is titled Nautilius and can be found on Bay St.

 Before I left the house my aunt mentioned that I should look out for one of her pieces on my way back from the ferry. If you live in Toronto or are visiting any time soon you can see more of her public works here and here and here.

I have a few more pictures of summer vacation to share with you tomorrow but until then have a fabulous day!

Megan

Hi everyone! Cara here. It's been a crazy couple of weeks of getting Caia into summer camp, finally getting my Quintana Roo driving license, meeting new friends (see The Sunday Bottles), a new alliance with a wedding vendor here in Playa del Carmen (more about that later) and my newest aquisiton of an iphone and all of its cool photo apps! So it's definitely time for the second part of my travel journal, which I'd mistakenly said was going to be about St. John, New Brunswick, but will actually be about our first port of call, Portland, Maine. I promise that the next post will be about St. John, where I took a four-hour photography expedition through the Bay of Fundy.

Last we left off, I'd covered Boston and the terrible odyssey that was getting aboard our Carnival Cruise. I suppose the roughly 3000 passengers were sufficiently peeved enough to warrant us getting a formal letter of apology a few days ago from President and CEO of Carnival Cruises, Gerry Cahill, and a one day's refund credit...good on them. Because of that I might actually consider maybe giving them another shot one day. And, you know, if wasn't all that bad. For example:

There's nothing like seeing the look on your daughter's face when she realizes she's on a really, really big boat. We may have been cold, but it was a good excuse for lots of hugs.

The day after boarding was spent sleeping in while we were at sea, reconnecting with Grandma and Grandpa, drinking wine, and getting super excited for the following day's shore excursion in Maine, which we'd splurged on because it sounded so cool--an eight-hour steam train ride through the White Mountain National Forest to the summit of Mount Washington. In our minds, it was likely to rival the experience of the Harry Potter Steam Train journey we'd done in Scotland in 2007. We would be bringing Caia, too, because she's never been on a train, and I honestly don't think she's ever been on a mountain; Playa del Carmen has beautiful waters, white sand, Mayan ruins and a thriving jungle, but it is also one of the flattest places on earth.

So we woke up the following day in Portand, Maine at six in the morning. We got showered and dressed and packed and fed, got our hands on a stroller through the kids' club at Camp Carnival, buttoned up our jackets and saw our breath while we walked down the gangway telling Caia about trains and mountains and forests. You may imagine the look on this happy family's face when we were told we'd missed the excursion due to rescheduling because of the ship's tardiness in leaving Boston. We had, apparently, also missed the memo lost in the flood of papers delivered to our room every day, which inevitably became colouring books for Caia. You may also imagine the wrath that descended on the poor soul who delivered us this news.

And so this is how we ended up touring Kennebunkport, a place I'd never heard of, but was the only tour available since all of the lighthouse tours--for which Maine is famous--were already sold out. Kennebunkport is known not only for it's odd-sounding name, but for being the site of former President Bush's summer estate, and I think Martha Stewart lives somewhere in the vicinity--in fact, I later found out that Kennebunkport is home to several professional Martha Stewart impersonators. The tour was fine, and it was quite pretty, but I was camera-challenged throughout the scenic bus tour due to a napping child in my arms, and so Craig took over on the point-and-shoot as we passed some lovely scenery and made the surprising discovery that surfing is actually a popular pastime in Maine.

Surfers' paradise.

The famed Bush summer home; not really an attraction for me. But we did see many secret service vehicles around, which was kind of cool.

Lower Village, Kennebunk, where we got off the bus.

Oh, well. I did get some great photos as we were sailing away from Portland, and we even saw a lighthouse or two:

Sometimes, a photo will say it all. This is one of the first things you see sailing in, and one of the last as you sail out.

And that about sums it up for Portland; a beautiful place that I hope I can go back to and enjoy it the way it's meant to be enjoyed.

Till next time--for part three in St. John, Newbrunswick!