My First Summer Vacation Adventure : Quebec City with Todd, Bonnie & Blair!

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I'm now officially on three week's vacation from work!  We started off my holidays with a bang! 

It took a lot of persuading to get Todd to take a couple of days off of work and to go to Quebec City for a 4-day weekend.  We paired up with my stitching friend Bonnie and her husband Blair.  Over the last two years the four of us have become good friends, despite the distance between our homes (3 hour drive apart).  Back in February we started the planning/discussions.  I wanted to go back to QC, so did Bonnie and Blair, also Todd had never been before!  This past weekend, it finally happened!

We got back home this evening, and to keep on top of things I downloaded my over 500 photos right away, I've culled them, tagged them, and selected ones to share with you!  I'm going to break this down into two post for you covering our two main days in Quebec City.  From my area Quebec City is a good 5 hour drive so we pretty much spent two days driving there and back.

The four of us started out Friday morning by packing up Bonnie's car and off we went heading towards Montreal.  The timing was perfect for us to stop in my "old neighbourhood" of Dollard-Des-Ormeaux to have the best Montreal Smoked Meat sandwich ever at McBay's a restaurant I had been going to since I was knee-high to a grasshopper!  The food is still excellent!  Then it was back in the car all the way to Quebec City.  We checked into our hotel, stretched our legs a little, then met for dinner at Chez Greco and had amazing Greek food for dinner.  There was plenty of evening left and none of us wanted to retire for the evening so after some net-surfing and a few phone calls and my so-so french we found one movie theater about a 20 minute drive away that was playing ONE English move!  Who would of thought it would be so hard to find a movie playing in English?  We all really enjoyed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2!

Hilly Streets

And Lots of Stairs

After a lovely breakfast on the patio of a nearby diner we hopped into the car for the short drive to Vieux Quebec (the old city) which was founded in 1608.  Its a gorgeous area full of old world, European Charm!  We spent the whole day... and I mean the whole day in the city, not getting back to our hotel until after midnight!  Quebec City is not for the feint of heart, its full of stairs and hills any rich foods you eat will be quickly worked off (or so I hope but only the scale will tell at the end of the week).

Amazingly Landscaped Gardens

St. Joan of Arc, doesn't the horse look terrified?

We started out at a park I caught a peek of when I was there last year.  I never got to explore it and we happened to park the car nearby.  So we started out at this gorgeously landscaped park with a statue of St. Joan of Arc featured at its center.

 Horsing around at the Martello Tower

 Wonderful views of the St. Lawrence River from the Martello

 I was amused by this... there's lots of cannons around the old city!

From there we wandered the beautiful park lands that were the Plains of Abraham (famous battleground between the English and the French).  We checked out the two remaining Martello Towers which were built to defend the settlement.  We took in fantastic views of the St. Lawerence River and headed towards the city walls.

The Old City Walls

Relaxing on the Boardwalk with Todd

Bonnie & Blair were taking a break too.

It didn't take much to talk Todd into climbing the cannon!

 A glimpse of the Lower City from the Boardwalk above

Chateaux Frontenac... you don't want to know how much it costs to stay here!

After checking out the very tall and thick city walls we took the stairs down to the boardwalk that overlooks the St. Lawrence River, the lower old city, and leads you to Quebec City's trademark building, the Chateaux Frontenac.

It was busy, busy, busy!  One of the streets was closed to cars for the day.

 FIRE!

 Lots of little shops and fantastic restaurants

 Artist's Alley

 Street performers

From this point we just wandered around all day checking out streets, buildings, and of course shops full of touristy stuff.  I found after I had been in 2-3 shops that they pretty much carried all the same stuff.

Funiculars ferry people from the upper to the lower city

 Music performers were sprinkled around the lower city

Lots of charming buildings and nooks & crannies

Glass blowing

One of two fantastic murals in the lower city

Horsing around... a lot of people were doing silly things and posing in front of the mural

Later in the afternoon we took the funicular down to the lower city to explore.  Another area I didn't get much of a chance to explore last summer.  We visited a gourmet chocolate shop, which was so tasty!  Then we stumbled across a shop with real live glass blowers!  Wow it was so hot in there, but soooo cool!

Once the dinner hour rolled around we went a restaurant we had all visited last year (well, except Todd that is).  Le Cochon Dingue where we had a very tasty meal with yummy dessert!

Experimenting with a D-SLR at night

Canadian Coast Guard ship all lit up

Maple Leaf lit from below

After hiking about the hilly city we had to go up, up, up the stairs from the boardwalk to the Plains of Abraham and back to the car and bed!

The Before Photos!

As of 3PM today I'm officially on vacation until August 15th!  I am very ready to be off work, and I've never ever taken 3 weeks off so what a treat its going to be!  As you saw from my previous post I kinda started things off a little early yesterday with a wonderful evening/afternoon with my friend Tracey on her new boat!  I do have some adventures planned so there will be no lack of blog entries and photos!

I am also really looking forward to some well earned/deserved stitching time over the next few weeks, which I know will go by far too quickly.

Here's where Enchantment of Winter stands as of right now (I've not touched it yet today)

Here's where The Accolade is at as well (not touched today either)

So as soon as I'm done here online I'll be picking up needle and thread and we'll see how much I get done during the next three weeks, between my summer adventures!

How about a quick PhotoHunt?  On July 2nd the theme was "Busy"

I took this photo back in February of this year when over 15 of us went to have ice cream at this shop in Consuelo, Dominican Republic.  They went from almost dead to very busy!

I Feel Like My Vacation Has Started!

My good friend Tracey and her husband got a new toy today!  I was fortunate enough to be invited along for the maiden voyage in their new boat!  What a great time we had, it was such a nice, typical summer day that I felt like my holidays had started (which they do on Friday!).

We went out to Mississippi Lake with Ed's new toy, it was HOT it was SUNNY it was a perfect day to be out on the lake!

 We cruised the lake...

We fished, and I caught my first fish in a few years, a nice big, smelly, slimy Pike! 

I found this ahem... boat???

 Tracey getting ready to try water skiing for the first time

 One of Tracey's attempts

I'm good to go!!!!  I have never tried it before either... my attempts were getting better but I never got up

 Ed got the closest to "up"

 I will be having some adventures in the upcoming weeks and definitely some time to work on a serious case of "stitcher's butt"

Freebie Link and Photo Hunt

A big thank you to Robin and Meari for pointing out to me just where I got the freebies in my previous post!  They're by Sandy and here's the link to the freebies.  So if you want to run off, print them off and stitch them up!

Here's the PhotoHunt from June 25th, the theme was Cards

This was a really tough one for me to find a picture to go with this theme, I think I had gone back to at least 2009 in my photos and came up with nothing.  That is until Christin and I were wandering around the Ottawa Bluesfest grounds last Thursday.  The theme for this year's Bluesfest was Viva Las Bluesfest (Las Vegas theme).  Walking around I spotted these "cards" screening the port-a-potty station.  Whoila... cards!

More Weekend Finishes

After my ornament finish on the weekend I kept going with the ornaments Saturday and Sunday.  I stitched up these two freebies I found via another blog ... unfortunately I don't remember where so I don't have any links to share with you.

 Noel Freebie

Unknown source

Stitched on: 18ct Cork Linen

 Merry Christmas Freebie

Unknown Source

Stitched on : 28ct Antique Green Jazlyn

Stitched with: DMC

If I find any stitching time this week, I'll pull out my current WIPs and plug away at them!

Holstein Rodeo 2011

Holstein Rodeo 2011, I came, I saw, I conquered... and sold a hell of a lot of 50/50 tickets!

On Friday the 8th I set out nice and early (at least it wasn't dark o'clock in the morning) with Ann and Dan in their motor home and settled in for the 3 hour drive to the Holstein Rodeo.  As the kilometers flew by I worked on one of my Quilt Blocks, cause quite honestly the 401 does not have inspiring vistas!

Ann, Bill, and Dan

We were heading to the rodeo to help out Bill,  a good friend of Ann & Dan's who is involved in organizing the rodeo.  Years ago he did Dan and his son a huge favour so over the last few years Dan has been kind enough to run the 50/50 draw at the rodeo to raise funds for the local Optimist's Club.  This year, like two years ago I went along to help out.  Soon after settling the motor home, we set up and started selling tickets!  Its a busy, busy weekend!  I spend a lot of time while the rodeo is going on running up and down the stands selling arm lengths and body lengths of tickets.  At night we fall into bed, exhausted despite being parked right beside the stage that features various Country Music stars each night.

This year I know we raised over $3,600 for local charities!  It was hard work but a lot of fun!

Here are some of my photos from the weekend... when I had a chance to take pictures!

 Puttin' on the breaks after a Barrel Racing run!

 Barrel Racing

 The youngest barrel racer on Friday night, this adorable young girl from Florida

 This fella was riding the bull in the above shot... these guys are insane!

 See what I mean?  Insane!

 Rusty the Rodeo Clown

 

I got to go up the helicopter with this young girl and her Dad

 In the helicopter with Lou Schizas radio personality from Toronto's Talk Radio AM640, Grand Marshall for the 2011 Rodeo

 Rodeo grounds from above

 Cowboy getting ready for Team Roping

Team roping

Love this shot, caught the moment he lost his hat

 A pair of Cowboys after their Team Roping run

 Cowgirl in team roping

 Cute little Cowgirl!

 Julian Austin one of the Country Music Artists performing in the evening

 Shane Yellowbird