happy belated canada day

so the move went well (except for the crazy mover who stressed me out so much by wrecking our walls and bitching at us because our furniture and apartment weren't moving-friendly, but I'm trying my best to forget about him), and the new place is great, except that we have now descended into that weeks-long period of living with most of our stuff in one of a possible 6 different boxes ("I know it was in the bedroom before we moved, so it must be in one of these boxes marked 'bedroom'!" - except inevitably, that much-needed item is inevitably in some other box...)

pre-move

post-move - same boxes, different house :)

But we have a party booked for the 22nd, so that should be enought motivation to get us to unpack sooner rather than later.

We moved on Thursday so that we could spend the Canada Day weekend not thinking about moving... and what fun we had doing that! First, on Friday night, we christened our new backyard and our re-furbished bbq with really yummy burgers:

I love bbq's - its the easiest way to make the guys do all the cooking!

On Saturday, our friend John had his annual Canada Day/strawberry picking and consuming party - he's American, but has earned honorary Canadian status, partly because of these parties! This year, we delayed going up to the cottage just to go to it. Here's the recap:

first we drove out to the strawberry patch, just south of the city. then we watched a deer walk through the field to eat the strawberries. only after he left did we bother to start picking....

one for the basket, one for John! (mike is showing off his bright red fingers!)

lots of berries!

the picking crew heading home

later that evening, at John's Glebe-i-gloo:

Rene hulling berries (that's the drawback of showing up early!)

Mike's mixology... a little of this, a little of that, and a whole lot of berries!

the fruits of our labours (go on, laugh at the bad pun)

What? you didn't think we were going to eat the berries did you?!!
(ps: in case you hadn't noticed, wearing red on Canada day is practically required in Ottawa)

around 9pm-ish, we walked downtown to see the fireworks on Parliament Hill

Follow the Red Balloon so you don't get lost!

boom! crash! bang!

the Peace Tower of the Parliament Buildings

people jam on Wellington Street (Canada's Pensylvania Avenue)

Shortly after we took this photo, Mike and I misplaced the group so we decided to go home... good thing too, cause 20 minutes later (and about 5 blocks from home) it started to pour! Good thing we were able to spend the next two days at the cottage, recovering from the rain by working on our suntans!

knitting news will follow in a day or two, I promise... my KnitPicks order is on its way with all the yarn i need for my next fun baby project! which reminds me - i'd better go block that pinwheel blanket so that its dry in time to be given away this weekend! :)

ps: my condolences to my English friends for Saturday's World Cup disaster. I never know what's worse in those situations - that fact that the team lost, or having to put up with the significant other who is left devestated and grumpy when the game ends! :)