Hello everyone. It’s our final day on vacation, tomorrow we drive home. 🙁 There was a heat warning in Ottawa today, it was stupid hot and humid. We planned accordingly and started our day with
Hello everyone. It’s our final day on vacation, tomorrow we drive home. 🙁 There was a heat warning in Ottawa today, it was stupid hot and humid. We planned accordingly and started our day with a walk to parliament and a tour of the House of Commons. We told the kids we booked the tour and they said “What is the House of Comments?”, so it’s a good thing they are going to see it! We had an excellent tour guide (Christophe) and both boys now have a pretty good idea of what goes on there. Max asked about the Mace and where Justin Trudeau sits, and of our whole tour group had the closest answer to how many MP’s we have. Ty asked about the longest debate, and our guide did not know the answer to that, but the longest speech was 13 hours straight!! Could you imagine?
After Parliament we walked to the War Museum. They have a Holocaust Monument outside that we walked through. It was very nicely done and had a lot of information that was new to the boys. When we went into the museum we spent our first minutes cooling down from the walk by having a pretty good lunch in their cafe. Fed and hydrated we started looking around. It really is an amazing museum- highlighting Canada’s war history. We started with the Highlanders, and they had a section where we were allowed to hold swords- dangerous proposition.
They also had clothing for the boys to dress up in.
After that we looked through the sections dedicated to World War One and Two. It was a beautiful combination of personal stories and quotes, war equipment and images of war. We all learned a lot. Max talked about how war doesn’t seem to have been what the thought it was – that it was far more brutal and terrible then he previously imagined. We have renewed gratitude for all of our veterans.
We returned to the hotel by Uber. Although it was only about a 20ish minute walk it was 42 degree’s outside and we just couldn’t do it. We had a “Power Recharge” (said by Chris in a deep super hero voice along with sound effects). We decided for the power recharge because the boys seemed appalled when we suggested a nap. Afterwards we went for a swim in the pool and then cleaned up for supper.
We had our last gourmet meal (Ty and I had sweet potato ravioli- Yum). There was a special little time out chair in the restaurant that Ty could not resist.
And then we walked to Parliament for the Northern Lights. It is a 30 minute sound and light show that is free to watch at 10pm every night in the summer. The show offered an overview of Canada’s history projected onto the Parliament building. It was quite beautiful.
We walked back to our hotel and watched some Brooklyn 99 to unwind. Tomorrow we are packing up and heading home!
Sign of the Day-
Quote of the Day- Cathy “You know Tyson, sometimes when I talk to you and you say nonsense words back in a baby voice I wonder if we are having a conversation.” Tyson “That must be exciting.”
We were so happy to have had this time in our nations capital. So many great things to do and see and very little cost. We will have to come back soon.