Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Number Nuttiness (Adriana)

Numbers have always been important to me. I've always thought that some numbers were more attractive than others. All even numbers are pretty whereas 9, 7 and 5 can be attractive depending on their circumstances, but 3 and 1 definitely are not. I knew that I wanted to get married on an attractive date. When Pete and I were thinking about getting married in fall 2009 we looked at a calendar together and I told him all the pretty numbers that we could get married on. When we did end up setting the date, the decision was made based on when it fell in relation to a holiday (the Sunday of the May long weekend). That left me, someone who is obsessed with attractive numbers, getting married on 5/23/2010. Even the attractiveness of the year couldn't save it for me. I've had some time to come to grips with the date (yes, it did take me some time, I know I'm strange) and I discovered that May 23, 2010 is much prettier than 5/23/2010. Today is the first 23rd since we set the date and every time I've had to write the date (which has been a lot since I've been writing letters at work), I've smiled to myself and though "In one year and ten months I'll be getting married!" If I do that every month from now until the wedding, I bet that the number 23 won't seem that bad at all to me.

Not only do we have a date for the wedding, we have a venue as well: the Galt Country Club, which in addition to being lovely, is only 10 minutes from my parents' house (a big deal when all the other places would have involved highway travel to get there). It's a beautiful building which has a great division of space: we'll be able to get married in their rotunda, leave our guests to enjoy hors d'oeuvres in the large hallway and veranda while we take pictures, and afterwards the reception will be held in the ballroom. The grounds are gorgeous, it's on the river, and it's close enough to the picturesque downtown that we can go there for photos.

So, to honour the mini-anniversary of my wedding date, here are some views of downtown Galt where we will be taking pictures.

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Ferguson Cottage where I want to go with my girls before the ceremony

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A view down the river to the lovely churches

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Quaint gives way to urban at the School of Architecture (pardon the raindrops)

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Inside the school

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The faux Greek ruins

(Blogging twice in two days?!? Don't get used to it :P)

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

A Trip in Pictures (Adriana)

Sorry for the long delay in blogging. It turns out that Fringing and blogging do not mix. I've been back home for a week now but between recovering from the trip and starting a new full-time placement, I haven't had time to think about the blog. But here I am now, ready to show off some pictures from the trip.

I don't have any pictures from the Toronto portion of the tour but rest assured that fun was had by all since I got to see Heather, Jane and Gen! Ottawa was much more exotic and I have plenty of pictures to show for our time there.

We went to Parliament Hill where I managed to knit-in-public next to the statues of the Famous Five who fought for women to be considered persons (can you believe they hadn't been?!?!). Interestingly, this group of five women are the only statues on Parliament Hill that aren't prime ministers or royalty.
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We saw one of the official Parliamentary Cats (they have their own sanctuary on the hill).
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We also saw a Parliamentary squirrel and groundhog but they weren't photoworthy.

Naturally we had to visit some museums while in Ottawa. We had the most amazing experience visiting the Canadian War Museum with my favourite great-aunt and great-uncle (ok, they are my only ones but they'd be my favourite anyways). It was incredible being there with them since they'd both lived through WWII and my uncle was actually a part of it.
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Auntie Clayre and I model the very heavy helmets.

In what was a truly awe-inspiring moment, we got to see der Fuhrer's parade car.
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After the seriousness of the War Museum, we needed some fun so we went to the Children's Museum with my good friend (and MoH) Calli, who came down from Montreal to hang out and see the show.
The Children's Museum was so much fun. Pete and Calli are like two peas in a pod, and they had a total blast there.
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Here they are taking part in an impromptu play. Pete is the evil owl and Calli is the ordinary ocean.

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Pete and I got to ride a vespa (I have no idea what those green lights are. I don't remember an infestation of glowing green bugs when we were there. It looks pretty cool, though :P)

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And Pete pretended he was a member of the crew of the HMS Pinafore.

We went back to Montreal with Calli for a day, during which I found and purchased my wedding dress!!! We also had dinner with my dear Emma, who was the recipient of the Ribbed Lace Bolero (Rav) I made earlier in the summer.

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It's fun to knit for people who are so appreciative.

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And so sassy!

While there Pete got to meet Emma's adorable kitties.
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I love this picture!!

That it for now. There was some knitting done on the trip but not as much as I would have liked. I'll be back in a few days to show off what little knitting I managed to accomplish, and to update you all on the latest wedding details (here's a hint, there are some!).