Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Great Weekend!

 

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We had a fantastic weekend of fun activities and wonderful weather!  We started out Friday night by heading to downtown Waterloo and taking in a few of the busker shows and sidewalk artists.  It was very entertaining and the best part of course was it was all free!  The best performer we saw was a young guy doing a flaming juggling act who normally performs with his wife but she unfortunately had broken her toe recently doing some sort of trick and left him solo.  He juggled torches and knives and put a flaming torch in his mouth as his big finale.  It was so nice walking around the downtown in such great weather, it wasn’t too hot and very comfortable in just t-shirts.  Its hard to believe that tomorrow is the first day of September!!  We ended the evening by getting ice cream at the Marble slab….so YUMMY !  I had birthday cake flavoured ice cream with cookie dough and Reese’s pieces and Rob  had sweet cream ice cream with raspberries and Oreo cookies.  We need to get an outlet in the Maritimes before we come home!!  http://www.marbleslab.com/

Saturday I had to work until noon but afterwards we packed up the car and drove north to Elora Gorge.  We met up with my friends Katie, Andy and Liz and spent the evening around a camp fire eating hotdogs and roasting up smores.  It was the first time that we got to use our new tent and it is great, it’s so big that Robbie can actually stand up in it!!  We also got to use our new solar powered lantern and my new sleeping bag!  We’ve decided that we definitely need to find time to do more camping and all we need now is a cooler. We used a medium sized tote which did the job but it didn’t stay cold for too long and you definitely need cold beer when you go camping!! 

The big attraction about the gorge is that you can rent tubes and float down a certain stretch of water.  Robbie got up early on Sunday and stood in line with about 50 other people at 8am for tubes!!  We couldn’t believe how much in demand these things were.  We all got outfitted with helmets, lifejackets and tubes and had the most wonderful time on the water.  There were actually a couple places where the water was quite fast with big rapids and then other places where the water was slow and more calm.  Robbie was ejected from his tube over the first set of rapids and one of our friends almost lost her shoes but everyone emerged unharmed.  You had to be careful in some places as  your bum could slip through the tube and in shallow water scrape on the rocks but It was so beautiful, we ended up doing it twice!! I wished I could have had a camera to take pictures of the gorge rising above us with the trees overhanging the water but then I would have most certainly lost my tube!

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Friday, August 27, 2010

Camping and tubing

Jenn and I are going camping at Elora Gorge this weekend with a few of her friends. We are looking forward to the maiden voyages of our tent, camp stove and solar lantern. Plus the weather is supposed to be great. Elora Gorge is about 45 minutes North of us. As the name suggests there is a fairly large gorge with some mild rapids below. The best part is that you can rent tubes for the day to ride “the rapids” and a shuttle picks you up to take you back to the headwaters afterward.

Last weekend I attempted to make a soufflé for the first time but to turn a phrase, “it fell flat”. It was a crab soufflé. I accidently got a little yolk in with the egg whites so they did not stiffen properly despite my beating the heck out of them. It still tasted alright but it never rose the way a soufflé should. However I am undeterred and plan on making a chocolate soufflé next weekend. My potato latkes on the other hand turned out sublime. They were sooo delicious with syrup.

There is busker festival going on in Waterloo today and I was thinking that I might leave early today to see what there is to see.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Doctor do I smell burnt toast?

Thought I would start rolls yesterday in the bread maker before I left for the lab so that when I got home they would be ready. Ah the best laid plans. Little did I know when I got home Jenn had placed them in the oven to rise. And me being the blockhead I am, I forgot to check in the oven before turning it on to heat up a baked potato. Since the rolls were covered in a tea towel they went up in flames! But despite the rolls being dense burnt nuggets they were still quite good if you cut off the singed portion.

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Jenn and I are actually getting much better at tennis. We can actually keep a volley going for a longer than a blink now. Plus we have finally managed to get back out biking again. My tire tube had a puncture which I fixed only to realize I had another puncture. But my patch jobs seem to be holding well.

I have yet another conference which I am preparing for now. Dr. Lee asked me the evening before the abstract submission deadline. So I spent a very late night writing that. But I finished it and will be attending the Aquatic Toxicologists Workshop at University of Toronto in October.

Tomorrow I am going to try my hand at making a crab soufflé. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Hope you are all having a sunny week because we are!

-Robbie

Friday, August 13, 2010

Zebras, lions, wallabies, spider monkeys, giraffes, hippos, rhinos…

A couple weekends ago Jenn and I decided to visit the Toronto Zoo and the African Lion Safari. Our favourite animals were the spider monkey, the black leopard, the hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and lions. We also had the opportunity to see an elephant show while at the safari and Jenn has said she will get me one for Christmas. I’m not holding my breath. Anyway, pictures speak louder than words and we took lots. Enjoy!

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