Hello everyone, well we certainly had a wonderful day here in Ottawa, it was mostly quite warm but at times along the river you needed a sweater.
We started our day visiting the Laurier House which was the home of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his family and then William Lyon Mackenzie King. It was really interesting and we learned lots.




From here we walked down to the Byward Market where there were stalls of trinkets, veggies and fruits and flowers. There was a french bakery in the market, you could not believe the pastries they had, it had a huge sitting area and I am sure every table was full of people indulging in their favorites.



We however walked on and found the Heart and Crown Irish pub so we could have a cold one with lunch. It was a great lunch, I had the Shannon Salad and Ron had Shephards Pie.



We walked past the National Art Museum, not quite sure if we will visit inside later on in the week, it is opposite the Basilica which we did go in and see, amazing inside, just beautiful.



Down the street from the Art Museum is the Royal Mint, they had a great tour showing the making of coins and even the Olympic medals. Ron thought he was going to get away with this cool half million but discovered it was attached and the guard was carefully watching just 10 feet away.





Now we did go for a long walk, all the way down Sussex Drive past many of the country consulates and the Prime Ministers home to get to Rideau Hall the Governor Generals home.
The grounds were amazing, and to beat all, we were lucky enough to get a tour into a few of the rooms, the Governor General was in residence.

Okay, now that we got down here we have to walk back, but we found a path down by the Ottawa River that was very pretty and had a good view of the Rideau Falls.

We had enough energy left to climb the hill up the the Champlain monument where there was a great view of the Parliament building with the Rideau Locks.

Well it took us three bus stops to find the right ride home, the first one only did downtown rides, the next one(several blocks away) was going in the wrong direction and finally we found our ride and were some happy as our feet are weary.

Came home to check the email quickly and found out we have a new little niece, Allison Mae Jones and we will not get to meet her for almost a whole year. Congratulations Megan, Kevin and our little Gracie(now big sister Gracie)