another lisa

Every year for more than 15 years, we have visited Margaret and David's cottage, located on Loon Island, on the Big Rideau river. This river is part of the Rideau Canal system, which goes from Ottawa down to Kingston. One of the highlights of this visit was taking a boat trip through a lock to visit Westport, which is a place I know well, as I go there each summer with my mom. This time we all got icecream, and some groceries to take back to the cottage.

The food was great, with most people pitching in to cook and/or clean up. We had chicken quesadillas, plus I got to make that non-tomato salsa again, which was wonderful. Another day we had home made spaghetti sauce with pasta.

We helped a bit with the tree clearing project - several years ago, when the great Ice Storm hit Ontario, many trees were killed... Margaret and David have been working for years to clean up the dead trees so as to lower the fire threat to the island's forest. The island must be at least 8 acres... ??? It takes about 40 minutes to walk around the island.

We have had many adventures on that island... my best memories are canoing, including tipping the canoe about 6 years ago during a thunder/lightning storm. We have had many birthday parties there, and this year it was Oliver's turn. We had his actual birthday at Loon Island this year. The boys had a great time basically swimming anytime they wanted from dawn until dusk...

Another fun thing to do there is play games... we played euchre, carcosonne, settlers of catan, skipbo, crib, set, and honour.... at some point or another. Also, Owen and I collected some nature stuff for his collection to take to the Nature Museum to trade in, including: birch bark, pine cones, a rock, fungus, bones, feathers, mica, porcupine quills.