Month: October 2010 (Page 2 of 3)

Not a lot going on here. Dad leaves for a 3 day conference tomorrow morning. I’m starting practicing with the middle school choir today, for a concert next Monday. Lots of new music, which is fun! I get my piano tuned (finally!) on Friday. I can’t wait! And I start two new students this afternoon. That’s about it.

Haven’t taken any pictures yet today. We all went to work and the kids were great. They were a lot less shy than before. Ethan entertained the people waiting for class by telling his knock-knock jokes. And Audrey even joined in the classes, dancing along with all of us. Then they helped me deliver meals on wheels before heading over to a picnic in the park.

We played in the yard quite a while this afternoon, then they chose their pumpkin from our great collection and we cleaned them out so they could carve them when Grandpa got home.

Now we are off to the Garage to spend the $1 one of the senior citizens gave them each! Then home and a bath and a movie!

Pictures later.

The weather is a bit cool, but warming up. We played outside here and at the EdensEdge property this a.m. After quiet time, we are headed up to the senior center where I will give some lessons and Audrey and Ethan will watch a movie and play.

I am finally up to 10 students. I know.. not very many. But my goal is only 19, so I am over halfway there. I did, it seems, lose some Chetek students, but I’ve picked up 3 new ones this year. One is the daughter of a previous student – Marty Erb Helm’s daughter Aurora. Very, very, very shy! And I have not advertised yet here in New Auburn because I wanted to give my previous students first pick of days.  Right now I have 6 students on Thursday at the senior center in Chetek, then I have 4 here in New Auburn on Tuesday. Plenty of room on Monday and Wednesday and Friday to add 9 more, though.

A picture of a old piano at the castle we visited in Toronto:

It was so beautiful yesterday that we just drove around taking pictures.  The first picture is a little lake way east of New Auburn. We just ran across it in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t even on our GPS.

The next one is of the same lake. I just love how vibrant the reflections of the trees are.

Then there is a picture from the hill where the ice age trail is east of New Auburn. I had a little trouble holding my camera still, but you can see how beautiful the colors are.

Dad found a rototiller for sale along the road for $25, so he got it. It is huge! The only problem with it is that it wasn’t maintained and it had about a quart too much oil – lots of smoke!

Today I made a turkey (to free us space in the freezer.) Also, it is Thanksgiving Day in Canada – did you know that? Anyway, you have to believe me about the turkey, because I forgot to take a picture until it was cut up – but here is the gravy!

I mowed the rest of the really long grass at EdensEdge, then let it dry a day. We raked it today and it is drying some more and tomorrow we will bring it in and put it in bags for the goats.

Okay, I tried and tried and couldn’t get the text to line up with the pictures, even though it is lined up with them when I look at my draft. Grrrrr….  And I didn’t want writing over that one picture. Anyway, you get the idea of what we did last night and today.

I think Dad missed me when I was gone. Aren’t they beautiful!?

Now I am going to tell you about the trip. I finally got things caught up and have time to write this!

Sunday we just drove to our hotel in Elkhart, IN. The only noteworthy thing was that we got caught in a traffic jam that it turns out was caused by two semi’s colliding. Traffic was backed up for 25 miles and it took 6 hours to clear it. Fortunately, we made the decision to break the law (carefully!) and make a u-turn and go back to the previous exit and take another road. Still, we were in it for well over an hour before we did that. We were actually at our hotel and settled in before the mess was cleared up.

On Monday, we drove all day and got to the border crossing by about 6:45, thinking we would be at the hotel by 7:00. Not. It took about an hour to get through, because we were about the 7th bus in line and each bus had to totally disembark and each person go through customs, then load the bus again. That may not sound like it takes long, but it does! But we didn’t have any problems. Turns out another bus behind us wasn’t allowed in because of some trouble with their driver. We were fortunate to have a good, legal, organized driver!

Tuesday started our touring. That day we toured the general area of Ontario. It is called the “Miami of Canada” because of its temperate climate, caused by its location between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario and the land formation that causes the warm air to stay there. So there are a lot of orchards and vineyards and everything is very lush and beautiful. We also watched boats go through the locks heading from one great lake to the other. We spent time in Niagara-on-the-lake, a cute little town with lots of shops – kind of like Hayward, WI. We ate supper at a Rain Forest Cafe (very good!)

On Wednesday, we headed to Toronto. There is only one main highway there, so traffic can really get bad. Our guide said we lucked out, because we pretty much traveled steadily, although not always fast. When we arrived, we drove around a bit, just seeing the city. It is big – about 4 million, counting the suburbs. But it is a very beautiful city. (I think you would love it, Kylene!) Then we went to Casa Loma, a castle that is right in the city. It was really cool and I have lots of pictures to show you later.  After lunch, we toured Toronto some more, seeing their different ethnic areas, then finally ending at the waterfront where we shopped a bit and I took more pictures. We ate at a buffet about halfway home, then headed back to the hotel. We had a bit of a sing-along on the way. It was a very fun day!

On Thursday, it was finally our turn to tour the Niagara Falls park system. Only so many buses are allowed each day. We saw the falls from all the different angles, as well as seeing lots of other beautiful places along the river. One place, you can stand right by the edge of the top of Horseshoe Falls. It was windy and the mist coming off the falls just soaked me, but it was an awesome feeling! We also had our trip out on the Maid of the Mist. They give you ponchos with hoods, so I kept drier. That was also an incredible experience to be in the middle of the river by Horseshoe Falls, basically surrounded by the falls on three sides. We did some more shopping, more touring, then headed to dinner, which was atop an incredibly high needle. You felt like you were in an airplane, it was so high. It was higher than any of the surrounding buildings and they were well over 20 stories. I probably wouldn’t have gone up if I didn’t have to in order to eat dinner (and lead my group!), but I’m glad I did, because the views were breathtaking. It had been cloudy and drizzly all day and the sun came out after we ate. Amazing!

We left Friday morning and stopped in Cleveland to visit a museum of natural history midday. I had visited there before and it isn’t really an interest to me, so I walked around outside, taking more pictures of the surrounding area, which is also quite beautiful. We made it to our last hotel, which was also our first, in Elkhart. I even had the same room as I did the first night. There were restaurants for dinner right next door, so I had dinner at a Bob Evans and texted Dad, who was having dinner here at Pokegama!

We left early Saturday morning and didn’t waste any time getting home. We arrived in Chetek at about 3:00, hours ahead of schedule, but glad to be home. The most beautiful part of the trip as far as fall colors was from Chippewa Falls to Chetek!