The snow finally came. Only three days late for Christmas. We had a few more centimetres than the city but all is good.
The 11th Annual Christmas Breakfast
It was our pleasure again this year to serve breakfast to all those Paramedics who had to work Christmas this year. Stephanie along with her mother Pat and Joe M planned the best feast ever.
Superintendent Francois Cote showed up at 03:30 to give us a hand with the prep and by 04:45 we started serving.
With the financial help of our administrative staff we served over 30 lbs of sausage, 30 lbs of bacon, 200 english muffins, 18 doz eggs, 150 crepes and 4 litres of maple syrup.
- The organizers
- Stephanie mixing waffle batter.
- Joe’s crepe station
- Pat cutting the fruit
- More MEAT !!
- Lynne at the helm
- the dinning room
- Serving everyone
- The Martin clan. Excellent helpers!
Big Soul Project’s annual Christmas Concert
I had the great opportunity to listen to the Big Soul Project‘s annual Christmas concert at Dominion-Chalmers United Church. I helped our MedVent Partners provide to the packed house of approx 1000 people. The voices and music sounded great in the venue. Can’t wait to return next year.
The tree is up!!
We started the day with a great breakfast. Then it was on to Thompson’s tree farm. We have been purchasing our tree from the farm for awhile now. They not only sell tree, they sell an “Experience”. Sleigh rides, hot chocolate, cookies and a campfire…
Remembrance Day 2015
I had the chance to attend the National Ceremony again this year.It should be on every Canadians “must do” list. This and Canada Day. Approx 35,000 people gathered to remember, The people of Ottawa continued the tradition of placing their poppies on the tomb of the unknown soldier
Halloween Night
Another Halloween is over. At least the weather was good for the little trick or treaters. We had 85 in total. About 5 Elsa’s and lots of Minions. My parents broke their 5 year drought and had 5!
New Orleans – Day 2
Today we decided that we were going to go around Lake Ponchatrain. We arrived just in time to catch our bus for the three hour Katrina tour. Our tour guide Mary Lacoste, who happened to be 82 years old, was great. She is a retired school teacher with a history background. She went into great detail on what happened during the storm and how government agencies that were not working together, may have caused the disaster, In the end the Mississippi levees held up. It was the walls of the canals that failed causing flooding in ward 9.
- Mary Lacoste our 82 year old tour guide. She was wonderful. So full of great stories about the area.
- In the After Action Report it was determined that people in the less advantaged areas did not have cars and relied on public transportation, especially for evacuation. This piece of “artwork” is actually an evacuation collection point. They are scattered around the area and let he people know that if they require transport this is where the buses will be.
- I’m not usually into artwork, but this door that was turned into an art piece commemorating Katrina was really nice. It was the restaurant owners front door from his house.
X – Marks the spot
The Gallery:
- Fat Domino’s house
- Prisoners training Rotwilers
- The 17th Canal Levee. This gave way and the flooding started.
- Area below the breach.
- This area used to be filled with houses.
- Inside an abandoned house.
- Inside an abandoned house.
- Affected houses
- A park bridge.
- The New Orleans hurricane memorial to the unclaimed.
- Mary our tour guide
- The Katrina Hurricane memorial
- The Katrina Hurricane memorial
- Mary signing our copy of her book about cemetaries
- Getting ready for the zombies.
- Stephanie enjoying her “to go” cup.
New Orleans – Day 1
New Orleans. What can I say. This will probably be the highlight of the trip south this year. We had two goals. A trip on a steamboat down the Mississippi and to go on a Hurricane Katrina tour of the city. On day one we boarded the Steamboat Natchez. It was a 2 hour harbour tour of New Orleans. It included narration, live jazz music and lunch. Lunch….what can I say? I got to try CATFISH for the first time. It did not taste bad at all but it took a lot of will power to get the idea through my head. After the trip we decided to head out to the French Quarter and hit some of the famous streets. Stephanie had never been on a street car so we decide to take one to the cemetery district. The cemeteries closed at16:30 so we did not get to go in. The streetcar brought us back into town and we enjoyed dinner at Evangelines. The food was good. What seemed alien to us though was when they offered us our drinks in “to go” cups. It was cool. We ended day one by going back to Bourboun Street to see what it looked like at night. It was only 20:00 so it was not that busy.
Fontainebleau State Park, Louisiana
This was as closest state park that was available near New Orleans. A beautiful setup, washrooms were clean, lots of wildlife including deer, boars, alligators and birds. Our site was a little more open than we like but we didn’t spent much time in the park. New Orleans was our destination of choice and you had to cross the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway to get there. Its only 24 miles long and for 8 miles in the middle you can not see land in any direction.
- The open campsite
- Grilling hamburgers
- I planned on harassing the alligators but…
- The front gate
- The fishing pier over Lake Pontchartrain.
- The change house
- Lake Pontchartrain
- The glow of charcoal on the barby
- Relaxing…
The USS Kidd
USS Kidd (DD-661), a Fletcher-class destroyer, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named after Rear Admiral Isaac C Kidd, who died on the bridge of his flagship USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Admiral Kidd was the first US flag officer die during World War II and the first American admiral ever to be killed in action.
- USS Kidd without water
- USS Kidd without water
