Skating Through Nature at Countryside Adventures

KITC would like to welcome back, guest blogger, Stephen Johnson. Stephen Johnson is an Ottawa writer who loves to write about family travel. During the summer, when there isn’t a pandemic, you will most likely find him and his family at a local fair or festival.

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What could be more Canadian than skating outdoors on a winter day?! Perhaps skating outdoors through a forest trail and after enjoying a hot chocolate or poutine? That is all possible at Countryside Adventures.  

Countryside Adventures is located about 45 minutes east of Ottawa.  Ahead of time,  our family had concerns as COVID-19 numbers continue to rise, but my fears  were put to rest when we arrived on-site. Before entering the ticket booth area, everyone must wear a mask and it is one family at a time.  Once having passed through the ticket area,  we found there was a lot of space to put on our skates.   

My son, David, and I are used to skating at indoor arenas or venues like Rink of Dreams beside Ottawa City Hall.  In comparison, Countryside Adventures has a three kilometre skating trail that winds through the forest.  The ice surface was quite smooth and was comparable to the Rideau Canal. I am an average skater and decided to use a skating aid.  David is quite a strong skater and opted to go without. 

The trail was nothing short of magical.  It winded and wove between the trees.  I have enjoyed the Rideau Canal and numerous skating rinks but this was my favourite.  

The pathway is wide enough that it can safely accommodate passing another small group of skaters. There are also numerous signs encouraging skaters to stay two metres apart. The trail is also long enough that social distancing is easily maintained.   

David and I did the trail several times.  He even teased me a few times for not keeping up with him. There are numerous spots to stop to take the perfect photo outdoors. There are also many benches along the trail where you can take a break.  

After skating, we decided to relax for a bit by the fire pit. If you’re hungry or need a warm-up, there is a food truck onsite and we grabbed a hot chocolate to complete the experience.   

We are hoping to return later in the season to check out their nighttime skating.  The pathway is illuminated.  You can visit their Instagram page to get a sneak peek at just how beautiful it is.

Countryside Adventures also offers a cross-country ski and snowshoe trail when the conditions are cooperating, as well as a tubing hill when there is enough snow.   

Don’t worry if you do not have skates. They can be rented on-site along with snowshoes.  

Looking ahead to summer,  there are plans to have a stocked pond where you will be able to fish and do water sports like kayaking and paddle boarding.  

For more information and to reserve your visit, take a look at their website at: https://www.countrysideadventures.ca.

Stephen and his family were provided admission to the skating but all views are his own.

Family-friendly pandemic activities and "hacks"

Ten months into the Land of Pandemic. A lot of us have had to come up with new activities over the months to stay entertained, found new foods to eat (because everything started to seem boring), and the tweaking of work systems to accomodate everyone at home.

I thought I would share a handful of the things we’ve done and tried at our house!

Baking Bread

I saw a lot of people baking bread early in the pandemic, and many talking about their sourdough starters. I did not go that route, but instead learned that making bread can be REALLY easy. How? Artisan bread.

It’s usually 4 ingredients (some get fancy and add oil) and requires no kneading.

Mix flour (bread if you have it but all purpose was fine!), yeast, sugar and water, let it rise in the bowl you mixed it up in for a while and bake it. How hard is that!?

If you haven’t tried it and thought baking bread was hard or required huge amounts of effort and arm strength, check out some of these recipes. The recipes are all so similar I’ve never picked a favourite, I just google artisan no knead bread any time I want to make it again!

https://leitesculinaria.com/93789/recipes-5-minute-artisan-bread.html
https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/crusty-artisan-bread.html

Planted a pineapple top

Did you know that if you cut the top off of a pineapple and plant it, it will grow into a plant?

Pineapple plant growing in red pot next to original pineapple top

You can even get it to grow a new pineapple (but this takes 3-4 years so it’s a slow game.)

All you do is plant the top in some soil and nurture it. Eventually ours sprouted a new plant and that is the one that is really flourishing with the original top trimmed down and just chilling in the pot next to it.

We’ve already upgraded to a pot since we planted in the spring and will need to do that again soon. It’s fun to see how you can regrow the fruits and veg you buy from the store (we also planted green onions in the garden in the summer and they grew into new onions!)

Article on planting a pineapple : https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/special/children/planting-pineapple-tops.htm

Sushi bowls for dinner

Striped bowl with rice, vegetables, egg and spicy mayo with dishes of vegetables in the background.

Most of my family loves sushi but making our own sushi is a little too work intensive for us, and buying sushi is a little too budget intensive. So we came up with an easier way to get a sushi-like experience - sushi bowls. If you’ve never had a sushi bowl, it’s basically deconstructed sushi, or more simply put, it’s a bowl of sushi rice, with whatever you’d like to put in sushi on top. Or… whatever you feel like putting on top of rice :) My kids tend to like any build-it- yourself meal so I just put all the fixings on the table and they dump whatever they want into their bowls.

We usually have edamame, avocado, snack seaweed, some protein (sometimes it’s things you’d see in sushi, sometimes it’s ground beef, the other day it was ham) but they change every time. The photo I included was the time we tried to recreate the egg they use in sushi that my kids really like.

Then we serve with soya sauce and spicy mayo (mayo with sriracha sauce)

Here are a few recipes to check out to see how you could build your own.

https://www.budgetbytes.com/sushi-bowls-sriracha-mayo/

https://www.cookingclassy.com/california-roll-sushi-bowls/

Google Nest Wifi

Whether you use this system or another, having 5 people at home wanting to share the wifi, while two of them are working, has meant there are battles for the wifi strength. By installing the Google Nest Wifi (we have three hubs - one on each floor) we have been able to make the wifi stronger on all floors, and we can prioritize devices for wifi (my work calls get priority over Roblox or Netflix!) The other added bonus is that we can set schedules by device for when they have wifi connectivity. The basement TV doesn’t have internet access after a certain time, nor do computers. It’s been a great way for us to manage everyone the quite heavy wifi use in our household.

Family game nights

With all the time spent on screens, we’ve had to think of ways to spend time together off the glowing devices. We still do family movie nights, but we’ve tried to get a ton of new games to try for those cold winter nights. Some of our favourites include:

Left Center Right
Tenzi
Sushi Go
Sequence
Telestrations
Clue
Ticket to Ride

Let us know in the comments if you’ll try any of these or have any other hacks and foods and activities that have been popular during these pandemic times (and if you’d like us to share more of these!)

Cumberland Vintage Village of Lights: COVID-style

The Vintage Village of Lights at the Cumberland Heritage Village Museum is one of the highlights of our holiday plans every year. I was so sad to think that this year we would be missing one of our favourite Christmas activities! Lucky for us, the museum pulled out all the stops to create a beautiful drive-through experience and my family got a chance to check it out this past weekend.

We pulled up to the front gates where we were greeted by staff in a booth, and handed a lovely little booklet with a map, Christmas activities, trivia and fun historical facts. The directions were very clear, and there were places marked where you could stop along the route to take pictures. The speed limit is 10 km/hr, so there’s plenty of time to see everything you want to see. We were (obviously) asked NOT to get out of our vehicles while driving through.

The staff has gone to an immense amount of work to turn the village into a beautiful Christmas wonderland! If you haven’t visited the Cumberland Heritage Village Museum before, it showcases life in the 1920s and 30s, with dozens of heritage and reproduction buildings. There’s a church, homes, a schoolhouse, forge, you name it! This year, the village has been illuminated with over 30,000 lights, colourful vignettes and we even had a distanced view of the big guy from the North Pole.

I’d have to say that the highlight of the experience was a special radio program that you could tune into on your phone while driving through (and we continued listening on our way home as well). The radio program was created specifically for this year’s village of lights, and is produced in the style of the 1920s and 1930s radio programmes. It was so fantastic - the kids loved hearing old ads like they would have been broadcast, recipes, snippets of radio shows and of course, beautiful recordings of Christmas songs.

Another special treat was the delivery of a Santa-gram and gingerbread cookie decorating kit, all done with social distancing protocols in place.

The whole route took about 10-15 minutes, and the kids were slightly disappointed it wasn’t longer. However, we made an entire evening of the experience, by listening to the full 45 minute radio programme and making our gingerbread cookies at home. You have access to the radio show at any time, so it’s not necessary to listen to it while you’re in your car.

In all, it was a really worthwhile experience and I would highly recommend it if you’re looking for something to do with the kiddos this holiday season!

Where: 2940 Old Montreal Road

When: Wednesday to Sunday, between 5pm and 9pm. Runs until December 23rd

Cost: $25 per vehicle*
*Registration is required and tickets can NOT be purchased on site. Visit the website to register: https://ottawa.ca/en/arts-heritage-and-events/museums-and-historic-sites/cumberland-heritage-village-museum

By: Misty Pratt

Disclaimer: I was provided a vehicle pass to attend the Vintage Village of Lights. All thoughts and opinions are my own!

Holiday Gift Guide for Local Gifts

I’ve heard so many people are on the ball this year, and have already finished all their Christmas shopping in anticipation of the difficulties we may face with the pandemic. If you’re like me and have done NOTHING, then welcome to the club!! This little gift guide I put together is for anyone needing ideas or looking for something special to bring some cheer to a loved one. If there’s ever a year to splurge on special things (if you’re financially able to), I feel like 2020 is that year! I still strongly support buying experiences instead of more “stuff” but we all know how difficult getting out to do activities has been lately - for that reason we’ve included some online activities for the whole family!

For the kids

Handmade curvy board

A curvy board is fun for the whole family (seriously, they can hold a lot of weight!) and kids love being able to rock, slide and play make-believe with them. Misty’s husband Tom has been making these for years and always does a batch for the holidays. Handmade to order by contacting Tom of All Trades ($140 including tax)

A Culinary Box

Culinary boxes combine the fun of a cooking class with a collection of kid friendly recipe cards, kitchen tools, science activities and more. Check out Julianna Banana for a bundle of 3 Culinary Boxes to get your kids excited to be in the kitchen!

Hot Chocolate Bombs

Becky from A Little Bit of Momsense posted about these hot chocolate bombs and I knew I needed to get my hands on some - they are sold through Occo Market or Aux Delices Bakery.

Online Arts Classes

Do you have a child that loves drawing and painting? Since so many in-person classes are out of the question right now, we went searching for a great online class. Rae Wright is from Guelph Ontario (so now quite local to Ottawa, but this is the beauty of online!) and offers both kid and adult classes - we’ve tried them and my daughter LOVED her experience!

Holiday Ornaments

Want something to commemorate the kind of year its been for the tree? Kids in the Capital founder Lara Wellman is helping to sell ornaments handmade by her mother, including Santa and Mrs. Claus sporting their 2020 facemasks and Coronavirus themselves (also wearing a mask.) They cost $25 and ALL the money goes to support a local school - Charles H Hulse Public School. You can check out the designs through Lara’s Facebook account and place an order in the comments.

National Gallery Membership

If you are comfortable indoors for short periods of time, the National Gallery of Canada is still facilitating great family-based programming every weekend.

World Changing Kids Workshops

World Changing Kids is a local social enterprise dedicated to social justice. Workshops empower children to feel like they can make the world a better place and give them the tools to help do this! Check out their products and workshops available.

The Season’s Best Toys

Want to support local AND find some super fun games or toys for the kids? Check out Tag Along Toys - they carry an amazing line of games, toys and puzzles for kids of all ages. A few featured toys/games include:

Know Nine
Outfoxed
The Clay Date Kit

For the parents and grandparents

Locally made pottery

Monkey Mud Pottery creates local and unique pottery that make the perfect gift for a loved one. I’m obsessed with pottery, so this is definitely on my list!!

Home decor baskets

Pillows and Paintings is a local home-staging business, and they are now selling these GORGEOUS home decor baskets through their new boutique - perfect for any parent, grandparent or friend. There are many different themed baskets for all kinds of tastes. “Tin Man” has a rustic vibe (with local beer!) while “Tranquility” is cool and beautiful.

Local beer or takeout

Nothing says “I love you” like good food and drink! And with a lack of options for dining out these days, the new date night has become an at-home experience. Serve the kids some grilled cheese, get them to bed, and then enjoy local brews and food. Our favourites include:

Bicycle Brewery
Broadhead Brewery
OCCO Kitchen (and OCCO Market!)

Online arts classes for parents

Check out the following local artists for online classes for adults:

In Detail with Joanne Lauzon - an artist and creative play coach who is passionate about inspiring joyful living through creative play!

Hooking Outside the Lines with Robin Whitford - Rug Hooking, creativity and community!

Christmas at Saunders Farm - Light & Sound Show (Nightly Drive-Through)

KITC would like to welcome back, guest blogger, Stephen Johnson. Stephen Johnson is an Ottawa writer who loves to write about family travel. During the summer, when there isn’t a pandemic, you will most likely find him and his family at a local fair or festival. During the winter (when it’s not a pandemic), a beach in Mexico is a likely bet.

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Everyone will be celebrating Christmas in a different manner this year.  Different doesn’t mean a person cannot have fun and create new traditions.   In keeping with this idea,  our family decided to check out the Holiday Light and Sound Drive-Through show at Saunders Farm.  

Like many families,  we have been to Saunders Farm too many times to count.  I was curious to see how they would change the farm into a winter wonderland.   Upon arrival,  I could see they had delivered on all fronts.  The road leading into the farm looked like the set of a Hallmark Christmas movie.   There was a firepit where families could warm up along with a food stand where it was possible to purchase seasonal treats.  

We were there to experience the drive-through show.   That area was also festively decorated.   Perhaps more than the decorations,  I appreciated the short wait time to enter the attraction.  The ticket was a timed entry ensuring that there were not any hour long waits or a snake line of vehicles idling away.   

The drive-through route follows the same route as the Halloween haunted wagon ride.   I will not give anything away but it was fun to see how some of the Halloween scares had been transformed for Christmas. We set our car radio to an FM station that had an endless loop of holiday songs.   Of course,  Mariah Carey was one of the featured artists.    Holiday Light and Sound Drive-Through

We were blown away by all the lights and Christmas set pieces.   The lighting effects were far beyond anything I expected.   There were plenty of lit up reindeer and trees.   My favourite were the snow globes at the end.   

We drove through at ten kilometres an hour and the entire experience lasted about twenty to twenty five minutes.    It was so good I would have been willing to pay again to do the drive a second time.   

As mentioned,  it was an option to stop after and enjoy a treat while warming up by the firepit.   The farm shop also is open selling items like pre-cut Christmas trees and wreaths.  

We did not stay as it had already been a full day but would do so next time.  

While the light show was outstanding perhaps the thing I was most grateful for was just the sense of normalcy even for a short period of time.  We were a family enjoying a family activity and not worrying about the current situation.  

That is not to say there were any shortcuts for health protocols.  All staff were wearing masks and everyone was socially distanced. We felt very safe from the moment we arrived to departure.

Post-COVID,  I hope Saunders Farm will continue the Country Christmas Nighttime Experience. I could see this becoming a  yearly tradition for many families, including ourselves.

Saunders Farm  also offers a daytime experience where you can visit a Christmas market,  enjoy many outdoor attractions like the hedge mazes and buy a pre-cut Christmas tree.  Of course, it is important to follow all COVID-19 protocols and check the Saunders Farm website for any changes.   

For more information, visit www.saundersfarm.com.

Disclaimer: Stephen and his family were provided free entry but all opinions are my own.