A fun February 2013

The kids ordered us tickets to see Sargent Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band, part of the Classic Album Live production http://roythomson.com/eventdetail/1258, at Roy Thompson Hall and dinner out at "Hush" on King St W. Seeing as this was close to Valentine's Day, Jim and I thought we would make a weekend of it and head down to Niagara on the Friday. Unfortunately for us, we received the biggest snowfall of the year on Friday and ended up spending the day at home with the kids playing Mexican Train and having homemade pizza. An absolutely wonderful day, even though Jim came back to defeat me in Mexican Train on the last hand. grrrrrrr

   

 Saturday still had lots of snow, but not enough to keep us away from Toronto. Making a day of it we decided to head down to Toronto and go to the Art Gallery of Ontario before dinner and the show. We were shocked at how much snow there still was in Toronto. The sidestreets were covered in snow. It was really quite funny. All the people who had rode their bikes to work, couldn't find them under the snow banks. There were cars parked on the streets which stopped the plows from getting through. Absolutely crazy. Dinner at "Hush" was wonderful, a small restaurant on King St W, really nicely decorated, great staff and a nice selection of food and wine. We will definitely go back. The show was a ton of fun. People actually came dressed up from the album cover, with epaulets, caps and moustaches. Needless to say there was lots of foot taping and singing along with all the Beatle songs. There were about 20 musicians, guitarists, drummer, keyboard, harpist, violinists, sitar, and a whole percussion section. Thanks Kids for a great night. Seeing as we missed Niagara, we decided to rebook and go down Friday the 15. We stayed at the Hilton, part of the Casino, and had a great room, king bed, jacuzzi tub, and a wall of windows to look out at the city and American Falls. Dinner was at the Watermark restaurant on the 33 floor of the hotel. Yes, we had to do the touristy things, a great view of the falls, all lit up, very romantic. The pickeral was done in a pesto panko crust, delish. And finally off to the casino, where we played "Switch Black Jack" for about 3 hours and came home with enough money to pay for the dinner and hotel. What more could you ask for.

   

A little glass of wine before dinner.

   

The next morning we had to pop down to the falls. I don't know how many times I have seen them and I am still in awe. The amount of water going over them every second and the power is just mind boggling.

   

 Couldn't have a trip to Niagara without popping into a couple of wineries. We stopped at Vineland and Tawse, 2 of our favourites, picked up a few bottles of wine and then headed home.

   

 We ran into some whiteouts on the way home. Amazing, the streamers seemed to go right along the 407. 

 

 A wonderful couple of weekends with lots of family time, including an early birthday party for Rachel.