Canada Trip - Ottawa, Ontario - Day 2

We started off the day of playing tourist in Ottawa with some Tim Hortons.  Donuts for breakfast . . . Mmmmm!  I love Timmy's!  E really like the timbits (donut holes) too!  And their frozen lemonades were perfect to keep us cool on a sunny day...

We sat down and at breakfast in this little area with big staircase ledges you could sit on.  And we saw Chateau Laurier from where we were sitting so I took a picture of the family posing with it.  

We then walked past the hotel and had a chance to see the Rideau Canal and lift locks.  Very cool!

Straight on view of lift locks

View with Parliament Hill in the distance 

After we walked and saw the canal, we wandered over to the Canadian War Memorial.  Mic got his questions answered by a friendly person working at the site, and the kids watched the two guards march back and forth, keeping watch over the unknown soldier. 

This is my favorite picture I took on this day!  The kids were all just staring at the Parliament buildings.  It made me happy to see them sitting there on the grass!  Oh, Canada!

This is the peace tower!  We got a chance to go up the elevator (past all the bells of varying sizes inside) and see the amazing view.  We did not get to do a tour of parliament though as there was already a wait for like 40 minutes when we got there and we had things to see . . . Mic loved the gargoyles on the outside of the tower.

Ceiling inside the Parliament Building

View of Ottawa from up in the peace tower

E enjoying the view

View of Chateau Laurier from up in the peace tower

When we finished viewing the peace tower, the babies were getting kind of tired and thirsty, so we made another frozen lemonade pit stop on the way back to the van and then headed toward the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) stables *please hold your mountie jokes*  It was really cool to see the perfectly sharp black horses and hear about their breeding and training.

 Different horse shoes that the blacksmith has used on RCMP horses.  The yellow rubbery looking one in the right hand corner is for traction in the snow (only in Canada right?)

 

Stay towards the center of the aisles . . . sometimes they kick . . . 

After the stables we drove over to the Canada Science and Technology Museum.  I really thought the kids would enjoy it.  We got there an hour before they were supposed to close, so they let us in free -- YAY!  

 

The kids liked being hockey players and really liked this series of tunnels that they could run through that showed how data moves in a computer network.  Lots and lots of giggles . . . 

The locomotives were HUGE and very cool!

Who doesn't love a giant hamster wheel!  Fun to play on!

And this is what happens to cute little 2 and 3 year old children when you make them play hard all day . . . 

They crash . . . completely out cold asleep!

E's First Shirley Temple when we made it to Kingston, Ontario (at Swiss Chalet) for dinner