happy birthday canada!

source: fresh.michaelangelos.ca

Yesterday this beautiful country I call [my primary] home celebrated its 147th birthday.

My day off looked like it might end up a washout when torrential rains swept in around 10:30 am. Not so, declared good Karma, Canada is too nice a country!

The clouds broke up, the sky cleared, and the sun made her appearance around noon.

source: lazyone.ca

A short drive to lovely Port Perry with it’s picturesque, Victorian-era downtown made for a nice day trip.

source: lazyone.ca

I’m still kicking myself for not buying the Moose Caboose adult onesie while I had the chance. I may have to go back for it.

Then again, despite living in Canada my whole life I’ve never seen an actual moose.

There was also a bear version, “Bear Bottom”.

Maybe one of each. One can never have too many cute onesies in their wardrobe.

Port Perry is located on the edge of Lake Scogog.

I had hoped that the lake might provide some respite from the oppressive humidity that has taken a strangle hold of southwestern Ontario. No such luck. According to weather forecasts though, the humidity should dissipate over the next 24 hours. Now that’s reason to celebrate! Where’s the cake?

Later that evening we decided to take in the City of Pickering’s annual fireworks display over Frenchman’s Bay.

Instead of driving to the fireworks, we packed a picnic basket [well, not really, it was a beat-up old backpack] with Baileys-spiked iced coffee, farmer’s market-bought butter tarts and some rich, dark chocolate, loaded up Mr. Enthusiasm with two beach chairs, and walked over to the other side of the bay. It took about 15 minutes of brisk walking, through Petticoat Creek Conservation Area, to get to a spot on the beach where we would have a good view of the fireworks.

The added bonus of walking to and from the event is that I got to consume my tasty treats with zero guilt. Move more, diet less is my mantra.

My plan was to take fabulous pictures of the fireworks with my iPhone.

Not so much.

I have since learned all about the apps you need to download to slow the shutter speed of the iPhone. I had no such apps last night.

GAH – lemons! My pictures were crap.

But since I’m all about making lemonade these days, I used a photo editing tool to create a sort of cool and Warhol-esque shot from one of my shitty originals.

I find it mildly amusing that the shots I took last year with my Blackberry, a phone that isn’t exactly known for the quality of its camera, turned out much better than this year’s batch.

Click here to see last year’s Canada Day tribute post. You’ll even get some Katy Perry in the process.

And finally, an oldie but a goodie, courtesy of Molson Canadian; a classic rant from Joe:

Hoping all my Canadian brethren had a lovely and happy Canada Day yesterday, and I wish a very happy 4th of July to my American friends. I’ll light up some sparklers on Friday in lieu of being there in person.

Keep moving!

xoxo nancy