Yesterday was Nole and my 17 year anniversary. We considered going out to dinner without the kids but ended up staying in. Nole leaves tomorrow early in the morning so we celebrated Father’s Day today.

I made eggs and sausage links for breakfast then Nova and I went to check out the playground while the others got ready. We saw a fox! Hard to see it even zoomed all the way in but I did get a couple of pictures.

It was really cold overnight, about 49 degrees and until about 2pm today it was cloudy, windy and cool. We found a parking spot for $2 at City Hall. The lot had these cool lights above the stalls that showed if spots were available. Red means it’s taken, green means available and blue are available handicap spots.

We walked toward the Parliament Buildings (where the Senate and House of Commons meets). It was really windy on the street that the Parliament was on so we headed to Byward Market instead. We popped into a bookstore there to warm up and caught a story time in the children’s section.

After we warmed up we headed back to the market. The market was a mixture of stalls and storefronts. We bought honey candy from a vendor and then stopped for lunch at a French bakery.

Esme was really happy to get an authentic baguette and a meringue and said it felt like being in France. I had a yummy brie panini. We walked back past the Parliament now that it was a bit warmer. We saw the Rideau canal on the way where boats can pass through the city.

We eventually headed back to the car and went to the Best of Times Festival which celebrated the 50s-90s. It was only about a block long but it was pretty fun. There was free candy, cotton candy, popcorn and sparkling water. There were a lot of cool characters there including a group of drag queens all decked out. They even had a roller rink set up with skates you could borrow.

After checking that festival out we decided to see what was going on at the Italian Festival.

At first it seemed like not much. Cal did some chin ups with help. It was more than the rest of us would even attempt! There were also some young people playing soccer on pong tables??

There was a crowd gathered at a stage across the street so we checked that out. It was an Italian gestures competition where the contestants had to decipher different gestures for points. After that was a pasta eating contest. Asa thought he might volunteer to compete but in the end Cal volunteered and was chosen!

He ate pretty quickly but those two guys on the right were pasta eating monsters! They finished their pasta in 2 minutes 3 seconds, beating the previous heat by 2 full minutes!

Ottawa has tons of cool statues and totem poles that we saw along the way today.

We also met a cat and saw a real relic, a phone booth!

Much to Cal’s chagrin we had ravioli for dinner. Needless to say he was not very hungry and didn’t eat any.