A day at Morin Heights

 I'm so lucky to have such fun cousins! James, Jane and Maddy live in Nashville but have a cottage about an hour from here in Morin Heights, Quebec. Above is cousin Rick (from Ottawa) with James as Nyla (from Tennessee!) looks on.

 Jane and Nathalie took a spin around Lac Notre Dame in their pedalo.

 Matt and Nyla got along great!

 Ooh, while we were at the water, a family of mergansers swam by. Fourteen babies. Oh my!

Nice to see first cousins Maddy and Matt get together for a bit.

 Richard enjoyed some "me" time with the water. So calming!

 Before dinner, Jane showed off her new chairs and a new sport she invented: chair yoga.

I'm so blessed to have such a great family. Most people don't even know their cousins. I'm lucky enough to call mine friends.

New York State of Mind, Part 3

We headed down to the West Village to the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop.

Here's me and my sis outside the shop.

For my birthday dinner, we headed to Eataly! OMG, what an amazing spot.

You can choose from a million fresh or dry pasta for take out.

 Besides pasta, there is a huge selection of everything you can imagine, mostly all originating from Italy.

There are restaurants scattered amongst the groceries, if you can believe it. We chose the pasta/pizza one. I had this amazing dish: ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta topped with lemon and pistachios. Yum-o!

And a last look at my favourite building in NYC. The Flat Iron. We rested in a park just north of it and I got to gaze at it for a while. Ahhh. I love NY!

New York State of Mind, Part 2

 We spent a good amount of time on the High Line. It's a former elevated train turned into a park.

It has all sorts of nooks and crannies. This one a sort of classroom where you can view the street below.

In certain spots, the High Line goes under buildings and has food kiosks. Finally made it to Blue Bottle Coffee, which was on my bucket list.

 We left the High Line and headed down to Chelsea Market where we met Richard's fabulous niece Jess, who is studying at Julliard. 

We had lunch and then went to L'Arte del Gelato.

Here's my niece Sylvie, Jess and me saying "Nom, nom, nom!"

 Speaking of food, did I mention the fabulous meal we had the day before at Jack's Wife Freda?

 A very loud, funky and happening place with delicious food.

I had the Greek and kale salad. Perfect on a hot day!

New York State of Mind Part 1

For my birthday, I met my sis and my niece in New York City. When we got into our hotel room, a lovely cheese, fruit and cookie platter greeted us. My niece Sylvie celebrates her birthday three days after mine, so it was a joint celebration.

 Our first stop was the World Trade Memorial. A very moving spot. We located the name of my brother-in-law's cousin who perished in 9/11. Very sad. Such a young man.

Here's what One World Trade looks like from the ground (to the left). The white wings look like a peace dove and I believe it is going to be a subway entrance.

Then we rode up the elevator to the top of One World Observatory. What a view. That square below is the footprint of one of the World Trade towers. The names of the dead are engraved around those squares.

 And the views? Spectacular! That tall building is the Empire State.

 Bridges into Brooklyn.

We had a drink a half floor above the observatory and all I can say is, wow!

Feels like summer...

 Last weekend it was so hot it felt like summer! I stopped on one of my drives to capture the beauty of a field of mustard. Great colour.

We've been spending most of out time outdoors, planting and weeding. Richard and I each have two gardens so it's time consuming. But gardening after a winter of being shut-in is such a joy. 

 When I finally came inside to pick up my phone messages (at 4 p.m.), there was a lovely voice asking us over for an impromptu dinner. Yes! Sounds fun. I spent part of the night visiting with their two cats, sweet brothers who hung around at our feet.

It was fun, and delicious. Lucky us we got to drink wine and eat pasta pescatore outside and we pretended we were in Tuscany. It's been so dry, no rain for the past two weeks, so there were very few bugs. Just lightning bugs which I've never seen this early in the year. A taste of summer.