Maple leaf floating on McCarston’s Lake (Mono Cliffs)

It was a fun weekend for sure. Bdot and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary on October 13th! Happy Anniversary mon petit chou. To celebrate we returned to the Alton Mill where we were married. We always enjoy going to the Mill. This weekend wasn’t an exception. We lucked into visiting during Stonefest. With only basic tools there were teams transforming piles of (I’m guessing) shale into walls and art. It was really impressive. Each stone was cut to fit. It appeared like they were doing a life sized jigsaw puzzle out of rock. Inside we found the usual assortment of incredible art. Our favourite is still by far Floyd Elzinga‘s landscape metal art. We love his stuff. One day we’ll acquire one of his pieces! We’ll be returning to the Mill next weekend for the Empty Bowls event. We went last year… “100% of proceeds go to local food programs” and you come home with a lovely hand-crafted ceramic bowl and a belly full of hot soup. What a wonderful event.

Before hitting the Mill we filled our bellies at Ray’s 3rd Generation Bistro Bakery for lunch. It was a bit of a wait for lunch but the food was well worth it. The menu changes a lot at Ray’s. I can be a picky eater but there were easily 4 or 5 main dishes I would have tried. I ordered Veal Meatballs stuffed with Mozzarella with Linguine in a Tomato sauce and bdot had Beef and Mushroom Pot Pie. Damn. It was so good! I wanted to lick plate the sauce was so delicious and full of flavour. The pot pie seemed like a good choice as well. The wife tricked me into eating zucchini by not mentioning it when ordering the Chocolate and Zucchini CAKE. (Edit: Not Rhubarb! And NOT PIE :P) I was wrong to hate on rhubarb because the pie was great. The food was incredible, we always enjoy Ray’s. We picked up a bunch of baked good as well. The cheese scones were good surprisingly however the white chocolate cookies were not. I found them very hard and rather underwhelming. Hmmpt. Sunday we met up with my sister and Brother in Law and their dogs for a hike in Mono Cliffs. We’ve been to the Cliffs a bunch of times but it has never been as busy as it was on Sunday. Normally cars are parked on one side of the road about fourteen or so deep from the entrance. Well… Sunday cars were parked on both sides stretching about a kilometre from the entrance. It was a zoo. I enjoy hiking for the quiet and being alone within nature. Well it was like being in a Mall outside. When we reached the summit of the walk, a cliff that looks over the valley, it was ridiculous. Standing room only. It was like being in a busy bar. *eyeroll* So it wasn’t the hike I was hoping for, but it is hard to blame people since was such a lovely fall afternoon. My sister et. al. came over for dinner after the hike. I whipped up some BBQed sausage and veg. We polished off all the food. I guess we were hungry. We settled in on couches surrounded by dogs and watched X-Men: Days of Future Past. It was a solid action film with a curious time traveling twist. Perfect some tired bodies and mind to absorb. ⭐⭐⭐½

Who’s a good dog?

Yesterday we finally made it over to visit with our nephews. The hit of the day however was their new dog Lily. The puppy has a lovely disposition, very friendly and outgoing but not obnoxious. It certainly looks like she will be a wonderful addition to their family. It was a chill afternoon. We had a few drinks including the yummy Apple Butterscotch Cocktail and Guinness Black. Bdot ventured off with his sister to talk about knitting, I think they ended up on Ravelry for hours? It is understandable. The site is the most comprehensive I’ve ever seen for a hobbyist. I spent the afternoon talking about RC drones with Bill and watching Liam destroy cars on (I’m guessing) Forza Horizon 2. Dinner was personal pizzas. In the evening we decided to brave Homeland again. We gave up on the series a while back. It took the evening to get back up to speed on the series. We’ll be onto new episodes next. The job search has been pretty slow. It remains quite frustrating. Wow. My lowly Sabres are off to a heinous start. 4 goals for 14 against in three games. Ugh. I know a lot of people have embraced the tank but they don’t have to be as bad as they are to still get McDavid or Eikel. Sigh. Another long year as a Sabres’ fan. Joy. We aren’t sure what is wrong with our dog Tanga. She has had the runs for a few days now. We’ve restricted her food and we’re waiting to see what happens. Poor dog.

update

Aww. Forgot to mention the trip to Vaughan. Bdot wanted to return some clothes (at a store she should really buy stock from…) afterward (which eventually came) we went to Szechuan Szechuan (a perfect example of a good looking/ poorly functioning website) for dinner. By this time we were both so hungry we could eat the ass end out of a dead rhino hungry. So yeah. Food. Now. Bdot says we’ve been to SS before but I don’t remember it. The place is clean, somewhat fancy and the wait staff I found to be very attentive. Well… Our waiter was awesome anyway. We ordered, what we thought would be a lot of food. We always enjoy leftovers, especially from Thai and Asian restaurants. We ordered: Chicken Fried Rice, General Tso Prawn, Szechuan Beef (the winner!) and a side of Mixed vegetables. That poor Rhino never stood a chance. We polished off everything. We even ate the fortune cookies before we left. It was a tasty dinner for sure. A little pricey perhaps. I don’t think I’d make it a regular stop because of that, but for an event it would be worth revisiting.