Brrrr... it's cold over here!

Downtown Orillia

Finally... a full night's rest! I woke up today feeling mighty fine. We had a quick breakfast, put several layers of clothing on and walked to the bus stop. Thankfully, the Flamino's live centrally to a small shopping village (may have mentioned this earlier) and the bus comes every half our. Here, a bus ride costs a "toonie" - which is equivalent to $2. It only took us ten minutes to get "downtown". It was great that there were so many shops to look at too because I couldn't stand out in the cold wind for very long without shivering!!

The weather forecast predicted snow for the weekend and today was bitterly cold and windy! We walked into the coolest antique store first and spent nearly an hour there looking at all of the vintage clothes, jewellery and other collectable items. Carl managed to find some old Avengers comics in there! Yay. Needless to say, after we walked down one side of the main street, we had worked up an appetite! Erin and Erik had recommended we eat at a place called Mariposa Market. It's a bakery / cafe. The food there was amazing to look at. Little tarts and cakes, pies and cookies! Wow. I think Carl and I were feeling pretty guilty about our binge out at yesterday's lunch, so we ordered a salad. Oh and a meat pie and quiche. Ha ha. The salad counts though... right? 

It was there that we bought some pretty cool gifts for some pretty cool people! I managed to find the perfect gift for Jennie and Gordy. I know they will LOVE this gift because the LOVE talking about poo! We couldn't help ourselves and have already had a peek inside. We were in fits of laughter tonight reading AND learning all there is to know about poo. I can't wait to see their eyes light up as they read through it at the dinner table... :)

After lunch, the boys wanted to trek across town and hit the various op shops for more ski gear and warm clothes. This was a fabulous idea only it was about 1 degree today and with the wind, reaching lows of -5 degrees. I was frozen by the time we reached the first one and was about to kill them both by the time we reached the second. The sky had turned a nasty grey and it seemed to be getting colder by the minute, so we decided to go home. Of course, Ron directed us onto the wrong bus and we enjoyed a lovely 1/2 hour drive around the South of Orillia before realising we were on the wrong bus! The bus driver was nice enough to call down the correct bus and we got to ride that one for free!! 

Carl and I realised that we were on the wrong bus - OOOPS! 

We were going to walk to the shops and pick up some milk on the way home, but decided not to because it looked like rain. (P.S Milk comes in plastic bags here... like bladders? Oh and the cheese is orange. Weird.) Erin had been hoping to see some "freezing rain" today so that she wouldn't have to work as long. They call snow days usually when there is "freezing rain" because it makes the roads unsafe to drive on. That's a pretty cool excuse not to work that I wish we had in Australia. It was probably a good idea that we did go home, because it rained shortly after. I don't really want to catch a cold and as it is, I have wind burnt cheeks and cracked lips from walking in the wind all day. Grrr

So after dinner, we all decided to stay in and play a board game. It was pretty intense. We played for over an hour and didn't even realise that it had started snowing outside! Yes. Snowing! Real snow! As you can imagine the game finished quickly after that and we went upstairs to put on every single bit of clothing we owned. It was 11pm and we were going to play outside in the snow!!

Carl getting ready to throw a snowball! Snowball fight!!

Jumping for joy and the sight of snow!
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

I am a bit sad that I missed Dad's skype tonight though. It would have been pretty cool to show him the snow falling from the sky. Maybe soon..... :) 

Other than that, we are getting ready for a white x-mas. They play Christmas carols non-stop here and there is tinsel and glitter everywhere! Most stores are decorated and we've passed a few pine tree shops around too. That's just weird!! Well, I had better get to bed or I won't have any energy to build a snow man tomorrow.

Love

Janelle and Carl Xx