Getting our Christmas Tree

We love real trees. And so this year we are getting a nice 5-6 foot Balsam Fir hopefully. As long as it doesn't cost too much in which case we'll be going to the Quick Mart for a $15 little pine tree. I've heard there's a place where you can cut your own tree and they have cookie decorating and a bunch of activities too so I'm going to look into that as well.

I think that having a Christmas Tree Farm would be nice. Fun at the holidays and quiet the rest of the time. But as I don't know about the trimming necessary I'll have to do a bit more research.

Restaurant Review.

Steve took me out again last night. We went to a restaurant in Middletone simply called The Restaurant. I hear it had a different name originally but now it's under new ownership for the past 5 or so years by Peter and Bev Terauds who live locally. They, and their staff are very nice. So we went to eat and both decided on ribs with a choice of 2 sides. The selections include steamed veg, brown rice, fries, roast potatoes, caesar salad etc and we both ordered the roast potatoes and salad. Well, the food was fast, we spent the time looking at the local artwork for sale all round the walls. My ribs came with Apple Jax sauce, and yes it was sweet and mild, Steve had a BBQ sauce which he liked and the ribs were very tender fall off the bone and just use a fork type of ribs. The Caesar salad was delicious! The house made dressing was a nice garlicky and creamy dressing on a very cheesy salad. The roast potatoes were fine too, dressed up with herbs and not over salted or over roasted. We even shared some of their house made cheesecake and it was both creamy and tasty, served with real whipped cream (out of a can but still real cream) garnished with shaved chocolate. The crust was crunchy so it was obviously not sitting around for long. Our waitress, whose name I believe was Laverne, was very nice. The atmosphere was relaxed with nice music playing and we never felt rushed even though we later found out that they closed at 7:30 and we were there well past 8:30 chatting to the owners about some land they have for sale. The prices are good, about 20% less expensive than say Kellocks in Berwick and other comparable restaurants yet still very nice food. They also have a good selection of Nova Scotia wines and source a good percentage of their ingredients locally. They're open for lunch 11:30 -2:00pm and dinner from 4:30-7:30 Monday through Friday and open for dinner only on Saturdays from 5-8pm. They have good parking located on the side and they're located right opposite the Scotiabank and beside the Save Easy grocery store at the corner of Main and Commercial Streets in Middleton, the heart of the Annapolis Valley. Their phone number is 825-6099 and they take reservations and also offer take-out. The selections include burgers, fish, pasta, soup and salads and some very tempting desserts. Over all we'd give this restaurant an 8.5 and possibly higher...I want to go back and try some more of their food today for lunch. I think we've found our favourite restaurant. So there you go...another restaurant review. Steve was very nice to take me out for dinner again and we had a nice relaxing time, were home and in bed by 9pm, sigh, yes we're sad old people...maybe we lived in Qualicum Beach too long! lol

Gotta run to Kung Fu. I'll update later and let you know how our tree hunting worked out.

Free Book / Restaurant review Kellocks in Berwick

Today is the last chance to leave a comment and be entered to win a free copy of "The Long Bridge" by Nancy Kopoulos. So leave a comment now!

It's 7am, Saturday morning. Steve's quietly breathing away, asleep, and wrapped up like a burrito in the blankets.



We went out last night to Kellocks at 160 Commercial St in Berwick for dinner. Knowing that he might be late and that the restauants around here are busy early, we had reservations for 7:30 and just made it in time but by then it was fairly quiet. We had Steak and thai curry with bruschetta to start. So here's the review. Pretty good food for the valley, the service was very good, and it's a pub also so if you want a drink you can get one. The curry Steve ordered was medium/mild and he ordered a medium so it's apparently not overwhelmingly hot. The chicken in it was in large chunks, boneless and well cooked. The noodles were plentiful and a bit doughy but all in all it was a nice meal. I had the steak cooked medium rare. It could have used some trimming but otherwise was properly cooked and seasoned. It also came with mashed potatoes that were bland and gluey and roasted veggies that were very nice, carrots, parsnip strips and baby tomatoes all pan roasted and seasoned. The bruschetta was a nice diversion, slices of french bread toasted with garlic butter and the bruschetta was finely chopped onions, tomatoes etc and with feta cheese mixed in. Mild on the cilantro and garlic, we ate the entire plate and found it quite agreeable. Will we go there again? Yes, when it's 2 can dine for $30 or maybe for the prime rib buffet on a Wednesday. It's nice for a special occasion but more expensive than other local restaurants. One thing, the kitchen was pretty fast and that was nice. We were in and out in under 90 minutes even after a long chat. The menu isn't overly large and offers something for everyone. It's right on the main street in Berwick, has it's own parking lot, and we would recommend it. All together with drinks, food, taxes and tip we paid $65 which is WAY more than we'd usually pay however since it's our Anniversary and we're not giving gifts, this seemed like a nice way to celebrate and it's cheap compared to big cities. The breakfast and lunch menus are very reasonably priced! They are open for breakfast & lunch and have an upstairs private dining room that can seat up to 18. One thing, try and be seated away from the bathroom, maybe in the main pub or near the side door, because the bathroom opens right out onto the side dining area, you can see the toilet from a couple of the seats, YUM!

After this nice dinner together we drove back to Greenwood Zellers for midnight madness and madness it was. I've never seen the store so full of people and there was stuff piled everywhere. We got some shopping done for Christmas, just a little, and got the girls snowpants too. Meghan insisted on pink and as it turns out the pair I got her are a bit big. I've still got to get Kate to try hers, hopefully we have better luck. The boys insist they won't need snow pants so I got them new pj's instead. Here comes Kate....and YES they fit! Woo Hoo! Hopefully those pants will fit her for a while yet. She sounds funny swishing as she walks around the house in snow pants.

Well, time to get going. We have Kung Fu this morning then there are lots of things around the house I'd like to get done including fixing the snowblower and clearing more of the snow off the driveway so we can find the wood pile. Hope you're all having a good day.

Update: Kung Fu was really fun. The kids went and got a nice workout, Chris stayed home (after having a really bad start to his morning) for some personal time, and Steve and I discovered that nobody had shoveled any of the walks at the chapel so we did it along with Sherry who helped out too. The snow blower was Steve's job and I did the scraping of the sidewalks to remove any more slush and chunks. It was a nice day for working outside, sunny and 10 celcius (50 f) so we enjoyed it. Here'a a picture of a snow blower for those around the world who may never have seen one. The snow enters the front, gets chewed up by the rotating blades the sent up the shoot and out the top. Pretty nice compared to using a shovel.

Elizabeth