I'm updating this list with more information. If you know of any more activities ANYWHERE IN THE CITY that involve free admission or free programs for children, speak up and I'll update the list.

• The Ottawa Public Library runs free programs (Babytime, Toddlertime, Storytime etc) at many (if not all) of the branches. You need to register but they are totally free and in my experience, really captivating. There is a mix of singing, reading, playing with musical instruments and interacting with puppets.
• Charlemagne Preschool Resource Center in Orleans offers a free drop-in playgroup every morning from 9-11 am and Mondays and Wednesdays from 1-3pm There are lots of toys and activities. It's mostly free play and there is a break for 'circle time' which is similar to the Library's program. Then there's snack time (bring your own) and more play. There are also some birds to look at
• La Coccinelle in Orleans offers a French language only playgroup on Friday mornings. I haven't been yet but plan to check it out so I can give more feedback at that time. They also host a variety of workshops.
• Boomerang Kids runs Strollercise year round (except for in the suburbs for the winter). Details at their website

• The animal barns at the Canadian Agriculture Museum are free from November 1st to February 28th

• The Canadian Museum of Nature has free admission on Saturdays from 9am to 12 pm and free admission at all times for children 3 and under. In addition, you can go to the library and take out the ‘nature card’ which allows for free general admission for a family if you wish to go on a day other than Saturday
• The Canadian War Museum offers free admission Thursdays from 4pm to 8pm, International Museum Day (Monday May 18th this year), Canada Day (July 1st) and Rememberance Day (November 11th). In addition, Canadian veterans and their guests (up to three) always get free admission as do members of the Canadian Forces (with ID)
• The National Gallery of Canada offers free admission to the permanent collection Thursdays after 5pm and free admission to children 12 and under for all exhibits.

• The Canada Science and Technology Museum offers free admission on International Museum Day ( Monday May 18th this year) and on Canada Day (July 1st) in addition to free admission for children under the age of 4.

• Park-ticipate is a free program at public parks that runs weekdays and is for children aged 4 to 10. City recreation staff lead children in sport, crafts and games following the week’s theme. Info currently on the site is for summer 2008 so keep looking back for this summer’s update.

• There are many wading pools across the city that are supervised and host daily activities and special events which includes a Water Play Program aimed at introducing swimming skills and water safety to children. They are free to use and a fun way to cool off in the summer. There’s one right by my work! They are not open all day long so check the site for locations and hours.

• Katimavik Preschool Resource Centre offers drop ins every weekday for children 0 to 6 years of age and their parents and caregivers from Kanata, West Carleton, and Bells Corners
  • Monday, Tuesday, Thursday (caregivers only) and Friday: 9am-11am
  • Wednesday: 11am-12:30pm and 1pm-2:30pm
• The Ottawa Catholic School Board has four locations for drop-ins. They are open every weekday and as far as I know, there is no limit to how often you can attend per week. They are for children aged 0-6 and a ‘light nutritious snack’ is given.
  • Divine Infant - 8100 Jeanne D’Arc Blvd. Orleans 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
  • Our Lady of Mount Carmel - 675 Gardenvale Rd. Ottawa 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
  • Prince of Peace - 1620 Heatherington Rd. Ottawa 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
  • St. Elizabeth - 1366 Coldrey Ave. Ottawa - 8:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
• The Children's Welcome Centre in Blackburn Hamlet hosts Monday and Wednesday Playgroups from 9:30-11:30 am. They ask for $1 for each child over 18 months to help fund their program.

On this day: In 2008 - Bobby's first hair cut In 2007 - Like being on ANTM but without the part where I'm told to sell myself short In 2006 - work potluck - f-locked In 2005 - another antm reference

So I just found out that as a paid LiveJournal member, I have 10 coupons that I can send out to free account holders. These coupons are for $10 off a paid account (for one year). If you have a free account and you want one, let me know! On this day: In 2008 - My BFF turns 21! In 2007 - A wish for free flowers In 2006 - Tremblant recap In 2005 - My mom and her gross make out habits

Get to know My Guests. Want to know who's checking you out? You can now view the 100 most recent, logged-in users who visited your journal during the past 30-day period with My Guests. For those who prefer to fly under the radar, you can update your My Guests privacy setting here.

Introducing My Stats. If you have a Paid or Permanent account, you can now see detailed reports on how many people are visiting your journal, friends pages, and entries (wherever they're posted on LiveJournal). You can also view data on comments and RSS requests. My Stats is only available to Paid and Permanent account holders, but you can upgrade anytime. (FYI, an annual subscription costs less than a large pizza with everything on it, PLUS it's rumored to make you lose weight in your sleep!) For additional details on this feature, read this article in paidmembers.

Get ready to check your vital statistics!. To begin, mouse over Journal in the upper nav bar and select My Stats from the dropdown menu (Horizon) or select My Stats under Journal in the side bar (Vertigo). If you're using another design scheme, you can visit My Stats directly. You'll find My Guests on the My Stats tool bar.

Happy holiday promotion!

We're delighted to tell you about our holiday coupons, which will help you share the love with your LiveJournal friends! If you have a Paid or Permanent account, you can send up to 10 LiveJournal Basic/Plus users a $10 coupon for an annual paid subscription now through January 15th, 2010. Recipients can upgrade for $9.95 (instead of $19.95) for one year by enrolling in our automatic payment plan or make a manual payment of $15 (instead of $25). Please note that these coupons are not transferable and cannot be used to renew existing paid accounts. If you're a Paid/Permanent user, you can send out your holiday coupons now!

Tweaks and Enhancements

1. The search is on: We've replaced our default search tool with one from Yandex, a leader in search engine technology. This means you'll get smarter, more granular results! To get started, enter your search terms and click the Go button to the left of the Find box on the upper right of the LiveJournal header. This will take you to the search landing page where you can further refine by Entries, Comments, People & communities, and FAQs. You can also access the search page directly.
2. Whitelisting: We've released a new option to help you moderate your busy communities more efficiently. If an entry contains a link to a whitelisted (i.e., trusted) site, it will be posted automatically without need for moderator approval. If a post contains a link that is not on the whitelist, you'll be prompted to approve. To access this option, please visit settings for any community you maintain and select the third option in the Community Moderation box (located in the lower left-hand corner). Click the enable link to custom-edit your community's whitelist, which has been prepopulated with trusted domains. You can manually add or delete URLs in the text box. Please note: If you're the maintainer of an unmoderated community, you may see the radio button for this setting checked, even though it's not active. This is a known issue. Please select whichever option you prefer and click Save Changes at the bottom of the page. If you're happy with your current settings, then no need to do anything!
3. TMI, dude: We've added some fun FREE sponsored vgifts! You can send up to 50 TMI vgifts to mutual friends (btw, you cannot send free vgifts to communities). If you're a Paid/Permanent user and you want to view sponsored gifts, click Show sponsored gifts on your homepage or visit the sponsored gift page. These vgifts will only be available through Wednesday, December 23rd.

You can view more awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for joining us. Until next time, stay snug!

After asking Jeff what mooncake tastes like, he offered me one to try. Originally we had discussed passing it around to various bloggers to get a variety of opinions. After 2 failed attempts to pass it on, I decided to just share it with my coworkers.


Here is is being sneaky amongst 2 of my 3 office plants.



It came with this fancy knife.


Does anyone know what it says? I'm guessing it says "This is a mooncake, it is filled with lotus seed paste and two salted duck-egg yolks" I could be wrong.

Here it is sliced open.


I went first. It smelled really good!


It did not taste how it smelled!


The yolk part was VERY SALTY!!!! and the paste part was mild and yummy. If the yolks weren't there I probably wouldn't have shared it with anybody. But it would have taken me a while to eat it because it is very rich, heavy and filling. So I shared it!



Some people liked it more than others. Most people described it as 'interesting'. One guy just ate a quarter of it and was all like "Yup, that's a flavour".

So there you have it. Craving salty AND sweet? Try a mooncake!

On this day:

In 2008 -
In 2007 - the beginning of the end
In 2006 - what type of life leads to an 'early' death
In 2005 - I wonder what ever happened to that unicorn...

Tweaks and enhancements

• As a number of you reported, a service interruption impaired sending and receiving notifications for a couple of days. This was due to an avalanche of snowflake cookies. We've removed the free snowflake cookie and unclogged the pipeline. Timely notifications should resume shortly. Please note that there's a backlog in our queues, so you'll be getting earlier notifications first. For more details, check out this post at lj_maintenance.
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Holiday vgifts are here!

We've added some fantastic new vgifts to help you spread holiday cheer. We also hope you'll honor AIDS Awareness Month by purchasing virtual red ribbons. Priced at $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to support the development and global distribution of an affordable HIV vaccine.

Introducing: LJLimericks

We cordially here do invite you
To craft a fine limerick. Might you?
Each week, a new theme,
Then a poll, that's our dream
Winner posted on news to delight you!

In honor of all the brilliant writers on LiveJournal, we've created a brand new community: ljlimericks! Each week, we'll enter a handful of limericks into a poll (which we'll tuck snugly under an LJ-Cut). The winning poem will be published in the following newsletter. In addition, the author will receive a virtual blue ribbon! If you have the time, come drop us a rhyme. Please keep the "Nantucket" stuff on the downlow, since this is a youth-friendly community. Our first prompt is: Insomnia in winter.

Photos of the week

We're back with more incredible images from our global photography community. Congratulations to sempre_marseeya, who has been awarded a virtual blue ribbon as the winner of our second lj_photophile poll.

We hate to squelch your creativity, but, as a courtesy to other users, please post only one photo at a time and keep the main photo no larger than 350x350 (so images display properly via mobile and on friends pages). You can link to a larger image and/or post photos under a cut. Just so you know, we select photos for the poll blindly, based on user comments and staff feedback. Please continue to vote, comment, and, of course, enjoy. You can check out the week in pictures and view more awesome user content after the jump!

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Curtains

Thanks, again, for joining us. Stay warm and safe out there!