2021-06-16 13:26
Looking for an easy Ottawa summer adventure? Try locking through one of the beautiful and historic Rideau Canal locks in a kayak or canoe! We tried it recently for the first time, and I had… Read More
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Postcards From The Mothership Blog
danigirl.ca/blog
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Award-winning Ottawa blog of Danielle Donders: mom to 3 young boys, photographer, writer, and professional dilettante. Based in Manotick, Canada.
2021-05-22 12:40
On a muggy May day that felt more like August, I explored Kemptville Creek for the first time. I started at Anniversary park, having heard they have a special kayak launch attached to the sm… Read More
2021-04-21 14:57
I spent most of the summer of 2020 kayaking around the Rideau with a few side adventures and writing blog posts in my head about my adventures, but never quite got around to posting them. I… Read More
2021-02-20 19:27
About five years ago, I was taking my in-laws on a tour of the Rideau Canal. We watched a pair of skaters zoom by us, pushing some sort of wood contraptions on skis. I was immediately fascin… Read More
2020-09-04 15:55
It’s been a weird summer, hasn’t it? Thanks to COVID, we didn’t do half as many little day trips and family adventures as we usually do, though I am grateful that my pre-te… Read More
2020-06-21 13:01
In the decade we’ve lived here, I’ve harboured a not-so-secret covetousness of other people’s boats. Many Ottawa folks don’t know that half of the village of Manotick… Read More
2020-04-26 16:34
How have you been faring during these days of pandemic lockdown, friends? We’ve been very lucky in that we’ve had the means and ability to hunker down and wait things out, and af… Read More
2020-03-03 00:32
I mentioned a few posts back about discovering a passion for knitting about six months ago. It’s hard to believe that it’s only been six months – I feel like I’ve had… Read More
2020-02-19 19:47
I have been a fan of Ottawa’s Andrew King for a long time. He’s a talented painter with a delightful whimsical streak, but he also loves Ottawa’s quirky side as much &ndash&hell…Read More
2020-02-11 13:14
I turned 50 back in August, and for my birthday I asked for some supplies to re-learn how to knit. I wanted to take up knitting for a handful of reasons, but mostly it was to have something… Read More
2020-02-08 12:53
In my last post, I mentioned that if I chose to go ahead with blogging (which I’ve clearly decided to do!) there would be less emphasis on the kids and their stories. And then don&rsqu&hell…Read More
2020-01-24 15:48
It’s been about six months since I published a blog post, and in the year before that I only posted a handful of times. I’ve been wondering: is it time to shutter the blog? The k… Read More
2019-08-18 20:23
Almost 10 years ago to the day, after our Dodge Caravan went up in flames in my one and only serious car accident, we bought my ‘little blue car’, a 2009 Mazda 5. It was so long… Read More
2019-08-12 17:03
Longtime readers of the blog know that we’ve been obsessed with sea glass for many, many years. I was first introduced to the idea when we visited Bar Harbor, way back when we were a f… Read More
2019-08-09 20:01
Have you checked out the newly renovated and freshly amazing Canada Science and Technology Museum lately? We went last week on an adventure to celebrate my birthday, including a stop at the… Read More
2019-02-15 15:17
This has definitely been the year of all things Harry Potter in our lives. I’ve been reading the series to Lucas for more than a year (we’re about half way through the Half Blood… Read More
2019-02-03 14:20
What’s that old expression, about never working with children and dogs? Clearly, I never got that memo.
I was looking back over the last year or so of my photography clients and realiz… Read More
2019-01-16 17:57
Over the Christmas break, I found myself with enough time on my hands to try a funky little photo tutorial I’d found online. (I mean, I could have done something productive like housew… Read More
2019-01-08 13:07
If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you know that Chef Michael Smith is my food bae. I credit him for pretty much single-handedly empowering me to cook, something I’ve g… Read More
2019-01-07 19:00
I found a great Shepherd’s pie recipe a couple of years ago, and it became one of my Dad’s favourites – so much so that I stopped making it for about a year after he died… Read More
2019-01-06 20:03
A lot of amazing things will happen in 2019. In July, Beloved and I will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary, and then in August I turn (gasp!) fifty!
I wanted to do another photo challen… Read More
2019-01-03 20:58
I don’t know why more families don’t seek winter family photo sessions. It’s certainly different from a family photo with the bright blues and greens of high summer, or the… Read More
2018-11-12 14:38
Dust off your jingle bells, dig out your Santa hat and strap on your reindeer antlers! Welcome to one of my favourite holiday traditions, the original and most comprehensive listing of all t… Read More
2018-10-19 16:45
Traditional head shots aren’t a genre of portrait photography that I’m drawn to, but when Maranda wanted some photos of her being herself in her amazing condo for her business we… Read More
2018-10-11 23:11
I don’t generally accept requests to take photographs at weddings, but not because I don’t like them. Being invited to document someone’s most important day is a huge honou… Read More
2018-10-07 13:16
When this family and I planned a fun family adventure photo session at the Log Cabin Orchard south of Ottawa in mid-September, we weren’t anticipating blazing heat and high humidity, b… Read More
2018-09-04 18:12
No lining up in a row! No poses! No stiff or cheesy smiles for the camera! No Sunday-best outfits! Just fun photos to remember your family as they really look and play in this beautiful mome… Read More
2018-08-27 23:06
If you’re looking for a wonderful little spot to bring the family for lunch and a lovely view of the intersection of Ottawa’s two rivers, we had a really lovely lunch one summer… Read More
2018-08-15 18:27
Planning an itinerary for London that equally engages two teens, a tween, and two kids-at-heart meant tempering some of the more traditional sightseeing options (“seriously Mom, anothe… Read More
2018-08-09 21:05
If there was a leitmotif for our trip to London, it was Harry Potter. I have spent the last year reading the books to Lucas for the first time (after having read them to the older boys sever… Read More
2018-08-05 19:04
I would not have expected that navigating through London’s (in)famous Underground would be as significant a touchstone in our travel memories as were our trips to the Harry Potter stud… Read More
2018-08-04 12:20
We’re freshly home from our epic two-week adventure in London and Paris, and I have SO MANY stories to tell you that I don’t even know where to begin. So, let’s start &mdas&hell…Read More
2018-06-24 20:33
This was the third year in a row that I met up with this fun family for a “day in the life” candid documentary photo session. The first two were so much fun that they ended up be… Read More
2018-06-10 14:02
It went something like this:
**ring ring**
Hello?
DaniGirl! It’s the Universe calling. Long time, no chat!
Universe, you old dog star! It has been long time! What’s new?
I’… Read More
2018-06-05 17:01
We’re back with more stories! In case you missed it, the adorably amazing Christine Hennebury and I have been playing a game that we’ve recently opened up for anyone who wants to… Read More
2018-06-02 13:44
We’re trying to eat more thoughtfully these days. I still like Michael Pollan’s advice: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” My brother has been trying to follow… Read More
2018-05-20 15:19
Over the years I’ve developed a fondness for photos of random things, photos that beg you to ask the question “why?” Lucky for us, the question “why” makes grea… Read More
2018-05-15 18:24
Help me, sophisticated travels of the blogosphere! With two months left in the year-long adventure of planning our trip to London and Paris this summer, we’ve arrived at the time for s… Read More
2018-05-13 13:18
We have three players this week in our ongoing photo-story game. Each week, I toss out a photo to a group of players, and whomever has the time and/or inclination sends back a story inspired… Read More
2018-05-06 11:21
Well this is wickedly fun! If you’ve been following along, for the past month or two, Christine Hennebury and I have been playing a little collaborative photo-story game. I send her a… Read More
2018-05-04 11:18
Dawna and I have worked together on and off for more than a decade. While I’ve bumped about here, there and everywhere, she’s worked in the same building most of that time. So wh… Read More
2018-04-25 14:57
Are you ready for the latest installment of the ongoing photo-fiction game that Christine Hennebury and I have been playing? Each week, I take a photo and send it to her, and she uses it as… Read More
2018-04-11 21:21
This week, I tried to throw Christine Hennebury a curve-ball in our ongoing game where I send her a photo and uses it for inspiration in a piece of flash fiction. Joke’s on me, as I th… Read More
2018-04-09 13:42
Every year on or around the first weekend in April, the Ontario Maple Syrup Producers host an open house. I don’t remember how exactly we heard about Oliver’s Mapleworks in parti… Read More
2018-04-08 22:33
We’ve been inflicting the pop culture touchstones of our teenage and young adult years on the boys, making sure they have a cultural appreciation of the literary and film influences th… Read More
2018-04-07 11:16
We’re deep into the planning of our once-in-a-lifetime trip to London and Paris next summer. We’ve got accomodations, flights and EuroStar tickets booked, and now we’re sta… Read More
2018-03-31 15:07
Last week, I introduced a new game that my friend and fellow blogger Christine Hennebury have been playing. I take a picture and send it to her, and she takes it as inspiration for a piece o… Read More
2018-03-24 10:28
Once upon a time there were two bloggers, who were also mamas, and who both liked to tell stories. They found each other in the big wide blogosphere, which was really not so big in the mid-2… Read More
2018-03-23 19:06
We’re standing in WalMart, of all places. I don’t even like WalMart and almost never shop there. But we’re in WalMart and we’ve just walked past several rows of paste… Read More
2018-03-18 20:52
Taking photographs at family events is always a treat, but for once-in-a-lifetime events, it can be a little stressful, too. This week I was honoured to be asked to document the Brit Milah (… Read More
2018-03-16 14:31
We had a dishwasher catastrophe this week. I’d just started a cycle when I looked over to see thick, angry black smoke pouring out of the electrical panel on our GE dishwasher. It&rsqu&hell…Read More
2018-03-08 22:22
Hi! Remember me? I used to post stuff on this blog. I’m back!
If nothing else, sharing photos of my favourite Ottawa places keeps drawing me back to the blog. You know how much I love… Read More
2018-01-07 21:43
You know what’s really awesome about cold January days when the temperature is hovering near minus 40C? You look at your website and realize there are nearly half a dozen terrific phot… Read More
2018-01-01 23:29
I completely missed taking – let alone sharing – a Christmas photo of the family, or even posting a holiday greeting here on the blog. 2017 was just sort of like that, you know?… Read More
2017-12-20 22:01
I was standing in the cereal aisle at Loblaws, having a conversation with their in-house dietitian about making thoughtful, nutritious donations to local food banks during the holidays. We w… Read More
2017-12-18 21:47
As I mentioned in an earlier post, we’ve decided to take the boys on the adventure of a lifetime next summer: a week in London, England and a week in Paris. I’m not the world&rsq&hell…Read More
2017-12-06 23:53
Have you heard this one? Facebook is launching a Messenger application dedicated to kids ages six to 13. Wait, what? Did you say SIX?
From their launch message, Facebook promises:
Whether it… Read More
2017-12-06 12:52
Last winter I spent a disproportionate amount of time kvetching about my boots to Tristan as we walked the dog after dinner each night. Our rural street is sidewalk-free and not a bus route… Read More
2017-11-22 19:34
You know what I love? Christmas. You know what one of my favourite things about Christmas is? Revisiting the same traditions year after year as the boys get older and watching them reinterpr… Read More
2017-11-15 13:29
Every now and then in my life, a luck bomb explodes. Circumstances happen to come crashing together in a way that makes amazing opportunities drop into my lap. One of those resulted in my am… Read More
2017-11-07 22:08
It has been a busy end-of-autumn run on the porch, so busy that I haven’t had time to blog about all the adorable kiddoes and their sweet families who came for portraits. Autumn is the… Read More
2017-11-07 10:09
Dust off your jingle bells, dig out your Santa hat and strap on your reindeer antlers! Welcome to one of my favourite holiday traditions, the original and most comprehensive listing of all t… Read More
2017-10-26 10:26
Like many of you, I’ve been listening to The Tragically Hip all week. Radio station CHEZ-FM in Ottawa played nothing but Gord Downie songs for a week, and even rebranded as GORD-FM for… Read More
2017-10-25 13:36
I think the paths along Hogsback Falls in Ottawa are truly one of the city’s overlooked treasures. I see photographers crawling all over the Arboretum but am surprised that I rarely se… Read More
2017-10-14 13:21
I have often joked that I’m going to ban kids aged 18 month to about three years old from family photography sessions on the porch. Toddlers are willful and opinionated and challenging… Read More
2017-10-08 13:20
When K and her family dropped by the porch for family portraits last year, it was so unseasonably cold that we wrapped the girls in my blankets originally intended for sitting on and then we… Read More
2017-10-07 15:20
I was wandering around Centretown looking at fall colours when I was enchanted by this bright blue morning glory, conveniently positioned with those crazy pink flowers in the background.
How… Read More
2017-10-04 20:52
There are so many great family traditions that we enjoy in the autumn and early winter: apple picking and pumpkin carving, forest hikes to enjoy the changing leaves and then raking up the le… Read More
2017-10-02 13:47
Now that it is October, the fiery reds, oranges and yellows of autumn are almost upon us! I think the fall colours are a little late this year, compared to other years. (One of many benefits… Read More
2017-09-29 11:58
I have been on a Fredrick Backman kick this year, reading A Man Called Ove and Britt-Marie Was Here and Beartown more or less in succession. Have you read any of his books? They’re qu… Read More
2017-09-26 20:47
Sometimes, when you’re on your way to work and you see an amazing photograph in the making, ya just gotta stop the car and grab it.
Like this sunrise over the Rideau Canal. In just a… Read More
2017-09-19 12:22
Once upon a time, whenever something of significance happened in my life, I made sense of it by blogging about it. Though I don’t blog as regularly or as intimately as I used to, I sti… Read More
2017-08-31 21:30
I didn’t learn about s’mores until I was an adult. We weren’t a camping family, though toasting marshmallows was an occasional but revered treat growing up. How I survived… Read More
2017-08-29 12:11
Did you know that there’s a 10,000 year old sand dune hiding in a pine forest in suburban Ottawa?
Neat, right?
The sand dune in the Pinhey Forest is an ancient remnant of the last ic… Read More
2017-08-08 10:39
Of all the things in nature, save for maybe PEI beaches, I think I have more photographs of coneflowers than anything else. There’s something about them, like sunflowers, that I just c… Read More
2017-08-07 13:11
Sometimes, I have an anecdote that I want to share like I did back in the day, but I don’t have a photo to go with it. Despite having my own stock library of nearly 6,000 images on Fli… Read More
2017-08-02 12:26
While La Machine might have been the most amazing street spectacle ever to visit Ottawa (no hyperbole here!) it’s not too late to visit Ottawa’s other fabulous FREE summer shows… Read More
2017-07-30 10:33
If you’re a long-time blog reader, you know that as a family, we have been stalking Chef Michael Smith for about four years now. We’ve long been fans of “the world’s… Read More
2017-07-28 18:11
It isn’t every day that one gets to see a giant spider and a three-story tall dragon performed street theatre on busy Ottawa streets. I was curious to see La Machine, the unique street… Read More
2017-07-27 10:46
Lighthouses are an iconic part of the PEI experience. In 2016, we even drove from one tip of the island to the other to earn our “tip to tip” lighthouse certificate! This trip, w… Read More
2017-07-26 13:47
We’ve just returned from our annual vacation in Prince Edward Island, and I have a *cough* few photos to share.
This might be my new favourite photo of the boys, taken in Souris.
I mi… Read More
2017-07-09 12:46
I was intrigued by the premise of the book Mitzi Bytes. It’s about a blogger who started her blog way back in the primordial swamp of the blogosphere, a dozen or so years ago, and who… Read More
2017-07-05 12:18
I have been watching the progress of Manotick’s new Remembrance Park over the last few months. It’s a beautiful project in the town square beside Watson’s Mill, designed wi… Read More
2017-06-28 23:32
Our annual first-and-last day of school photo is getting harder to execute – one boy finished school two days ago, and one biked off with his friends before the other was even out of s… Read More
2017-05-20 23:02
Today’s entry on the (never-ending) list of things I never expected to do as a parent: ordering Kool-Aid packets off the Internet so I could dye my son’s hair.
It never gets old… Read More
2017-05-19 17:31
If you’ve worked with me for family portraits, you know my sessions are always a mix of some shots that are more candid and some that are more posed. My favourites are ALWAYS the candi… Read More
2017-05-16 22:02
Five years ago, I got some of my favourite photographs of Parliament Hill, as seen over the tulip beds behind the Canadian Museum of History.
Though I’ve taken many, many, MANY photos… Read More
2017-04-17 19:51
My big-hearted friends are fostering a mama cat and her brand new litter of kittens, and they were kind enough to let the boys and I come over for a visit. You didn’t think I’d l… Read More
2017-04-02 12:27
Back in 2008, I heard a story on the CBC radio program Spark about Jamie Livingston, who took over 6,000 Polaroid photos – one each day for 18 years. That story inspired me to start my… Read More
2017-03-08 00:29
It’s a weeknight and Beloved is working late, which almost never happens. I’m in charge of making school lunches, which happens as seldom as I’m able to get away with, and… Read More
2017-02-10 20:02
An old bloggy friend reached out recently and said he and his family were thinking of visiting Ottawa for the first time this summer, and asked if I had any recommendations for things to see… Read More
2017-02-04 13:22
Last autumn, one of the final photo shoots I did before the wind turned bitter and the snow started to fall was a maternity session with a friend and former colleague at the Lime Kiln Trail… Read More
2017-01-23 16:46
I miss not working downtown anymore mostly because I miss creeping around with my camera. I’m sure the two most-photographed buildings in my archives are Watson’s Mill in Manotic… Read More
2017-01-18 13:13
I have been thinking about reading lately. At the end of last month, Goodreads kindly wrapped up all the books I read in 2016 (I’m fairly diligent about recording them) and told me I&r&hell…Read More
2017-01-16 15:39
Nothing makes Lucas happier than creative work – drawing, painting, building.
And nothing makes me happier than bright colours and interesting photo opportunities.
That’s a win… Read More
2017-01-04 12:33
When we first brought her home, Lucy decided that Willie had the right idea, and that cats lived in the basement in the big boys’ bedrooms while dogs lived on the main floor. Over the… Read More
2016-12-18 13:08
I have just finished my fifth (!) year in business as a photographer, and if you’ve been around for a while, you know that the origins of the photography business are right here on the… Read More
2016-12-14 12:45
The year we moved to Manotick was the year we swapped our almost 20 year old artificial tree for a (formerly) live one. Though I had never had a “real” tree, we have come to love… Read More
2016-12-11 14:18
Things you see in this photo:
* three boys decorating a Christmas tree
* two boys who are nearly as tall as the tree itself
* my boys are still wearing pajamas even though this is late after… Read More
2016-12-04 13:15
We are a family that loves routine, and the highest elevation of a routine becomes tradition. There’s few traditions more sacred to our family than the annual trip out to Thomas Tree F… Read More
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