A Year of Cupcake Decorating

Last September I set out to bake at least one new cupcake - either design or flavor - every month to spur my desire to be baking more often.  Plus, with the number of other cupcake and baking blogs I subscribe to on various sources, it was getting harder and harder not to try my hand at doing something similar.  Just looking at the 12 photos below, I can definitely see improvement in technique, both in baking and photography.  Hooray for practice! Now, my next decision is to either do 12 new cupcakes or move on to a year of cookie decorating.  What do you think?  Click on the month above each photo to be directed to that page.

September - Sno-cones

October - Fall Pumpkin Patch

November - Movie Popcorn

December - Fondant Holiday Figures

January - Superbowl

February - Champagne Romance

March - Rainbow Cupcakes

April - Bunny Butts

May - Taco Salads

June - Bird Nests

July - Hamburgers

August - Panda Bears

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Touring Anne of Green Gables' Canada: Part 2 - Prince Edward Island

An Anne of Green Gables themed road trip is not complete without visiting the beautiful Canadian province of Prince Edward Island.  This was the home of Lucy Maud Montgomery until she married and moved to Ontario at the age of 36.  She wrote her first two Anne books here and made it the home of her beloved Anne characters.

If you've seen the three Anne of Green Gables movies, while a majority of the scenes were filmed in and around Toronto (as I highlighted in my previous post), there are several visual requirements that had to be filmed on PEI, including the red sandstone lined beaches and ocean views.  And while our original intent was to go to the island to solely soak up the Anne sights, we were pleasantly surprised by the beauty of all of the scenery - from the farms to the beaches, from the lighthouses to the quaint "big city" of Charlottetown - and how friendly the islanders were with their surprising and fascinating accents that sound slightly Irish.

Green Gables Heritage Place
Located in Cavendish, where Lucy Maud Montgomery lived with her grandparents, the house that inspired Green Gables actually belonged to cousins of her grandparents - the McNeils.  Maud spent a lot of her time hanging around this house, since she lived just up the road.  You can visit that site as well, but it's just the foundation of the home - nothing else remains.  Two of the areas on the Green Gables property were some of Maud's favorite places to let her imagination run wild, and they ended up playing roles in her Anne books as well - "Lovers Lane" and "The Haunted Wood."

Time to make some plum puffs?

"Anne's" room

"Lovers Lane"

Haunted Woods

Village of Avonlea
This attraction in Cavendish is meant to replicate a small town similar to the Avonlea described in the Anne books. Every day during the season (July-August, I believe), there are actors playing each iconic "Anne" role, with a daily program including the reenactment of popular scenes in the first book: Anne waiting for Matthew at the train station, Anne meeting Rachel Lynde for the first time, Gilbert teasing Anne in the classroom, raspberry cordial, and the lost brooch. In between scenes, the actors wander around the shops and buildings, interacting with you and fellow actors while still remaining in character. We were excited to get a video of the Anne declaring my friend her "kindred spirit."  Some of the buildings in the village are historical buildings that have been moved from their original sites to the village, and others are built specifically for Avonlea. Most are now souvenir shops, but one contains a bunch of period costumes that you can try on and take photos pretending to be Anne and her friends.

Dalvay-by-the-Sea
This historical hotel was featured in the opening scene of Anne of Green Gables the Sequel. You can see Anne writing by the beach, then falling asleep while her manuscript papers fly away in the breeze. Next, the character of Morgan Harris is at a garden party at the hotel when he sees Anne trying to collect her papers from the grass, then offers to help.  Having now been to Dalvay-by-the-Sea, it's clear that the hotel and the beach scenes were filmed in two different locations because the hotel is not on a beach but on a lake by the beach in the Prince Edward Island National Park near Stanhope. Speaking of Stanhope, the Stanhope-by-the-Sea resort was where they filmed Anne's recitation of "The Highwayman."  Unfortunately last spring (2013), a major fire burned that structure down.

PEI National Park Beach near Dalvay-by-the-Sea

Dalvay-by-the-Sea

Two other sites to visit on PEI are Lucy Maud Montgomery's birthplace, where she lived before being taken in by her grandparents, and the Anne of Green Gables Museum.  We opted to skip these two sites due to lack of time.

One of the best decisions we made was to attend a performance of Anne & Gilbert, the musical. It was a small production, but the talent was big! We bought the soundtrack and played it several times on the road trip back to Washington D.C. This summer was its 8th year of production in Charlottetown, so I would say the odds are good that it will be back next year once it ends its current run. There is also the Anne of Green Gables musical, but it was not showing the weekend we were there.

Here are some more scene reenactment attempts from our visit:

And a toast to a fantastic end of a long All Things Anne tour of Canada...with Raspberry Cordial of course!

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Touring Anne of Green Gables' Canada: Part 1 - Toronto and Environs

I remember watching and loving the Anne of Green Gables T.V. series when I was a kid, and I will proudly admit that I still really enjoy it to this day - and own a copy of all three parts.  So when I discovered that my friend had a similar passion for the series, we planned a movie night and got to talking about our mutual desire to one day visit Prince Edward Island (or PEI) in Canada.  With my passion for road tripping, it was clear that I had to make this happen for us because we both had not been to several parts of Eastern Canada and some states up in the Northeast!  I did a little bit of research online about the filming and on PEI activities only to find that most of the actual filming of the movies occurred in the surrounding areas of Toronto, and not on the island.  So, clearly this tour would not be complete without adding in an Ontario stop, plus I could check off one more province on my Canada to-do list.  Here is Part 1 of the All Things Anne Tour from Toronto.  Part 2 in PEI will come soon after.  (Too many photos!)  

Here are my three primary resources for organizing the filming location and the All Things Anne Tour:

http://greengables.tripod.com/locations.html

http://legacyhunting.wordpress.com/category/lucy-maud-montgomery/

http://lucymaudmontgomery.ca

From Toronto, we spent one day traveling out to eastern Toronto suburbs to visit two heritage villages.  First up, Doon Heritage Crossroads in Kitchener is a collection of historic and replica buildings that have been organized to form a small late-19th/early-20th century village.  We watched the Anne of Green Gables sequel that night when we got back to the hotel and immediately recognized some of the buildings, especially when Anne goes in to town to visit the Post Office, then when she learns she has won the Rollings Reliable Baking Powder essay contest.  

The Dry Goods and Grocery Store was used as Lawson's General Store in the second movie.  You can see it on village panning shots as well as the interior during the contest announcement.

The Tailor Shop/Post Office was, not surprisingly, used as the post office (tailor shop on the left kept the door closed with the window redressed) in the sequel.

The Seibert House was used for Rachel Lynde's house in the first and second films.

Other Doon Heritage Crossroads filming sites:

• Sararas-Bricker Farm was the Hammond Home (1st movie)
• Covered Bridge before you enter the village (1st and 2nd movie)

When it comes to recreating the memorable scenes from the movie, I'd have to say that Westfield Heritage Village in Rockton was the better location.  Most recognizable is the Railway Station that was turned into Bright River Station, where Anne imagined spending the night in the cherry tree while waiting for Matthew to pick her up.  The actual bench used is now inside the station.

The General Store has the window that contained the blue dress with puffed sleeves that Matthew (eventually) bought for Anne to wear to the Christmas Ball.  The interior was used as Lawson's General Store in the first movie.  "Twenty pounds of brown sugar!" - Marilla Cuthbert

Next door at the McRoberts Dry Goods Store, you can see a re-interpretation of the puffed sleeved dress on a dress form.

Scenes from every Anne film were filmed at Westfield, so you may recognize the buildings in the background as you watch, like when Gilbert drives Anne home from the village in the first film. Interior scenes from the first Anne film were shot here - the orphanage with her imaginary friend, Katie, in the window was upstairs in the Dry Goods Store and Hammond House was shot in the D'Aubigney Inn.  The Moutsberg Church was used for Anne and Gilbert's wedding in the third film, as well as Matthew's funeral in the cemetery.  Finally, the sawmill was used as Hammond Sawmill in one the first scenes of Anne of Green Gables.

Heading to the western side of Toronto, we were able to stop at three of the popular filming sites, then spent the rest of the time learning more about Lucy Maud Montgomery's married life in Leaskdale on a private tour of the home (or manse) in which she lived with her husband, just down the street from the church where he preached.

First, we stopped very briefly in front of Butternut Farm (7501 Steeles Avenue) because it is now private property.  This farmhouse from the mid-19th century was used for Green Gables exterior shots in the films.  The foliage is quite overgrown now, as is to be expected over the 25 plus years since production.  Nearby, though we did not look for them, are a lane that was used in the movie and Dolly's muddy field.

Next, we traveled to outside Gormley to Century Mill Lumber (3993 Stouffville Rd.) to get a peek at the infamous bridge where Gilbert proposed twice, amongst other classic scenes like Anne's "Lady of Shalott" sinking. The present bridge is a replacement, and even so, it looks like this one is not weathering very well. Once I saw the significant lean midway across, I opted to not climb to far onto the bridge. A photo can be taken just up the pond, or head over to the rear parking lot of the church to access the other side of the pond without risking it on the bridge.

Just down the street is Bruce's Mill Conservation Area (3291 Stouffville Rd.). You will need to turn into the driveway, and just before the entrance gate to the right is the house used for the Barry family in the first film. This is private property now.

On the way to Leaskdale, we stopped at the train station where L.M. Montgomery disembarked from her journeyby train from PEI as Mrs. Ewan McDonald.  It is considered architecturally distinct with its "witch's hat" roof. (19 Railway St, Uxbridge)

The L.M. Montgomery Home and Museum is owned by the Lucy Maud Montgomery Society of Ontario.  We arranged a private tour in advance because we were arriving at an off-hours time.  In the basement of the church at 11850 Regional Road 1 in Leaskdale near Uxbridge, we explored some of the author's artifacts and watched an introductory film.  After touring the church, we went down the street to the Manse, which has been painstakingly restored by the Society from a poorly maintained public housing building to its present condition, based on L.M. Montgomery's photos and journal entries where she described in precise detail all of the facets of her lovingly decorated rooms.

L.M. Montgomery had published Anne of Green Gables in 1908 and Anne of Avonlea in 1909 while she was still living with her grandmother on Prince Edward Island.  When her grandmother passed away, she married Reverand Ewen McDonald and moved to his perish in Leaskdale, Ontario.  They lived in this house for fifteen years and had three sons, though one was stillborn.  "Maud" wrote 11 of her 22 novels while in this home, including "Anne of the Island" and "Anne's House of Dreams."  In 1926, the family moved to Norval, where Rev. McDonald's severe depression (or melancholia as she described it) became much worse to where he was asked to leave the perish.  Fortunately, with her success as an author, the family had more than enough money to retire in Toronto.  In the interior manse photo below, you can see replicas of Gog and Magog, two porcelain Staffordshire dogs that are referenced in "Anne of the Island."

There are several other L.M. Montgomery and Anne sites that we did not have time to visit while in the Toronto region.  If you're interested, I encourage you to check out the websites I cited at the beginning of this post.  Now on to Prince Edward Island....!!!

By the way, my friend and I attempted to recreate some scenes from the film.  Funny, right?

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