For Easter weekend we had a real treat–Rayna’s parents came to Toronto from Newfoundland for a few days. Rayna’s folks are from Newfoundland, and her dad is a super talented photographer, could it get any better?

Yes it could; for a start they actually flew to Toronto with flash-frozen fresh fish (because, we all know you can’t get good fish in land-locked Toronto) Rayna’s skills in the kitchen are exceeded only by that of her mom and her dad’s idea of a good time is poking around in abandoned buildings with his camera. People after my own heart!

We started the weekend with an amazing dinner for Good Friday, and Saturday the 6 of us (plus Kayleigh) took off to look for abandoned buildings outside of Toronto. We ended up stopping here:

And here:

And here!

I had already decided that her dad, Jerry, was a kindred spirit, but he sealed the deal when I decided to make the short, but rickety climb to the upper level and, rather than try to talk me out of it, he said ‘I’ll hold the ladder’. When Tito expressed dismay about our adventure, Jerry simply said ‘She was going to do it anyway’. Yep, 2nd day, and he knew me already.

We also had a bit of fun with Kayleigh. She gave us two good jumps for cookie before deciding we were ripping her off.

Jerry had mentioned a huge abandoned cathedral just off the 404, on Woodbine. I’d seen this place a million times from the highway, and always wanted to go take a closer look, but I’d had no idea that it was abandoned. Apparently, it had sat lonely on an empty plot of land for a very long time, but today there is a housing complex (named ‘Cathedraltown’) encroaching on it’s doorstep.

The story there is sad; someone spent millions to build it, died before it was done, and his family refused to invest any more to complete it. There was a sign on the plot indicating that it may well be torn down to make way for a mall.

We finished off the day at the cathedral and picked Jerry up on Sunday for a trip to the brickworks and the Leslie Street Spit, two of our favourite spots for shooting, but this post has become image-heavy enough!

Photos, food and new friends, a perfect Easter!