Vacation time!

We're heading up north to the cottage this morning for a few days. Ahhh, nothing beats vegging out at the cottage without having to think of home or work or anything in the home area.

Here's a preview of where I'll be...



If you look in the background, you might be able to see a water tower sticking out from the top of the trees - that's Casino Rama. Just far enough away to not be imposing on us, thankfully. (click on the picture to get a much better view of everything in there - picture was taken in May before everything fully bloomed)

Then, a week from today we hit the road for Ottawa, the first stop on our two week trip. Looking forward to getting out of town and exploring both new and old places (let's face it, by now I've touched pretty much every place in N.S. and P.E.I. as I've been there dozens of times, but will enjoy showing some of the best places to Pene and the kids). I'll keep a running travelogue on here where I can.

A few countdowns...

One day until the 3-day Skillpath workshop in Mississauga.
Five days until we go up to the cottage.
Twelve days until we hit the road to Ottawa for our first stop on the big trip extravaganza out East for two weeks.
Twenty-seven days until I go back to work (the day after we get home from our trip).

This might be the shortest summer I've ever had. Ack.

Home sweet home

We're home! We left Halifax at 5:15 am yesterday and made it all the way home at 12:45 am - we felt surprisingly robust so it made for a seemingly fast and easy trip home with only minor stops along the way. The boys were really, really good through the whole ordeal, no doubt helped by repeated showings of Scooby Doo (in particular) and Ratatouille on the portable DVD player in the back seat. We also put them to bed the night before a little later than usual so they could have some last moments with their grandpa and also so we could tire them out a little so they'd sleep more often in the car. *grin* It helped that we found a St. Hubert restaurant that had a kid's play zone in the middle of the restaurant right beside our table so they got to both eat and play while Pene and I ate dinner, killing two birds with one stone.

It was a long but efficient drive. New Brunswick is a really nice province to drive through, but it feels creepy at times with the almost completely barren new highway 2 - we saw maybe 5-10 cars per hour the whole time between Fredericton and Edmundston. Still, it's a vast improvement with the straightaway 110-kph limits as compared to the old winding (and rather hairy at parts) riverside highway with the 80 kph (sometimes 50 kph) limits. We saved perhaps 2.5 hours worth of driving with the new highway as compared to the old one, so that was a huge benefit to being able to get home in a hurry.

I'm not sure why... but I'm back at work today!

Halifax - Day 2

Yesterday, our second day in Halifax, was rthe first true "non-driving" day on this trip and Pene & I literally crashed in the afternoon, just vegging out while my dad took the boys to see "Up".

In the morning, we decided to head down to the Keith's Brewery Farmers Market. It's now a farmer's market with all kinds of interesting displays - artwork, crafts, clothing, jewelery, wine, vegetables and a variety of cultural food and bakeries. It's in the original Keith's Brewery in a 1800's stone building, so it's an interesting backdrop for a farmer's market.

After that, we strolled over to the Historic Properties to see if we could score some souvenirs for the big kids back home and also a thank you gift to their father for taking the kids in on a non-scheduled weekend while we were away. To our dismay, we noticed that the Historic Properties was a mere shell of what it used to be - half of the stores were shut down and the food court area with original foods (none of that fast food crap) was pretty much gone. Only one food place was still open and most of the seating area with a view of the Halifax harbour was gone, replaced by a pub-restaurant. Oh well. We did find some stuff to bring home in a shop right by the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic (where several artifacts from the Titanic are preserved).

Then it was back to my father's house for some major vegging out while my dad took the boys out. Had a nice dinner with homemade Armenian meatballs on rice then we all went to Dairy Queen for dessert (my dad's a major ice cream freak).

Today is going to be a long drive to home. We'll just see how far we can get before crying 'uncle' and finding a motel to crash in. Who knows, maybe we'll feel up to driving all the way home but it will depend on how the boys are handling the trip.

Charlottetown - Day 2 and Halifax - Night 1

Woke up to the feeling of dogs and cats thudding to the ground. By the time we got dressed and loaded up on breakfast in the hotel, the rain had stopped so we made a beeline for the historic waterfront.

We strolled around the Founders Hall museum and Province House - historic areas where Canada officially became a nation with the Fathers of Confederation gathering. Bagged some pirate loot for the kids and some souvenirs for us at an Island culture store, stopped for some Cows ice cream (a place reknowned for having the best ice cream in Canada) and scooped up some raspberry cordial to bring home (it's not found anywhere except on PEI).

Then the rain took over again so we decided to wrap up our Charlottetown visit and headed over to Borden-Carleton, just before the bridge back to the mainland, to scoop up some more things to bring back home with us and to get a couple of stuffed lobsters (toy, not food) to keep the boys entertained in the car.

The drive to Halifax was eventful in that we went through fog so thick you could cut into it with a fork and knife. Did make it in a good time so we finally got to my dad's place not long before dinner.

After dinner, my dad and I did something that we've never done in my 42 years on this planet -- sat down on armchairs and watched the entire Stanley Cup Final game 7. My dad's not a hockey fan at all but it's a huge deal here in the Halifax area as Sidney Crosby is from the next area over from my dad's place. Still, history was made as we've had very few chances over the years to actually veg out and take a game in - usually we're too busy catching up on the news or heading out the door to catch some event in the area as we're lucky to see each other more than once or twice a year.

Tomorrow... Halifax all day. We might head over to the Keith's Brewery farmers market and take in the scenery around the Historic Properties and the waterfront, but other than that, we're just gonna veg out as much as we can while the kids go wild with Grandpa - got a long drive ahead on Sunday.

Charlottetown - day 1

Gonna take a page from Starshine here and do a mini travelogue if y'all don't mind.

Today, it rained. A lot. Literally cats and dogs. Tomorrow is going to be even more of the same.

The funeral service was nice and the trip to the cemetery afterwards was rather interesting - it seems that on the Island, they have a custom that whenever a funeral procession is chugging along the highway, drivers pull over to the side of the road. Every.single.car (except one) out of about 40 or so that we saw, they pulled over to the side of the road while the procession was going by. Interesting.

It was also interesting to see how the Islanders got together afterward at the home of my wife's uncle and aunt. I've been to PEI maybe ten times in my life, but this was the first time I really got to see a typical Islander's life in a house and the community getting together. It's a whole different world, folks. I imagine it's probably the same for someone being in Martha's Vineyard or some other locale like that.

We didn't do much tonight after the funeral and get-together, but did have a quite leisurely drive back to Charlottetown with the scenery to look at, and also drove around the historic waterfront of C-Town before vegging out in the hotel room and letting the boys run wild for a bit.

Tomorrow, we plan to actually get out of the car and stroll around the C-Town waterfront -- that is, if we don't get drowned by the rain in the forecast. Will definitely have to find some raspberry cordial to bring home and some souvenirs to bring in the car to keep the boys occupied for the long drive back home on Sunday.

A visit with my father

My dad's in Southern Ontario for a few days -- he lives in Halifax on the East Coast. With his advancing age and less than reliable health, the realization that opportunities to visit is dwindling is starting to hit. You just never know when it is going to turn out to be the very last time or if there will be more visits to come. That's why Pene and I decided to go out East this summer in the van with the kids, even if we can't really afford to do so - when is going to be the next opportunity to go as a whole family, seeing that Ash only has two years left before she heads off to college and we can't bank on my father being around for perpetuity.

Yesterday we were in Paris for the annual Springtime In Paris festival. I'm finding community festivals to be a lot more enjoyable than major productions in big cities -- for example, why pay $100 for the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto when it's overcrowded, hot, has long lineups for rides, etc., when there's the festival in Paris which is free and the kids enjoy themselves just as much with the five playgrounds, donkey rides, old-fashioned carriage rides, and a raptor owl show? At the Ex, a bottle of water is $3 while a bottle goes for $1 in Paris.

As it turns out, my half-sister has just moved to Paris for her first post-graduate job (Just had her graduation ceremony at the U of T this past Thursday! Congrats to her), so we'll get to see more of her and it might even get my father out here more often to visit since I'm only about a 20-25 minute drive north of Paris.

Today? I'm still deciding if I want to take all of us out for a drive out to Stratford and Shakespeare, just a short hop down the highway from us - they're noted for their Stratford Shakespeare Festival performances (this town was one of the favourite getaway sites of Mystic and her late husband). Or if we should head up to Elora for the afternoon with the scenery and unique shops up there.

Decisions, decisions...

All booked!

We're officially off to the East Coast in August! Pene just got confirmation from her work that the two weeks vacation request for August has been approved and I've just finished booking the last hotels along the route.

It's going to be a fun trip - there's 7 of us, including Pene's sister (yes, the one who lost her husband in January) so we'll have a full van. I think the trip will do wonders for her to actually get out and see things instead of hanging out at home all the time.

It's strange. Pene and her sister have been to Prince Edward Island (PEI) a dozen times or so, but they've never actually explored the Island. Their dad is a native Islander, but his idea of a family trip is to lock everyone in the car and drive non-stop for 18 hours until they get there, bathroom and hunger be damned until there's a need to stop for gas, and then they only have so much time to shoot some poop out and load up on food before he finishes refueling! Plenty of other horror stories to go around, with the topper being the day the family drove down to Niagara Falls for the day when Pene was a young gal, stopped along the parkway in front of the Falls, then after about five minutes, dad said "Okay it's time to go home!" Oy.

So anyway, Pene has since been to PEI a couple times with me where we actually got to get around and see some places, including Green Gables (believe it or not, Pene had never been there). It's time for her sister to actually experience walking around on the red soil there and see some sights, so I'm looking forward to that experience. Ever been to a place about 30 or 40 times in your life then it starts to get really old to you... then you meet someone and all of a sudden, that place starts to be exciting to you again as you get to show the way around? That's what it is like for me.

On this trip, we'll spend two nights in Quebec City, three days in a cottage on PEI, a week at my dad's place in Halifax, a night in Moncton on the way back (so we can see the Hopewell Rocks - go check it out here if you've never heard of it, it's one of a kind: www.thehopewellrocks.ca ), and finally a final night in Quebec before we arrive home. The annual Busker Festival will be in full swing in Halifax while we're there, so the timing is perfect. Always fun to check out the street performers.

Only three months to go...