A lover scorned!!!

Anyone remember me mentioning Josh's little friend from preschool, Meredith?

The little girl he says he is going to marry one day?
(the kid likes older women).

Well, apparently absence does make the heart grow fonder, because all summer long he has been writing her letters, drawing and coloring pictures for her, and has even sent some in the mail.

So I was pretty surprised when I saw his latest letter!!

I will translate for you....

"Dear Meredith,
I hope you
are having
a bad day
because I won't
do ..."

I'm not sure what he was going to say in the end.

But sometimes you just have to get something off your chest, ya know? haha

This is as far as he got, then I think he had a change of heart. Because I asked him why he didn't finish it, and he said he decided not to send it to her, and that he really means that he wants her to have a good day.

what a funny little man :)

So after having a fun playdate with Meredith the next week at the park, and then hanging out at the heritage festival with her family, Josh is back to writing her sweet letters again.

And since we're talking about letters, here's a good one for my garden:
It's true.
I have good intentions for my gardens.... I really do.
I work really really hard in the spring, and once everything is growing and looking good,
I get kinda neglectful... especially when I'm pregnant in the summer!
(I'm 3 for 3 here).

Oh well.
So the corn isn't as high as an elephant's eye.... it would be lucky to reach an elephant's knee!
And maybe I did let the remaining lettuce and spinach get old and go to seed....
And yes, I should have picked some of those cucumbers LONG ago... not to mention the weeds....
But....

there are green and yellow beans in my freezer, the pumpkins look promising,
and my kids have been eating tomatoes, peas, and cucumbers straight from the garden!

what more could you ask for???

We have had a pretty sweet harvest so far, even if it has been neglected!

Nova Scotia - Day 5

This was our last full day in Nova Scotia :(
We've had a lot of fun! It was hard to leave!

This is a picture of the area from the top of the hills.... this is the money shot!

Today we went to Halls Harbour, which is a huge fishing port for Lobster especially.

We saw the cages for catching the lobster, and even some live fellas....
Josh and Claire loved to look at them, but I think Josh was a little traumatized by the whole process! You picked out your lobster, put it in one of those plastic bins that you put your shoes and carry-on baggage on when going through security at the airport, and then you take it to the register where they weigh it and you pay. Then you walk your lobster to the kitchen and hand it to the cook... they seat you at a table, and bring you your lobster all red and ready to eat!
Josh just looked very disturbed by the sight of everyone eating their lobsters after seeing them alive. He was also very surprised to see that they weren't red when they came out of the water, and only became red after cooking them!

Here is my Mom and sister Veronica standing by the pier with Josh and Claire.
It was so nice having them with us and hanging out all week!

When we arrived at the harbour, it was about 2 or 3pm,
and the tide had already begun to go out.

You can see on the piers where the water line was originally,
and how much it had already started to go down.

I took a picture of this boat shortly after arriving.....

And then just an hour and a half or so later I took this picture of the same boat....

already beached!

I love how the name of this boat is "Tide Bound" !

It's really odd to see all the boats beached so quickly after arriving with them all floating!

I love this washroom...

This is one for people who are skinny, and for people who have love handles.
Naturally.

Here Josh is winding his rock up for a big pitch into the ocean!

Claire is so cute.
With her hair growing out a little longer now she will say "look mama!" and swish her head back and forth and her hair will swish around the sides of her face!
She loves to do that.

And here is my big little man :)
He must be going through a growth spurt,
because he's been asking for 2 sandwiches or hot dogs,
and eating them both every day at lunch lately!

Claire's hair is actually getting long enough that I thought I would give pigtails a whirl...

and it worked!!!
This is our first attempt at pig tails!

She did pretty well leaving them in... they slipped out a lot though, so I had to keep sliding them back on.

She looked really sweet in them.
And she really looked a lot older... like a real big girl!

I can't believe our little Claire bear is going to be 2 years old in just a few weeks!

Nova Scotia - Day 4

This was probably my favourite day of our trip!!

We went to a place called "Blue Beach", which is apparently known only to the locals... it was recommended by the owners of the B & B we were staying at because they often go there to fish. It is a rare beach made up of shale, where prehistoric fossils may be found and picked up just by walking up and down the shore. A local expert on the fossils had set up a tiny museum where he displayed some of the better fossils he had found. These included prehistoric tetrapod amphibians, insects, fish, etc. There were also fossils of rain drops, tree branches, waves, leaves, and worm tubes - the tunnels of worms in the dirt. We found several of these fossils just on our hour walk, including a tree branch, fish scales, rain drops, waves, and worm tubes. But we couldn't bring them all home. We kept a stone with the tree branch and fish scales, and another with worm tubes.... that is the picture below... the worm tubes. Unfortunately, it was conficated by customs on our way home! So this is the picture I took of it right before they took it away from us in the airport. Hehehe
We had quite the hike to even get down to the beach! And of course we had the stroller with us (seemed like a good idea at the time) and had a very steep and rocky path to the beach.
So while we were at the museum I asked the fossil expert guy where the washroom was, and he said he didn't have a washroom for the public, but that there was a porta-potty just before you climb down "the hill", so off we went.

This is what I expected to find:

However, this is what we actually found:

Deep in the woods we found the creepiest outhouse I have ever been in.
It was VERY dark, but the wide cracks between the logs gave just enough light to show me that you didn't want to know what was crawling around in there! Creepy.
I will never complain about a Honey Bucket again!
Heavenly, in comparison. The tulips are a nice touch :)

So anyways, back to Blue Beach... here are some pics of the kids playing in the water,
and looking for fossils.

My sister, Veronica, setting up her sweet camera.

Jason had the afternoon off, so we met up with him and had lunch, then headed out to Blomidon to see the beach and the big cliffs!!! This is what I really wanted to see the whole trip.
The tide was going out when we got there.

High tide was at around noon every day, and low tide was at 6pm, but then would fill up again by midnight, so it really filled up and emptied out twice a day. We got there around 3 which turned out to be perfect timing as the tide had begun to go out, but you can see just how far it goes!

The red sand was more mud than sand...

It took 2 washes of tide with bleach, along with oxyclean, spray and wash, and Clorox color-safe-bleach to get the stains out of everyone's clothes....

and worth every second!!

There were waterfalls running down the cliffs all along the seashore!

We saw this view while driving back and tried to find a way to get to it, but never found the way... so it will have to be admired from afar!It was cool to see the boats in the harbors banked on the sand when the tide went out!!!

We saw a LOT this day, and it was exhausting, but so much fun!!!!

Nova Scotia - Day 3

Today we ventured out of wolfville and explored the area.... we stumbled upon a lot of amazing views, a beach, and the Grand-Pre National Historic site.
This is one of my favorite pictures... it shows the rolling countryside in the foreground, with the ocean in view just below Blomidon rock - the cliffs in the distance. So pretty.

This was my idea of paradise... there were homes backed onto the cliffs down to the ocean in their back yard, and rolling corn fields in their front yard with incredible views all around. Wow!

The kids had a blast at our first beach.... Evangeline beach.

Claire is fearless, and loved the water!
It was all misty out over the ocean and looked pretty cool.

They loved throwing rocks into the ocean and finding shells.

And this is my attempt at a nice picture of the 2 of them....
"Josh, stand beside your sister and put your arm around her.... Claire, smile!"

Claire and I agreed that Nova Scotia had good-hair-day-humidity... no frizz, just curlies :)

We stumbled upon this church as we were driving along a little country road, and went to take a picture.... when we walked around to the other side we found out that it was a part of a national historic site called "Grand Pre", which is a commemorative site of the deportation of the Acadians. Whoops, we kinda snuck in the back illegally! But then we drove around to the front and officially entered the park.

Josh got one of those balancing eagles from the gift shop.

Love this picture of Josh (below)....

And now I'm going to add a little slideshow Jason and i like to call :

"CLAIRE VERSUS THE DUCKS" (helps to hum the "Jaws" theme)