Water Water Water

I have a sneaky feeling that I made a post identical to this one about a year ago. See once the weather gets even remotely warm I start to seek out two things, Water and Shade. I love sunshine, but I hate intense heat. I know I shouldn't even complain as I think we've actually only had 2 or 3 hot day, but even that means we get to stay cool with water. Like at the water park...

I have taken all the kids to the water park and Mary-Anne is the only one who litterally dove right in. She had no hesitation and was soaked before I even go her water shoes on.

 Charlotte loves the water park too.

And so does Robbie. So with 3 out of 3 kids loving it, I think we'll be back.

They stopped only to have a picnic.

Then back at it...

When we don't go to the water park, we always have the pool. It is laughable that this is our pool, there really is only room for Mae. I should probably consider getting a larger pool.

 

At the playground. She can climb most ladders, better than I wish she could. But this one was too tough for her. Thank goodness. She really is a handful at the playground. Either she is climbing (too much for her own good) or she is eating rocks. On this day she actually swallowed one, and then looked at me with her hands out to the side as if to say "Where did it go?" She knew darn well where it went and thought she was being funny.

Mae's best bud is Colonel. Here they are in the morning, Mae normally give Colonel a treat in the morning but we were out of treats so I told her to give him a cracker. First she decided she needed a bite.

At least she knows how to share!?!?

Summer in the Maritimes does still mean rain. And in July when Mike is way more than he is around, it means that we have to walk the dog rain or shine.

 Robbie found a snail and was equally as proud of his find.

On this day Charlotte found a frog. Colonel's walk was cut short as she wanted to show Syd (or neighbour) the frog. Syd still in her pj's wasn't so sure of discoveries. She liked both the frog and the snail, but was not interested in holding them.

Then she had a great idea to put on a glove to hold the snail.

But still not even a glove would be enough for her to hold the frog. It was really funny.

Mae loves her baby's almost as much as her dogs. Here she is taking the baby for a walk.

 Meanwhile Robbie is always hard a work. He shovels the gravel in the driveway and ditch making piles and moving them around. It keeps him occupied for hours at a time.

We went to visit the Bower's at their cottage in Bridgewater.

Charlotte has always and will always adore Jessie, but how can you not adore Jessie.

Janice on the super floaty with the kids. This thing can hold 10 adults and is super fun. I went out wiht Mae too, she liked it but I couldn't take my camera because it would have surely gotten wet.

Yummy! Watermelon on a hot day.

Just being a boy, dumptruck and gravel... again hours of fun.

Charlotte and Jessie still on the floaty



Canada Day Weekend

This Canada Day weekend we chose to stay at home. Normally we have the opportunity to go visit friends at their cottages in Bridgewater, or Lunenburg. We’ve also taken trips down to White Point, but neither Mike nor I were really up for a road trip. So we stayed home, and what a good choice that was.

On July 1 we went into Halifax to watch the Parade. This parade was a combination of a Canada Day Celebration and the parade for the International Tattoo. It was one of the best parades I've seen in a long time. There were marching bands, dancers, acrobats, military and police from not only Canada but the globe. It was entertaining to say the least! And I am very interested in taking in the Tattoo one year soon. Also in a future Canada Day we play to take in the fireworks, there is just no way those kids could stay up to 10pm right now.

The down moment of Canada Day was when the kids found out our bunny Hopsy died. Charlotte was distressed and cried and cried. Robbie asked if we could get a cat now? I guess they felt differently about the rabbit.

The next day we decided to spend the morning going for a boat ride and then have a wiener roast on Herne Island. As we were leaving we could tell there was a fog bank out to sea. It was about 9am and there was no worry, as the heat of the day was still due to arrive and that would let the fog burn off. The island was lots of fun. We wanted to do another treasure hunt but we’d only decided late in the week so I didn’t have a map made and no time to make a map. Instead we grabbed some seashells from the dollar store and Mike had gone out the night before and sprinkled them all over the beach. The next day most of the shells were still there and the kids hunted and dug for them for a good 30 minutes. Charlotte just kept repeating “We are so lucky”. The shells we bought were not native to our waters and would have been shipped from either the Caribbean or the Pacific Ocean. Since there is no way we found them all, I had a little chuckle when I thought of some Nova Scotian coming along later in the weekend and finding a beautiful shell that has no business in the Atlantic Ocean. Just as we were about to start the wiener roast we noticed the fog was starting to roll back in. Fog is not good! Mike was attempting to judge if we should go or stay. Remember we are novices when it comes to this sort of thing. My side of the situation was… we have water, food, shelter (the cuddy of the boat), the fog will eventually go, so lets stay. Mike’s side was that we don’t want to be stuck out here all day so lets get ahead of the fog. Amazing, I did not panic. I am prone to panic when it comes to water situations, but I was calm. However Mike said lets go, so we had to go. I think he estimated two things wrong… the first how long it takes to pack up a family of 5 and a dog onto a boat. The second is how fast that fog was moving. We got into the boat, set off and then stopped. Uncertain Mike asked me what we should do. “Huh Me?”. Well my feet are happier on land, so I said “Go back”. And it was a good choice. That fog was thick. We would have gotten lost for sure. We waited and waited, as this fog completely engulfed us. I also saw another side of Charlotte that confirms she is like me. She was sick with worry. She was scared. She just wanted to go home. I tried to explain to her that we were fine, we had food, water, there were still hours and hours of daylight and the fog would go away soon, and if we get too scared, we have our phones and can call for help. Still the instant that fog broke we set off, and sure enough by the time we got into the bay, we looked back and it was pea soup again. It just seemed to be that sort of day, fog rolls in, fog rolls out.

Although it was foggy out to sea it was sunny and beautiful in land and we finished out weiner roast at home, and spent the rest of the day in the back yard, and later in the day we had Bonnie, Billy, Danny, Victoria, and my mom for a BBQ. Sunday was a nice end to the weekend, just spending time on James Street. We did go to the pond to hunt for tadpoles. We even found some and took them home. However once we got them home I wasn't sure if we should keep them. I like frogs and if we had an aquarium I would have kept it for sure. But the idea of a bucket of pond water on my kitchen counter for the next few months didn't appeal to me. Plus after loosing Hopsy this weekend, I thought having something else die wouldn't be good. So we decided tadpoles and frogs should "Live Free and In the Wild". That is a quote from the kids favorite show, Wild Krats.

Getting our tattoos on.

 Getting the balloons

 No rush to get to the parade site, so a little trip through the beautiful public gardens

 Waiting along the parade route

 Hooray parade time!

 Waving to the dancers

A picnic on Citadel Hill

 Charlotte and Mae were sitting nicely and eating, but where was Robbie???

He was running to the top of Citadel Hill...

 And rolling all the way down.

 Charlotte and mommy climbing a tree

Getting a ride on Daddy's shoulders

The final touch... Ice Cream!!!

Boating. Look at poor Colonel with Mae's hat on.

 I think Mae needs her hat

Swimming at Herne Island

 The night before Mike spread fancy sea shells that we bought from the dollar store all over the beach. Most of them were still there and the kids had great fun finding them. Good thing they don't know that the shells native to, oh lets say the Carribean, don't actually exists in the N.Atlantic.

 Pointing out a few they didn't see.

Back home on the swing.

 Charlotte wanted to play with the hose.

Mae didn't stay dry very long.

 Neither did Robbie

 Then there is the attraction of spraying ones self in the face.