Last days of summer

This is my third post of the day, a new record for me! Short and sweet, just a small taste of what's been going on lately.

There is definitely a fall chill in the air - something I look forward to every year. Autumn is my absolute favourite time of the year!! Warm days, cool nights, falling leaves, that autumn smell in the air; sweaters, jeans, fall harvest, crisp apples (and pie!!), stews and soups. hmmm.... is there anything better?


Our last visit to Shubie Park, one of our favourite places to go for a hike.

Not much else going on. Work is going well. It's nice now that it is busy, I actually feel useful. When it was really slow for the last three weeks of August, it made me wonder if it's worth it to be away from my kids to just sit at my desk and try to look busy. But now that all the students are back I feel the energy and excitement of the new school year and it's way more fun. I have been asked to stay for a few more weeks into October. They recently filled three positions and will probably do a competition for the other two soon (including the job I'm currently working) so we'll see what next month brings. Whatever will be will be.

Cheers everyone! Happy Back to School :)

That could be you mommy....

Whenever we read a story together, Amelia likes to assign who's who in the story. "That could be mommy, that could be daddy, that could be Amelia and that could be Ember...." Sometimes even down to which storybook characters are Knuckles and Melvin.

I had to share this most recent one with everyone. Out of all the cute animals in the story, she grabbed this page and named the characters after Mommy, Amelia and Ember. Guess who I was.

I was so.... flattered??

It is a really cute book, none-the-less. The ultimate guide to grandmas and grandpas - we are reading up in preparation for a visit from my parents.

Preschool!

First day of preschool for my big girl!!! ~~ *sniff

We're still here!

We've been enjoying what is apparently the warmest summer on record in Nova Scotia. I haven't posted in a long time simply because I am too lazy and tired at the end of the day. We have been enjoying the weather too much to be inside.  Maybe I'll have to take Ron's laptop outside to blog, haha....

I am going to have to remember how to use my oven again after eating salads for almost the entire month of August. It has been way too hot to use the oven and even using the BBQ on our unshaded, south-facing deck is uncomfortable and generally feels like too much work.

I've also been getting a lot of use out of our ice cream maker, which has been a god-send. I love just throwing in vanilla yogurt and mix, mix, mix!! It's amazing how much better it tastes when it's frozen (and not just a frozen block, but stirred with tiny ice crystals forming.... divine!!)

Let's see if I can find some pics....

Eating sushi and noodles 

Ember making silly faces while eating her "mommy" beans (edemame)

Ron is on vacation too, so he and the girls have been having fun for the past few days.

Playing in the stream by our new favourite park

Can anybody tell me where July went?

....or the first week and a half of August, for that matter???

We've been keeping busy for the past month, the summer as always seems to breeze past too quickly.

Playing tourist in our new province is still our main objective. We have checked out three new beaches and still have more on our list. Last weekend we were at Lawrence Town beach (the surfer beach) even though it was very cloudy and misty. It is sometimes fun to go to the beach even if you can't sit and enjoy the sun. You really get a chance to see the power of the ocean on a day like that. We collected rocks and walked along the beach as we watched the surfers try to catch the small waves coming in. The water actually seemed warmer than it does on a hot day - I'm not sure how that works!

Playing with a green caterpillar! I've succeeded in not passing on my fear of bugs!! (so far)

The girls are really enjoying going over to Rhonda's while I'm at work. Sometimes if I stay too long to talk to Rhonda in the morning Amelia tells me "Mommy you leave now" - it's quite amusing. The come back happy and very tired -both girls have been napping almost every day. I asked Rhonda if she's feeding them drugs or something but I think it's just that she makes a point of getting out every single day so they aren't cooped up in the house. Plus I think it takes extra energy for the girls to be good when they are at her house, so they are exhausted when they come home hahaha....  ;-D

one of our favourite activities

Work is going pretty good. Working half days is a good transition for all of us. I think we have all adjusted well. Except, that is, for Knuckles. He still follows me around all morning before we leave and if I stop for more than three seconds he is sitting by my feet looking at me with sad eyes.

The work itself is good, it feels good to use a different part of my brain again. It is very quiet right now, since it's an academic library and there are no students, but in another two weeks it's going to be mayhem!! That will be when I really see if I like the job or not. I guess I shouldn't say that, it's not that I don't like the job, it's that I have to fork over 3/4 of my paycheck to pay for child care - which as all working mothers know makes you wonder if it's worth it.

I applied for a similar position at another campus (there are three campuses in the Metro Halifax area) which is mere minutes from our house. If I get it, it would be full time - so maybe only half of my paycheck would go towards child care!

Chasing daddy on the front lawn!

Regardless, it's been nice for the girls and I to have a "break" from each other so we appreciate our time together on the weekends. It also feels great to have money in my account that I earned, for the first time in 4 years!!

Cheers everyone!

El Mustachio

Ron's going to kill me for this post, but I can't help it. I found some older photos that I forgot about on the laptop.

Here is the reason why he should never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever grow a moustache again. The results are too funny to take him seriously.

And one more, shot in the "white trash" style:

I saw some ships a sailin'

So I finally am getting around to putting up pictures from last week of the tall ships. I love this festival! I could have gone both days on the weekend but I don't think the kids would have been up for it. There was a pirate activity centre with lots of neat stuff but you can only do that so many times...

The ship in the back with the slanted masts is a replica of the Amistad (you may remember the film) which has a very sad history. The story is better told in this link, if you are interested http://my-waterfront.ca/tallships/the-fleet?ship=19

What I found interesting is that all the ships look so much larger in the photos but when you get on them they are much smaller (most of them) I cannot imagine living on some of them and the conditions that people must have endured (especially slaves who were packed in level on top of level)

A look at the front end of the Amistad. The man in red is part of the crew that tells the story and answers questions.

The next ship was actually bigger than it looked in the photo, this one is American (of course) that was taken from the Germans as part of war reparations. It's now part of the US coast guard fleet.

Click here for more info

Ember refused to be in the photo :(

I love how all the rigging looks, and especially with the sails up

We only got to tour about four boats since it takes a while and Ember petered out quickly. Ron was nice enough to take Ember home for nap time and let Amelia and I stay to look. The last boat we saw was the Bounty (you may also remember the film "Mutiny on the Bounty")

This ship was also used in two of the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

Amelia unhappily posing so you can see the scale of the "baby canons" on the Bounty. We left shortly after.

In all it was an awesome day, warm but not hot with a cool breeze. Tonnes to see and do. It was soooo busy. There was also a lot going on with the 200th anniversary of the war of 1812, so lots of people in costume with muskets.

Ok last photo:

this is probably where the girls would have chosen to spend the whole day, if we let them. That be treasure they be finding! Yaaaarrrrgh!