Go Away Fay

I feel like I'm back in Nova Scotia only it's not as fun. No Dutch Blitz, no Papa and Gigi, no naps. Dating back to August 3, I've seen approximately four days of sun. And the weather widget on my computer doesn't show a partial sun until Sunday. For those of you not paying attention to the news, we've had tropical storm Fay hanging over our heads since Monday night. Today has actually been the worst day with major downpours of rain and some wind. Strangely enough, the cardinals have still been hanging out in the tree in our yard, chirping and eating out of the bird feeder. Apparently it doesn't bother them too much or maybe it's perfectly normal that they are still chirping and just hanging out in this weather. Quite honestly, I never gave it too much thought as to what they do in this kind of situation.

Before I relay our recent activities, I have a few more notes from the trip.

• On the drive up to Nova Scotia from my parents, I took over the driving at around 1 am at the end of the airline in Calais. For some reason, I had this paranoia about deer especially since the roads in New Brunswick have all these signs warning you about them. I was on full alert with my eyes going back and forth from one side of the road to the other. I was following my mother and Ricky was driving behind me. All of sudden, literally out of nowhere, a deer appeared right in front of me running from left to right right in front of the car. Thank the good Lord that is was just enough feet in front of me that I only had to break and swerve slightly. It was so surreal because somehow I just had this feeling about running into a deer and in fact, had already thought it through in my mind that I would just hit it instead of swerving since that's supposed to be safer. I almost thought I had imagined the whole thing but Ricky had seen it unfold from behind me. God is good.
• On a much cheerier note, on the way back we drove through the night once again. We do not want to entertain Calleigh for thirteen hours. Anyway, at 2:39 am (I looked at the clock), Duncan was driving, I had just woken up in the passenger seat and Calleigh was sound asleep in the back seat...or so we thought. Suddenly in the complete silence, this little voice in the backseat says "Hi Mommy, Hi Daddy." Apparently she had woken up and wanted to let us know she was back there!
• We had a great time hanging out in Freeport for a few hours on the trip back. We ate at Friendly's (can't beat their french toast. Yes, I know I'm biased) and then hit some of the shops. We saved the best for last when we went to The Children's Place outlet. Jackpot! They had tons of clothes for $2.99/each. Needless to say, we got a bunch of Calleigh clothes.
• We got to my parents on Friday afternoon and then headed down the Cape on Sabbath morning for church and then ate lunch at Kelly and Steve's with Rad and Jen. It was great to see Rad and Jen since we missed them up in Nova Scotia this year.

Okie dokie. I think that officially wraps up the trip.

So it's been back to normal life although with this crummy weather, it doesn't feel normal just yet. As you can imagine, we've been trapped indoors pretty much the whole time. Thankfully, we have had some diversion due to Derek (age 6) and Tyler (age 4) being here. They are Duncan's sister Kristen's kids. Ron and Elaine brought them back with them from their big road trip. Calleigh has enjoyed them very much. She's really only been around a little girl, Mia, so I was interested to see how she would be with little boys. And the verdict is that she seems to be just as content although granted, neither Derek nor Tyler is as exciting a name to say as "Mia." But she does say both their names. The boys have been very good with her too. Tyler talks to her as if she's a regular person. She was sitting in her highchair the other night and Tyler went right up to her (the grown ups were all talking amongst themselves but I watched out of the corner of my eye) and said "Calleigh, do you want to see the booboo that I have on my toe?" And then he proceeded to take off his sock and tried to lift up his foot so that Calleigh could take a peak. I'm sure she was impressed!

Today we met them at the mall to play at the playground and to eat in the food court. The boys have been spending a lot of time in Ron & Elaine's pool in between raindrops but today was so bad and the pool had gotten so chilly that they needed some other things to do. This evening we then met up at Smokey Bones for our "goodbye" dinner since they fly back tomorrow - - weather permitting, of course.

We've seen quite a bit of the roommates as I might call Shannon, David, and Megan from now on. I actually saw their apartment for the first time on Sunday (back when it was sunny) and it's quite nice. They have yet to get cable or Internet so they are usually over here in the evenings to use ours and to socialize. As you can see from this picture last night, we actually do a little more of the Internet and a little less of the socializing! We did talk at some point, I swear! But seriously, we are always happy to have them here and are a little sad they aren't here tonight. Thursdays are officially pizza night but we did it last night since we were out tonight. Apparently Friday nights are going to be waffle night at their place although Duncan doesn't seem to be sold on the concept quite yet.

Well, I think that brings us up to date.

In closing, here is a picture I took of Calleigh just before bed tonight. I've left the gate open a few times the last couple of days and instead of frantically crawling up the stairs each time as she's prone to do, she has actually started to just sit on the bottom step and chatter.