Nova Scotia 2011

It wasn't exactly the perfect vacation this year but hey, it was vacation and we were with family so I'm not going to complain.  Well, maybe just a little bit.  The weather was awful.  Stink, stank, stunk.  I think we maybe had two outright sunny days.  A few of the days it rained all day.  A few other were completely cloudy and rained off and on.  Note to self - - next year bring boots and a raincoat.  I must have walked through a thousand and one mud puddles going back and forth between the big cabin and our little cabin.  And you really can't win with packing correctly.  I had checked the weather forecast on accuweather.com before we left and it showed more sunny days and highs up into the high 70's for like half the time.  It was completely bogus.  Most of the time it was in the low 60's.  I ended up having to go to the laundry mat three times because we kept running out of long sleeves and jeans.  Next year I'm sure I'll over pack on that stuff and it will end up being 90 like it was two years ago.  I'll take it!

We departed for the great north from here (Orlando to Providence) on Wednesday (7/27).  I'm so glad we were on Southwest because we didn't have to worry about all the checked luggage since you get two free bags.  Now that Aubree gets her own seat (it's nice to think about it in those terms rather than saying, "Now that we have to shell out the dough for another ticket), we got eight checked bags which worked out well.  We had seven (although some were small).  The flight left at 8:05 pm which worked out well because Brady slept pretty much the whole time.  The girls stayed up watching movies.  They were getting VERY antsy at the end and I was glad we were flying into Providence which is probably a 10-minute shorter flight than going into Boston.  But those 10 minutes were a big difference.  Because the seating is three and three, it wasn't necessarily perfect because the girls wanted to be together so one of us had to sit in a row with them and the other got to sit by themselves.  Guess who got to sit by themselves??  Yup, Duncan lucked out on that one.  To his credit, he did hold Brady for a good portion of the flight.  My mom picked us up and again, we were so thankful to be in Providence and how easy it was to get our luggage and get to the car compared to the craziness of Logan.

My mom took Thursday off so we were able to take off by late morning.  Now that Shawn and Camille live in Bangor, it's a nice stopping point on the journey (about four hours from my folks).  Unfortunately, they weren't going to be travelling with us this time because Camille's brother and sister-in-law were visiting from out of town.  But we were able to enjoy the day with them especially going to this pool with slides and fountains right next to their house.  We did our grocery shopping there (obviously you want to bring as many groceries with you because the milk, with the exchange rate, is now over $8 a gallon.  Liquid gold I tell you.) and then departed about 10 pm.  The first leg of the journey is the airline from Bangor to the border and fortunately we traversed it without incident.  You may recall that Duncan was stopped for speeding on it last year.  Lesson learned.

Our first bit of trouble occurred at the border.  I'm claiming baby brain on this one.  For some reason I had absolutely no recollection of needing birth certificates for the kids.  It hasn't been all the long that we as adults have even needed identification so I guess it just hasn't been habit long enough.  Duncan and I had our passports and I had Brady's birth certificate (since we needed it for the flight) but we had nothing for the girls (although I did have Aubree's birth certificate scanned into my computer).  The border lady just kind of looked at us incredulously and said "How am I supposed to know who the kids are?"  Duncan told her that we come there every year and I assume they have record of it in their trusty little computers so in the end, she did let us through but said we absolutely had to have it next time.  Of course, I then realized that we would have a problem getting back into the US so I had to have Elaine dig up Calleigh's birth certificate in my files and email it to me.  Fortunately she found it in the first place I had her look so it all turned out fine.

Because the trip from Bangor is barely even nine hours, Duncan drove the whole way which was a nice break for my mom and me.  Lots of people were already there when we arrived so we could just let the good times roll.  When I say lots of people, I mean lots of people.  We had 39 people this year, certainly the most ever.  As we keep adding kids (two more on the way), then I'm sure we'll be able to say that each year.  The awesome thing though was that everyone was there which hasn't happened in a number of years.  I think I heard six.

Let me stop here and say that the status of our little cabins is in limbo.  We had been advised by the care taker of the our property that we didn't need to bother with building permits because they were basically sheds.  So we didn't get permits.  In the last few months, the new building inspector spotted our cabins while he was fishing on the lake and pretty much flipped out.  It turns out the the bylaws of the county or island or whatever state that you can't have more than two dwellings on your property.  That seems so crazy considering we have 120 acres and we're only there two weeks a year.  But rules are rules.  We're trying to figure out what to do including possibly building something that would connect the six cabins together to make one dwelling.  My dad went and talked to the guy and as expected, part of the reason why they were so upset is because we're Americans and they say Americans just come in and disregard the rules and don't take the locals seriously.  Okay, yes, I can see where that might be just a little bit true.  He said the only ones worse are people from Ontario.  Anyway, it's all still unresolved for now.

This year we decided that all five of us would bunk together.  Last year Calleigh slept with my parents because I couldn't deal with her keeping Aubree up at night.  But now that they share a room at home, it wasn't an issue.  I found our cabin to be quite spacious even with a double bed, two pack-n-plays, and a cot.    The girls "went to bed" around nine each night (we sort of stayed on American time which was an hour earlier).  I quickly realized just how inconvenient not to have any plumbing in our cabin.  Inevitably, each night about 10 minutes after we went into the cabin for bed (I would stay in there with them until they fell asleep), Calleigh would announce she had to go #2.  So that meant we had to traipse back inside, often in the rain, to go to the bathroom.  Of course, I couldn't leave Aubree in the cabin by herself so I had to take both of them. It was quite an operation.  After a couple of days of this, I had enough and a little trip to Walmart solved it.  We were the proud owners of a potty.  Each night after the girls fell asleep, I would go to the main cabin and tell Duncan there was a little gift for him on the front steps for him to clean up...the bowl from the potty.  Even Aubree got in on the "fun" and started going on it every night.

The sleeping itself went exceptionally well.  Brady would go to sleep when Duncan did (I always stayed up late to play Dutch Blitz with the girls) and then slept until around 5:30.  I don't think he woke up once previous  to that time.  No crying at all.  The only little glitch would come after he finished eating.  I had bought a little swing for him but he never did like it.  So each morning he would end up with us and mostly went back to sleep pretty easily.  The girls slept well too although Calleigh had two accidents.  The first one woke her up in the middle of the night and we had no option but for her to sleep with us the rest of the night.  That made for a very crowded bed once Brady came into it around 6.  Fortunately the second accident didn't awaken her until the morning.  The first year we were in the cabin, I was cold many of the nights but I wasn't cold at all this time.

One of the sunny days we went to Baddeck and had a great time there going to the little beach on the island.  The way to Baddeck we had a little scare though.  The girls were watching a movie and I was reading book while Duncan drove.  We were on the main two lane road when I heard this sound which sounded like a gun shot.  I looked up and there was a giant hole in the windshield that had been shattered by a rock that had been kicked up, or something, from an 18-wheeler going the other way.  Duncan said he saw it all happen.  It was a very powerful thing because there were a million little glass shards on the inside of the glass and Duncan said he was very glad to be wearing sunglasses.  Fortunately most of the shards just landed on the inside of the dash but it made for quite a mess.  The weird coincidence is that last year the same thing happened to us on the exact same road, almost in the same spot on the road, just a much smaller rock.  I was just glad the girls had been wearing headphones while watching the movie so they neither heard it nor saw it so it was no big deal to them.

Even though the days weren't that great weather wise, we still did a few outdoor things like riding on the boat a few times.  Calleigh got to drive and I'm pretty sure that was the highlight of the trip for her.  Duncan also took her out kayaking around the lake and she loved that too.  We never actually swam though which was a major disappointment with Calleigh being able to swim this year and all.  Bummer. But with so many people around, the girls were never bored and would just go from person to person to be entertained.  I have to say that I have just awesome relatives because they were all so willing to pay attention to the girls.  I really appreciated that.

Our plan was to stay until Tuesday evening (8/9) and drive overnight to get back to my parents house the next day for our evening flight.  But with it raining on Monday and it supposed to rain on Tuesday, we decided we couldn't take it any more.  Shawn and Camille decided to leave on Monday too so we left late that night and drove back with them. Tuesday we spent the day in Bangor with them and enjoyed a beautiful, sunny day and kept thinking, "If only."  Tuesday evening we left and hit the outlets in Freeport and ate supper at Friendly's.  We got to my parents around 11 pm.  Wednesday was a very low key day and we just hung around my folks and got things packed better for the flight.  Freddie and Bruno took us to the Providence airport for our 7:05 pm flight.  We got there just after 5:00.  I looked at the board when we got there and did a double take when I saw that it said the flight was delayed until 10:35.  Oh my word!!  We couldn't believe it.  We had like five hours to kill in this tiny airport.  There wasn't even anything near the airport that we could go to pass the time. We walked around a little bit and put on a movie for the girls which passed some of the time.  By that time, it was like 7:30 and we decided to get something to eat.  Now, there aren't a million restaurants in this airport (there are 22 total gates to put it into perspective) but there were a few.  Well, as we walked around, we quickly realized they were just about all closed.  Yes, at 7:30 pm.  Thankfully Friday's was still open and we were able to get in before it closed too at 8:00.  Geepers.  Anyway, the flight ended up leaving a little earlier than they though (at 10:00) so I have to say the time did actually pass pretty quickly.  But best of all was that apparently the problem was from some kind of mechanical problem so they gave us each $100 vouchers which came to $400 for us.  Considering we paid a little over $800 for the tickets, I was quite pleased with this.  The other nice thing was that because the flight ended up being so late, the girls were very tired and slept pretty much the whole way which made for a nice relaxing flight, especially since it wasn't full and we had room to spread out.  The only troubling part was when I heard someone ask the flight attendant what the problem had been and she said "Oh, this plane was hit by lightening earlier in the day so they had to take it to get checked out."  Chalk that one up as things I would rather not know.

We didn't get home until 1:30 am so it made for a very, very late night for us.  Obviously we took it very easy on Thursday although poor Duncan had to go to work.  Sorry pal.  At least it was Thursday.  I was so tired that afternoon and Calleigh refused to take a nap but in the end, we both ended up falling asleep on the futon. Boy, did that feel good.

So things are back to our usual routine here.  I won't get into detail on what we've been up to since we've been back but I will mention this.  I pretty much had my scariest moment as a mother yesterday afternoon.  I was sitting on the couch nursing Brady, Duncan was in Aubree's room as she went to sleep for her nap.  Calleigh was upstairs but started down the stairs carrying a dress that she was going to put on.  Apparently she dress slipped and she must have stepped on it because the next thing I know I hear a scream and Calleigh is falling head first down the stairs from about the second stair from the top.  I'm shuddering even as I think of it.  It was just the worst thing to see and I can't get the images out of my head.  I think she did about two somersaults and at one point, both her legs were sticking up straight in the air.  I threw Brady down as fast I could and made it to the stairs just before she hit the wood floor or the wooden shelf we have at the bottom.  Thankfully she was crying so I knew right away she wasn't knocked out or worse.  Duncan came charging down since I had been screaming too.  We checked her out and somehow she was no worse for wear other than what looked like a little rug burn next to her left eye.  I was shaking all over but tried to keep myself together.  I tell you, she was very fortunate.  That is something that will stick with me for a VERY long time. Thank you Lord for watching over her.  Now I am super paranoid about them going down the stairs.

I'm going to end here as it's about time to feed Brady.  I'm not posting any pictures because that takes too long.  I'll post them hopefully tomorrow and provide some more anecdotes on the trip when I do.