As far as he can tell, Tanner is the only one in his class of 60 who is married, let alone has children (and he has three!) Most of his classmates are at the school until late into the evening, whereas Tanner tries to be home for supper at 7:00. We push our supper back later so that we can have Tanner there and eat as a family. But, there are some days nights, that Tanner just can't make it home . . . at all. So I pack up the girls and we have supper with him close to campus. Tanner really appreciates that we come to him these nights, as it breaks up his evening of school work.
Our new favourite place to eat is Sicilian Pizza, for three reasons.
1. It's a block from his building.
2. It feeds our family for only $11.50
3. It's pretty darn good pizza!
On our first time visiting, June had a full diaper. The smelly kind. Not wanting to change her in the Sicilian Pizza's bathroom (the store didn't speak cleanliness), I ran over to Yeh! (a Menchies knock-off) which seemed a better option. Clean it was, but spacious to was not. Being slightly bigger than an airplane bathroom I was forced to change June on the ground (at least it was clean, right?). The smell of June's done-did business was especially bad, but I was ill prepared for it and did not have a baggie to put it in before disposing it into the garbage. Sorry Yeh! employee who glared at me from the bathroom door as I waited at the cross-walk. One day when you are a mom you will understand that, sometimes, things happen.
Our pizza was still not ready by the time I returned, but I walked in on some loud club tunes and my daughters breakin' it down.
Pizza was then enjoyed by all, especially by Tanner.
After finishing our pizza I looked over at Yeh! across the way and feeling bad for the stink-up I caused in the bathroom, I thought that we should at least give them our patronage. The frozen yogurt shop is set up to look exactly like Menchies all the way down to the famous pink cups. But it is not Menchies. The frozen yogurt was watery and the flavours were not that great. Well, at least my conscience was clear. Also, the store itself was as cramped as the bathroom was small, and there was no seating for us inside. We ended up sitting on a stone wall in front of a church nearby to eat. It was a nippy evening and after only a few minutes both Gwen and Lily were shaking. Neither were willing to stop eating their dessert, though.
They were little sugar zombies.
"Can't stop."
* shiver *
"Must finish."
* shake *
As the evening went on, it came closer to the time that we would leave Tanner at school and head home. It was sad to know that he would be staying up all night working while we were headed home to our comfy beds. I did, however, bring him a pillow to keep in his studio "just in case". His studio area is pretty sweet as it is equipped with couches and even a kitchenette.
Tanner has had a couple all-nighters already and I'm sure he will have plenty more. I know that they are hard on him and us (we miss him), but I will always look forward to having a pizza night out.
We may not live in the Halifax peninsula, and are further away from Tanner's school, but we live in a pretty sweet neighbourhood. Within a few short weeks, I've met most the the mothers on our street (which is actually a circle of houses) and all are so welcoming and down to earth. I see myself easily being good friends with all of them. There is also a sweet shopping area close by, which means we have a Costco, Walmart, Superstore, and Target all within 5 minutes from our house. Our chapel is also only a 5 minute drive away. Behind our house is a fantastic pathway cutting through a ginormous forest (Remember how Tanner likes to take the girls on adventures?), with playgrounds scattered throughout. It is wonderful!
Last week (or so), when my parents were still around, all us girls were up early in the morning. So, I took the girls out for a morning stroll so that my parents would be left with a quiet house, giving them a chance to catch up on lost sleep. They needed it.
It was sunny out but crisp, and the pathway was busy with all the early morning walkers. I told the girls that our mission was to walk to the top of the big hill and then come back. Easy enough, right? But with all the people passing by stopping to ask "Are these all yours!?" or to say "You are a busy momma!", my girls were quite distracted walkers. Some even wanted to know all of my children's names and ages. While they all meant well and were super friendly, it made our morning walk less of a walk and more of a mix and mingle. One sweet lady even pulled out a tissue from her pocket to wipe Lily ever-runny nose (gotta love those 2-year-old molars!). The people here are seriously the most kind people I've ever met.
Here's June, sporting her new toque from Momma Ellingson.
Shadow portrait. Gwen absolutely loves shawdows.
We did eventually make it to the top of the hill. But by that time, Lily had had her fill of walking and would continually sit herself down on the path and just cry. I kept my cool, though. I knew I couldn't pick her up as I was already hauling June in the carrier, so I just waited and waited and waited as long as it took for Lily to get back on her feet. Luckily I had Gwen there, who helped encourage Lily along.
In the end it took us nearly two hours to walk a 30 minute route.
By the time I returned home my parents were up and worried as they had no idea where I had gone.
My parents have now flown back to Alberta and we are now flying solo here in Halifax. I have loved having Mom and Dad here for our first few weeks on the East Coast and it has been so much fun exploring with them. On Friday I woke up early to drive my parents to the airport. We said our goodbyes, laughed, and hugged. . . . and then I pretty much bawled my eyes out the entire drive back to the house. I was so forlorn that I even took the wrong exit and ended up on the other side of the harbour in Dartmouth and had to take the toll bridge to get back. It was a rough morning, but I am better now. I am so happy that I am here on this adventure with Tanner. We are going to LOVE IT.
So let's do some backtracking and talk about our second weekend here, which we spent in THE ANNAPOLIS VALLEY. First off, the Annapolis Valley is the western region of Nova Scotia that runs along the Bay of Fundy. The ocean tides at the Bay of Fundy rise higher than any other place in the world. In the course of about 6 hours the tides rise by more than 50 feet! My Dad says that the Bay of Fundy was one of the few North American candidates considered to be one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World, and the only one from Canada so of course it had to be on his bucket list.
We started off our day with plans to go to the Oaklawn Farm Zoo, just over an hour northwest of Halifax. The Annapolis Valley is known as the agricultural hub of the provide, and we could tell. We drove past dairy farms, vineyards, orchards, and corn field after corn field after corn field. Coming from Alberta you wouldn't think that I would get to worked up over seeing a farm on the side of the highway, but these farms were located on beautifully green and rolling hills, broken up by trees, rock, and glimpses of the ocean. It was . . . I don't even know what word to use here . . . . traditional and mystical at the same time. Does that make sense? It was foggy that day too, which probably aided the whole mystical side of things.
As we made our drive, I thought "I bet there is a U-Pick apple orchard around here". Pretty much less than 5 minutes later, we were pulling up to a U-Pick in Wolfville, called Elderkins. It was beautiful and delicious. There were rows and rows of different kids of apples and even pears. There were apples in front that were for taste testing, that way could look at the map of the orchard and pick the apple you liked best. We are apparently poor at reading maps as we picked a 10 lb. bag of apples that were not the ones we loved. Still good, but not "the ones". A 10 lb. bag cost $7. We got two.
Here are some pictures:
Inside the U-Pick store they also had a bakery, refrigerators with apple cider and free run eggs, and freezers with locally made pies. Walking inside Tanner stopped dead in his tracks and said "This is the best smell I have EVER smelled." And he was right. It was a combined fragrance of apple cider and cinnamon buns. Ahhhhhhh Yeeeeaaahhhhhhh.
Next Stop: Oaklawn Farm Zoo
This Zoo was incredible. Not so commercialized as the Calgary Zoo and more naturalized than Discovery Wildlife Park in Innisfail. Tanner said that it was the best zoo he had ever been too. The family that own the zoo actually love on the property and you can tell that they have put everything into their zoo. It was well kept, clean, the animals looked happy and active. It was pretty awesome.
Among the animals they had they had two in particular that really stuck with me. A zebra and a gibbon. Why? Because they were both nursing mothers, like me. Whereas the baby zebra was pretty independent only came to her mom for a quick drink and then tottered off, the baby gibbon was literally at the breast the ENTIRE TIME, even when she was swinging all over the place he never lost his grip.
Did you notice the baby Zebra's birthdate? Yup. Born the same day as our baby June. I almost cried. I felt for these new moms and felt that even though we were all different species that we were bonded together by our common love for our babies. * sniff *
(Phew! This is a long post! Is anyone still reading!? Don't worry, were almost done. PLUS there's a video coming up. * mysterious hand waving * Ooooooo. Aaahhhhh.)
Finally, the Bay of Fundy. Which, by the way, is huge. We chose the tiny little village of Morden for our viewing spot. Boy, were we not disappointed. We arrived around 2:30 (low tide) and climbed over all the rocks to get right out to the water. It was cold and quiet and foggy and eerie. I'll never forget it. We obviously couldn't wait for it to crest at high tide (that would have taken 6 hours), but we did stay for an hour or so, where we watched the tide come in quickly and rise about 10 feet. I didn't get any good pictures as it was pretty foggy, but here's the promised video.
You probably noticed some little people missing from the video. The girls fell asleep in the van between the zoo and Morden, so my mom stayed behind and knit in the van. Almost immediately after taking this video I looked back and saw my mother outside the van holding June, and waving me down. Someone was hungry again : )
I know this was a behemoth post, but the day deserved it. That night, we returned home tired and fulfilled from spending such a fabulous day in the Annapolis Valley.
Even after being in Halifax for 4 days, our reality of being costal residents didn't really sink in until we went to Peggy's Cove.
Peggy's Cove is a beautiful 45 minute drive southwest of Halifax. Knowing that we would want to spend the day exploring the area, we packed lunches, lathered on the sunscreen (it was a beautiful SUNNY day!!), and piled into the van. We took the long way round, taking Peggy's Cove Road along side St. Margaret's Bay east shore. It was a pleasant drive, with lots of little houses lining the road. Most of the small homes had been converted into small businesses, the majority being gift shops and craft stores, appealing to the many tourists who come to the area. Interestingly, a lot of the houses were up for sale . . . like, a third of them! We are unsure as to why anyone would want to move away from such a beautiful place. A lot of the homes looked post-war, with lots of character and colour. As we drove along the winding road we would get pops of colour here and there - red, green, sky blue, purple, yellow . . . the people here don't shy away from colour and I absolutely love it!
As we got closer to our destination, the land changes into what looks like to be a graveyard of boulders left behind by a glacier of ancient days (side note: see the movie Chasing Ice. It's on Netflix, if your into environmental documentaries). The landscape is equally treacherous as it is breathtakingly beautiful. I read somewhere that Peggy's Cove actually has about 60 permanent residents, and they all live in cute, but TINY little homes that sit on the rock earth. (With all my talk about the houses around here, you'd think that I would have a picture to post here, but no.)
We pretty much immediately split up with my parents as soon as we parked. While we made our way to the famous lighthouse by way of boulder jumping, my parents opted for the less precarious route and took the paved pathway. Holding tightly to Gwen and Lily's hands, and with June in the wrap, Tanner and I explored the rock and boulders, enjoying the smell of the sea and the sound of the crashing waves (which I didn't manage to get a picture of really either. Man, I'm good.)
Up on one boulder, some Chinese girls got pretty excited about our blonde-haired blue-eyed girls in their boots and raincoats. They begged us to let them get a picture taken with them. Gwen and Lily, were kind of confused by the situation. Gwen had a look that said "I don't know you. You are weird." as the sweet Chinese girl smiled and gave the peace sign for the camera. Made us laugh.
We thought then that we should whip out our own camera and start to (finally) take some pictures.
Here I am with my girls (Gwen is looking at the Chinese girls, still uncertain of what just happened). Lily was being super photogenic this day and smiled whenever we asked her to. June was fussy for the first 20 minutes of our hike around the rock. She really didn't like all the wind and I had to bounce her like crazy to get her to sleep. She slept peacefully for the rest of our visit.
Tanner with Gwily (Yes, I just meshed Gwen and Lily's names together. Too much? Maybe. Or perhaps I might just start using on a regular basis.)
Lily. So photogenic, right!? Where was this little girl when we had our family photos taken?
And here we all are in front of the Peggy's Cove light house! (Sorry, I just realized we have no close-ups of June)
Tanner and I loved this day. Even though we had been living in Halifax for nearly a week already, it was the first time that we really realized how far we had come from prairie- town Alberta.
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