Sea Kings, container ships and Deadman's island

The boys and I went out exploring yesterday, and did we find lots of interesting things! We didn't have to travel far, either, which is just the way I like it!

First, we found a lookout point which is just outside the entrance to Halifax harbour. It is a very secluded spot and we have driven by it countless times, thinking it was a new subdivision being built! We are glad we found it, it is peaceful, quiet and has loads of blueberries and raspberries to pick. The view is spectacular!



The boys sitting on the bench, as I perched precariously on the edge of the cliff.


While we sat there enjoying the day and the sea breeze, a Sea King flew over quite low and dropped a flare out into the water. He dropped 4 of them and then left. We stuck around for a bit and he came back and hovered over one of the flares.



We assume they were practicing rescues at sea, and it was great, it was like having our own private airshow. And many thanks to the men and women who fly these things, as I think they are getting fairly old and they are in dire need of some new technology. But wow, they did a great job of maneouvering around!

We then went to this place, Deadman's Island.








I must say, when I first saw the sign on the street when we first came here, the name intrigued me. It isn't really an island, but it is a peninsula. It is named Deadman's Island, as it is the burial ground for 195 American soldiers who were held by the British as POW's during the War of 1812. Many of the men died of smallpox, typhus, TB and other diseases, and are buried on the island in unmarked graves.

Jeremy and Devin were thinking of pirate booty when we got there, but then it turned out to be a very sad thing. All these men lost, buried here with no graves to mark where they lie. Okay, that part grossed the boys out a bit, and they wanted to get out of there as fast as we could. They kept thinking they were seeing bones which were really sticks poking out of the ground. But it was a very fascinating, yet sad, bit of history. It is sad what people will do to each other.

So, to cheer ourselves up a bit, we went to Sir Sanford Fleming Park and the Dingle Tower. Well, I should say we were going to go to the tower, but first of all, it was closed for repair. Secondly, Devin had a huge fit, ran away from me toward the water at the beach, and we left in a flurry of tears and whines about how he wants to move, he hates it here, etc, etc. A nice early bedtime has helped that attitude, I hope!



Devin before the meltdown...T minus 10 seconds and counting...

On the loud and wailing ride home, we saw this coming..



Well, this picture is when it had passed us. I saw a Sea King approaching, and we zipped back to the lookout to see what was going on.

This was really, really cool!





He then dropped more flares, but we ran out of room to take anymore pictures with our camera! Someone stopped to ask me if they were doing a rescue, as they could see the smoke from some distance away. It was really interesting to watch!

When we got home and I as getting supper ready, I heard that all too familiar sound. No, not Devin wailing, but the Sea King was coming over our house!! I didn't get the camera in time, but the Sea King was so low, we could almost see right into the cockpit! We were waving our heads off, and he circled and came back over again! Of course, the kids were thinking that maybe they were on a top secret mission earlier in the afternoon, and were tracking us to confiscate our photos....

Sorry about the huge amount of traveling photos, I just can't get enough of this place!

Simple Woman's Daybook

Something I have wanted to do for a while is to participate in The Simple Woman's Daybook, over at Peggy's blog. I really enjoy reading her blog, and since I have a few minutes to myself on a Monday morning, I thought I would give this a try!






FOR TODAY Monday July 28th, 2008

Outside My Window...I am looking at the rain softly falling on the two small apple trees on the front lawn.

I am thinking...that I must make it a priority to move our bedtimes up, and to get into a routine again.

I am thankful for...my home which we have been in for almost two months, and how much I miss my daughter, who is back in Ontario vacationing with her best friends.

From the kitchen...I am making a blueberry cake with some fresh blueberries I bought on Friday, and chocolate chip cookies.

I am wearing...Brown capris, and a beige T Shirt. I am wearing my yellow flats which I bought just to wear in the house.

I am creating... a sign for the end of the driveway with our house number on it, as no one can see the number properly from the road. I am also knitting washcloths. I can't say what else in case my swap partner reads this!

I am going...to have a friend over this afternoon. She is bringing her children to have a play date with Devin. I am so happy he has some friends here now! And I am happy I have a friend here too! She will be our first official guests, and my home is still unorganized, so I hope we don't scare them off!

I am reading...Gooseberry Patch Christmas books, it is never to early to start getting ready for Christmas, and I am hoping to make most of our gifts this year.

I am hoping...The rain stops for our playdate and so I can hang out some laundry.

I am hearing...The rain falling outside, and Arthur on TV upstairs.

Around the house...I am still getting unpacked and working especially on the school room. My dh is still bringing boxes home which I have stored at his warehouse, and right now, I have no clue where I will put things! I am really getting good at decluttering!

One of my favorite things...A new store I found a short drive away. It is called Maryann's and it is a treasure trove of everything country. I spent well over an hour browsing in there the other day. I came home with a great deal, and will take a picture when I have a moment. I bought a denim reversible quilt on sale from $172.00 for $68.00!! We got it as an anniversary gift for ourselves.

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week: Work on a swap for my haven swap partner, take the kids to a wave pool nearby, go to the beach with the boys, return overdue library books, oops!

Here is picture thought I am sharing...

A photo taken at the Halifax harbour of my most favourite guys in the world!! They always like to be as goofy as they can in any picture I take of them, my dh being the biggest goof of all!! But he is an adorable goof!!

My, it is quiet around here

I can't believe how quiet it is around here. And I miss the reason for all the noise and chatter!! Robyn has gone back to Ontario to spend some time with her friends. She is gone for 6 weeks!! 6 WEEKS!!! When did I agree to 6 weeks!!?? And a plane trip on her own for the first time to boot! Am I nuts? Will I ever sleep again?

She hasn't called me much, I miss her!! And when she is gone she will be celebrating her 16th birthday with her friends, and my best friends!! That is so not fair!! The other night she had a sleepover with her friends, and they had a camp fire in the backyard and was up until 6:30 in the morning giggling and having fun. I bet she will be totally different when she comes back home again, I hope not too different!

Tonight I watched Father of the Bride, with Steve Martin. I love, love, love that movie and the sequel as well. It made me think of my baby ( my almost 16 eyar old baby!) and that one day I will have to let her go and it just tears me up inside! I would have my guys live with me forver and ever, nothing would make my heart happier. But I know that the day will come when it will be just Mike and me, and I am dreading it! Not because I don't want to have my darling all to myself, but I love having my kids around. Even though at times they drive me completely mad.

Robyn's plans for her life when she was 5 were to marry a garbage truck driver ( because they can find some neat things in other people's garbage) and live with me and I would look after all her kids!! I think that has changed, though I am not 100%sure!

Don't they grow up fast? It wasn't too long ago that I was thinking I would be changing diapers forever. And now here I sit wishing I could be changing diapers still! Crazy!! I would love to have another baby, but after the horrendous time I had with Devin, who is our miracle baby, I am not sure I have the guts to do it again. It was totally worth all the difficulties and stress I went through ( miscarrying his twin and spending 4 months in bed), not to mention the trauma I went though after delivery. It just makes me feel so sad that they are growing so fast!! I mean, happy of course on one hand, but sad on the other.

I can't wait for Robyn to come home!

Wet, soggy, mucky and foggy

Well, we survived our very first, authentic tropical storm, Cristobal ( which makes me think of fortune telling every time I hear it it sounds like crystal ball!!) Things have been pretty damp and dreary to begin with, the past couple of days have been wet and icky. But today was the icing on the cake!! Cristobal sort of snuck up on me, as I had only heard about this storm on Sunday. I thought that I better nip into town to stock up on a few thinsg, as I haven't really thought through any emergency preparedness plans yet. I think everyone else had the same idea, the line ups at the store were the worst I have ever seen, including at Christmas! And would you believe I came home without any batteries for my flashlights? Whoops!!

The rain started last night, and we had some thunder, but my goodness, today was unreal!! The rain was drenching. I took 5 pictures outside and I was soaked to the skin! Since our yard is already supersaturated, we had problems with flooding. Not having eavestrough did not help however! That is on our preject list for next month, if we don't float away by then!!

Here are some pictures of the day.



Looking up the driveway. I guess we will be filling in ruts sometime this week!!




One of the rivers at the bottom of the driveway. It was awfully fun to play in!!




Do you see the waterfall under the rock? Well, I was inside, heard a loud sound and I looked out and nearly fainted. Not only did I have a waterfall washing away my garden, and my little piggy, the whole lawn was flooded right up to the foundation!!! And God is so good, He didn't let any water get into this house. This is a wake up call to be doing something about it though and fast. We will be trench digging this weekend!




You are never to old to splash around in the puddles. This one was more like the puddle in the nursery rhyme Dr. Foster went to Gloucester!! This was on our lawn.





Well, what a surpise, instant lake!! This one goes right up to the house and under the oil tank. And it didn't leak, do not ask me how!! I as running around the house all day inspecting and getting ready to stick my finger in the wall if it did spring a leak!



I did do soemthing stupid today. I took the kids to the beach, and it was not a good idea! The rain was really awful, and you couldn't see the ocean anyway. We weren't going to go for a walk just to look, but we were very fortunate, as the roads washed out this afternoon!! This lake is usually a creek which you cannot see, it is so tiny. Today it went over the road and washed part of it away!! I won't be so dumb next time!!

I hope we dry out soon, and the sun returns. Otherwise, I am going to be researching how to build an ark!! Anyone who wants to come and help us dig a trench, let me know!!

Prayers needed for a dear friend

Please pray for a very dear friend of mine,Kim whose father died last night, from Parkinson's disease. He has been really suffering the past couple of months, and it has been very hard on Kim's entire family. In addition to this, her Aunt and Uncle have also just passed away in the past week. It has really been a rough time for her and especially her mom. Her Dad is a Christian and I am rejoicing that he is now in the hands of our father, and is not longer suffering. But my heart aches for Kim, and I know things have been hard for her recently, and will be without her dear father. I'm praying for you Kim.

A post at last!! Our new home

The weather here has been so sunny and beautiful that I have badly neglected my blogging!! Our house is almost unpacked, I am just getting our school area organized, and Mike can start bringing home more boxes of stuff he has had stored away at his warehouse since this journery began in February. So I am still not quite ready to show pictures of the inside of our house, but would you like to see some of the outside??? Here we go!



This is looking up our street. I was just coming back from getting the mail at the corner, we now get our mail from a superbox. I enjoy the walk in the morning, as long as I don't run into the neighbourhood fox, which is a bit too friendly for my liking. Our street is not paved. If they were to pave it, we all have to pay for our part, according to our frontage on the road. If anyone opposes it at this point, they will not pave it, which is fine with me!



The last of the lupines, which grow wild all over Nova Scotia. You would think I would have gotten pictures of these in full bloom, but I only just got a new camera and didn't think of it until now!! We are using Five In A Row with Devin this year, and I can't wait to read Miss. Rumphius, which is all about a lady who plants lupines everywhere!



The ocean as seen from our road almost at our driveway!! Wow, this is the actual ocean, I can barely believe it!! Each time I see it, when it isn't foggy, I pinch myself. We are finally here! The lighthouse is visible if you can spot it, it is 250 years old this year. We can see the light at night and hear the fog horn too! This is just such a gorgeous view, but it is usually foggy, so I am always excited when it clears and I can see this again.



The entrance to our driveway. We share this driveway with another person, or family or something. Our neighbours are a bit elusive and I am not sure what to make of them. We have tons of wild strawberries growing on the edges of the driveway, yum!!



I cleared this area out, with more clearing to come, and planted lilies, iris, grasses and annual sunflowers. Devin loves to sit on the rock, but there are loads of ants around here, and I am not sure if they are fire ants or not. I don't want to find out!!




Part of our backyard!! We have started clearing some of it, mainly to save our septic system from roots growing into it, but also so we can have some yard space! most of the big trees in the surrounding forest are ours! We have trees!! I am so excited to have trees!! We will have some wood for our woodstove, if we ever get one, as some of the trees must come down before they fall down.





And here is our house! Please excuse the toilet on the front lawn, we had to replace one of the toilets as it was leaking badly. I am not sure we will keep the two apple trees as they are not healthy, but it is a shame to cut them down. We have many things we want to do, like build a garage at some point, but for now, we are just so pleased to be home and that we have some property we love. We got Mike a lobster trap to keep out in the yard, although it would be great at the end of the driveway. It would also be stolen from there!! We are trying to figure out a way to keep the people with ATV's from using our property as a short cut, as they are tearing up our driveway, but we have to be polite about it, lest we suffer the wrath of the angry ATV-ers!!!! They seem to be fairly respectful, but I am not used to having people traipsing all over our property when they feel like it, I guess I will get used to it.

So, I am hoping to post inside pictures soon, I am really itching to get this house settled and cozy once again. It is coming together though. I will soon be back to posting more regularily, unless I decide to take up surfing!!