Fly Away

Sedona, Arizona

2011-12-28T09:57:00.000-08:00

We had a day trip to Sedona, which is a quirky little town with a great deal of artistic and spiritual enrichment opportunities. We of course just shopped and ate lunch and did not take advantage of the enrichment opportunities.

The temperature was cold in the morning (18) but rather nice in the afternoon. The elevation is ~ 4000 ft so this would contribute how cold it was. A great day was had by all.

Downtown Sedona

Arizona House

2011-12-26T17:27:00.001-08:00

Our Arizona rental. Great house perfect for some lazy fun.

Living Room

Kitchen and Dinning Room

Backyard Pool

DIVE COMPETITION

2011-12-10T20:42:00.000-08:00

Amanda's Dive Competition

Air Cadets

2011-12-01T19:17:00.001-08:00

Amanda and Nicole have joined Air Cadets - 604 Moose Squadron. Steve has asked the girls to complete one year with Air Cadets before he will begin to teach them how to fly.

Pre Air Cadets

Horseback Riding

2011-09-12T19:00:00.000-07:00

We headed to the hills for a few hours. The girls didn't believe that Steve could ride a horse.

Incredibly we encounter a moose (with a nice rack) on our ride which spooked the girls horses. Thankfully the girls stayed calm and managed to control their horses. (proud mama moment)

Samantha's Grade 9 Graduation

2011-06-16T18:55:00.000-07:00

Dance

2011-06-12T17:53:00.000-07:00

End of year Recital.

Hollywood Studios

2011-02-19T17:48:00.001-08:00

Final day at Disney.

Epcot

2011-02-19T17:30:00.001-08:00

We were not joking about the alligators in the pond beside the swimming pool.

This the actual alligator sunning itself in the midday sun.

Magic Kingdom

2011-02-16T18:36:00.001-08:00

Magic Kingdom's Castle

A meet and greet with Mickey and Minnie.

A wonderful form of transportation.

Nicole driving with intensity.

Daddy and Amanda rocking out.

An independent young lady.

Mom is breathing deeply as she realizes how close to reality this event is.

Three happy girls waiting for the fireworks to begin.

Animal Kingdom

2011-02-15T19:31:00.001-08:00

Let's Bounce!

Gator or Croc?

Adventures at Everest

Sam and Amanda are in the musical Beauty and the Beast at school and watched Beauty and the Bees in Florida.

Blowing kisses?

A quick glance into Asia.

Bang!

Leaving Disney for the day ended in a Bang. We were stopped at the time as the Disney employee greeted us with her bumper.

Universal - Islands of Adventure

2011-02-14T17:06:00.000-08:00

Testing out the Wands

Happy Times with Dr Seuss

A colourful comment from Sam.

Going to have a nice cup of tea and a KitKat with Harry.

Catching the last train to Hogwarts.

A little rest after an eventful day at Universal.

2011-02-05T17:07:00.000-08:00

Amanda's Poem

2010-06-14T19:37:00.000-07:00

Zoom Zoom

Steve's Bike has arrived

2010-01-17T10:06:00.000-08:00

Steve's bike has arrived.

We can always find him now in the garage sitting on his bike.

The basement floor

2010-01-17T09:06:00.000-08:00

The concrete floor prep

Day 1

Day 2 Day 15
Day 15

Day 30

The Concrete is Back

Day 1

Day 2

Beth has a bike

2009-09-17T19:29:00.001-07:00

Beth's new (for her) bike is a BMW F650GS.

Boogie Boarding

2009-05-24T00:24:00.000-07:00

The morning was spent Boogie Boarding at D. T. Fleming Beach Park -- Kapalua

The afternoon was spent shopping at Lahaina Front Street

Banyan Tree

Here is a drive down front street.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kauYnzjqu1Q

Maui

2009-05-22T20:06:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day that the camera came out. The first two days we have been busy snorkelling and checking out the beaches.
Today we explored West Maui’s rugged North Shore. We started our travels today from the beach front then passed through some desert, then into rainforest. Maue is an amazing place.

Photos of the gardens around our accommodation

Rainforest

Cleanest air in the world at this point.

Blowhole

2009-04-14T15:56:00.000-07:00

Two hours after arrive in England I had the pleasure of attending Oscar's drama play. Of course, Oscar was the Super Star and rembered all his actions, lines and songs.

Oscar- Kate and Paddy's youngest.

Five hours after arriving in England I was then off to Henry's game of football. It was a really wonderful game. Henry was the man of the hour with two fantastic corner kicks which set up the players for two goals.

The Team

Brotherly love following the game

The pride of playing well and winning the game.

The Next day Kate, Paddy, Oscar and I completed a 8 mile hike in the country.

We tried to party like we did 20 years ago. The cue should have been that Kate and Paddy's daughter is almost the same age that we were when we first started to Party together....scary.

Kate and her eldest daughter Tasha

Matthew showing off his Durham shirt...Durham is where we all met.

Nick and Tasha.

Dancing machine.

Paddy and Kate....a fish story

To recover from our "big night" of fun we went for a walk around Hampton Court Castle and Bushy Park which are only a few minutes walk from Kate and Paddy's house.

Hampton Court

Two blocks from Paddy and Kate's house. The River Thames.

On our walk in Bushy Park we encounter the local deer.

Our Easter Egg Hunt:

Left to right: Bella (daugher number two), Henry, Oscar, Tasta and Kate. (There are no other photo's of Bella as she was in New Zealand for the week)

Kate and Paddy's back garden. This river flows into the Thames approximately 1/2 blocks from this location.

Christmas

2009-01-06T16:05:00.001-08:00

Our trip to Las Vegas

2008-11-20T12:36:00.000-08:00

Steve and Beth's trip to Las Vegas

Big Spender

Hover Damn

Geoff and Lois

2008-09-01T19:21:00.001-07:00

Home Renovations

2008-07-27T20:36:00.000-07:00

The following images are what Steve will do if he has a few days off at home....and you wonder why we travel so much.

Here is the before view of the side of our house.

We are reroofing our house.

The girls wanted to see what we were up to.

Then he decided to waterproof the foundation. So he started to dig.....

Thankfully our friend Brad came by to help as my back was so sore from all the digging. I had to dig with a stovel...no toys for me.

And dig.....

and dig....

And dig....

While your are there maybe put in a few windows.....

This is why we need to go away for our holidays!

London

2008-06-16T00:19:00.000-07:00

Trying on hats in Harrods.

Tower Bridge.

View of London from St. Paul's Cathedral.

Steve's future car. On our evening walks Steve would take photo's of cars.

We went to the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. While we were waiting the Queen and Prince Philip drove past us. So we actually saw the Queen.

Good thing I had the girls practice their table manners for the last few months...just incase the Queen showed up.

We actually got this guard talking. Very naughty of him...fun for us.

If we move to England this is going to be our future house. This is Hampton Court Palace, last resident was Henry VIII right on the Thames. This Palace was right around the corner from our friends Kate and Paddy's house.

Kate and Paddy.

England

2008-06-10T14:40:00.000-07:00

Deal/Kent

View from Auntie Dot's back garden.

My Father is little brother and little sister.

Trip to Canterbury Sweet shop

Deal from the pier.

Dover Castle

Matthew and Nick's farm house in Suffolk

Out crabbing in a small sea side village. Caught 34 crabs!

Tower Bridge

The london Gaurd fired 62 cannons as it was for Prince Phillip. Prince Phillip is 82 but he has been a Prince for 62 years. The children were all asked to cover their ears.

Big Ben

We sat in a garden across from Big Ben as it chimed at 6:00pm....all was well.

Trafalgar Square

Spring update

2008-04-18T23:35:00.000-07:00

We have been busy over the last few weeks:

All three girls now have both their top and bottom braces so we can officially call them “Brace Face”. Dinner time is so much longer now as they have to cut up all their food into very small pieces. On our busy nights we have to have soup so they don’t have spend so much time cutting up their food.

Sam is off to junior high school next year. Nicole has decided to return to school as well. Amanda has enjoyed the freedom of this year, but doesn’t want to be home alone so she is going back to “regular school”.

As the girls have decided to go back to regular school next year...it was great while it lasted, we have to finish all our school work by the end of May (We are going to England in June). We have worked very hard this month and I am now confident that all the school work will be completed. Ok, other than a little Social Studies and French (@#&!) we have completed the entire curriculum…but don’t tell the girls, they are getting all sorts of “fun” projects to complete.

One such project was Sam, Sarah (one of Sam’s friend’s) and I had a field trip to the legislation building in Edmonton. We were fortunate enough to have a private tour of the building. The tour was fantastic, surprisingly educational and fun.

Following our fun tour we stayed at the Fantasy Hotel at West Edmonton Mall where we worked on some science and essential life skills. We had a crazy time at the water slides which were way too big and fast for me (gravity, friction, waves, and overcoming fear). We then hit the fine dining area were we ate a fine meal (food groups). The next morning we shopped until we dropped (finances). Well Sam and Sarah could have kept on, while I on the other hand needed to stop (physiology of aging). We covered all 830 shops and picked up a few things along the way (consumerism).

For Nicole and Amanda we made a trip to Aggie Days. Aggie Days are designed to increase children’s understanding of agriculture in Alberta. It was great fun and we even took in a little rodeo. Sam volunteered for the day helping children make rope while Amanda, Nicole and I learned and played.

Got milk?

Saddle up.

Work for me has been crazy and I am now working full time. They hired two other Media Developers/programmers this month to help off-set the work load. I am learning all sorts of new computer skills and development ideas. Between work, school work, planning trips and our renovations life is full, good, but very full.

Steve has just finished his 6 month recurrent training. He practices, in the simulator, all sort of fun things like engine failures, fires... all the “stuff” no one really wants to know about, but are happy that the people up front know how to resolve. Yes there is a test and he did very well.

Easter was fun with an Easter egg hunt in the morning, measured our roof for new shingles (this summer’s fun), Steve and the girls went for a big bike ride while I made a 3D model of our roof line.

We have even fit in another great day of skiing at Lake Louis. It was the first time up on the “big” mountain for all three girls and they had a blast.

Whenever we don’t have snow on the roads we are off on the bikes or going for a long walk around the neighbourhood. We have some great green spaces all around us and we are always up for an adventure.

The Renovations:

We painted Sam’s room and Nicole and Amanda’s rooms. Amanda and Nicole will share a room for another 6 months - year until we finish developing the upper floor.

Sam has gone for a designer theme and chosen two shades of blue with white trim. She soon will have three metal bulletin boards to hang up all her designs and art work on. I think it looks good.

Amanda and Nicole have chosen an African theme. They painted three walls of their room bubble gum blue and one wall lime green. I am not sure where they achieved the African colour palate, but it looks good. Nicole created some artwork with an African theme and pulling in all the colours from their room. It has really pulled the room together. Perhaps the African juggle theme will be achieved in a few weeks with all their person items placed “dumped” throughout their room. I know we have two monkeys living in there sometimes.

We have replaced two of the three toilets with water efficient toilets. The third toilet has been purchased and will be replaced once we have remodelled our powder room.

Finally we have replaced our bedroom sliding door with a new garden style door. It looks great and there are no more drafts. The draft thing is great considering we received another 12” of snow today.

Spring?

Diving lessons

2008-03-27T13:12:00.000-07:00

This is the first time Amanda dove off the high diving board.

Ouch!

Art Gallery

2008-02-08T16:41:00.000-08:00

Nicole's work in progress.

"The Falcon"

Snow Day

2008-02-07T20:03:00.001-08:00

We had gym outside today.

Brace Face

2008-01-14T10:28:00.000-08:00

We have just entered Phase II of the braces.

Today each of the girls had braces placed on their upper teeth. Our day will be filled with soft non-sticky foods. Soup will be on the menu for the next couple of days.

Sam is looking forward to the next visit to the orthodontist. During their next visit the girls get colour elastics to place on their braces. The reason Sam is so excited is because she can then accessorise her teeth to match her outfits. I am pleased that she has found a positive in this process. (Click on the pictures to enlarge them....if you dare.)

Art Classes

2008-01-08T17:50:00.000-08:00

Samantha and Nicole started art classes today. Here are their first charcoal drawings.

Sam's work

Nicole's Work

Happy New Year

2008-01-02T18:03:00.000-08:00

The beginning of 2007 brought a couple of changes to our world, both these events became life changing events for our family. The first was the passing of our dear friend Resi (Theresa) after a long hard battle with cancer. She was a wonderful person and we are all the better for knowing and loving her. We miss her very much. The second event was that Samantha had her tonsils removed and took months recovering, but is now almost completely recovered.

As a result of the events at the beginning of the year this made us take stock of what we wanted out of life, so Stephen and I decided to shake things up. I guess it is known as a mid-life crisis. Fortunately for us both Steve and I entered this event at the same time, and we’re in a situation to do something about it. One change was to home school the children for the 2007-2008 academic year and travel when the opportunity presented itself.

About us:

Steve is still working at Westjet and loving it. With the new routes Westjet is flying Steve’s work life is anything but dull.

I am still working at Bow Valley College building online courses, but now I am only working 10 day/month from home. Working from home, for me, is a wonderful blend between work, family and home life.

The girls are wonderful. Samantha is 11 and now in grade 6, Amanda and Nicole 9 and grade 4.
Sam is busy working on defining her own personal style and developing her own sense of self. Nicole is happiest while creating. It doesn’t matter what she is working on as long as she can create something every day, this is her most comfortable form of expression. Amanda is happiest when she is active mentally or physically.

What we have done:

In April we sold our house and purchased a new fixer-upper in the same neighbourhood.

At the end of June we started our travel adventure to Newfoundland (far east coast of Canada). We had a wonderful time visiting our friend Daph who generously gave us a private tour around St. Johns. St. Johns is rich in Canadian history and we discovered that all three girls love history as well as the spectacular natural beauty that defines “The Rock”.

July was a full month: Sam started off camping with her friend Nicole’s family, immediately upon her return she headed out to her summer camp with many of her school friends. They enjoyed horse-back riding, climbing, swimming and hiking. Nicole and Amanda enjoyed Art camp daily for a week learning new skills.

On July 19th we moved into our new house. Our final adventure for July, we borrowed a tent trailer two days after our move, leaving a mountain of boxes behind we set out to Mount Kidd (Mountains near Banff). We had a wonderful time hanging out with our friends who have two children. The 5 five kids had a wonderful time hiking, riding their bikes and getting into all sorts of fun.

August was the drama queen month. All three girls went to drama camp for two weeks. At this camp the campers write their own script, organize the set and act out a play. We are amazed and proud how well all our girls performed. While the girls were at their camp, Steve and I painted the exterior of our house.

At the end of August we headed west. The journey was a great deal of fun in itself. We flew to Vancouver, took a ferry to the Sunshine coast, drove up the coast and caught a water taxi to Nelson Island( we were taking advantage of an offer to stay at Steve’s Mom’s cousins cottage). Once on the island we loaded all our gear into a beat- up truck, which then transported the gear from the ocean up to the fresh water lake. Where we again transferred the gear into two small boats for the final leg to the cottage which sits on an island in the lake. Once on the Island we played for 5 days with great company, good food and the only schedules being dictated by naps and our stomachs. We felt like we had found a little piece of heaven on earth.

Once we returned from our west coast travel September and October where rather quiet , which allowed us to complete a great deal of book learning and a few more exterior house renovations.

The end of October brought more travel with a journey to California to go play in the sun. We arrived at the tail end of the devastating Southern Cal. Fires, and witnessed first hand the destruction.

Finally this brings us to December. The first 10 days of December we spent in Arizona playing with our friends/family from Saskatoon, Lynn and Clay (Nana and Papa) at their new winter playground in Arizona. Prior to visiting Lynn and Clay we visited one of the Seven Wonders of the World ... the Grand Canyon. It was a fantastic trip with so much to do and see.
Well life has been very full. We started the year feeling very challenged but feel we are ending the year on a positive note.

Enjoy 2008!

P.S. It was my turn (Steve) to write the Christmas letter ( I’ll take the heat for being tardy, I’m trying to cover two years in one, how’s that for an excuse: efficiency). It didn’t work with Beth either.

Trip to Arizona

2007-12-06T07:14:00.000-08:00

Arizon is known as the land of many uses.

We started our trip visiting one of the Seven Wonders of the World...The Grand Canyon (South Rim).

Sun Set in Sedona

Sedona is south of the Grand Canyon. It is a quaint town rich in natural treasures..gem stones, vortex & forestry.

15 minutes later

Forest in Sedona

Sand Dunes 20 miles west of Yuma (in California)

Kofa Wildlife Refuge

Kofa (King of Arizona Refuge)

Silver Mine
Yuma Prison

First prison to have a library

View from Yuma Prison ...Mountains, Colorado River &Canal

Much of the winter lettus is grown in Arizon. Here workers are yielding the lettus crop from one field. Most workers are brought up from Mexico.

Off to Mexico for the day.

November

2007-12-01T13:39:00.000-08:00

Once we returned home from our lovely trip to California and my hand was repaired we started renovations right away.

Reno #4 - Furnaces

(Reno #1-Paint exterior of house, Reno #2-Remove beams in front of house, Reno #3-replace broken kitchen appliances)

I thought I would enjoy this renovation as we paid someone to come into our house and replace our two old loud, inefficient furnaces. With in two days the job was complete.

Although the work load was minimal and reno's have made the temperature of our house much more comfortable, the experience was somewhat deflating. I feel we should put lawn chairs around the new furnaces and watch the furnaces turn on and off.

Reno #5 - Leaky Window #1

We have tried to replace a leaky window in our bedroom. We ordered a window back in Sept., however we have had to send the special order window back twice as the home improvement store has ordered the incorrect window or made errors in their paperwork. We are hoping that the third time is the charm (optimistic or foolish?).

Reno #6 - Braces

The most exciting news of this month is that Samantha, Nicole and Amanda all received their first stage of braces. They each had an expander placed in their upper mouths. They now all mumble and chew differently.

Every night for 28 nights I have to crank the center skew one turn which then gently pushes the teeth outward. This system is used now instead of removing teeth. The girls are handling this all these changes well.

This is not a picture of ours, it is from the one of the dental websites.

Travel

We are off to Arizona in December to see the Grand Canyon, hang out with Nana and Papa and complete a small volunteer project in Mexico.

School

Yes, we are happily plodding through the course work. We had our first home visit from our teacher. The children are doing great. Steve and I are not doing as well as we should, we are finding the French a little tough, but we are committed to working harder in new year.

2007-11-02T08:23:00.000-07:00

Trip to California

The first portion of our trip was a journey unto itself.

We were not sure about heading into a fire zone as reported by CNN.

Steve ended up doing so much more than his share to get us going on our trip as I was finding it difficult to function normally with my hand immobilized.

Unfortunately our travel family was not able to join us on this trip as planned.

We ran into the Catch 22 of standby travel on our first day. The flight to Los Angeles only had room for three of us ( a small inconvenience for continued employment )

We decided that Steve, Nicole and Amanda would fly out together and Sam and I would take the flight the following day. It was a great opportunity to have a fun girls night together.

Once we all made it to San Diego the wild fires were under control , and all the parks were open for visiting, but from Highway 5 it was clear the divesting effect the fires had wrought.

We started out at Sea World.

Sea World

San Diego Wild Park

This is a picture of how close the fires came to the safari park.

Some of our favorite animals.

Disney Land

Universal Studios

October

2007-10-21T22:35:00.000-07:00

We have had a quiet October so far, we are busy completing course work prior to heading out again.

We started up french this month. I say we as I am learning it along with our children . (I am almost ready for the game show "Are you smarter than a 5th Grader".)

We are very proud of the effort the girls are putting into their school work.

Nicole and Amanda are studying "Waste in our world" in science, so they are busy growing mold, setting up a compost unit in our back yard and studying composting. For some clean fun Steve took Amanda and Nicole to the landfill for a field trip.

Sam is busy collecting evidence and investigating crime scenes. We are taking plaster of paris on our walks and she collects plaster of paris molds of anything she finds interesting.

Sam also went on a field trip with the school were she studied Interactions and Ecosystems. This is part of the grade 7 curiculum, but she loves science and got her out interacting with others.

Sam is also is making great progress building her plane model.

This month the girls ,through Girl Guildes, helped paint play houses for Habitat for Humanities. Habitat builds these playhouses and when finished, they are raffled off as a form of fund raising. We had a great time painting with 18 girls.

This month we also found out that all three girls are needing braces. We will embark down this road in November.

This Friday we are off to California for some fun in the sun. We were planning on going to San Diego, however we will have to see how the situation is there. To add to our fun in the sun I have fractured a bone in my hand. The girls are so indepent now my limitation shouldn't limit our vaction plans.

Our Summer

2007-09-17T21:43:00.000-07:00

Well it is about time I updated this blog site. It is not because I have gotten lazy (well maybe) but it is mainly because we have been very busy. Perhaps I shouldn’t write a novel every time I update our site.

The day after we returned from Newfoundland Sam was invited to go camping with her friend Nicole. We met Sam’s friend Nicole and her family at the Wildlife Discovery Park where the following picture was taken. The bear in the picture was used in the filming of Dr. Dolittle.

The following Monday Amanda and Nicole went to the Leighton Art day came in Southern Calgary for a week. They had such a great time creating and playing.

The next week we sent Sam away again to Pioneer Ranch camp in Sundre Alberta. Sam and a gaggle of her friends from school went away for what sounded like a great time for one week. Sam survived just fine and amazingly Steve and I did as well.

Ten days after our fantastic Newfoundland trip, and while Sam was away at camp, we moved houses. We only moved a few blocks, but I have learned a move is a move no matter how far you go.

We had some wonderful friends (Clay, Lynn, Micki, Ethan, Ferlin, Karen, Sarah, Brad and Marcia) who helped us move and because of them we completed our move on time…otherwise I think the truck would still be in the driveway.

Two days after we moved into our new fixer-upper. We decided to go camping in Kananaskis Country at Mount Kidd, with some of our friends. Crazy time to go but so wonderful once we were there. The kids had a blast riding their bikes and inventing new games.

Once we returned from our camping trip we had to face reality, the mountain of boxes we had abandoned (where the heck were my socks).

At the end of August our three not so little thespians and friend Sarah went off to drama camp for two weeks. (I know it is so hard to keep up with the children’s schedules.) The theme this year was…Journey to the Stars, Rockin’ from Earth to Mars. All the girls were very successful and it was such an honor to be a member of the audience in their final production…I really mean it… all the girls were very good.

Well you would think that was enough for one summer but no………

Steve was on holidays (I am ready to go back to work) so we also started renovating our house. We painted the entire house by hand and removed a few unwanted items. Crazy but true, we have also started to dabble on renovations on the inside of the house as well.

In between brush strokes we fit in a trip to the West coast.

Steve’s parents and our crew where invited to visit Steve’s Mom’s cousin’s and her husband’s island(located on Nelson Island up the Sunshine Coast). It was a case of planes, cars, ferries and water taxis to get there, but Lois and Geoff have definitely found a little bit of heaven on earth. The girls were up fishing in the morning and exploring the Island in the afternoon and star gazing at night. You would think that on an island the food would be simple and rustic. No way, Lois and Joan (Steve’s mother) cooked up gourmet meals, I was obviously not in charge of cooking. Bill (Steve’s Dad) even went to the seaside to get us oysters. All in all another fantastic coastal visit.

After our island visit we spent a few days in Vancouver visiting family.
My father painted us a wonderful picture for our new home. (The picture of Durham Cathedral which is one of the places I lived in England.)

Steve, Papa and Samantha also made a trip down to Seattle to the Museum of flight, as Sam is studying flight in her school curriculum this year.

Our gang made it to Fort Langley to learn about the history of British Columbia.

Nicole, Amanda, Grandma and myself made our annual trek to the Vancouver aquarium.

We had a wonderful trip and many happy memories.

Upon our return to Calgary Nana took us women to Spruce Meadows for our annual day at the horse jumping.

This finally leads us to our day to day life of home schooling, house renovations and working.

Home schooling is lending itself to many field trips such as our last outing to “Smashed in Head Buffalo Jump”. Close to Fort Macleod Alberta there is a Interpretation Center which documents the buffalo hunting cultures of the Plains Indians. Steve and I learned a great deal,the kids knew most of it already. Well at least we are learning new things.

Up to now home schooling as been fun and going well. We have a few more trips planned for the next couple of months.

2007-07-04T12:25:00.000-07:00

Today we woke up early and headed for the Bay Bulls to the O’Brian’s Boat tour.

We headed out at 11:00am and had the hat trick. We started with a sighting of a couple humpback whales (a mother and calf) we then saw a Minke whale. After watching the whales for a little while we then sailed over to Bird Island where we saw many, many birds. We saw thousand of puffins many of the puffins that where on the water were so full on Capelin (a small fish) that they couldn’t fly and had to scoot across the water on their bellies to get out of the way of the boat.
We finished off our tour with a close up few of an iceberg.

After our boat tour we drove around the Southern tip of Newfoundland the Irish loop in the car. We stopped at a couple of great beaches. One of the beaches we stopped at is called St Vincent’s.

St Vincent’s is special because it is a bay with a beachfront but the ledge drops down quickly after the beach. The beachfront is what the Capelin likes for spawning. The birds and whales follow the Capelin into the bay for feeding. Because the ledge drops down so quickly after the beach the whales are able to swim very close to the land. When we where there the Bay was filled with at least 50 whales feeding and playing and 100’s of gulls diving into the ocean getting their fill of fish. Some of the whales were only 50 yds from the shoreline.
We ended our day introducing Daddy to Ches’s fish and chips

2007-07-01T19:20:00.000-07:00

We had a long smooth flight to Newfoundland. During the flight we saw some interesting parts of Canada like the open prairies and Hudson Bay. Using the GPS in the plane we timed how long it took to travel across province. Ontario took the longest to travel across on our flight. Amazingly enough to us it took 1 hour to travel from the coast of Quebec to the airport in St John’s.

Our first full day in Newfoundland we have encountered some wonderful Newfound weather. The fog has been with us on our journeys today. We went for a walk around Daph’s house. Daph’s house and surrounding area is very beautiful and is very green.

We have also visited the Fluvarium museum. Fluvarium means: “windows underneath a flowing stream”. This museum allows you to see the underwater life of a fresh water environment. We saw Brown Trout, Atlantic Salmon, frogs and an eel being fed worms.

On our way home from the Fluvarium we stopped by a story board. This story board gives some information about the Newfoundland Ranger Force. Newfoundland Range Force were a group of men who where hired by the government to help fill the void created by the collapse of Newfoundland’s political system after so many men where lost during World War I. Daph’s father was a member of the Newfoundland Range Force.

We completed our day with a visit with Daph’s parents who are energetic and fun loving people. Daph’s mother is laid up with a broken ankle after going for a walk with Daph and her brother Jim around the North Hail trail. This injury has not stopped her as she is cooking a lobster dinner for us on Sunday.

Yesterday I couldn’t update out Blog site as I forgot the password….Blogging 101.

We woke to a fine day in Newfoundland. The girls really wanted to go shopping so Daph took us along Duckworth Street very close to the Harbour. Along Duckworth Street we stopped at a war memorial.

Following our shopping extravaganza we had to pickup our Sunday night dinner at the farmers market (lobster). Daph expertly choose our dinner and Daph’s mother is cooking them for us. This is holidaying at it best as we are being treated like royalty.

In the afternoon went up to Signal Hill and watched an orchestrated battle between the French and English to the west. To the east we saw icebergs floating by and whales playing with the gulls. (no men or gulls were lost at sea in yesterdays activities). The convergence of the old and the new summarizes our experience in Newfoundland. The past is not easily forgotten but there is an excitement towards the future.

Daph then drove us to Cape Spear another area rich in history. Nicole was so excited to see a lighthouse. Here at Cape Spear there is a retired lighthouse which we took a tour around as well as a working lighthouse. In the older lighthouse they have a broom in the kitchen. The girls were thrilled to learn that the person who made the broom also made the brooms for the Harry Potter movies.

On our way back from Cape Spear Daph took us around some quaint fishing villages. One village in particular Petty Harbour has adapted to the changing times and is still a working fishing village.

Our day ended with fish and chip from Ches’s Fish

Our Blog site

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This Blog site will help us communicate with family and friends on our outings this year.

Our first adventure will take us to Newfoundland to visit our friend Daph.