Highlights of the last 11 days:
Monday, July 8. My Mom and I took the girls to the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in St. Andrews. The HMSC is part of the federal government Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada Biological Station. The Centre had undergone a major refit where the old aquarium was torn down and a new one was built and opened to the public in September 2011 (http://www.huntsmanmarine.ca/).
Hannah, my oldest, loves the water and wants to become a marine biologist when she grows up. I told her she should become a nurse like her aunt if she ever hopes to have a career. :) We started off fairly early (10ish) in the morning, with the goal of grabbing a couple of geocaches along the way to the aquarium, and getting there in time to see the morning feeding of the seals. There was a new road to the aquarium that I was not aware of and I ended up missing the sign, going the old route which I only found out at the last minute was barricaded. We reached the aquarium with no time to spare. Then, my Mom pays for the girls and her entry fee with a $100 bill, which the cashier has trouble getting sufficient change for until I ended up paying for my entrance fee. During this fiasco, I could hear over the loudspeakers the announcement that they were going to be feeding the seals. Hannah and Lily were getting antsy, so we left my Mom in our dust and hustled outside. The girls loved watching the seals perform tricks and listening to the two biologists give a talk about seal biology (size, ages, feeding habits, etc.). We then headed back inside to explore the rest of the two-storey aquarium.
I have to say, even I was taken aback by how wonderful the HMSC looked compared to the last time I was there. They really took advantage of the two floors by having the two large outdoor tanks (one for sturgeons and the seal tank) stretch all the way down to the bottom floor, with two large glass windows for viewing, allowing everyone inside to see the seals and fish swimming around.
There was also a large set of tubes filled with salt water and fish to show the height of the Bay of Fundy tides.
My Mom even got in on the act when it came to the two large touch tanks.
To top if off, I ran into a married couple I had not seen in a very long time: two people who I graduated with from high school back in 1992. They were there with their three daughters enjoying the new aquarium. I don't have many good memories of high school, but it was nice to chat with the both of them.
After I let the girls pick out something from the HMSC gift shop (they both picked out a small stuffed seal, and containers of "goo"), we had a light lunch at Tim's and then headed to the downtown shops. The girls wanted to spend their money they earned doing errands for me, so we headed to the candy shop. After that, my Mom wanted to treat us again, so we headed to a place that sold great homemade fudge and picked out a pound of four flavours (old fashioned brown sugar, maple nut, orange creamsicle, and caramel vanilla). The girls and I then took a walk out on the pier while Mom had a break on a nearby bench. After that, it was one more quick stop to grab another geocache before heading back home.
We got back early enough that I was able to run up and repair my cache at Lake Utopia that I placed in memory of my Dad (GC2A7KQ). This was the third repair to this cache that I've made in two years. It was a poor choice of container on my part, a tackle box, which had personal meaning for me but also meant it was impossible to keep everything dry. I switched it out for an ammo can, with another loc 'n' loc inside to keep everything nice and dry. I ran into the St. George Home Hardware to pick up a part in order to secure the cache to a tree, and the cashier was another person I graduated with from high school, and once again, it was someone I haven't really seen at all since graduation. What are the odds, twice in one day.
Tuesday, July 9. We spent the day relaxing at the house. I spent some time in morning doing a few odd jobs for my Mom, including tilling the garden. The garden was my Dad's 5th child, and working in it always brings a mixture of good memories and sad feelings.
Hannah noticed a tooth was loose, and wiggled it a bit. It popped out not long after she mentioned it was bothering her. It ended up being her "pirate tooth", the silver-capped tooth from when she had dental surgery at age 3. I was a bit concerned that tooth had actually broken off since I did not see a root. Did you know that when a baby tooth is actually ready to come out, the root essential dissolves into the bone, never to be seen? Google is your friend. It has now been well over a week and she is not complaining of anything, so it looks like everything is okay.
The tooth fairy gave her $2 American in anticipation of her trip to Bangor, ME. The tooth fairy tends to be fairly generous as Hannah shares her haul equally with her sister. She is very considerate.
Wednesday, July 10. I managed to get a bit of "me" time. I wanted to go out for a geocache/hike, so Mom decided to take the girls to town to play on the playground and check out the dollar store.
At the last minute I shortened my caching trip, just going for a quick hike for only a few caches in order to get home earlier in the afternoon. Mom wasn't moving around very well this week, so I didn't want to over-burden her with looking after the girls for too long.
I decided to go hike the Barnaby Trail out at New River Beach, as I noticed there were a few new caches placed in the area. The last time I hiked that trail was when I was a Cub Scout, well over 25 years ago. It was a bit disappointing having to pay an $8 vehicle entry fee, but I wasn't going to let anything get me down on such a great day. The weather was fantastic, and I had the whole trail to myself, save for a couple hiking out as I was hiking in. I put in about 5km and found all 5 caches. I then found another 2 caches on the way home, including one I did not find on a search two years back. All in all, it was a great day.
Thursday, July 12. On the home stretch to seeing my wife and baby! Everyone was pretty excited, but her flight did not arrive until 5:22 PM, so we had a whole day to kill, shopping in Bangor. Mom had a small list of things she wanted to pick up for my sister. We stopped at the L.L. Bean outlet shop, which is nice, but also a bit of letdown once you have been to the big retail store in Freeport, ME. The girls were pestering me constantly to go to the Christian bookstore, as they wanted to spend the money my Mom had given each of them for the trip. I had planned our route so that it was the second-to-last store we stopped at, and I expected they would eat up a decent amount of time there. The girls walked in, saw some books they wanted, picked them out, and paid. We were in and out in less than 10min! Now, we had a good 2 hours to kill in Wal-Mart. My Mom was absolutely floored by the size of the store, as it was a good 3X larger than any we have on our side of the border. We ended up burning through a fair bit of time, grabbed a few cold drinks to beat the heat at the Dunking Donuts, and grabbed 2 nearby geocaches before heading the airport.
There was a bit of confusion at the airport as it wasn't clear from the arrival/departure monitors where the arrival gate for Elizabeth's flight was. We ended up waiting on the upper level with a number of others before some people realized they may be downstairs waiting, so we went downstairs, and there was Elizabeth and Emeline. I wished I had my camera with me, as Lily ran up and both her and Elizabeth started crying because they were so happy to see each other. Emeline was a bit shy with me after two weeks of not seeing me, but she quickly warmed back up and wanted me to hold her constantly.
After a stop for supper at Denny's, we made the long trip home. We were fortunate to get through the border without issue, and then dropped my Mom off at my aunt's place before heading back down to Pennfield; Mom was having surgery on her foot the next morning at the St. Stephen hospital, so she elected to stay at my aunt's and have her drive her home afterwards. By the time we got to Pennfield it was 11:30PM; after the girls tore through their gifts that Elizabeth brought back for them and everyone went to bed, it was well past 1AM.
One quick note about our supper stop at Denny's. As I was getting up to pay, a gentleman sitting with his wife at another table called me over. He gave me a printed off coupon for a "buy one, get one free burger" that he wasn't using, as he saw that we had a few platters on our table and thought we could use it. We did, and ended up saving about $5 that night. I thanked him for his generosity. There are some really nice people in this world!
What a great day!
Friday, July 13 and Saturday, July 14. We made the decision to wait until Sunday before heading back to Fredericton, in order to help my Mom out more around the house after her surgery. I think she appreciated it immensely. It allowed me the time to get a few more things done that she needed, like watering her tomato plants, watering the neighbour's flowers, and trimming the driveway of encroaching weeds. Elizabeth was pretty tired after her long day of travel.
One of the coolest things my wife brought back for me was this:
This is an almost exact replicate of the 1965 Massey Ferguson tractor that my Dad owned. I had been looking for a toy tractor to either place in his memorial cache or send off as a travel bug. Elizabeth brought home two from Mississippi, allowing me to keep one and send one off. It was probably the nicest gift she has ever given me. Besides my three girls, of course. :)
Sunday, July 15 to Thursday, July 19. It has been back to our normal summer routine here at our place. We've been to the outdoor pool a few times (although it now appears the baby has developed a reaction to the chlorine when it gets in her eyes), the library, I've been out geocaching a bit (removing some of my old caches and going out finding caches), grocery shopping, etc. Elizabeth has been pulling late nights (1-2AM) as she works on completing manuscripts for her PhD; the late nights are pretty odd for her, as I am the nighthawk of the family. But I think she is finding that, like I have, the late nights are a great time to get stuff done without the constant demands of the kids in our ears.
This was a very long post. I probably won't have another long one like this for quite a while.
