Elizabeth and the baby have been away to Mississippi since June 27th, helping her sister through the loss of her daughter. Being off work has been a bit of blessing in that regard, as I've been able to handle things at home without my wife worrying.
Since that time, my older girls, Hannah (age 8) and Lily (age 5) and I have been getting through the days, keeping busy until her return. The girls seem to be having fun so I'm happy.
We are currently at my mother's house in Pennfield for the next 5 days. We pick up Elizabeth and Emeline from the airport on Thursday.
Highlights of the past 10 days:
Wednesday, June 27. After dropping Elizabeth and Emeline off at the Bangor International Airport I made the long drive home alone. The girls were at Vacation Bible School at our church, and a family friend volunteered to keep the overnight. Then I get the call. Lily was throwing up, so I went over to Vicki's and brought the girls home. Lily continued to throw up until about 10:30PM, after which she was sleeping soundly. As is typically with her, she woke up the next morning as if nothing had happened at all; just a little tired was all.
Thursday, June 28. I was glad Lily was feeling better as it was the closing ceremonies for the Vacation Bible School and I knew she didn't want to miss it. The church put on a huge barbeque for the kids and parents and I know there was in excess of 200 people there. Amazing! I got the opportunity to talk to the Pastor and provide an update on Elizabeth and everything that was going on.
Friday, June29. It was a busy day. We ran a few errands, picked up groceries, then headed home for lunch. We then met up with my sister Wendy and her kids and spent part of the hot afternoon at the local wading pool (until some kid took a pool dump and everyone evacuated). We had a barbeque supper with my sister and her clan. We then made the 15min drive out to Mactaquac Provincial Park to attend a workshop on birdwatching hosted by the New Brunswick Federation of Naturalists. There was only one other woman there with her grandson, so the turnout was disappointing for what was a great family-oriented workshop. A highlight for me was the walk along the trails after the presentation, where staff had strung in the trees full-size silhouettes of different bird species, such as wrens, sparrows, woodpeckers, and hawks. What a great teaching tool! I think I took away just as much from that experience as the kids did. I really got a boost to the pride I have in my girls when the head park ranger said to me: "I am really impressed. You've got some really keen girls there".
Sunday, July 1. After church services and a quick lunch, the girls and I headed downtown to check out the Canada Day celebrations at Officer's Square. It was really hot that day (28oC). There was a pretty big crowd and huge lineups for all of the food vendors, face painters, etc. It was also pretty disappointing to find out they were charging admission to play on the bouncy castles that were set up. We sat down and watched some of the stage performance put on by the local theatre troupe, the Calithumpians, but the heat was getting to us, so I walked the girls up to Tim's and got them a lemonade. On the way back to the van I snapped this photo:
At 10:15PM, my sister and her kids arrived at my house and we walked down (with a quick Tim's stop on the way) to watch the fireworks from a great spot close to the river that my wife and I discovered two years back. I thought it was pretty late (10:40PM) for the fireworks this year, which may have had something to do the headline act for the Canada Day festivities, Joel Plaskett. It seemed like a pretty big coupe for the city to snag this act, so I imagine they wanted to give him enough time on the stage to do a complete set. The kids loved the fireworks, except for my two year old niece Alexia, who seemed more interested in how bright the moon was.
Monday, July 2. The girls and I took a walk down the trail and up a side, completing a roughly 2km route back to the apartment. Along the way, we snagged 2 geocaches, which I needed in order to fill my calendar day. I only have 3 days left, and I will have found a cache on all 366 days of the year, including leap year. I set Hannah up with her own account last year, and I think it increases her enjoyment of the sport. In the afternoon we met up with my sister and her kids and went to the wading pool.
Wednesday, July 4 and Thursday, July 5. I finally got the flu bug that seemed to be circulating around and that every member of my family had. It hit me pretty hard the night of July 3rd through the early morning. I felt bad because the girls and I were really looking forward to going to Fundy National Park. Vicki called Wednesday afternoon and said she would look after the kids overnight if I needed the rest; I accepted the offer and was grateful for it. However, at 10:30PM I got a call saying Lily was crying and wanting me, so I said to bring them home. I didn't mind, as I know Hannah and Lily both miss their Mom terribly and that likely exacerbated the situation of being apart from me, as they have stayed at Vicki's before without an issue.
Friday, July 6. Poor weather prevented our last attempt that week to go to Fundy National Park. However, we were pretty excited about going to Officer's Square that night for a special performance by a Canadian icon in children's music: Fred Penner!
I loved listening/seeing this intro in the morning when growing up (jump to the 38sec mark):
The girls and I brought food (burgers and hot dogs) over to Wendy's for a barbeque, and then we headed downtown to the concert.
It was pretty amazing to see Fred Penner live. He looked the same as I remember as a kid, just more grey hair is all.
He had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand the entire time he was on stage, regaling us with songs and stories. It was pretty obvious by the number of people who were there without kids that it wasn't just me being nostalgic about my childhood.
The only downside to the event was the number of parents with out of control kids. At a certain point it seemed like chaos reigned, as they kids were running all over the stage; I am pretty sure that is the reason the sound from the speakers seemed to go to crap for the last half hour. For the life of me, I will never understand how parents can just let their kids run wild like that, without supervision, discipline, or consequence.
Every time I see that, I am grateful for the well-behaved, well-mannered kids that I have raised.
Fred Penner was extremely gracious. He stayed around to pose for pictures with a lot of people, given the number of friends who posted pictures on facebook of their kids with him. The line up just seem too long for us and the kids were worn out at that point and besides, Wendy and I were the ones who wanted our pictures with Fred, not the kids!
Wendy and I both remarked that were more excited about the concert than the kids were. Wendy totally marked out when he sang "The Cat Came Back".
Saturday, July 7. Lily had a birthday party to go to from 12PM-3PM. I took Hannah out to lunch at her favourite spot, the Pita Pit. The only vegetable she got on her chicken ceasar pita was cucumbers; I had no idea she loved cucumbers that much. I also had no idea how fast she could eat, as she wolfed down that pita before I had finished even half of mine. There was a freak torrential downpour that got us soaked while running an errand and prevented us from going geocaching. After picking up Lily from her party, we spent the rest of the day cleaning up and getting packed for our trip to Mom's.
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