We departed Ottawa on the Saturday; we had decided to split the drive doing 8 hours each day, so we were on the road around 8:30AM on our way to Grand Falls, New Brunswick.
We had suspected that Paige would be our troubled traveller, and boy had we underestimated. By 1,000,000,000%. Oh, I don't think we were in Montreal already thinking that this was a bad idea. But on we went. Thank goodness Peyton & Leah were good...
We arrived in Grand Falls just after dinner, and the kids were fidgety, tired, full of energy - ya, fun times. A quick dip in the indoor pool and we ordered in Pizza, then came a HUGE test...the twins have not slept outside their cribs yet, and we were putting them in a queen bed. It was ugly, and that's all I will say. Eventually, everyone got to sleep, but as I tried to fall asleep myself that night, I couldn't help but think that it was another 8 hours to the cottage on Sunday, or 8 hours to return to the luxury of home.
Sunday morning we were up and on the road for about 6:30. And everyone was miserable. And right about HERE is where I will insert a lovely video of the way Paige behaved for about 80% of the ride - but the house is a bit unorganized right now, and I can't find my little canon camera that has this video... check back, though - it's worth it.
Getting on the road early was good though - we pulled into Antigonish early PM, and found a nice shady spot on the StFX grounds to have a picnic...
A couple of hours later, we MADE it! And it was hot and sunny! We arrived around 5PM, and literally dropped our bags, threw on our swim suits and ran to the beach - if there's something we know about east coast weather, it's that you take advantage of the nice periods of weather.
The little darlings experiencing the Atlantic for their first time, while their big sister commences this "great sea shell collection adventure." She just had to have each and every one she saw!
And so began our lovely week, where we had sunshine and beach time every single day!
On Monday morning, we took the kids down to Murphy's Point to see the fishing boats. My comfort level was...well, zero here. Too much potential for the ever-so-active children to fall into the water, so we snapped some pictures, looked at some boats, debated about whether the red thing was a balloon or a buoy (it was a buoy) then walked back to the cottage.
Back to the beach that afternoon, then we came up with the strategy of bathing the kids outdoors, thus leaving the mounds of sand OUTside. Leah and Paige strongly opposed this idea...as you can clearly see:
I'm happy to write (THRILLED to write) that the sleeping got better - we didn't change our strategy at all; we'd planned for the three girls to share the back bedroom with the two single beds, and by the second day they were settled in relatively fine, and we even managed to get them to nap during the day:
And how cute is this...fast asleep at night:
On Tuesday, Rich and De arrived! They actually left Ottawa before us, but stopped in Quebec city and PEI before joining us. The kids were thrilled, and we were happy for the break. Seriously!
Wednesday morning we meandered down to the new camp site down by the arena - the kids had noticed the little play ground.
We five:
Eric & Anne and the kids came to visit us at lunch time on Wednesday - Anne grew up about 40 mins away from Port Hood and they go back out east every summer without fail. We all hit the beach together and Peyton loved playing with little girls closer to her age - Augusta & Kenzie.
That evening, De and I attempted to capture a sunset down at the beach, but alas, those clouds always got in the way. Oh well. Seagulls were kinda neat.
On Thursday, De and I drove up to the Cabot Trail - not the whole trail, but we drove into Cheticamp. She's a semi-prof, highly talented photagrapher, so we took our time and stopped a bit along the way: these are *my* pics, by the way - and while I am not semi-professional, I have been published :)
Later, more beach time:
The kids were like fish and spent almost 100% of their time at the beach in the water. So much for the sand toys :)
Friday night, we hit the horse races:
Saturday was the last day there. The Parade of Chestico Days was happening. This year was extra special, as the whole town...scratch that - the whole ISLAND and maybe province is routing for Mitch MacDonald to be the next Canadian Idol. Mitch comes from a seriously talented family in Port Hood, and the town SCREAMS pride for this young man. As I write this now, he's in the bottom two, so I suppose this week we'll find out if he is indeed crowned. But all week there were rumours that he'd be there for the parade, so the place was PACKED! Of course, because of scheduling issues he couldn't make it out, so instead it was a rally held in his honor (which apparently made it to tv as a 5 second clip - ha!)
Anyway, pictures from the parade, rally and our last beach day will come very soon!
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