Our last visit...

Our last visit on the way back to Thunder Bay was with Uncle Paul, Jon's brother who lives near Hull, Quebec.

Hanging with Grampy Carlos and the fam

Just before we left Fredericton, we spent some time with Grampy Carlos, Jon's dad, and his family.

In the Country

We spent our last few days in NB in Woodstock and Debec, where I grew up. The kids had space to RUN!!
Abby trying her s'more during a campfire at Auntie Win and Uncle Len'sCuddles with Auntie Win...Jordan fell asleep as Auntie Win rocked him, which is rare for him these days!! He was pooped...

Making cookies with Auntie Win
Jude LOVED that Uncle Len got to ride on his lawn mower.
Cuddles with Auntie Joan...
One of the highlights of our time in the country was going fishing with Papa. Dad took us out to the brook on a wagon pulled behind the tractor. After an initial fear of the noise, the kids loved the ride!

Fishing.... Jude didn't actually fish, but did hold his fishing rod while sitting on Daddy's shoulders.

Wading in the cool brook

My Dad had large gardens and planted scarlet runners around poles to make a little tent for the kids.

Our Summer "Christmas"

Because we're not sure if we'll be able to make the trip back to NB for Christmas, we celebrated Christmas in August with my (Lezlie's) family at Auntie Joan's cottage.


Abby and Jude learned to skip rocks. Jude waited for others to bring him perfect stones and then proceeded to throw them all in at once. If the rocks were not coming fast enough, he would just throw in fistfuls of sand (often getting sand down the back of his neck!).








We went for "Christmas Eve" kayaks on the river, played cards, had a campfire on the shore (with s'mores of course!), opened presents and stockings, and had a fabulous dinner. We even had Christmas crackers that we forgot to use last Christmas! It was a weekend full of lots of laughter & memories. Great idea Nana!! For more "Christmas" pictures, check here.


Sleepy brothers...

"What IS that on your lip Uncle Len?"




Jordan enjoying a Nana roll as an appetizer before Christmas dinner
Abby having a cuddle with her first Webkin, Patches.

Some of my favourite pictures...

We (Jon) drove straight from Brighton (about an hour East of Toronto) to Fredericton. We got into Fredericton at about 4 am local time on Saturday morning and were welcomed by my sister Joan. After some excitement we all got settled for some much needed rest. My parents and my other sister Win arrived on Sunday. This is a picture of my dad with Jordan... it was the first time they had met each other.














Nana and Jordan got reacquainted. Both of my parents beemed when they were with the kids... it was so nice to be home.


Jude trying on Auntie Joan's shoes...
We spent a lot of our first week walking around Fredericton. Although we had planned to do some visiting with friends, Jude started throwing up on Monday morning. Not cool. Abby never threw up, but had a fever with a headache on and off for a couple days. Jordan started getting his top 2 teeth (he's now working on an additional two on the top!). I didn't start throwing up until Friday.... we thought it best not to "share" with our friends in Fredericton. We did that at Christmastime in Thunder Bay (not intentionally!!), although I think we've been forgiven... maybe... by now :)

This is a picture of Abby, Jon, and Jordan walking on a trail near the walking bridge in Fredericton.

Fredericton turned one of their old train bridges, spanning the Saint John River, into a walking bridge. Because it was so close to Auntie Joan's house, we often included it in our walks. Fredericton is such a beautiful city.

Roadtrip!

We hadn't done it before with 3 kids. The last time we tried, our truck broke after 700 kms. Were we a little nervous, yup. Were we excited to go on an road-trip adventure to NB with our little Gomers, absolutely!!

The first day was great! The kids travelled really well. We were really proud of them :) I had little "surprise-bags" (thanks for the idea, Joy!) for the kids, snacks, lunches, movies, etc. We left Thunder Bay around 9 am on Wednesday July 30. We were in Sault Ste Marie around suppertime, so we had a quick supper and then went to the waterfront. We were planning to just go for a walk on the boardwalk, but there was some construction and we ended up in a different spot than we had been before. What we found was an amazing park! Although Sault St. Marie is much smaller than Thunder Bay, their waterfront park made any playground in Thunder Bay look tiny. There at least 6-8 different large play structures and then smaller swing sets, merry-go-round things, etc. We planned our return trip so we could stop again. The kids had soooo much fun, especially after being in the van for so long.

The park was still on the boardwalk and right on the lake. Definitely worth stopping for with kids!
We purposefully went the "long way" through Toronto so we could go to the zoo and visit our dear friends in Brighton. We had such good memories of the zoo from when we lived in Toronto 3 years ago. Jude is a little older than Abby was at the time, so we thought it would be a good addition to our vacation. We lived in Toronto from September to March. We had a membership and went to the zoo over a dozen times in the few months we lived there, but never in the summer. The zoo in the summer is not so fun. Long lines, heat, over-tired kids (read cranky, whiny, clingy, sweaty kids), over-tired, less than patient, somewhat cranky parents who just want to get their money's worth of the zoo.... we went, saw some animals, shared memories with Abby from previous zoo adventures, then went back to our air-conditioned van...

There were some highlights...Jude loved the elephants and Jordan loved being able to see everything from Daddy's back (except when Jordan went into the stroller for a sauna, er... nap and Jude took Jordan's place on Daddy's back). Abby loved being able to see all the different types of "kitties" :)






Abby playing with Hannah, our friend's daughter. Abby and Hannah are 5 months apart in age and were nearly inseparable for our visit (we arrived at suppertime and stayed until early afternoon the following day).


Check out our web album for more pictures from our NB Roadtrip 2008 Adventure!

Jude playing with his friend Andrew's digger. Andrew was nearly 2 when we visited. Their actual sand box put our little turtle to shame.
Jordan all smiles with my sweet friend Joy.

Our Field...

This picture was taken in July, when we let our lawn turn to a field of lovely clovers, daisies and other random wildflowers. Can you find Dora, our sprinkler? She's nearly hidden because the "grass" was that high! Clearly, we were not planning on letting our yard turn into a field...

The story...
We bought a gas powered mower last summer after our electric one died. Our shed, now living on as the floor of our new bedroom in the addition, had lost the ability to open its doors (shifting, erroding soil from the hill moving in front of the doors...), one of the sure signs that its end was near. So, our lawn mower wintered under the deck. It didn't like it. Lawn mowers rarely go on sale in the spring. Go figure! So, I noticed the lawn mower of our friends. It was a very eco-friendly, get-a-good-work-out, people-powered reel mower. They gave it a "thumbs-up" so I bought it for Jon for Father's day. Their lawn has grass... ours... not so much. Reel mowers are far too friendly to weeds and gently push them over instead of hacking them off, no matter how persuasive we tried to be. We decided after a few tries that we were losing the battle. Our lawn looked hideous (okay, better than the "field", but still pretty awful). Scissors were not an option although we did half consider a goat :) I think we may have a city by-law prohibiting such types of lawn-care however.

We took back the reel mower and waited... and waited... and waited for a lawn mower to go on sale. We could've bought one full price, but that would just be silly! Our lawn grew, as did flowers, small thorn bushes and other very large weeds. We did get a lawn mower, not on sale, but a very nice refurbished one that was sitting all by its lonesome at Home Depot. It was the same price as the reel-mower :)

The boys...

Jordan LOVES pasta & sauce. We can't feed him fast enough so he would much rather feed himself (our boys really like to experience their food!)
First bath together...
Although they look all innocent in these pictures, what you can't see is how wet Mummy, the floor, the window ledge, Daddy, etc. got when they discovered the joys of splashing each other!
In July we really tried to get Jordan out of the sleeping-in-the-swing thing. However, reintroducing him to his crib coincided nicely with him learning how to sit up on his own from the lying down position. After practicing his new skill, Jordan finally fell asleep by just bending over and lying his head between his feet (yes, I did lie him down after I took the picture of him...just in case you're wondering...)