Prepping for First Day of School

Today was our back-to-school meet-the-teachers open house -- and Rosemary's first day of school is tomorrow. Rosemary will be in pre-K with Ms. Vicky this year, five half-days a week, and Louis will repeat Ms. Jennifer's 2's class 3 half-days a week. Rosemary was very very excited to go back to school and to see her friends. I was happy to see that she has a small class (only 10!) this year, and that all the kids have early fall birthdays like she does. Most of the kids in the class, other than Esme, I've never met, so it will be nice for her to have some new friends. Louis seemed fairly nonplussed to be back, though had his usual suspicious look about him. He sure LOOKED bigger than his classmates! It will be interesting to see how he handles being one of the oldest kids in the class this year.

 

 

 

 Also to get ready for school, I purged last year's art from our walls, making room for (very likely the same :-) this year's art. I need to take pictures of the art projects that Kyle does with the kids -- and especially from Tiger Ground Art Camp -- as they are MUCH more imaginative.

This is a very cute picture Rosemary made at home with Nani, using a book I had when I was little by Ed Emberly.

 The alphabet, which Rosemary's class worked on last year (I think they got it down...)

 This was Louis's most "expressive" piece of art of last year -- most of the projects come back looking like he had very little to do with them, but I think he did this one all himself.

 I thought this one of Rosemary's was very pretty

 Louis's hand turkey (I'm sure this one will come up again)

 Rosemary's handmade Valentine's for us, and Nani's to her and Louis.

Nova Scotia!

We started our wonderful journey in Boston visiting Sandy and Tyler and their two great kids, Ashley (5) and Alex (almost 3). Julie was able to make it out as well, as an added bonus. Sandy and Tyler, incredibly, had just moved into their new house in Cohasset three weeks ago -- they had unpacked completely (and Sandy's last day of work was just the Friday prior to our visit) and we were not their first visitors! As usual, Sandy is the model of competence and efficiency -- the house looked great, and was a terrific home. They have an awesome new beach lifestyle with a ferry commute for Tyler, the beach on Fridays after work -- complete with an oyster-shucking station (Tyler's job), white wine (Sandy and my job), and sandcastle building (supervised by Julie).

 

The two girls had some uncomfortable similarities (namely, being used to being the BOSS), but they mostly got along great. In fact, Ashley declared Rosemary to be her best friend on the last day. 

 

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Then it was only an hour's flight to Nova Scotia! We flew in on Saturday morning, rented a car, and then drove up to Maggie's Cove in Cape Breton where we met Nani and Nana. We had a grand time there, staying in an old farmhouse near the Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

We took lots of hikes.

We also tried our hand -- and were quite successful -- at digging for clams. They had soft-shell clams there aplenty which were actually very easy to find -- the challenge was not to break their shells as you dig, as their shells are softer than egg shells. We had many casualties, but the kids left the broken clams out for the sea gulls, who were quite appreciative.

One of our best hikes was around Warren Lake, where the kids did a three mile trek (and Louis actually walked 80% of it, much to our surprise and delight). 

Due to all the tannins from leaves, the water was ORANGE! It felt great to jump in that lake -- it was a steamy 80-85 degrees and quite humid.

We enjoyed live lobsters a few times on the trip -- lobster fishing is one of the main industries in Nova Scotia.

And we had about the BEST beach in North America -- pink sand, relatively warm water, nice waves, and NO PEOPLE!!!

Rosemary and Louis on a farm where we went raspberry picking. Louis had a lot of fun on the trip, but, somewhat heartbreakingly, every day he woke up and moaned, "I want to go home!" And he spent a lot of his days inventorying all the things at home he wanted to play with -- his fire truck, his dump truck, his steam roller, his tools, etc. In fact, he spent the better part of our 3 hour Warren Lake hike discussing the items in his room.

 

 Purple granite boulders near Louisburg

 

After a terrific week in Cape Breton, it was time to move to our next destination. We said goodbye to Nani and Nana and drove near Peggy's Cove -- specifically Indian Harbor. We were going to meet Grandma Mary and Grandpa Dan there that night, but sadly their flight was delayed by a day. So we made our way to Lunenberg, where we saw the tall ships and attended the folk festival (and bought scallops right off the boat). The kids enjoyed playing on the grass and we got to see the winners of the youth singing competition.

The kids got to try their hands at ship building at the Atlantic Fisheries museum (one of the best kids museums I could imagine!)

Grandma and Grandpa patiently playing strategy games with the kids.

Rosemary getting an authentic War of 1812 tattoo.

Then we went sailing on an authentic 1915 Swedish schooner -- and the kids got knot tying lessons from the sailors! They LOVED these!

The view from our rental house.

Lunch at a winery near Wolfville -- the last day we drove up to the north shore and saw the old Acadian farmlands, created by their ingenious salt water dykes. 

A wonderful day at Crystal Cove beach.

 

Happy Lobster Day!

 

The three Spindlers went fishing one morning -- they came back with MORE mackeral, pollack, and cod than we could eat. Rosemary caught three fish at once! That is my kind of fishing -- a great real first fishing experience. James was besides himself with happiness. 

Amazing carnivorous pitcher plants! Something I've only seen in Malaysia!