A strange and contradictory week

Park hilarity

As I sat down to write this post, I realized that this past week was, in many respects, a study in juxtaposition.  It was lonely and solitary (with Clark gone doing fieldwork for the week), then suddenly BURSTING with people once the weekend hit. It was stunning, calm, gorgeous, sunny weather, followed by crazy torrential rain and wind.  It was momentous (as I officially graduated from my PhD program on Thursday), and completely mundane, as I spent that day by myself, doing chores at home.  It contained both huge amounts of play and partying, and strange, intermittent bouts of sickness (on the part of Linden).  It was a relatively bizarre week.  But also pretty awesome, in the end. Here are a few pictures from the goings on:

1. The yard.  Seeing as the weather was so delightful, and that we are starting to close in on the end of October, I jumped at the chance to spend much of the week finally tending to our brand new yard -- both getting to know it, and figuring out how best to prepare it for the winter.  This mostly involved pulling out copious amounts of raspberry canes (and the resulting roots) from the garden plot (a multi day, aching-body process, let me assure you), and raking/cleaning up the grass.  Of course, when the kids got home from school, they were both quick to jump in and "help":

A serious raker (complete with gloves)

and another!

2. Guests: As I mentioned earlier, the fall convocation at MUN happened last Thursday, and as it turns out, I was included in the the group of Folklore PhDs receiving their degree that day.  This had not been a given - due to the timeline of my defence date, and the very close cut-off for needing to have everything in, I was not sure whether I would indeed be graduating this fall, or have to wait until spring.  Seeing as nobody from MUN whispered a word to me, I assumed it would be spring.  Then, after some sleuthing, I found out that - surprise! - I was going to be graduating after all. My parents had really wanted to go to this graduation.  They had even offered to pay my way.  But since I wasn't even sure I WAS graduating until a few days before the event was to take place, I just decided against it.

So instead, my parents came down to visit. Then Theresa also decided to come visit.  Then Linden started puking.  Then he was fine.  Then Clark threw a big surprise brunch in celebration of my graduation.  Then Linden puked again.  Then he was fine.  It was all very strange.  And fun, and frenetic, and calm.  And for the record, Linden is home today, seemingly fit as a fiddle, gleefully putting together a lego fire truck as I type.  Bacterial infection? Food allergy?  Who knows. At least it seemed completely non-contagious, and didn't actually keep Linden from enjoying all the festivities, so all's well that ends well (I hope).

There were a lot of cards and board games played.  Here, mom teaches Juniper the nuances of backgammon. 

We apparently promised Linden that when he turned 5, we'd let him cut his own bread.  He did not forget this promise.  All fingers are still intact.

Juniper, Eva and Sylvie, quick to get the dolls out.  In this shot, they are caring for their babies en route to Hawaii. Pretty luxurious plane trip, if you ask me. 

The celebratory gang!

 And now I must go help put together that fire truck.  See you next week!