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| Happy Father's Day! |
It has been almost a full month since my last post, which is perhaps a bit unfair for those wondering what, exactly, is happening as I get VERY close to my due date (June 29th). In a nutshell: I feel extremely big and uncomfortable, but otherwise we (ie, me and baby) are doing just fine.
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| Pregnant with Juniper, July 2009 |
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| Trying (not super successfully) to recreate the same shot: pregnant with ?, June 2018. Maybe I'm just coveting my 20s self rather than my 30s self! |
Within the next couple (or, heaven forbid, few) weeks, there will undoubtedly be an exciting update post to share, but in the meantime, here is a big catch-up from the last month. We'll start with the most recent: Father's Day weekend. It was actually pretty jam-packed, with a whole lot of biking adventures (none of which I participated in, for obvious reasons), and some general festivities.
Father's Day Weekend
Saturday, Clark and kids took off on their bikes bright and early, and went on an epic trip through Dartmouth, across the harbour by ferry, and then noodled around Halifax. There aren't many pictures from the excursion, but it culminated at the Halifax Garden Festival, where I eventually joined them, and picked them up. Before leaving, however, we indulged in some pretty delicious gelato at Humani-T Cafe, which was the perfect ending for everyone.
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| Linden heard about the Garden Festival on the radio, and was SUPER keen to go, since we are "gardeners" |
On Sunday, we feted Clark as best as we were able with my slow-moving self in charge. The day began with a sleep-in for Clark, while the kids and I prepared the now quintessential celebration breakfast: waffles with all the fixings.
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| All set and ready to dig in! Check out Juniper's artistically arranged yard flowers. |
Then, Clark and Linden finished up a project that has been in the works for some time now: a hand-crafted, specially-designed herb box for me. This was made almost entirely of Linden's cedar planks, and he did about 90% of the sawing and nailing required to assemble it. Everyone (including the carpenter himself) were duly impressed.
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| Freshly made, Clark and Linden fill the box with soil |
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| The head carpenter posing with his creation |
After lunch, Clark and kids pulled out their bikes again, and headed off for a much more rugged mountain biking adventure. They started at Spider Lake, which was, apparently, a little too technical to enjoy. So they regrouped, and instead choose a more manageable path along the old locks and canals. They had BLAST. I was actually a little jealous, but one day in the not super, super distant future I will once again join in on such outings!
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| Ready to hit the trail |
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| Stopping to explore |
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| There were a bunch of these stone-built culvert type things around, which were apparently pretty cool. |
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| You can't really call it an adventure unless you get a little wet and/or mucky, right? |
Finally, after a nice chicken dinner, I requested a Father's Day photoshoot in our blooming backyard. The kids were only too happy to oblige, as they were both sporting some new clothes from my run to the Superstore. Linden, in particular, was thrilled to finally (FINALLY) own his own tank top. He's only been talking about his desire for his own tank top for the last month. I'm not even joking. The title photo was obviously from that same shoot, but here are a couple of others:
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| I promise, Juniper is still taller than Linden, though this seems to suggest otherwise. I think he's going to be be quite tall, though! |
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Mandatory silly shot
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The PEI (train) trip
Ok, time to jump back in time a bit, and chronicle a pretty crazy adventure from last month. So, first, the back-story: as some people may recall, a year ago, we all went to a VIA Rail safety day at the Halifax train station, to take advantage of all the fun family activities offered. While there, we entered a draw for a round-trip train ride from Halifax to Moncton for a family of four, and WON! We then had a year to use those tickets, and had lots of great ideas for what such a trip would entail. Then, of course, I got pregnant, and it kept getting pushed and pushed until finally, we realized we had to use it or lose it.
So a big scheme was hatched, wherein we'd take the train to Moncton, get picked up there by Deborah and Yvon, then all head over to Prince Edward Island, to see the sights and visit with Theresa and Scott (then do the whole thing in reverse for the trip home). It was logistically complicated, but in the end it worked marvellously. Though I hemmed and hawed, I decided at the last minute to stay behind - despite the fact that I have been less miserable in the later stages of pregnancy than I was at the beginning, There hasn't been a day that I haven't been both exhausted and nauseous, and therefore was just not up to such a trip. So I had a very relaxing, quite productive, and more than a little lonely weekend at home.
The following pictures and captions, then, are from Clark. Juniper also did her own chronicling, so it's entirely possible there may be another blog post coming at some point from her perspective. But in the meantime:
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| Linden's artistic rendering of the VIA train |
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| From Juniper's camera: all packed and waiting at the station! |
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| Our free tickets |
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| Riding the train from Halifax to Moncton (with Julie in tow ...) |
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| Pondering life while watching the scenery fly by |
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| Of course we visited the Green Gables historic site |
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| Everyone got to be Anne! |
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| Juniper is pretty obsessed with Anne and the stories, so she was a driving force behind visiting Green Gables. |
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| After Green Gables, we met up with some cousins and headed to Cavendish beach. No one had swim suits (the water was still pretty cold), but that didn't stop them from getting wet and sandy. |
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| Lots of sand castles and moats were constructed. |
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| While it looks like Linden and Merrick are playing some kind of instrument, they are actually yogurt tubes. |
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| After the beach, and before parting, we all took a run through the old Rainbow Valley labyrinth. |
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| Group shot! |
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| The next day -- the cousins reunite for brunch at Theresa and Scott's new house. |
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| Beautiful evening walk in Charlottetown with Theresa, Scott, and Sam |
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| Followed by ice cream, of course! |
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| On the way home we got to hang out with Uncle Brad and Drew in Moncton before boarding the train to Halifax. |
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| Back! |
All the Rest
Finally, here are some relatively random shots from day-to-day shenanigans over the last month.
Gardening:
Linden and I put in our garden this year, with a little bit of help from Juniper and Clark. Really, though, it was mostly the two of us, and I was a little bit incapacitated compared to usual. So Linden literally single-handedly dumped bags of soil as big as he was into the garden, and did a whole lot of the hoeing and bending over and planting that I wasn't up to.
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| My very enthusiastic little garden helper, planting beans. |
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| Juniper tends to her flower garden |
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| Clark and Linden putting up the bean trellis |
Random Shots:
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| Hanging out in the hammock with Liam. Does it get much cuter than this? |
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| Oh, here's a big thing that happened in the last couple of weeks: we became van owners. It seriously looks as though the new van might greedily swallow our little Prius while we're not looking. Anyway, Linden felt it was immediately necessary to wash it, so that's exactly what he did. |
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| One day, the kids decided they should both wear their matching West African hand-made outfits (from their aunt Faye, of course, who lives in Sierra Leone). Linden, in particular got loads of compliments! |
Finally, here is a little shot from a windy day that the kids got really inspired to make and then fly a kite. With Clark's help, they constructed a pretty functional kite from a blue recycling bag. Check it out!
Alright, that's certainly enough for one post. Stay tuned for baby news!
