Endings, Beginnings, and One Big Adventure

 

Hazel tears around on this bike as much as she can

This will be a very short little post - not at all commensurate with the reams of stories and photos that have accumulated in the time that has elapsed since my last offering.  So much has happened - we welcomed a brand new little niece/cousin named Winnie Mae into the world almost a whole year ago (a crazy, scary adventure all on its own!), Hazel attended school for the very first time (Pre-Primary), we all finally fell victim to covid in the new year (I was soooooo sick on my birthday), there were crazy wildfires that tore through sections of Nova Scotia... I have a hard time even remembering all the disparate high-and-lowlights from the past year and half.  

Perhaps I'll revisit some of the more noteworthy events at some point.  I should, really - that is almost the entire point of keeping a blog like this.  At this particular moment, however, I wanted to slap together a very quick post, as we whirl around madly, trying to get ready for tomorrow. What happens tomorrow, you ask? We are taking our very first overseas family adventure... to Albania! 

My sister Faye lives in Tirana (the capital), and she organized this crazy accumulation of different flight points from her, my mom, and my sister Andrea, which was enough to buy five tickets to and from Halifax.  Isn't that wild? We will spend two weeks around Albania, then the five of us will say goodbye to Faye and Derrick, and head off to Athens for a week. Then it's home again, towards the end of July.  So - I felt like it was important to get organized, and blog as I go. Thus, this one short intro post to get things rolling.  

That is, of course the big adventure.  As for endings - June is always the end of quite a bit in the lives of the kids.  It is the end of all the weekly activities for the year (for us, that means orchestra, piano lessons, theatre, sports, etc.), and of course, the end of the school year as well.  This year had an especially potent air of finality to it, however, as each of the three kids graduated out of their respective schools. Next year, Juniper is off to grade 9 at Dartmouth High School, Linden is heading to Dartmouth South Academy for his first year of Junior High, and Hazel will be switching from our catchment area school (Alderny), to Primary at Shannon Park Elementary (the French Immersion school). Here they all are on their last days:

Juniper, post-ceremony from grade 8 graduation

You can't see the certificate, but this is post-ceremony from Linden's grade 6 graduation

Hazel managed to make it through the whole year of pre-primary, and even loved going towards the end!

So, the adventure and the endings have been covered - the beginnings will have to wait for another time.  I guess I'm not even sure what they are right now, other than all the newness that fall will bring.  BUT I will absolutely try my hardest to update this blog as much as is reasonable as we go on our European adventure, so stay tuned if you're interested!

The musicians, post-piano recital

I'll leave you with a recording Clark took from Juniper and Linden's end of the year piano recital.  Both kids played piano pieces, of course, (and did really well!) but the video is something special - it is Linden's original composition, which he wrote for cello and piano.  Ian (our amazing piano teacher/musician extraordinaire) worked with Linden throughout the year to flesh out ideas and get it transcribed properly, and I helped with some of the piano chord progressions.  But mostly it was Linden's brain child.

If you ask Linden, he will tell you he is displeased with the performance - there were a couple of flubs (both from him and from me, playing the piano bit), but as I told him, it's an original comp! No one even knows where or what the mistakes are! I think it is a lovely capture of a moment in time.  Enjoy!