Vacation !

So, please bear with me.  I'm trying out a couple different things for the pictures on the blog.  Originally I wasn't going to post alot of vacation pictures because, really who wants to sit through the equivalent of someone's vacation slideshow?  And then I thought, "who cares? I want to display the photos and if you don't want to look at them, well close your browser".

Here's the Plane ride.  John just didn't care about being on an airplane.  He didn't care that we were on vacation.  He didn't care about all the new toys I brought to surprise him.  He didn't care that he was allowed to have a Cars sucker at 10am.  All that mattered was that there was a TV screen just for him.  ALL HIS!

He's such a trooper.  He didn't even want to go to the bathroom on the airplane.

ME: Let's try and pee on the airplane. It's a long flight.

John: No.  I no have to pee.

Me: Just try.

John: No.  I wait.

John: I wait until Cape Breton.

Well alrighty, then.

Now there are some people who were (and still are) giving me grief for having the entire trip scheduled.  Or almost the entire trip.  Now in my defence, since there were mutliple demands on our time and both my family and Steven's family obligations, we needed to plan this trip.  Don't worry, I'll bitch about this again.  I had an itinerary, people.  An ITINERARY!  Not of the activities or sightseeing, those were merely penciled in but I had the flights booked waaayyyy back in September and the accomodations were done in January.  An added bonus to being such an early bird?  We were still able to have 2 bags each and 2 carry-ons without paying an additional fee.  So neener, neener.

Here's our first night in Halifax and the Bedford motel.  Less than $100/night.  Nothing fancy but it was clean and easy to find.

We hit Costco, met up with James and drove to Cape Breton.

I know there are too many pictures on this collage, but I am testing this entire collage thing.

These are two of my favorite pictures from the Canso Causeway bridge.

First Day at the cabin

This is the view from our sun porch.

How beautiful is this?

I love this picture.

Our first visit to the beach. 

For months, we've been telling John that "for vacation, we're going to the beach in Cape Breton."

Meeting Uncle Winston, Auntie Em and LalaLou.  Let me tell you, John instantly took a shine to all three.  Winston, because well he's just a big kid who kept feeding him cherries and letting him spit the seeds.  And he thought Auntie Em and LalaLou were fantastic.  I mean, it was from the moment he met both of them that Auntie Em and LalaLou became "The Ones".

For those not familiar with LalaLou.

This is LalaLou.

Otherwise known as Uncle Robert. 

And John can say Robert and he can say Uncle. 

We don't know why but he calls Robert, LalaLou.

And we encouraged it because it was so darn cute.

And this is....

Number One Cousin.  (thanks alot Mary)

Steven doesn't have many memories of his dad but what few he does, he hangs onto.  We joked that this trip was called "Walk Down Memory Lane Tour 2011" but in reality, he wants and needs to create memories for John.  His dad took him to the fish farm when he was a boy and he vividly remembers feeding the fish with his dad.  I think perhaps too, that in a way by visiting the same farm, doing the same thing, his dad joined us to create memories for John.  I'm not sure who had more fun, Steven or John. 

Fish Farm.

After feeding the fish, we walked around, visted the museum and skipped some rocks.

First beach day!

Hiking to Egypt Falls.  Ever since Ed showed us pictures, Steven has wanted to go.  It's gorgeous.  There's barely any people there.  We saw 2 couples coming out when we were hiking in.  And it was just us when we got to the falls.  Just us, the falls, the trees and the bugs.  Did I mention that the hike was like this.../.  It was a steep, steep hills and you had to use a rope to help you.  And of course, as responsible parents, when the lady half of the older couple said that she was turning around and not going down the falls because it was too steep and that she wasn't letting her small dog go down and that we should consider not taking John down because it was too steep.  Well, I'm afraid Steven may have taken that as a personal challenge.

It was steep but not dangerous.  It made me sweat but I wasn't out of breath or hurting.  Although, I sweat at everything.  For goodness sake, I sweat when I change clothes because I'm a weirdo and a part-mutant. 

Anyway.

So when Steven decided to hike onto the rocks by the Falls and onto the rocks in the Falls, my first thoughts were... "how am I going to carry John out if he falls?" and "if he falls, how fast can I get out to get help?"

gorgeous, no?

Skyline Trail on the Cabot Trail.  It took us 1 hour, 20 minutes to hike in and 40 minutes to hike out.  John is such a trooper, he walked in and ran out.  I really don't know where he gets all his energy from.  Or his love of hiking (but only short hikes, mama).

He's pouting in that picture in the bottom right corner because I took his walking stick away.

I just couldn't believe how beautiful the trail was. 

Lunch afterward.  Probably the only thing I would change.  We should have taken our lunch with us and eaten on the trail as opposed to only having a snack.

Poor guy had a fever.  On one of Steven's golf days.  On one of the ONLY HOT HOT days.  I had planned on going to the beach for the entire day with John but he woke up sick and got sicker.  So the furthest we went was to the CO-OP for tylenol and juice.

But we did see a coyote.  And I did manage to drive for the first time by myself.  Well, me & John.

So his fever went away, he slept for almost 5 hours during the day and we decided to air ourselves out by going to the beach for an hour before bedtime.

Fisherman Days!

Another thing that we heard about from Ed was the boat trips.  We went on 2 different ones.   The first one was Lewis' family's boat.  And on the second one, the guy let all the kids have a turn to drive the boat.

Inverness Beach.

Before and After the Boat rides.

Beer Garden

We all went to the Beer Garden but after awhile John got bored.  So John & I went to walk on the beach and look for rocks and glass.  Then we went back to the Beer Garden and got bored again.  We left Steven to socialize and John & I went back to the cabin for dinner and bedtime.
 (I drove again!  Go me!)

It does look like Maria is at the Beer Garden but we actually met up with her on the Boardwalk before the boat rides.

Beach Day!

Good God, that water is friggin cold.  But John wanted to go on his raft and Steven wouldn't take him in so I sucked it up, went in and temporarily lost the feeling in my legs due to the hypothermia that set in.  The things you do for your kids, eh?  Walk in water, post pictures of yourself in a bathing suit because it shows your darling son on his raft! 

Every day I would look out the window at the cabin and see this field above the beach.  I could see a path and I always saw people walking up there.  I swore to myself that before we left, we'd go for a walk to see what was up there.

A spectacular view, that's what was up there.  A really high, high edge or if you'd rather describe it as a long, LONG drop to the water and the rocks.

John and Mama day

We went to watch the sunset in the field that we had walked in the day before.  This wasn't the first sunset but it was the most beautiful.

Auntie Two and Whitey!

You know, this post has taken me almost 2 weeks to finish.  At this rate, you should the rest of the vacation pictures by Christmas.

Wednesday Weigh-In

Since last Wednesday I have, well really, it's more like since one of those Wednesdays in June...

Okay, truth time.  Since we started the patio work, I hadn't had any time to exercise.  And then we went on vacation in mid-July.  Which I might add, I did take 2 of my DVD workouts but I didn't use them.  I wanted to run on the beach and I jogged for about 3 minutes.  We hiked and walked our way through the Maritimes but at the same time, I also ate my way through, so that really cancels each other out.  I had every intention on starting to exercise when we returned but it had been so long and I was so tired all the time and then I was sick.  So I know, excuses, excuses.

On the plus side, I didn't gain weight on vacation.

On the negative side, I have gained weight since being home. :(

I have only exercised twice since returning...and that includes tonight!

So there it is.  I need to re-commit to my goals and have new incentives.  I think my Christmas dress will be a nice start.

And it continues

So our small backyard reno turned into something slightly bigger.  There were countless trips to the dump to remove the dirt and I can't even begin to tally how many back-breaking hours that were involved.  Steven & John dug dirt during the day and I helped when I got home.

Our big joke when we started digging the hole in the backyard was that Steven would dig more at night and then carry a rolled up carpet into the backyard in the middle of the night.  Then he'd casually start to mention to people that "my wife has gone away.  I'm not sure when she's coming back."

Then the hole got bigger and bigger as the project slowly took on a life of its own.

Then we got gravel.

And shoveled the gravel into the gigantic hole in our backyard.  Right around now, we started thinking that perhaps we should hire an expert.  Well to be fair, I thought about hiring someone during the early days of this project but ahem, someone didn't agree with me.

And then we hired someone.

But due to unfortunate scheduling and inconvenient weather the job wasn't started.

This is how we left our backyard when we went on holiday. 

So when we returned, the job finally got started.

We stood and watched for so long, I'm pretty sure we pissed them off.

We tried to make it up with popsicles, ice cream sandwiches and beer.

Isn't it gorgeous?  Yes I know, there's that small sad little patch of grass in front of the garage but believe me, we have BIG plans for that space. 

Our first purchase for our new "outdoor living space". 
The chiminea.  You'd think that this would be something easy to buy.  You could think that but you'd be wrong.  We looked high & low and near & far only to discover that of course these were popular a few years ago but not any longer.  But Steven found a wonderful store. 

Doesn't this look great?

The Birthday Party

For his bithday party this year we took John and friends to see Cars 2 (3D).  It was John's first movie and he LOVES the first movie.  Steven & I were very excited about the surprise because we're lame like that.

It was also the first time eating popcorn.  I know, we're boring parents too. 

Then home for cake, presents and pizza.  (and the hat!)

mmmm.  DQ Ice Cream cake.

Happy Birthday!

And then in the middle of the ever-growing backyard reno, it was John's birthday.

Look who's 4 years old!

This is his actual birthday.  The night before Steven & I debated whether we should do something on his actual birthday and then decided that yes, indeed we'd be horribly, bad parents if we did nothing.  So, I whipped over the store and bought a small cake and made him wear the hat.  The hat that I am going to make him wear until his 18th birthday, when there will only be one pathetic blue sparkle and only one blue fringe left on the ripped hat.  But damn it, he'll wear that smelly hat!

And then he got to open one gift.  The stupidly ridiculous gift that I, ahem, I mean Riley got for John.

It's a bike horn.  And yes, it's loud and obnoxious and everytime I hear it I shake my head and inwardly curse myself.

Well, Hello Stranger

Well, hello stranger.  Remember me?  Of course I'm assuming that there's still someone out there reading my blog. 

We've been busy.  Shortly after my last post waaaaayy back in mid-June, in a flash of inspiration, we decided to finally tear out the flower beds in the backyard.

Doesn't Steven look sad and pathetic?  Shall I mention that this whole backyard reno was his idea? 

 John is demanding worms.  This from a child who, when he saw a worm, screamed and ran away in fear last year.

 And now, thankfully he wants to play with them.  Fine by me, I guess.

 Trying to remove this plant was living hell.  HORRIBLE.

The Dump. 

Yes, we're so very glamorous.

So our small backyard reno seemed harmless.  We wanted to remove the back flower beds, trellis and plant.  We also wanted to replace the wooden steps because the wood was rotting.

sounds simple, no?

And then Steven started talking with people who filled his head with ideas.

IDEAS, people.  The Devil's handiwork.

We worked every day, digging dirt.  Oh wait, have I mentioned that because we do not have a back gate that we had to shovel the dirt into the wheelbarrow, take the wheelbarrow through the garage, into the alley.  THEN we had to shovel the dirt from the wheelbarrow into the back of a truck.  Back breaking work.  Good thing John's such a hard worker.

And so is Darrin!

Isn't my little guy adorable?

He's such a muppet.

Seriously, John is a HARD WORKER!