We had a wonderful dinner - all the trimmings! Everyone ate heartily and we hardly made a dent in the bird. Matt decided against a drumstick (that looked like it would be at home on a Moa).. Huge thanks to Jason and Shannon for the fabulous turkey experience!So Benjamin (little brother) came to visit. He had been working in the states and had some air points to burn so came up for a long weekend. The first whole day we had we set out for Peggy's Cove. It is easy to see (even when it is bloody freezing) why they make such a big deal about such a small place. It is really quite spectacular - the lighthouse, the rocks and the cute little harbour with its multicolored fishing boats. We had a clamber around on the rocks till we were frozen through, then had lunch in the restaurant overlooking the water before heading back to Halifax.
Second day we bundled up and went for a big walk in the park down the road - Hemlock Ravines Park. The kids had a wild time racing around chasing each other and hiding from monsters (Amelia). The boys took some advice from Old Uncle Benjamin on some of the possible monsters that could be out there - can't for the life of me remember what they all are now!! There was a scottish bogwog or something or other, and an owlbear which Benj even managed to find photos of...
We stumbled across a random Christmas tree in the middle of nowhere - quite cool really! Amelia was quite taken with it and rehung the ornaments that had fallen off. there seems to be a bit of a thing about random Christmas trees over here - there are at least two on to be seen from the motorway!
On the way home we swung by a Christmas tree merchant and chose a tree. the bloke was very helpful - asked us what we were looking for, approximate height, and did we want it bagged? Did we want it what? Bagged of course. they have a machine that squeezed the trees into a sock for easy transportation - fantastic! our bagged tree went in the back easily and if was off home to put the stand together and put the tree up! It was almost too perfect - it had been trimmed into the iconic Christmas tree shape - and was super easy to dress! Back home we should really rethink our use of pinus radiata as our Christmas trees - they really are a pig to get decorations onto! The kids hung the decorations, and aside of a few clusters here and there generally did a great job!
The day Benj flew out was also the day of Owen's Christmas Show (we got lucky and Alex and Owen were on two different nights, so had to sit thru the whole damn thing twice each - me and Amelia at the matinees and Matt and the off child at the evening show) so he got to come along to the matinee and enjoy listening to other peoples kids sing December celebration related songs. Of course he appreciated seeing Owen and his class for the one song they sang, and we did miss the grand finale because we had to run to the airport....
The neighbours took us to a Mooseheads game - high school ice hockey. The stadium was packed! We arrived just a little late, so the game had started and man is it fast! as we headed down to our seats two.three guys slammed right into the glass in front of us - gave the kids (hah!) quite a fright!! It is a bit of an entertainment spectacle, the music, the action on the ice, the food and the spectators! There were big groups of kids who took their shirts off and waved them over their heads whooping whenever the Mooseheads got a goal :) The food kept Owen happy, the spectacle kept Alex happy and Amelia made a house under the seats in the coats :) I think we will be back tho - very exciting!
Apologies for the huge gaps - have given up completely on the formatting. Driving me crazy. How hard can it be to get two photos beside each other????
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