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Friday was a day off school for the kids, so on Thursday evening James and I took the opportunity to go to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia's spooky pyjama tour of their Egyptian Exhibition. James did go in his PJs but I decided not to. We had explanations of a number of Egyptian artifcats including several mummies (including one of a kitten), a sarcophagus, and lots of hieroglyphics. James seemed very interested and shared lots of subsidiary information with the tour guide.
Katy came home on Friday evening so that she could go to the birthday party of her good friend Alison. Meanwhile Ann and I left Emily and James home with David and went to Neptune to see The Little Years by John Mighton. This was not our regular night for going, but we were double booked on the night of our original tickets, so we changed them. The play was pretty good but not great. Afterwards we went for dessert and coffee at Il Mercato on Spring Garden and bumped into Katy's birthday party crowd waiting to go into one of the pubs.
On Saturday morning the curch had its annual tea and sale. Emily spent a good part of Friday baking squares to be sold and Ann accepted a double shift as a server at the tea. After Karate, James, Emily, Katy and I went there for our lunch.
On Saturday evening Emily went to her friend Leona's for a Hallowe'en party. Meanwhile James asked four of his friends over for an orange dinner (salmon, macaroni, carrots and cheesies) followed by a trip to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic for their Hallowe'en Ghost Tour. We were led around the museum by flashlight and accosted at every turn by macabre people who related strange but true stories of the ghoulish local history. The boys lapped it all up. At the end, several naval officers appeared, pressed us all into service, then marched us all out to the street and left us there.
Today has been more relaxing with the added bonus of an extra hour of sleep. Ann, David, Emily and James all went to church and stayed for the Congregational Luncheon. That let me off the hook for making our usual Sunday lunch. For most of us the rest of the day has been spent reading and catching up on homework, though Ann did drive Katy, Krista and Ben back to Acadia and then went to her church discussion group this evening.
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After the hustle and bustle of the last couple of weekends, this one was very sedate. David had to work on
Saturday afternoon, and there was church in Sunday morning, but other than that we had nothing planned as Emily and
James's Karate on Saturday morning was cancelled. On Friday evening Ann, Emily, James and I went to the Sportsplex
for an hour. Emily and James swam, I ran around the track while watching a hockey game (roughly 10 to 12 year-old
boys -- it's hard to tell under all the gear; the blue team beat the red team 4-0) and Ann went to the weight room
to do exercises given to her by a physio to reduce aches and pains brought on by her advanced
age 
. On Saturday
afternoon Ann, Emily and James went to Windsor to pick apples with Claire, Max and Rachel. Emily has decided
recently that apples are her favourite food and has been eating several a day. We now have about 15 kilos of
apples as well as a bag of pears; that should keep her going for a week or two. Today we did nothing much
except go to church and have our usual Suday lunch. David went to his friend Graham's after lunch and Emily and
James did a bit of homework to get a head start on the week. Ann was back at the church this evening to participate
in an adult discussion group based around a curriculum from Living the Questions.
I reported a couple of weeks ago that I had gone on a night-time photography expedition with Carl and Roxanne. This one of the pictures I took.
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This weekend we welcomed another guest: my cousin Fiona from New Zealand who I had never met before. Ann, however, met her we she and Nancy were travelling in the South Pacific back in 1984, just before we got married. Fiona arrived on Saturday evening in a driving rainstorm that we were afraid might last the weekend. However, this morning dawned bright and sunny and it remained beautiful all day. We took the opportunity to drive down the south shore, via Peggy's Cove, to Lunenburg. We stopped in to see Jocelyn and Puxley along the way and ate a late lunch at the Saltspray Café in Mahone Bay. It was a very pleasant drive, especially as all the trees are now in full colour.
I took today off work, slept in a little, then Ann, Fiona and I took the ferry over to Halifax. We walked up to the Citadel, then had a very nice lunch at Il Mercato on Spring Garden Road. After the ferry ride home, we dropped Ann at home to meet the kids from the school bus, then Fiona and I went out to Lawrencetown Beach to have a look at the surf. Fiona leaves early tomorrow morning to returnd to Mum's, where she has been staying for the past week, before returning to New Zealand.
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On Tuesday Ann's parents arrived to stay with us over the Thanksgiving weekend. Ann was busy at a meeting of the Dartmouth Band Parents Association, so Emily, James and I went out to the airport to pick them up.
On Wednesday we all went to cheer on David as the Dartmouth High soccer team played their arch rivals Prince Andrew (the other high school in Dartmouth). Unfortunately DHS lost despite scoring first.
Friday was the beginning of an action packed weekend. Around lunchtime another visitor arrived for the weekend: Jewel, the small dog of our friends Donna and Doug who were off to Regina for Doug's mother's 90th birthday. Jewel has stayed with us before, the last time in February 2005, but that was before Ginger and Louie took over the household. It took a while for them to get used to each other, but eventually Ginger, who is at least as big as Jewel if not a bit bigger, decided that Jewel could be treated with customary feline contempt, while Louie simply disappeared for most of the weekend, making appearances occasionally to eat. Jewel went home again this afternoon, much to Louie's delight.
On Friday afternoon Ann and her parents drove to Wolfville to pick up Katy, her roommate Krista and her boyfriend Ben. There was a short tour of the campus before the drive home again. Meanwhile I took the afternoon off to be home when Emily and James got out of school. I took the opportunity to begin staining the railings on the back deck. When she arrived home from Acadia, Ann went to a rehearsal for the wedding of our friends Kim and Scott.
On Saturday Emily and James had karate class in the morning after which we all (except David who was working at Toys-R-Us) went to Ingrid and Mike's for lunch. After a lovely meal we had time for a short walk in Point Pleasant Park before rushing home to get Emily to her friend Nicholas's birthday party. Ann's parents hadn't seen the park since before it was devastated by Hurrcane Juan back in 2003. Once Emily had been dropped off, Ann and I were off to Kim and Scott's wedding, a very small affair with only Ashley and Brett (Kim's children), Kim's and Scott's parents, Ann and one of Scott's old friends as witnesses, Malcolm to play some music on the piano, the minister and his intern to perform the service, and me to take pictures. It was a very nice service with special provisions made to include Ashley and Brett.
On Sunday we had an even dozen people for Thanksgiving dinner: the six of us, Ann's parents, Carl and Roxanne, Valerie and Valerie's neighbour Shirley. As usual I stayed home to cook the turkey and make pumpkin pies while everyone else (except Katy, who was catching up on homework) went to church. The meal started at about 1:30 PM, after everyone arrived back from church, and lasted for a good part of the rest of the afternoon.
At midnight Carl, Roxanne and I headed off to the wilds of the Musquodoboit River valley to take pictures by moonlight, something that I had not tried before. It was a beautiful clear evening with the moon about one day past full, so there was plenty of light to see by. With my digital camera I was taking exposures of two to five minutes, but Carl and Roxanne, using film, were using exposures of about 12 minutes. We arrived home at about 5 AM, for which I will probably pay for the rest of the week.
Today Ben's mother drove him and Katy went back to Acadia. It was another gorgeous day, so, once I had managed to get out of bed, I spent the afternoon finishing the staing of the deck railings. Other than that we have had a quiet day replenishing our reserves in preparation for school and work tomorrow.
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Yesterday was the first play of the season at Neptune, A Few Good Men. Although it was written 20 years ago, it was very relevant to current times, being about a Colonel in Guantanamo Bay perverting justice in the name of security. I thought it was very well done. Hopefully the rest of the season will be as good. Usually we go out for dinner before the play, but yesterday Ann and David were participating in a Youth Group movie night. Ann had to leave part way through to get to the theatre on time.
Katy was home again this weekend so that she could help taking inventory for the business she worked for this summer. Conveniently for us, she was also available to babysit Emily and James while we were at the play. I picked her up from Acadia on Friday evening and Ann took her back again today.
Yesterday morning Emily and James began Karate lessons at the dojo in Northbrook School. We pay for the lessons by the month, so it will be easy to pull out if either of them decides that they don't like it. After the first class they both still seem keen, especially James.
September 2006 Archive
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