3 months in, 1/4 way through...

Hello friends,

Well, we've been living the Sabbatical dream for over 3 months now. There's been a whole lot of awesome mixed with 'adjustments' to our new, temporary, life. Meaning, we've done a lot of very cool stuff and had a lot of fun, but we've had to put sad kids to bed at night on occasion too. Missing friends, missing Charlie, missing routine. But let's rewind a little bit.

The last half of our journey across the country (from Ottawa to Nova Scotia) we packed up the camping gear and stayed with friends and family enroute. We spent 2 nights with my Aunt and Uncle in Ottawa, and took one day to walk around the city to take in the sights. Parliament Hill was busy and hot, and tours were unavailable, so we split up and took refuge in places of interest to the kids. Celia and Tim took in the National Gallery of Canada, and Edie and I went to the Royal Canadian Mint. It was a great way to beat the heat, and I think we all learned something. Ottawa is a lovely place.

Note mother's hand...

Sweating it out on Parliament Hill.

National Gallery

Parliament Hill was HOT!

She was actually thrilled to be there...

Edie's coin collecting dream- the Royal Canadian Mint! 

Following Ottawa, we drove to Quebec City via the north side of the St. Lawrence River, and stayed  in Quebec City for a night. It just happened to be during their Festival D'ete, which is a huge music festival where they shut down Vielle Quebec to traffic, and party, party, party. It was super fun. Lots of fabulous music, food and entertainment.

The girls order popcorn in french, on their own.

Rue Des Jardins!

Chateau Frontenac

Monkey bars were in high demand on this trip.

From Quebec City through to Nova Scotia, we drove longer distances, and stayed with family and friends for longer intervals. We spent time in Fredericton, and then Rose Bay (near Lunnenburg) catching up with my side of the family. We were fortunate enough to be able to get all of our families together to spend some time relaxing after what has been a pretty brutal year with the loss of my sister. It was good for us, although it's really hard to get used to Heather not being with us in person. We're all adjusting, I guess. It's not easy.

Art with the lovely Cheryl.

Water park with Ingrid.

Sand Dollar Bay, Lunnenburg NS, with cousins.

Hurtle Beach, Lunnenburg NS

Ghostbusters was a huge hit this summer.

All of my nieces and nephews, from my side of the family.

Grand Pre NS, with the cousins.

And Edie got her hair cut off- looking so sharp these days!

Tim set off on his first visit to South America mid-July. He spent time in Ecuador and Chile teaching and attending a conference. He gave a "thank you" speech in honor of Brian Fry (amazing scientist, amazing person) who was being recognized for his contribution as a scientist in his career. We (the girls and I) had hoped to join Tim in order to witness this ceremony, as Brian has been a very good friend to our family over the years (check back in the Australia posts...he's the old guy playing hula hoop with 2 year old Edie). Alas, we did not make it. In reading the speech, I can see that Tim was able to use his magical word abilities to convey Brian's character as a human and a professional. I expect that there was way more emotion in the room during that ceremony than anyone there was comfortable with, given the nature of the stable isotope crowd.

Upon Tim's return, we threw in a whirlwind trip to Miramichi and PEI in order to visit with friends and family from his side, and to explore. And a whirlwind it was! We got in our visits with friends/family and the requisite senior baseball in Chatham, and followed it up with a crazy weekend on PEI. A side note- we carried our camping gear across the country, along with the 'stuff' we'd need for the year, and needless to say our car was packed to the brim. Once we got to Nova Scotia, the first thing we did was to start unpacking gear and storing it at our respective parents' places, as we weren't camping. When we were getting ready to leave Miramichi for PEI, we discovered that in our haste to get on the road, we'd forgotten to repack our tent. We were 5 hours away from where we'd left it, and had to swallow our pride and buy a new one. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as PEI weather that weekend was buckets of rain Friday night and all day Saturday, and insane wind all of Saturday night. The tent we'd bought was called the weather maker, and it held up. We put that thing to the test. Coleman knows what it's doing.

Cavendish Beach, PEI

Potato museam- perhaps not the most exciting museam, but AMAZING food at their restaurant. Worth it!

Cavendish Beach, PEI

Green Gables

Another dream come true!

Tim's home town of Chatham, NB, on the Mirimichi River.

Driving with our new tent in a jam packed car.

Tent is up just in time for weather.

I tried seaweed pie- it is fantastic!

Skinner's Pond schoolhouse, restored by Stompin' Tom (who was a student there in his boyhood).

Mom's dream comes true!

After another week in Fredericton with the indomitable Ingrid and Feds (my sister's daughter and husband), and a visit with the fabulous Burt, Chels and Mason in their country haven, we finally settled down to what is our new temporary home in New Edinburgh (Bas-de-la-Riviere), Nova Scotia. We are so happy here. But that's all for this post, more to come soon.

Love to all,

The Jardine Sardines