Mixed Emotions

Well it's been an eventful week and as the title says, one of mixed emotions. We were very sad to say farewell to Patrick, Andrea & Mitchell. We had a great 10 days with them, and I hope they enjoyed themselves as much as we did having them. They departed Thursday evening and Mum & Dad arrived Thursday lunchtime. It was such a relief seeing them appear through the international arrivals door! The flight was nowhere near as bad as they were expecting, the worst aspect being Gatwick! (no surprise there!). Work have given me a few days off while they are here, so we'll be able to go places and see things! We had a drive around a few neighbourhoods on Friday morning, followed by lunch at Tim Hortons (where else!). Then in the afternoon, we collected Matthew and headed downtown to see the flypasts which were taking place over the harbour as a taster of the Nova Scotia International Airshow which is on this weekend. Deborah & Emma didn't come as Emma had to be taken to a birthday party at 6pm. Anyway, we had a nice walk along the harbourfront boardwalk, stopped for Fish & Chips in the Harbour Marketplace and of course had to stop off for a beavertail....We saw a few flypasts, but the most impressive was the C17 Globemaster.
Wednesday saw the children back at school with a new teacher - Miss Crowell. Strict but fair I think is a good way to describe her! Matthew & Emma both like her, so that's a result. However, neither of them have been set any homework yet, so we'll see if their opinion changes.
Saturday was a glorious day, 25 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. We decided to have a quiet day at home and spent most of it in the garden. Patrick had helped me finish lifting the turf from the boomerang shaped flowerbed at the front of the house. We decided to finish the bed by laying the edging stones, digging it over and putting in the extra topsoil. As it happens the digging over turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. The amount of stones was unbelievable. As you can see from the picture, it's looking pretty good, but all those large stones were dug up in the process! We had a couple of barrowloads of smaller ones that ended up lining the stormdrain...We also split the day lilies and transplanted a few of them. I think it's looking great, now if only Bella would stay off it....This is a photo I took of Bella last week. Isn't she looking great? We then had planked salmon eaten outside on the deck (I suspect days for doing this are drawing to a close) and rounded off the day with a walk down to the Ice Cream shop.
Today was a bit overcast, but we felt we should do something. As it happens, it was the 16th Annual 50 Miles of Yard Sales taking place in the Musquodoboit valley. Why not we thought. So we set off and stopped at a fair few stalls selling what amounted to unwanted tat, but we did get a couple of bargains. One stall was selling costumes in aid of the Scout Jamboree. The stallholders brother used to own a costume hire shop, had closed down, and donated all the costumes to be sold. We got a great costume of a werewolf for Matthew and a rabbit for Emma. Not sure about the mask on Matthew's costume, but the black hairy suit is excellent! Must get some black hairy gloves to cover his hands! He's therefore sorted for halloween, but we're not sure about Emma. Though it has to be said, meeting that white rabbit in the middle of the night is enough to give anyone nightmares! Curse of the wererabbit comes to mind!
At $5 per suit, it was an absolute bargain, especially as she threw in a double headed axe (made of foam) with Matthew's costume. Mum & Dad bought a hanmade wooden kitchen roll holder, brand new and again only $5, we had a nice lunch at Reids Bakery in Middle Musquodoboit and drove home via Lawrencetown, where we stopped briefly to watch a surfing competition in progress.
As for me I had my first Toastmasters meeting of the season on Thursday evening which was a great success. The new Executive had to be sworn in and of course that includes me as Vice President Education. Quite an important position and one that I feel is going to demand my full attention until i get into the swing of things. I'm also redoing the club website which i will link to once it is complete and I'm happy with it! Apparently there is an award for best website, which I think would be great to win! Fingers crossed. Just need to learn Javascript....
We're planning to do the Harbour Hopper tour , Peggy's Cove and maybe the South Shore this week, but we'll see. Mum & Dad leave Wednesday evening, so we can't do everything this visit. There's always next year....