May Long Weekend

Wow – we had some great adventures this weekend!

We drove to Halifax Saturday morning, and had lunch with Michelle and Jamie at Jean’s – one of Rick’s faves.   They have wicked awesome Ginger Beef and the Chow Mein and eggrolls are awesome too.  Also, they have the meatiest chicken balls I’ve ever encountered.  MMMM!

Then we went to the mall because it was raining quite hard, and what do you do when you have a toddler and it’s raining?  heh.  Marshall had napped in the car on the way down, so he was good to go for the day.  We paid $2 for a “taxi” which was this little push-car for driving around the mall.  Marshall loved it – he kept yelling at us to go and he’d pretend to steer the thing.  We shopped and visited some more with the Hanways, then picked up some wine at Bishop’s, the local private wine store we like, checked into our suite at the Bluenose Inn, and then we were off again, to John & Rhia’s housewarming party!

John & Rhia bought their first house and moved into it last month.  We were really excited to see them and their new place, and also all the new babies that have been born since we moved away.  Just last month, our friends Eden and Michael had a little girl, Isadora Nico and our other friends Michelle and Dave had a little girl Michaela aabout a week before that. 

Marshall was a bit shy at the party at first, but Rhia got him giggling before long.  And then their friends Beth and Iain arrived with their daughter Rowan who is close to Marshall’s age.  We sang some songs and got them dancing a bit.  Then a tide of adult party guests arrived, and suddenly the house was full of people, and Marshall was getting in the way on the stairs – he really liked climbing their stairs – up and down up and down… and weaving around legs and running around, and daddy was behind him as much as he could be and was getting worn out.

We headed back to our suite and Marshall was WIRED FOR SOUND.  *L*  We finally got him settled though and he fell asleep around 930 and we watched a little tv.  We chose a really good motel … he had his own little room (living/kitchen area) and the drapes were DARK.  Which meant that he slept in!  Until 830!  whoot!

We met Dan & Pauwlina for brunch at Smitty’s, and we had a great visit and yummy skillets.  Marshall didn’t care too much for his french toast and sausage but he did eat a bite or two – guess we let him have too much juice before breakfast!

From there we zipped over to Dartmouth to see Dave, Michelle and Michaela for a short visit, then over to Dartmouth Crossing to see how it looks.  We came across this bizarre fake downtown.  It was pretty cool actually.  But it was a little weird to drive out to box-land and then park between these two rows of box stores, with main-street-type facades…they’ve even got more than one “street” and they’re building a little stone bridge and everything.  It’s much nicer than Bayer’s Lake (Halifax) or Trinity (Moncton).

Marshall was getting droopy so we hit the road.  He slept for about an hour, then we stopped in Oxford for a break.  We got subs and had a little picnic, then played on the slide in the playground across the street.  The playground there was in bad need of repair, but Marshall still enjoyed it!

From there, the weather just kept getting better and better, so we stopped in Sackville to walk on the Waterfowl Park boardwalks.  Marshall couldn’t get enough of this.  He walked most of the way by himself!  We held his hand a lot because we were worried he fall and slip into the water though.  We saw a couple of nice-looking red-winged blackbirds, and a beaver was swimming around.

We arrived home and I did a little potting of plants while Marshall dragged all his toys out from the garage, and Rick unpacked the car.  Now M is upstairs sleeping soundly.  He had a great weekend!

Tomorrow:  going to work to catch up on a few things before I head out on another audit this week, and then vacation in Toronto for a week!  yay!

We added some new pics and a couple of videos here.