Why my Grandma is AWESOME

This is pretty much self explanatory...

"Thanks for your recent view of the world Laura, and the photo of the Moose's head.  I'm glad I am not one of the squeamish kind so, when the Moose season is finished I shall look forward to the Bear season and expect to see a photo of a "bare" ass in an open truck."

Now I know where I get it from! I love you Baba!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays- which is odd because I haven't done anything to actually celebrate it in years. I haven't been out trick-or-treating since grade 7 and I am not particularly fond of dressing up for school or work and I avoid Halloween parties and socials like the plague. However, I do enjoy decorating for Halloween, and this year, since I have a place of my own, I started my decorating pretty darn early (around the end of September!). I have even gone so far as to start naming my Halloween figurines....there is Hazel the witch nightlight, Jasper the flickering counter top ghost, Jack the pumpkin lantern and so on. Thus you can imagine my excitement when I received 2 pounds of sour soothers and sour patch kids, in addition to some Halloween artwork, in the mail from my friend Danielle. Obviously the only thing to do with the artwork (probably done at the day care where she works) was to decorate the fridge!

Danielle's coloring is certainly improving with age!

It is perfect and I love it. It definitely made my Halloween decorating feel complete! I am looking forward to turning on all my Halloween lights, sitting back, and watching some classic Halloween cartoons! I feel obligated to share these cartoons with everyone because they hold such good memories for me and remind me of past Halloween's spent with my family watching these and loving every minute of it. These cartoons are awesome no matter what your age is, I promise!

  

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Pt 1 

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Pt 2 

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Pt 3

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Pt 4

Donald Duck- Trick-or-Treat

Halloween is Grinch Night

 

I hope everyone enjoys these cartoons and has a spooktacular Halloween!

This one is NOT for the squeamish (seriously)

In most parts of the world you can tell what season it is by looking around and picking up on nature's clues...is there snow on the ground? Check. It must be Winter. Are the leaves on the trees different colors? Check. It must be Fall. And so on.

In Fredericton (go figure) it is a bit different Firstly, the seasons dont follow your typical four season pattern (winter, spring, summer, fall). Instead you have something more like "Watch-for-falling-Ice/Snow" season (winter), "Never-see-the-sun" season (spring), "Blistering-heat-but-it-never-gets-hot-enough-here-for-us-to-need-air-conditioning-in-any-of-our-buildings" season (summer) and finally, the season where wearing camouflage to the mall suddenly becomes fashionable, hunting season. Hunting season is perhaps the most complex of all the seasons because there are many phases of it: deer season, bear season, moose season etc. Fear not though, all one needs to do in order to know which animal is currently in season is go to the Superstore parking lot. Huh?!

Severed moose head in the back of a pick up truck right out in the open for everyone to see? Check. It must be moose hunting season. So twisted!

You can click to make it bigger...but I dont suggest it!

Ever since moving here I have been on Charles'  case about wanting to see a moose. Well this is starting to get a little ridiculous. I am beginning to feel that this is some kind of puzzle...one where I have to use my imagination to put together moose pieces and eventually I will have a whole moose. Thus far I have two moose steaks and a head...I am a little apprehensive about what moose bit I will find next.

And so, this post is dedicated to the people who invented cell phone cameras- so that people like myself are able to photo document some of the weirdest sh*t imaginable and send it to their friends and family back home,  making them wonder WHAT KIND OF PLACE IS THIS THAT YOU ARE LIVING IN?! To that I reply, I dont know...I really dont know. All I do know is that bear season is apparently coming up next.

PART FOUR- Days 4 and 5- The Recovery and NEW IDENTITIES!

It feels wrong to stop the story of my adventures with THE MOMs at Day Three, even though Days Four and Five were mainly spent recovering from the previous two days.

This is pretty much how everyone felt, and was all I could bring myself to do

However, instead of boring everyone with tales of walking through downtown Fredericton in the rain...let it suffice to say that the time spent with THE MOMs here was nothing short of amazing and I am SO glad they both came. Before I get all sentimental and teary eyed though, Id like to finish this post on a humorous note.

Because of Charles' position at work he tries to keep a low profile. This means keeping pretty much any kind of personal information a secret- our mailing address is not our actual home address, all receipts are shredded, and now our names (the ones on the apartment listing anyway) have been changed. Let me explain...

Because Charles comes and goes in his uniform and since there are other military personnel living in our building Charles has been after our landlord to take our names off the listing in the lobby. Unfortunately she was not able to completely remove our names from the listing because then it would look like the room was vacant and available. However, she did come up with a rather clever solution to the problem...

Presenting Mr. D. Liver and Miss I. Ball!

Thank goodness for landlords with a sense of humor, and right in time for Halloween too!

PART 3- DAY THREE- Hopewell Rocks

Our Mantra for Day Three was "Do not get lost, Do NOT get lost, DO NOT GET LOST!"  We started off the day with a delicious breakfast at Cora's and then a quick jaunt to Hopewell Rocks- home of the highest tides in the world. Everyday, twice a day, 100-BILLION-TONNES of water moves slowly in and out of the Bay of Fundy. The result is a change in water levels of about 40 feet and is quite spectacular. During low tide you have the opportunity to walk "on the ocean floor", as the tide starts to come in you can climb up way too many stairs and watch the water levels rise from the safety of a platform.

LOW TIDE

If you look carefully between the rocks in the middle of the picture, you can see the staircase you climb to get down to the beach.

The rock in the left of the picture that is slightly hour glass shaped is where we are standing in the picture before this one. As you can see, the water is rising!

HIGHish TIDE

Charles also took quite a few pictures (but we will probably never see them).

And, just for good measure, here is a picture of a dog my mom fell in love with.

And he reminded me of...

Sam the Sheepdog!

After we were done at the rocks we headed back into Moncton and decided to check out the magnetic hill. Now I should have know that the idea of a truly magnetic hill that will actually pull your car up it seemed just too good too be true. But, since everyone else wanted to, off to the hill we went. Five dollars later we were pearched at the top of the hill looking down, skeptically (may I add). So Charles drove to the bottom, put the car in neutral and lo and behold- up that hill we went. All of us started screaming and laughing (once again like a bunch of idiots)- even Charles seemed pretty darn impressed. Once at the top we of course had to do it again..and again. Once the novelty wore off we went on our way. 

Needless to say the magnetic hill was a tourist trap, nothing more than an optical illusion ("Ovaltine? A crummy commercial? Son of a..."). It definitely had Donna, my mom, and I fooled though- and even Charles for a second. It wasnt until over dinner that he actually started thinking about the implications of a truly magnetic hill and the science behind such a thing that he realized it just couldnt be true. I refused to believe him and only believed it later when I read about it on Wikipedia (ha!). I figure Charles is the type of guy who almost certainly used this same logic to figure out why Santa and the Easter bunny couldnt possibly be real...

PART TWO- Day Two- St. John

AKA "CHARLES! WHERE ARE WE?!" You'll understand soon enough.

We decided that for the first full day of THE MOMs (I dont know why I keep writing it in caps like that, it just seems more fun!) being here we would head to St. John and visit the reversing falls and do a scenic drive along the bay of Fundy.
 
The reversing falls were fairly uneventful. Much to the disbelief of many people there, there is no magical switch that makes the falls reverse automatically. Instead, it is the tides from the bay that make the river, and consequently the rapids (or what they call falls) change direction. Thus, it is a rather lengthy process and there really is no point in standing there, staring at the riving like something amazing is going to happen at any second. Here is a picture of the river/rapids. Once again, not too eventful.

Here are some that Charles took of his girls :)

My mom and I

Left to Right: Donna (Charles' Mom), me, my mom

This picture cracks me up- especially since it wasn't even planned! I suppose this is what happens when you get three good lookin' gals all together!

Much to my mom's excitement we did see a couple seals hanging out in the river. The oh so kind lady in the gift shop (if you had met her you'd be able to fully realize the sarcasm in my statement) informed me that yes, that was indeed a seal and that they come here chasing fish. Who would have thought?

 

Next we headed on our way to the Bay of Fundy scenic drive. On our way we stopped, or rather Charles stopped, after making the correct assumption that the three ladies in the car HAD to stop and look inside a little church turned into a gift store. The lady that worked there, who was sitting on the deck smoking a cigarette between customers (which I assume were far and few between based on the location of this place), was even impressed that Charles turned around to take us there all on his own! Smart man my Charles..Never get between a lady and a gift shop. Never.

After spending just a little money (really, I promise) we continued on our way to a little town called St. Michael's. Of course we had to make a couple stops on the way. First at a covered bridge, some touristy fishing boats and SOME MORE GIFT STORES - this time we actually didnt buy anything.

Boats are in the water

Boats are in the water

A few hours later, on the way home, the boats are no longer in the water!

After seeing our fare share of tacky souvenirs Donna was getting hungry, so we moved on to find a place to eat. Luckily it was right around the corner, and had quite the view (and some pretty darn good burgers!)

That person in the picture is Donna!

With full bellies we continued on to the scenic part of the drive! The Fundy Trail Parkway (or whatever it is called- the map, which I wanted to use to label these pictures for everyone, is currently in my car which is in the stop getting fixed....figures) is a two lane road that twists along cliffs that over look the ocean. There are several pullouts along the way which offer viewers the best vistas. Some of the views, as youll see, are just breath taking.

"Ah, that's some good booze!" Having a drink (of water) on the way down to the falls...and holding the map that is currently in my car.

My favorite stop of the trip was Fuller Falls.

Charles and Donna walking down to the viewing platform for the falls.

Fuller Falls

 I decided that staying on the viewing platform for the falls was well....boring (I take after my dad), so I talked my mom into getting off the trail with me and walking down the creek to see where it would take us.

Looking down the stream away from the falls.

Looking back up towards the falls.

 Finally the following the stream lead us to a large rock berm. Once we climbed over it we were amazed. This is the kind of stuff I live for.

When you walked over the berm this side of the beach was on your left.

This was to the right side.

This is looking back towards the berm and the stream where we came from.

At this point in the day the sun was starting to get low in the sky so we decided it was time to head back to up Donna and Charles. I was surprised (and proud!) to see that while my mom and I were exploring they too decided to explore off the viewing platform. And so began the drive home.

I decided that since Charles had done all the driving thus far that day that I would take over and drive us home. Now, when I am driving somewhere new and Charles has the GPS we have an unwritten rule that he navigates via the GPS and I follow the directions. Makes sense right? So Charles turns on the GPS and leads us from the park back to St. John (approximately an hour and a half away or so). So we get to St. John and everything seems to be going well- so well infact that Charles decides we no longer need the GPS and turns it off.

In the mean time my mom starts saying things like "I dont recognize that river/lake/other large landmark" to which Donna replies "You were looking out the other side of the car on the way here...you wouldnt have noticed those things." Ok, makes sense to me? Apparently it was convincing enough of an argument for the rest of us as well because we kept on driving.....and driving....and driving...and all of us are thinking that it is taking WAY too long, nothing looks familiar, and we have seen NO road signs to tell us were we are.

Well, apparently God heard our plea for a road sign and threw this one at us:

From the back seat Donna screeches "ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO KILOMETERS?!" to which I reply  "CHARLES! WHERE ARE WE?!". Poor Charles looked like a deer in headlights. The rest of us didnt know whether to laugh or cry. So, instead we all laughed like a bunch of maniacs and just kept yelling out "ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO KILOMETERS?! and "CHARLES! WHERE ARE WE?!" You have to understand that at this point we should have been home, and instead the sign was telling us we were as far away from being home as we were when we were still in St. John (it is 111KM from Fredericton to St. John and at this point we had already been driving for at least an hour past St. John). Lets take a look at where we went wrong...

On the way from Fredericton to St. John you take highway 7 pretty much all the way, and then, when you cant go any further you take a left and head into St. John. On our way out of St. John we missed the turn off for highway 7 and continued on our merry way, 218KM out of our merry way that is. For those of you that need a more visual look at things here is map showing the way we took on the way there, and should have taken on the way back: Fredericton to St. John. HWY 7 111KM and here is what we actually took St. John to Fredericton HWY 1 218 KM

It was quite the night- we almost ended up in some place called St. Stephens which is more or less on the New Brunswick/Maine boarder, and we got to drive through some of the darkest, windiest roads around...but we made it home (eventually) where we proceeded to pour wine, beer, and order pizza. Well deserved I think!

One quick update of many - PART 1

So today I brought my car into the collision center to get fixed.  In the mean time I have been outfitted with a Hyundai Elantra. It's an alright car- four wheels, four doors- which makes it slightly less cool, in my opinion, than its two door cousins. That's ok though, it has heated seats and lots of little compartments to put stuff, so that definitely brings up the coolness factor. Unfortunately for me, I am paranoid that someone in the parking lot here is going to smash their  car door into the side of mine (like they frequently do) and that I will be responsible for any dings. To prevent this I have devised a fool proof plan. I have parked it in the only spot that doesnt allow parking on either side and plan on keeping a monopoly on this spot by not driving the car until Friday when I can go get my car. In the mean time I am going to continue toning my gluts by walking everywhere. It is almost win-win. Almost.

I have some running around I should be doing right now, but that would mean walking, and since I dont currently feel like walking I am going to sit here and provide you with a much needed break from your day. See? Win-win.

As some of you may know, THE MOMS (my mom, and Charles' mom) came to visit us just over a month ago. Before I go into detail about our adventures together though, let me introduce you to my new home, Fredericton. Fredericton can essentially can be summed up by these two pictures.

There are (some) good things about Fredericton however, and for all the not so good things, they arent anything that coffee cant fix.

Yes, that's right, living here has driven me to consuming at LEAST a couple cups of coffee a month. I now fully understand why when I would tell people who had been to Fredericton, or lived in Fredericton, that I was moving here, their only comment would be "oh, the scenery there is beautiful." Yup, that is about all it has going for it. That, cool old houses, and a close proximity to more "b-e-a-u-ti-ful scenery."

So without further ado, here are some cool old houses. Oooooh. Ahhhh. No, really, they are darn impressive.

Now that the houses are out of the way we can go onto scenery, and Day 2 of when the mom's came to town, this is when the real adventure began.