Plenty of trails to hike along -- R was mostly determined to climb the hills herself, but once in a while those little legs would near give out and she would have to accept some help from old Mom!
The children were thrilled with all the treasure they found at low tide. They were very interested in the barnacles and snails that were still attached to the rocks. R was quite offended they wouldn't move out of her way, she kept busy swiping them off and away. E kept busy 'rescuing' as many as possible, moving them to puddles left behind.
Dickson Falls - Gorgeous! The Boardwalks were so nice, made some of the hiking easier, but added to the view as well.
L and C had fun racing the waves and the tide -- more than once I thought they'd end up in the ocean!
And, then there were the colors -- it was as though the Lord had painted them on His canvas just for us.
Oct 9 –
We were able to stop and meet another of my MOMYS friend (hi Neysha!) before crossing the border again. She and her family met us at a nearby park where we had a quick picnic lunch and the children could run off their pent up energy. She was very sweet (I knew she would be!) and we enjoyed visiting with her and her dh about country living, gardening, canning, etc. Again, our visit was much too short.
We then had a short wait at the border (we are amazed at the long line of cars and buses waiting to get through) But once at the gate, we didn’t even 
have to show our papers -- then on to the Bay of Fundy – magnificent views, gorgeous weather, and the colors are still spectacular. Our rock hounds filled their pockets and packs, our hikers had a good workout, and the family photographers kept their cameras snapping.
Our statistics, to date (Oct 11) :
8 days on the road
7 US States
4 Canadian Provinces
2,087 miles
5 campgrounds
5 sunny days
2 misty days
Temperature range 60 hi to 45 low
30 different state license plates
8 different canadian license plates
2 bandaids applied
A drawer full of souvenirs
And a couple hundred rocks
We are really enjoying our tour of eastern Canada. We especially have enjoyed the unique character and personality of each province.
took in breathtaking views of the Niagara Falls. WOW definitely shows the awesome power of our Creator.
ble to tour the barracks, officers quarters, the 300 year old stone building specially built to house ammunition, even an underground tunnel that lead to an octagonal lookout tower. There was plenty more to see – you’ll have to wait to see our pictures!
I’m sitting down with my ice coffee and special Milano cookies (Mama’s Treat!), the younger ones are playing out front (I think they’ve discovered a caterpillar), C is baking a cake (she’s marketing a new, Fall Harvest cake), and L is out moving hay bales. I love this Autumn weather – it really does rejuvenate me!
I had trouble posting here last week, so I’ll give you a run down of some of our recent activities:
School –
Everyone is doing great in their schooling. C and L have been doing a literature study with another family – everyone is reading The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis and then going through a study guide geared to high school students. It’s been a great study for the students and their Moms!
E and G are flying through their math books – we’ve been working through some measuring, shapes, measuring, volumes, temperatures, fractions etc. It’s a lot of fun – moving on to some tougher things next week. They are both improving in their reading skills and really love to sit down with a good book. E especially enjoys copywork and G is a whiz with numbers.
On Thursday, the R____ family joined us for school work. We are trying a co-op sort of idea this year. Twice a month we get together and ‘do school’, each working on their usual assignments. Mrs R will do a little board work with the younger ones, the older ones work mostly on their own subjects. Then we have our literature discussion over our ‘brown bag’ lunches. It’s been fun, and motivational!
Field Trip –
We spent one day last week with another family visiting some of the museums at the University. Great Day! We had a fantastic tour of the
Then on to the Library (you can see me below giving the 'be quiet, use inside voices, no running' talk in the picture). We made a quick viewing of an exhibit featuring political cartoons – very interesting, a great history lesson. We happened upon this while looking for the Rare Book Room
– the flyer said they had an exhibit showing the history of printing and the art of printing, featuring some antique books and papers, including pages from a Gutenburg Bible.
Apparently not many visit this particular exhibit, because we had many (including security and dept heads) leading us to all different wings of the library! Well, when we finally arrived, the supervisor of the Rare Books Collection had to pick her jaw up off the floor, her eyes nearly popping out of her head as she looked down the hall to see our 2 families, which included 4 adults and 14 children!
Now we find out there is no exhibit, really. They do have these things, but most are stored away. Apparently few people just show up and ask to have a look-see.
They very graciously welcomed us in, cleared the table and brought out some really neat stuff for us. We saw actual Babylonian Tablets, that mention King Nebuchadnezzar, sticks of papyrus and an explanation on how they made and used papyrus, a family bible from early 1800’s, and a book with gilded edges – which was spectacular, because when you opened the cover and shifted the edges of the pages, a beautiful handpainted scene appeared right before your eyes. A great day was had by all!
There’ll be a wedding here on the farm soon – Uncle M is marrying J in less than 2 weeks and so everyone is bustling about making the farm look its best. We’ve been doing some cleaning up and fixing up and general beautification around our place. Dad finished his rock wall – it looks very nice. I’ll post some pics in my next entry.
The big seasonal switch over – I have the little girls clothes changed over to winter, finishing up the little boys. My they do grow fast! I must admit, it is nice that I don’t have to do it for the older ones anymore.
We also canned 10 quarts of pears and 6 quarts of apple sauce.
Now, if you’ve read this far ---- Congratulations! And Thank You! for sticking with me! I know this post has been long, but I really wanted to catch up a bit.
Have a wonderful week, and enjoy this season the Lord has given us!
I’ll post ‘after’ pictures this weekend. You might keep us all in your prayers while we wade our way through the piles!
oast. To celebrate a family member’s birthday, Grandma stokes up a bonfire in one of the nearby pastures and everyone gathers to roast hotdogs and fill up on Aunt L’s famous baked beans and other traditional cookout goodies (like S’mores!) Sometimes we are near a pond and some will go fishing, always there’s a little cow pie dodging going on (he, he, he). And we wind up the evening at Grandma and Grandpa’s place for cake and ice cream.
