The Countdowns Are On!

Well time seems to be flying by and not only are we counting down till baby comes but we are also counting down until moving day!  

I am officially 27 weeks and in my third trimester now!  Week by week the baby bump is getting noticeable bigger, I swear it expanded a few inches just last night!  I am feeling great although this heat is starting to get to me.  We don't have air conditioning and the weather on average has been in the low thirties and "feels like" the forties some days with the humidity - and there are no signs of it changing anytime soon!  

It's been a bit challenging being pregnant, knowing we're having a girl and not being able to buy anything (but I guess it's been good for the bank account)!  The more we buy, the more we have to take home with us so needless to say, I'm feeling a bit stressed that we have nothing and are no where near prepared!  But we are starting pre-natal classes next week so we'll at least know how to have the baby :)    

In regards to moving, we leave in 6 weeks!  I put in for early maternity leave and on August 31st we have to be out of our apartment by noon and will hit the road!  We plan on taking up to 10 days to drive home as we want to explore and visit a few friends along the way! 

In preparation for our move, we have listed and sold a lot of our things.  The kitchen table went over a month ago so we've been using our camping table and chairs.  And today, we sold our couches, microwave and curtains!  We're making due with what we've got...Here is Carl enjoying a beer on our "new" couches (a.k.a thermarests/camping mattress).

We've thrown some sheets over the windows and are thankful that our friends have offered us their fully furnished, air conditioned house to stay at for a week while they are away!

Well it's currently 9:15pm, 25 degrees and feels like 31 (feels worse inside!) - time for a cold shower before bed!

A Job...Well, Done

Well we've been back from our East Coast trip for about a week and I (Carl) have spent my time looking for work. I found it...briefly. I found a job ad for College Pro painting and thought "This will be great to keep me busy until we head back to Vancouver."

I have worked for College Pro in the past and know their business model is pretty sketchy (from my own experience and from others who have worked with them as well) but I figured hey its something. 

Anyways today I showed up at the job site at 8am and we soon began work scraping, sanding and priming. Another guy was working alongside me. I called to our foreman and asked how long it should take us to do the wall. "Ummm 4 hrs" she said after counting paces along the side of the house. That meant since there were two of us it should take 2 hrs. 

The house we were working on was over 100 years old, and in bad need of a paint job. Almost all of the paint that was left was flaking off. I thought the 4 hrs combined would be tough but we gave it a shot. We worked until 1pm without taking a break. Still not done. Two others joined us and we worked the rest of the day on this one wall. 

Not a huge deal, working outside right? this is good isn't it? except when you learn how College Pro pays. The wall was supposed to take 4 hrs therefore, all of us working on that wall split that 4 hrs among us (even though it actually took us 9 hours), and those measly fractioned hours would show up on our pay cheque. 

I calculated that I would be making about 1/3 of minimum wage... which I honestly wouldn't feel that bad about if a large company wasn't benefiting from it.  After I clarified this with the foreman, I said my farewell. 

So I am embarrassed to admit, today marks the shortest job of my life.

 

Homeward Bound

Ok, so I'm a little embarrassed to admit this but we did it and we sort of liked it and we will try not to do it again...We stayed at a KOA Campground.  KOA's are not camping - there are no bugs, you camp on a grassy field right beside your neighbours, there are hot showers and flush toilets and free movies and popcorn!  And did I mention the pool?  We decided to stay there only because it was the closest campsite to Quebec City, and did I mention the pool?  Most of trip was spent driving and exploring and there wasn't a whole lot of down time so we decide to take some of today and relax - by that pool I mentioned.  It was glorious!  The sun was hot and the pool was cool and we were chillaxin!  

It looks like a nice setting right? 

But it's a KOA, the pool was right next to the highway, see the semi truck in the background?

 Around noon we decided to make some headway towards home.  At that point we weren't sure if we were going to camp one more night or just head home.  But as we neared home, we heard our bed calling and we decided to wrap up the trip!  

Overall, we had a really good time.  It was a whirlwind of a trip and we feel we are going to have read over my blog and look at pictures to actually remember everything we saw!  As for right now, we are looking forward to crawling into our bed and when we have to pee in the middle of the night, rolling out of bed and walking 10 steps to the bathroom - oh how we take the little things for granted!

Guest Post: Quebec City

I am giving my beautiful wife a break from blogging. I will start with a couple thoughts on Newfoundland.

First, its beautiful. The mountains in Gros Morne are spectacular and the setting of St. John’s might be the best of any city in Canada. It was hard to believe I was still in Canada, which brings me to my second point: the accents.

Leah and I were waiting in line at Tim Horton’s when two locals started talking. I assume they were talking because sounds came out of both of their mouths but since I could not understand a word, I cannot be sure.

“Dewife sed getdisendat”

“Ha, budable dae outder do”

My first thought is keep my head down and hope they don’t ask you a question and whatever you do, do not laugh. This is of course because I am deathly afraid of upsetting a Newfoundlander. I think its because I am positive that anyone who sounds like that can fight. Their dialect sounds like a mix between Popeye and Irish Gypsy. Both of which can fight. And I imagine in between bear knuckle boxing and betting on cockfights they would think nothing of beating me up in a Tim Horton’s parking lot to defend their honour.

Alright, on to Quebec City. Beautiful. After a full day driving yesterday we were excited to do some sightseeing. We were in luck. We spent the whole day walking through Quebec's narrow pedestrian streets which are lined with boutique stores and cafes. The city rests on a hill which gives you different vantage points of the buildings. As you walk through you can are looking up and down at different buildings and onto different streets making it very interesting.

Once in a while the street opens up onto squares where tourists gather on all sides with absolutely massive cameras attempting to get a good shot. 

My attempt at getting a picture of the Quebec sign. Leah loves signs and is much better at taking pictures of them!

Leah on one of Quebec's beautiful narrow streets. 

One of the squares that the narrow streets open up on to.

Just lovely!

After a full day of walking up and down stairs (have I mentioned how much of a trooper Leah is, who being almost 6 months pregnant is sleeping in a tent and trekking through multiple cities!) we went back to our campsite and cooked some kebabs over the fire. Excellent day!

July 4: PEI

Ok, so PEI is my favorite province so far this trip!  Maybe it’s because the sun has been shining but I think there is more to it than that.  We started out our day by checking out Greenwich National Park which has a beautiful white sand beach that we had all to ourselves!  

We took a nice morning stroll, listening to the "singing sand" as it squished between our toes.   We also made sure to take my belly shot because today I am 25 weeks prego!

  

Last week according to “the bump” website the baby was about a pound.  This week, it could be close to 1.5 pounds meaning it’s grew half it's size in one week…And I can feel it!  It’s been getting harder and harder to get up or get out of the tent!  I have managed to fall into the tent a few times as I lose my balance and unfortunately for Carl, one of those falls was on him in the middle of the night when I had to crawl over him to get out and pee! 

Carl wanted his photo taken too... 

After our lovely stroll it was off to Charlottetown.  Charlottetown has a nice downtown right on the water with several stores and restaurants, many of them catering to the "Anne of Green Gable" fans, me of course being one of them... 

...And Carl following suit.

I remember watching "Anne of Green Gables" and "Road to Avonlea" as a kid so this brought back many memories for me.  Cavendish (which we visited next) is where the author of the books grew up and did most of her writing.  All of her novels except one, were based in the area of Cavendish.  

After walking around town we decided to splurge and get a lobster lunch!  This was both mine and Carl’s first time trying lobster (the McLobster doesn’t count) and we enjoyed it! 

From Charlottetown we headed to Cavendish to see the Anne’s house, Lover’s Lane and the area that Anne of Green Gables was set in.   

After that, one last stop in PEI was in Darnley to see the contrast between the white sand beach and the red sand beach (east has more white sand while west has red sand).  It was gorgeous!  

If we had more time, we would have loved to stay longer in PEI and spent more time on the beaches!  I loved just driving through the rolling green hills of PEI, passing potato fields and farmland, seeing the rich red soil that looked much like the soil in Uganda.  PEI has a calmness to it, a relaxed feel that we were much in need of!  We were sad to leave but this evening we took the 13km Confederation Bridge over to New Brunswick.  We are currently just outside of Moncton and plan to bomb through the rest of New Brunswick to make it to our final destination, Quebec City!

July 2/3: St. John's to PEI

July 2

Today was a driving day!  We left St. John’s by 10am and drove across Newfoundland for the second time!  We’re thankful we weren’t counting on the ferry leaving from St. John’s as it, like our first ferry had also been cancelled!  On our way, we passed a beautiful wooden house and we couldn't believe that the owners actually had it up for sale!

After about 10 hours of driving we are now waiting for our midnight ferry back to Nova Scotia.  In all our driving today the most exciting thing that happened was Carl hit a bird…It’s his THIRD one this trip!  We must be attracting them to our windshield or something???  And in all of our driving in Newfoundland, which we figure has been over 24 hours, we never saw a moose!  Not a one!  Everyone we spoke to before we came out here guaranteed us that we would see a moose – moose fail!  We were also a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see any ice bergs.  Apparently this year they came early in May and early June.  Ahhh well…

Making soup for dinner at the ferry terminal - it was cold and foggy!

Carl eating the soup - yup, right out of the pot we shared!

July 3

We survived the red-eye ferry!  We didn’t get much sleep but that didn’t stop us from having what I think is one of our best days yet.  We drove from Sydney, Nova Scotia to PEI.  On the way, we stopped at a little lighthouse at Cape George and went for a short walk. 

We then headed on to Melmerby Provincial park to enjoy some beach time!  The weather was beautiful!  The water in this area is the warmest water North of the Carolina’s…I guess it hasn’t fully warmed up yet because it was still pretty chilly.  But we enjoyed our time relaxing.  I’m not sure if the baby loved or hated being in the sun but it was moving quite a bit so we also spent some time just watching my stomach jump around with each of the baby’s movements.  

From there we hopped on yet another ferry to PEI.  This one was only about an hour and it was warm enough to stay outside the whole time and enjoy the view!  

PEI at first glance is gorgeous.  It’s quite flat but the red rocky shoreline and lighthouse that greet you on your way in on the ferry are enough to awe you.