On the Road Again: August 31-Sept 1

And we’re on the road again!  Thursday was my last day at work and a tearful day it was, I was very sad to leave.  The people I worked with in Kingston were amazing!  In my 11 years of banking I can honestly say that that was the best branch I have ever worked for.  I left with a few parting gifts including a zucchini loaf for the road baked by a friend I called my “bank mom”, a bag of goodies for the road from a co-worker/friend/neighbor and leftovers for our first lunch on the road from the potluck the branch put on for me. 

Carl and I had packed up the car Wednesday night, which ended up being harder than we thought.  To get our roof top carrier closed Carl had to climb on top of the car and get on top of the roof top carrier while I tried to get a lock on it!  We stayed Wednesday and Thursday night at a friend’s house since we didn’t have a bed anymore, but Carl went back to our place on Thursday where he unpacked and re-packed the car.  We thought we might have to ship 2 or 3 boxes that wouldn’t fit in the car…Well our total came to 9 boxes and the car is still packed to the brim (like we both don’t have much leg room!).  We have literally shoved stuff in every nook and cranny in the car.

We hopped on the road by 7:30am Friday morning and made our first stop in Belleville about an hour away.  We stopped for breakfast and one last visit with my Great Great Aunt Joanie and Fred.  We were back on the road by about 10:30am and drove until about 7:30pm to Sault Ste. Marie.  Besides shedding a few tears (ok, maybe more than a few), the drive was uneventful. 

As for tenting while pregnant, we decided to put me close to door for my midnight pregnancy pee’s, which seemed to work well.  However, I am finding that the easiest way for me to get into the tent is to back in butt first and kinda fall to the ground.  I feel like I should have as sign on my rear that says “Wide Load” and there should be a warning back up signal beeping to warn people of what’s coming.  As for sleeping comfortably in the tent…It might take me the whole trip to figure that out!

This morning (Saturday), after a pancake breakfast we were on the road by about 9:30am.  It’s now 7:15pm and we are still going.  Again, it’s been pretty uneventful.  I’ve shed a few more tears and had a few naps trying to catch up on lost sleep and Carl has been listening to a book on CD while doing all the driving!  The sights were a bit more desirable today, as we drove along Lake Superior and through some rocks cliffs.  As we entered a small town called White River I had to do a double take because Winnie The Pooh was on the sign?  Apparently White River, Ontario is where Lieutenant Harry Colebourn bought the little black bear who became the basis for the Winnie The Pooh stories.

Right before we hit White River, I was enjoying a little nap when I felt the car suddenly slow.  I woke up with a jolt and saw the lights in the rear view mirror.  We were being pulled over.  We had heard that the area of route 17 we were currently on was a common place to get speeding tickets.  The speed limit is only 90km, it’s a 2 lane highway and for the most part empty…Except for us and the cop who gave us a speeding ticket!  I figure with the amount of driving we've done in the past 2 years, one speeding ticket isn't to bad.  Since then we've stuck to the 90 speed limit and feel a little insecure when multiple semi trucks fly passed us!

We carried on making one more interesting stop outside of Thunder Bay where Terry Fox ended his run across Canada prematurely.  When we were in Newfoundland we saw where he started so it was kind of neat to see the start and finish lines.

Emotionally, we are both feeling drained.  Drained from the driving (oh we just passed our first time change zone!) and drained from the emotional good byes and leaving a place that we both loved so much.  Carl has a more positive outlook and is excited to get home while I am stuck more in the mourning phase of our departure.  I know as we get closer to home my excitement will come, but for now I am letting myself grieve what is left behind.

Soaking Up Kingston for a Few More Days

Ahhh camping.  I woke up this morning at about 5am when it was still dark, I pulled out my camping chair, pulled up to our camping table, turned on my headlamp and thought "this is ridiculous, we're not even camping yet!".  We are down to the bare bones in our apartment, so much so that we don't even have a lamp for our main living space!  That's why for the past two weeks we've been thoroughly enjoying house sitting!  It's been a busy few weeks but we've managed to make an effort to enjoy our last few weeks in Kingston!  We took a walk downtown, taking photo's of places we want to remember such as the square downtown where we've enjoyed the farmers market, movie's in the square, lunches, festivals and more!

  

It was our 3rd anniversary August 21st so we did dinner downtown.  Hard to believe it's already been 3 years!

We've been enjoying several events lately such as a Going Away Party/Baby Shower planned by my work and just this past weekend we went to a friends wedding with a bunch of people from our Bible Study group!

Sunday was Carl's birthday so we went for breakfast at our favourite breakfast restaurant downtown overlooking the water.  Afterwards we went to our last church service in Kingston and enjoyed a church picnic where Carl was surprised with a red velvet birthday cake!

For those of you who have requested it, here is my most recent "fat" photo :)  This is 32 weeks prego and feeling great!

We are now down to our final days in Kingston and I don't know if it's the pregnancy hormones or just me in mourning of leaving this place, but I feel it's going to be a rough week.  Although we have lot's to look forward to, Kingston has been a very special place for us and we are going to miss it and all of our friends here very much!

Catching Up

Between work, pre natal classes, work out classes, yoga and bible study, I finally have a few minutes to sit down and get out a quick blog!  It doesn't really feel like it's been busy lately but looking back, I suppose it has been!  I guess I'll start with the recent illness's in our household!  2 weeks ago we made a trip to the emergency room and although everyone came up to me thinking I was the reason we were there, we were actually there for Carl.  He had been experiencing really bad lower back pain which eventually started moving around to his abdomen.  After a useless trip to the clinic, we decided to go to the hospital when the pain got worse and worries of kidney problems or stones entered our minds.  As we got admitted the nurse asked Carl, "what does the pain feel like?"  

Carl: My back has a constant dull ache

Nurse: Any cramps?

Carl: Yes, it kind of comes in waves

Leah: Sounds like a period.  Maybe it's just sympathy pains

  After an uneventful 5 hours of waiting, we left with no answers and eventually the pain did subside.  BUT, about 3 days ago Carl started to have pain in his ear and wasn't feeling up to par.  Once again he made a trip to the clinic where he was diagnosed with having an ear infection.  After taking drops over a 24 hour period mixed with handfuls of tylenol with no relief, Carl went back to the clinic today and was diagnosed with a double ear infection so severe that the drops weren't even making it all the way into his ears.  He's now on antibiotics with hopes that the pain will subside!

After the abdominal pain and before the ear infections, we were house sitting a friends house (with air conditioning, couches, curtains, a TV WITH cable, all the luxuries of a home) and Carl worked each day on our friends deck.  He spent hours stripping stain and sanding.  It ended up being a much bigger job than we all anticipated but he's happy to have the work and once he's feeling better, will complete the job by re-staining!

This past Saturday we held a garage sale to get rid of a lot of the small stuff you can't really sell on Kijiji.  Unfortunately it ended up being one of the hottest days of summer with a high of "feels like" 43.  Within the first 2 hours I had sweat through my first change of clothes and had to change (although I think the sweaty pregnant lady look made us a few extra bucks as several people actually overpaid for items and told me to "keep the change").    

You can see Carl sitting in the small spot of shade we had

We recently started going to our pre-natal class which we are finding quite informative and it's making us really excited and anxious to meet our little girl!  To make me even more excited, my friends from bible study threw me my first baby shower!  

Only 10 more weeks to go and I don't know if I can't wait that long to meet her!  I've been feeling great (Carl is feeling enough discomfort for both of us) but I must admit the heat is getting to be a little much.  Luckily we are house sitting at another friends house next week and the week after we'll back at the house we already house sat, both with air conditioning!

We are getting excited to come home and just found out the other day that my wonderful parents and our family friends (also our soon to be landlords - again) have already moved most of our household items into our new brand new basement suite!!!  A big THANK YOU to Mom, Dad, Vic and Lorrie - we cannot tell you how much we appreciate all you've already done for us in preparation for our next adventure!

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!