Catching Up / PEI Adventures, Part 2

Yesterday, I gave a quick three-day update of the first half of the PEI vacation. Today's blog update ("blupdate?") will cover the last three days, which is mainly Bobby and Elise's wedding our little family vacation afterwards, our trip back, and today's "recovery" activities.

Sunday: The Epic Beach Wedding

Incredibly, I have no pictures of the wedding, since I was on groomsman duty and was singularly concerned with my sole responsibility: guarding Bobby's phone.

It all started at 10:00am, which was the time that we were to show up, prep ourselves, and psych up Bobby before the 2:00pm wedding start date. I arrived at 10:00am, fully dressed and ready to go. I was the only one who arrived dressed.... apparently I missed the part where we would actually get dressed together.

[Insert awesome picture of us getting ready for the wedding here.]

After a couple of hours, we finally managed to get Bobby dressed - he was in fully RCMP gear (red jacket, black pants, etc) - very cool!

Finally, we all packed into the wedding van. That was a pretty sweet experience - six men dressed either in RCMP outfits or suits, all packed into one van. We drove VERY FAST - the best man was a former RCMP officer as well, and was quite willing and able to manoeuve around the silly cars who were lolly-gagging in front of us. 

[Insert awesome picture of the MAN CARAVAN driving by at light speed!]

We arrived with time to spare at the wedding location - Dalvay Beach. This is a beautiful beach! The particularly great thing about beach weddings at public locations, though, is that there are a lot of other people around, of all ages, shapes, and sizes, dressed in less-than-formal attire! Actually, my favourite part was that upon our arrival and the arrival of the RCMP honour guard, all of these less-than-formally-dressed felt completely at ease with the idea of being right in the middle of the wedding! Rather than moving down a few metres on the beach, a good fifteen or twenty slightly-dressed onlookers simply rotated their chairs to face us instead of the ocean! It was hilarious! Thankfully, Bobby and Elise had great photographers; otherwise I'm pretty sure their pictures would be filled with bikini and speedo-clad wedding enthusiasts.

[Insert photo of Bobby and Elise getting married in front of a speedo!]

The wedding ceremony was very nice. We were all quite warm, but the ocean breeze brought a lot of relief. I thought a particularly cool part was the authentic highland singing, and the honour guard was nice as well. After the ceremony, we had a few hours of pictures and then a beautiful reception in a ballroom at the Rodd in Charlottetown.

All in all, it was a great wedding, and Bobby and Elise are a great match. I think Bobby has the capacity to be a huge support to other people, even when he's making fun of them. Elise has the capacity to keep Bobby grounded/organized, to make fun of him when appropriate (which is often), and keep him generally level headed! Hopefully we'll see more of them in the future.

Monday: Recovery / Visiting

Well, on Monday we were all tired! For Chrissy, this was the first day that I was around to help out again, so it was nice for us all to be reunited. We were also able to spend some quality time with my parents in the beautiful cottage they had rented - it had a cool rustic vibe, and there were rabbits, horses, and goats for the kids to play with. I loved just letting the kids go and watch them toddle around in a place where we didn't have to worry about cars/roads/danger.

That night we had dinner with my grandparents as well as Bob and Joyce Rhead, old friends from PEI. We had a great supper, and after Bob and Joyce left, Chrissy challenged us all to a game of Wizard and then smoked us all. I am continually reminded of the wisdom of not underestimating Chrissy's competitive spirit. She may seem quiet, but underneath the calm waters, she is a fighter who will not hesitate to TAKE YOU DOWN when she needs to!

[Insert photo of all of us pleasantly enjoying our suppers, blissfully unaware of the card-game beating some of us would soon receive at Chrissy's hands.]

Tuesday: Return Trip

I'll make this short - we drove the whole trip in one shot, no stops or anything. Both kids were pretty good and hardly said a word! Chrissy and I felt pretty smug about this until we realized that they had both wet themselves enormously on the journey and had soaked their respective car seats. 

Have you ever tried to wash the material on a kids car seat? I am now certain that they engineer these cars seats in such a way as to make removing the washable fabric as difficult as possible. It took a screwdriver, pliers, scissors, and about forty-five minutes before I was able to toss the urine-soaked covers into the washing machine, during which time an incredible amount of cheerios, crackers, etc. all fell into a mound at my feet.

[Insert a photo of me looking sincerely upset as I try to dismantle the car seat.]

Wednesday: Recovery

Today was a day for resting and recovering from the previous week's activity. We were looking forward to two things today, as bad as it may sound - a rest during naptime, and a rest at 8:00pm. Chrissy and I felt that having these two rests would go a long way towards us becoming better people for the rest of the week!

Outside of these two rest times, we tried to have some low-energy fun with the kids. First up, we hit the mall to try to find a new puzzle for Jesse (he has recently developed a love for fifteen-piece puzzles). Here's Janna and I getting ready to do some shopping at the Regent Mall.

Reclaiming the umbrella stroller in the name of men everywhere! I personally rank umbrella strollers just under baby carriers and beef jerky on my list of "Manly Items."

Success! We managed to find two good fifteen-piecers. Jesse quickly took to them, and completed them both about thirty times each. This is a good use of his time, though, in my opinion!

Helping Jesse with the puzzle. Secretly feeling pretty proud of my aptitude for solving children's puzzles.

Beautiful! Momma was our inspiration as we laboured away at those puzzles.

We had to watch Janna. She loves to play with/hide/chew on puzzle pieces.

After supper we went for a nice walk along the walking bridge between Fredericton North and South.

It's a pretty nice walk! We had to be pretty alert, though, because Janna kept shedding various items of clothing and leaving them on the bridge. At one point a group of runners came up to us and asked if we had lost a shoe. Turns out we had, and one of them turned around, run halfway back the bridge, retrieved the shoe, then sprinted back to give it to us and catch up with his group! Fredericton has some friendly people.  We also noticed how nearly everyone made eye contact with us and gave a friendly nod as we walked back. I miss this aspect of Maritime life!

Tired, but having a good time.

Janna, moments before tossing her hat onto the bridge. It was time to go back!

One cool momma!

Jesse had a pretty good time, although he may have had a little too much fun poking Janna from behind. Double strollers are double-edged swords, I always say.

That's it for us. We're caught up! Time to go to bed.

Until next time....