Farmer's Markets, Lost Children, Driving Ranges, and The Candy Shop

This day was bursting with activities. Unfortunately, there wasn't as much opportunity to take quality photos during a few of these key events, so my descriptive play-by-play will have to suffice.

Early Morning Activities

The morning began at 6:00am, at which time Jesse woke up Janna, and the day was on! This has been the case for every day of our vacation. 

(Admittedly, I didn't reach consciousness until a little past 7, so I'm going from Chrissy's memories and pictures here.)

Janna entertained herself by opening and slamming loudly the cupboard doors.

Ever the foil to Janna, Jesse entertained himself by reading calmly.

Janna, not to be outdone, quickly found her own book!

The Farmer's Market, and How We Lost Jesse in A Mall

Eager to make up for my absence during the early-morning activities, I took the kids out to the Fredericton North farmer's market with Mom.

Have you ever tried to take a picture of young children in a farmer's market? There were so many people there that I quickly abandoned that activity and switched to "Keep the Kids Alive" mode. Although this was a little tricky in such a busy place, we had a great time.

Then we travelled to Zellers to get a new puzzle for Jesse. We figured it was time to amp up the experience for him - we got him a 48 piecer. The Vances are all about living life on the wild side!

During our little shopping excursion, Mom stepped into the bank to get some change for the dollar rides (which continue to be Jesse's greatest obsession), and I was watching Janna. What can I say? One minute Jesse was sitting on the dollar ride, the next minute he was gone.

It's kind of scary to lose your kid, and this is actually the second time this week that Jesse has taken off like that on me in a mall. Anyhow, for a good minute we couldn't find him anywhere. I went to check the bank and Mom checked down the hall, and a moment later she found him.... at a dollar ride down the hall! It's crazy how these things can stress you out. Needless to say, Jesse and I exchanged some words on the matter.

Golf Rehab

I had casually mentioned to my parents my complete inability to play golf. Today, my Dad suggested that we head down to the driving range to work on my shot. I thought this was a great idea, so off we went!

Turns out, it will take more than the eighty-five balls Dad purchased for me to make a dent in my deficit of golfing aptitude. Swing like a disc, Dad advised. Don't swing your arms, rotate your upper body. Don't bob when you swing. Swing the club, not your hips. These are all really good tips, but I can't imagine how I must have looked if I was doing the opposite of all of these!

At any rate, of the 85 balls, I probably shot 30 of them directly in the woods on my right. Any and every time I got the ball into the air, it went into the woods. Not one ball went down the driving range. I probably clipped 50 balls into the little area directly in front of the range - I was actually pretty excellent at driving a ball 15-20 feet. 5 balls I sent directly sideways at Dad, which would have made things a lot more exciting had there not been wooden walls protecting him from me. 

I appreciated the experience, however! Next time I go golfing, there's a very strong chance that I'll both hit the ball and send it into the closest group of trees.

Visit to the Candy Fam

Some people that Chrissy and I were particularly glad to see were Lucas and Melissa Candy, who were friends first from ABU in Moncton, and later in Ottawa, before they moved back to the Maritimes. 

I hadn't actually met their one-year old, Gideon, yet, so it was really great to see the little guy! In our visit, he was definitely the more mellow of the three children.

Here they are! Note the calm expression on Gideon's face.

Group picture! Jesse was trying to be a pretty sweet guy here, but Janna was having none of it.

Our visit with the Candys was a little shorter than usual due to the intensity of the Vance kiddies, but it was definitely great to see them. Hard to believe that next time we see them we'll have a third Vance baby to add to the mix.... piece of cake!! (hahahaha)

Until next time!

The Switch / Rest Day

One of the cool things about having both Chrissy and my parents in Fredericton is that we can spending good time with both during one visit. Aside from the PEI visit, we've spend most of this vacation at Chrissy's parents' place, but today we switched it up and moved our home base to my parents' spot, where we'll stay for the next few nights.

Both Chrissy and I were lamenting the fact that we didn't have any shots of Deborah, Chrissy's mom. We changed that today!

The classy mother-daughter shot.

The awesome mother-daughter shot!

It was a pretty quiet day all around. Both kids were a little grouchy / low on sleep, so we tried to take it easy and ease the transition between houses.

The high point of the day: Jesse's puzzles continue to occupy him. He moved from a fifteen piecer to a twenty-four piecer today. I was so proud!

The low point: supper. Not the food, the experience of having both children whine in harmony. It would have been musical if it weren't so sad! I think they just need to have a good sleep tonight. Since they've been sharing a room, Jesse has been waking Janna up at 6:30 each day. Not good for any of us!

Before bed we went to a nice little park down the road. It had totally new equipment, but Janna was more interested in other things.

Thing 1: The rocks

Thing 2: The buckles on her stroller!

Jesse was a little more orthodox in his activities. This picture shows him looking a little concerned with the slide, but he actually had a much better time than it seems here!

"Poppy" Vance, doing double swing-pushing duty.

Nanna Vance, playing some iPad with Jesse. 

Well, that's about it. It was a quiet day! Tomorrow, we're looking forward to seeing our old friends Lucas and Melissa.

Until next time...

Journey to Magic Mountain

So Chrissy said she'd be impressed if I managed to write this blog post in an hour, and incredibly impressed if I could do it in half an hour. I have taken her up on her challenge. I have twenty-seven minutes left.

Today the Vance fam participated in two main activities. First we went to the park, then later on Momma, Jesse, and I journeyed to Magic Mountain, Atlantic Canada's largest water park, located in Moncton, New Brunswick.

25 minutes.

Here we have a lovely picture of Janna frolicking through the grass on the way to the park. It's hard to catch Janna mid-smile, so I chose this picture for display.

Jesse enjoyed the swing, as usual. I've promised him that this is the last year that I will allow him to use the kiddie swings, so he's milking it for all it's worth. He was particularly pleased in this photo because he was getting the chance to kick at my head as I tried to take a good swing pic. I pulled back in time, every time, much to his amusement! What a kid.

We took a nice lunch break at a great place called Jessy's Pizza. Here, Janna was attempting to nab my camera. Nice try, Janna!

This picture nearly brings tears to my eyes. Gluten-free donair! 

Twenty minutes left.


Next, we left our beloved daughter in the hands of Grammie and Grand-pere, and the three remaining Vance members headed off to Moncton, NB, for a Magic Mountain experience. Here we are, pleased to have arrived!

I need to provide some context here. The last time we were at Magic Mountain, two years ago, we were incredibly excited to have Jesse try all the little kiddie rides. Instead, he screamed uncontrollably every time we approached any body of water, which is a common occurrence in a water park. It was pretty frustrating.

This time, however, Jesse did great! He actually asked to go in the wave pool, and we did it twice! We had a great time bobbing up and down in the waves. Note the smile in this photo. Genuine.

Jesse, telling us the story of the wave pool and the "beaver," the large animal painted at the end of the wave pool where the waves come out. Jesse felt that the beaver was responsible for the making the waves, and since he had asked the beaver for the waves, he deserved credit for the entire wave pool experience.

My beach babes!

9 minutes left!!!



Another incredibly cool thing that happened was that we bumped into my friend Bobby and Elise who just happened to have travelled to Miramichi and had made this a pit stop on the way back. This is a tremendous coincidence!!! We had a great time hanging out with them for a while. Unfortunately, I have no suitable photos of us together, but we went on some sweet rides. (The new magic mountain slide is pretty sweet. We'll call it the "Canister Free Fall" ride. Check it out sometime!)

Storm clouds came. They rained on us for about 45 minutes. Jesse was really cold and his lips turned blue!

Chrissy and Jesse doing their crazy, genetic tongue thing. 

4 minutes!

A helicopter. Jesse passed up this loonie ride for the tugboat (see below).

Here it is!! (2 minutes!)

Ridiculous!

Apparently, Jesse was under the false impression that he would get to ride the helicopter afterwards, even though we clearly told him he'd get ONE ride. This produced anxiety and tears all the way back to Fredericton.

We stopped for a quick visit to visit some of Chrissy's family at Grand Lake. (1 minute!)

Chrissy's grandfather entertained us with great jokes! I'm glad our kids have had the chance to meet their great grandmother and grandfather. Truly great people!

That's it! 32 minutes. I fell just short of incredibly impressing Chrissy. I'll try again tomorrow.

Until next time!

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....

Catching Up / PEI Adventures, Part 1

Let me start of by saying, I know, I know, real bloggers don't miss six days in a row. In blogger world, that's basically a huge slap in the face to all that's good and decent. I have no excuse,  except for the simple fact that the past few days have been some of the busiest days I've experienced in recent memory!

I know. Excuses, excuses. Even worse, I hardly have any pics - I forgot my camera at some pivotal moments. At other moments, we used a camera for which the adapter is back in Ottawa - those photos will be forthcoming.

What follows is the first installment of a day-by-day account of the last six days, in abbreviated form. There have been some big experiences: joy, sadness, nostalgia, and sunburns!

Thursday: Arrival, Nick's Funeral, Reunion

I left my family at about 8:15am in order to make Nick's funeral at 1pm. It's a strange feeling leaving your family behind for three days, especially when this was Chrissy's actual birthday. We both felt that this was important, however.

I hit PEI's red dirt at about 11:30, giving me time for half an hour to stop and reflect before the funeral. I pulled in to a little-visited stop right at the foot of the Confederation Bridge - the road to get this close isn't advertised; you actually have to drive right through Borden to get here. It's one of my favorite places, so I pulled in and ate lunch at one of the picnic tables by the edge of the Island. It had been years since I'd had the chance to visit PEI in the summer.

At times like these, I totally get why people always seem to drift back to PEI - the smell of salt water in the air completely surprised me and reminded me of the old ferries that used to take us to and from the "mainland." The wind was also pretty strong, which I totally appreciated. The wind off of PEI's coast never ceases to impress on me a sense of my own smallness and the power and presence of God. Notice the red dirt!

Ever since I was small, I've been a sucker for lighthouses. There's something about the idea of something that weathers the elements in order to provide light and guidance to ships in the dark that seems pretty compelling to me. Anyone ever hear the song Lighthouse by Audio Adrenaline? Old favorite of mine. This light house was right beside me, and I couldn't resist spending some quality time with it.

Next was Nick's funeral. I have to say, it was a pretty fitting tribute to a pretty amazing guy.

I met up with my friends from PEI afterwards - Bobby and Mike, of whom I somehow have no pictures. How could this happen? Bobby's wedding was the original reason for my trip to PEI (before we heard the news about Nick), and I stayed at Mike and his girlfriend Maria's house for two nights, but I still inexplicably have no photos of them. Inexcusable.

But I was hugely cheered up by them. Later that night we walked back to Bobby's house and saw his mother and sister, whom I hadn't seen for years and years but were like family during our high school years. It was awesome to see them! I also met a bunch of Bobby's RCMP friends. Have you ever tried to swap stories with an RCMP officer? It doesn't really work. The were telling stories of high speed chases, attacks by disorderly drunks, and awesome motorcycles that they drove. All I had were stories of high-speed... marking... complaints by disorderly students, and my awesome minivan. I felt a little out of place,  but they laughed politely. Then I told them I blogged regularly and they avoided eye contact for the rest of the night....

Friday: Bachelor Party Activities

Bobby's bachelor party was spread throughout Friday, but its main event was definitely the deep sea/tuna fishing. Twelve of us (the majority of whom were RCMP officers that I was eager to impress) travelled to Rustico and, after some shrewd negotiations, chartered a boat to take us tuna fishing on the deep sea.

We quickly learned that in order to catch a tuna, we'd first have to catch a bunch of mackerel to use as life bait. I'm proud to say that I caught about four mackerel in the first ten minutes. Then we travelled much further out and set up these enormous rods to lure the tuna. Then we waited. (We soon heard that another boat had caught a 400 pound tuna just a mile or so away from us.)

Less than an hour in, we learned that my good friend Mike was prone to sea-sickness. No one was more surprised than him! He literally spent the next SIX HOURS vomiting over the side of the rail! It was pretty sad to watch - when he wasn't expressing his sickness in more violent ways, he was sitting on the deck with his head between his knees. I guess that's dedication - he didn't complain, apart from occasional, well-placed sarcastic comments; he just kept his head down and vomited.

I had a relatively successful fishing day. Although we caught no tuna, I personally caught two pretty big cod, one strange-looking spiny fish that supposedly eats lobsters (I'm not making this up!), and my personal favourite, a seagull. I had just cast my line into the water when a group of ravenous, evil seagulls attacked my bait before it could sink! Justice was well served, however, when one of the seagulls found the hook on the bait.

It didn't seem to be hurting him, but he was stuck. I called out for help, and the captain just told me to reel him in so he could get the hook off. I reeled him in as though he were any other fish, and the captain asked my told hold him by the neck while he removed the hook. "Little Wing" flapped at me indignantly, but I was pretty gentle with him. Here we are, posing together. I released him after the picture and he flew away. He'll think twice before trying to steal our bait again!

There are many more bachelor day activities I could bring up, but for the sake of brevity I'll just say that good, clean fun was had by all (if you count being scorched by incendiary fireworks as "fun"!).

Saturday: More Reunions!

Deep sea fishing had left me horribly, horribly sunburnt, so I excused myself from the beach activities and took some time to visit an old friend. This is Father Chris Sherren, a Catholic priest of the parish in Summerside. When I knew him, though, he was just "Chris", and we used to rock out together on guitar. He was one of the groomsmen in my wedding, and a good friend in high school, so I stopped by to see what he was up to. Definitely great to see him and catch up on the past few years.

Finally, my family arrived later that day, so I was briefly reunited with them as well. I have to say, even though it was nice to participate in some fun activities, the single life isn't for me anymore. I missed my wife and kids, and it was really good to (briefly) see them again.

Tomorrow I'll write a little more about the actual wedding and our trip back. Stay tuned....

Happy Birthday Chrissy!

Actually, today isn't Chrissy's birthday; that comes tomorrow. However, since I'm going to PEI tomorrow, Chrissy graciously agreed to celebrate her birthday a day early, and the celebrations began.

So let me start again: on this day, twenty-eight years ago, the love of my life was deciding to stay inside for one more day before she entered the world. Chrissy is certainly my favourite person in the world, and one of the most inspirational people to me. I hope you had a great day, Chrissy!

Let me provide you with a brief photographic account of the day. Jesse and I spent the morning doing some classic last-minute shopping at the Regent Mall while Janna spend some quality time with at my mom's house.

(Jesse very emphatically picked out a card with a seahorse on it. Then we selected a bracelet for Mom and had a little happy birthday message engraved on it. We both felt pretty good about this decision.)

After we returned home, the kids decided to have an extra long nap, so Chrissy and I were treated to nearly three hours of rest. Here I am, digging into some Macbeth for my Grade 11 English class.

For supper, Chrissy's mom made a killer pot of seafood chowder. I mean, this was a HUGE pot of seafood!  This is Chrissy's favourite food; she asks for it every year. I have to admit, two years ago I would have avoided this chowder like the plague, not being a natural seafood fan. However, ever since I tried this particular seafood chowder last year, I have felt my resistances to seafood crumbling. This is really good chowder. I am still not to the point where I wake up from dreams of seafood chowder like Chrissy, but I did find myself slightly looking forward to it this year. Will the wonders never cease! Chrissy's dad has promised to give me some more exposure to lobster, which both intimidates me and intrigues me.

My parents also joined us for this evening. Here's Dad, content with the combination of friends, family, and seafood chowder.

Time to blow out the candles! Jesse literally waited for this moment all day. I had a really hard time with the balance between helping him to be excited about mom's birthday while at the same time reminding him that it was Mom's birthday and not his. He even wrote in our card to Mom that he was excited to blow out her candles! Here it is.

Janna enjoying some good food. She honestly chowed down today in a way that defied her 16.5 pounds. She even ate a full bowl of seafood chowder and half of a second bowl!

Dad's surprise present to Chrissy was a giant, 1.85kg bag of M&Ms. Here is Jesse, clearly distraught over the fact that Mom's present is heavy and he can barely lift it!! Obviously, someone was being a little inconsiderate, giving Momma such a heavy present!

All it took was a good bath to cheer him up!

Hanging out with Grand-pere before bed.

And this takes us up to the present. In hindsight, I wish I had taken better pictures of the ladies of the household, especially Chrissy's mom, my mom, and... Chrissy!

Anyhow, Happy Birthday Chrissy!

Until next time...