Oh, beautiful, beautiful Ottawa! Let’s move here, shall we, Ben? We could roam through the forests of Gatineau Park, take every tour at Parliament Hill, and eat at The Works every day….
I’m having a wonderful time, but the internet still sucks, so I’ll be back tomorrow to share pictures!
The end is in sight.
Our 23 days of Florida sunshine will be over next Wednesday. Oops, I should say 22 days of sunshine….It did rain that one day our first week here…
It’s been beautiful.
There are just an insane amount of pictures I’ve taken over the last three weeks that haven’t been put into a post yet.
It’s kind of an overview of our normal days here in Florida. (Funny how sunshine and palm trees can so quickly become the new “normal”, hey? Just wait until we get off the plane in Manitoba…)
Anyway. Normal days include:
Playing outside…
Stroller and skooter rides.
Picking oranges…
And peeling oranges. Kaylia doesn’t eat them, she just peels them. She really likes to peel them while we’re driving around the village in the golf cart, and scatters little pieces of peel behind us, leaving a trail as though we’re Hansel and Gretel and need to find our way home again.
Along with orange peeling, she’s exploring the new skill of photography. But she always holds the camera pointing to herself, because that’s the only side she’s ever seen…
And of course, there’s the daily swim. When my dad gets home from work, he whips off to the pool with the girls in the golf cart.
Then they come home dripping and smiling, jump in the shower, and then we eat supper while the sun sets.
As perfect as this sounds, having Ben around could still improve it! But alas, we meet him at the airport in snowy Manitoba.
Really, why do we live in Manitoba again??? I could get used to these endless sunny days.
I think I already have, actually…
WE ARE HOME!! It’s felt like a looong two weeks. We are quite giddy about being back, but we have come home to some chaos. While we were gone, the flooring was redone in our house, and although the work crew tried to put everything back in the right place, that’s kind of a difficult job….They did their best. But I still have some major work to do!
So. I love the new flooring. I’m super thankful for all the work everyone did to get it done while we were gone. But I’m itching to get my house in order. THEN I will truly feel settled. (Anika says, “It doesn’t really feel like our house!”) But it’s like a treasure hunt! The girls will be searching for their toys all day….
Just got back from two crazy days in the city. It is quite astonishing how much money we are capable of spending in such a short time. But when we only venture out into civilization every couple of weeks, there are quite a lot of groceries and appointments and errands and household needs and many other things that we acquire and take care of during those trips to the city.
This trip was not “all work and no play”, however. We met up with our friends, Trevor and Terra-Lee, for a night out. We live at camp together, and it feels weird if we don’t see each other basically every day, but there’s just something different about spending time together away from camp. Like two worlds colliding….camp life and city life… It was a very pleasant collision.
We went out and ate food together that was not camp food. How strange and new. And then we went to a 3-D movie and enjoyed our new glasses. Those were also strange and new.
And I have nothing deep or meaningful to say, other than saying that we are safely back at home. (Safe, but smelly – we hit a skunk.)
We’ll try for deep and meaningful next time. Right now, I’m going to bed!
Ordinary Days 