Local Beach

A short walking distance from the house, is a small, quaint beach.

All ready to go

Lupens

Wading in slowly - brrrrrrr!

Dashing in...

and dashing out...

FUN!

Peering into the salty water -

what do you see?

Granddad waits patiently on the rocks.

Trying to warm up together:)

Local playground

We stopped by for about a 1/2 hr. after church last Sunday.

Peekaboo!

Luke loves to climb.

Aidan

One of the jellyfish we saw on our short walk.

Departure Date

Or at least that is what we thought...

First delay at point of origin (3 hrs +)

Nap time

Reading, chewing gum and/or Doctor Who on Ipod

Oh where, oh where can our plane be?

Finally, 1 plane = 1 happy boy:)

2nd Delay in Chicago (12+hours)

Time to play - I guess a pretend plane will do.

Thankfully, they had a wonderful play area for the kids.

Meet our new pilot

After waiting for hours, our flight was finally cancelled due to inclement weather.

At this point, the only hotel available was 20 min. away by cab (no airport shuttle available) and it was close to 11pm (stood in line for more than 2 hrs.) by the time we rearranged our flights for the next day.

The drive/out-of-pocket money/hassle was NOT worth it for a few hours of sleep, so we chose airport accommodations. Praise God for 4 special things that took place.

#1. We learned to push the benches together from a couple a few rows down from us ( this was the only airport on our journey that actually had 2 connecting seats)

#2. The couple also shared blankets with us (even went hunting for 20min. to find more)

#3. In the middle of the night, an airport personnel offered us more blankets (it was bitterly cold)

#4. The boys actually slept quite well (especially Aidan and Luke)

Top (L to R): Rachel, Luke, and Aidan

Bottom (L to R): Drew and Sean

The 2nd day, we caught a morning flight to Toronto, trying to reach Halifax sooner instead of waiting for the direct flight at 6:30pm.

The flight went smoothly, but upon arriving, we discovered that they had overbooked our connecting flight.

We ended up getting on the 3rd flight out of Toronto and arrived in Halifax around 8pm

(a mere 22 hrs. after our scheduled arrival).

It was an adventure of a lifetime

(hopefully, never again and I am so glad for boys who are willing to sleep anywhere when they are tired enough)

Aidan

Happy 8th Birthday!!!

Due to leaving the following day for a 5 week vacation, this year's party was small, but still fun with cake and presents to be had.

Blowing out the candles with a little assistance from Luke:)

Don't worry, he got other presents too...

(a couple of days earlier when we took him out for his special birthday dinner at the restaurant of his choice).

A day in Cincy...

and we really packed in the activities, so this will probably be a LOT of pics.

We started off with a visit to Carew Tower, the tallest building in Cincinnati
(at least until the completion of the Great American Tower at Green City Square in 2011).

The 574 ft. Carew Tower, which was completed in 1931, has an observation deck on the 49th view providing beautiful, panoramic views of the city.

Someone offered to take a family pic for us, and of course, we accepted:)

Next we headed for Graeters, crossing through this area to get there.

Doesn't it look delicious?

Luke certainly thinks so:)

On our way back through, the boys wanted to splash in the fountain.
And now off to the zoo!

What funny looking men;)

Luke was interested in the miniature cow, but no way was he going any closer.

Aidan and Sean

Luke

Who is that handsome turtle?

"Leaping" across the "lilypads"

with Daddy's help.

Now that is a leap!

Time to go...

after scaling the rhino, of course.

All of the flowers were in full bloom - BEAUTIFUL!!!

Good thing he took a nap at this point, because we continued on to dinner at our favorite pizza joint (Dewey's), and then drove halfway home where we stopped off to catch a movie.
We got home around 1:30am.
What a spectacular day!!!

Oral surgery

My sweet little boy somehow inherited a single supernumerary maxillary central incisor called a "mesiodens". (his Uncle Rory had an extra tooth also - weird how genetics work). Basically, this means he had an extra tooth that needed surgical removal.
I want to make sure to warn those with weak stomachs NOT to scroll past pictures #1 and #2.

Pre-op...waiting.
We got up at 6 something, so he was very tired.

His flame or better yet, a torch:)

3 stitches - not too bad.

I think that the stitches are actually repositioning the skin on the roof of his mouth by being threaded between the teeth and knotted in the front (or something like that;).
Already today, the pain is minimal and the swelling has gone down.
Now to stick with a liquid diet for 5 days and a soft diet for two weeks while the bone on his adult tooth has a chance to fill in the indentation left by the torch.
The only difficult part was waking up from the anesthesia. Apparently he reacted to the gas and had a splitting headache. Add that to the normal grogginess/confusion/out of it(ness) and the first couple of hours were rough.