Busy Nothings

Just a few images from the Highlands National Park of Cape Breton...an awe-inspiring destination for all ages. The new Parks Canada Xplorer program for kids is really fantastic, and we want to give them kudos for doing a great job engaging young visitors to the national parks and historic sites. So far we have done the program at Fundy National Park in New Brunswick, Highlands park, and Louisbourg National Historic site, as well as at the Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck, Nova Scotia. The Bell Museum program was really wonderful, and included not only the activity book and lots of fun hands-on activities in the exhibits, but also had the children making their own kites and flying them on a hill overlooking the Bras d'Or Lakes. They even created their own tetra cell hats. My kids now know what a tetra cell is. I did not even know what it was, and therefore am most likely spelling it wrong. That Bell fellow was certainly an overachiever, destined to make the...

Adventure is a good thing. But somehow uncertainty seems a lot less desirable when children are involved. You know what I mean? We try to live in the right here, right now mode but kids and everything that goes part and parcel with them demands a certain amount of planning, preparation and snacks. So when on holidays, we pay attention to things like where the next bathroom will be. Where the playgrounds might be conveniently located. How to answer the question "When will we be there?" when you left the driveway a mere 20 minutes ago and you've still got five hours to drive "there." Oh yes, and we definitely pay attention to having a big bag of snacks and a car bag of fun tech-free activities to keep everyone from completely melting down within the first hour. Vacations just aren't what they used to be, but in some ways they are most definitely better. Children force us to slow down (um, sometimes to the point of tortoise speed) and really pay attenti...

Note: This is a repost...but worth re-reading to get some summer reading inspiration! The fantabulous part of summer reading is the lack of any desire on my part to better my mind in any way whatsoever. Summer reading is ALL beach reading, glorious, often fluffy, always escapist, this is what I want. Reading on the beach, reading while reclining with a cold drink on the back deck, reading while driving (as a passenger of course) to the next camping destination. Oh, and don't forget reading at breakfast before anyone else is awake. I have to cram in reading when I can, and for that reason alone, we have reading material in every room of the house. And I do mean every room. That way I can pick something up and fly though a few pages or chapters when I get the chance. Years ago, pre-kids, pre-career, pre-anything really, my BFF and I would pickle ourselves in baby oil, grab a towel, drinks, snacks and a nice trashy paperback novel each and head to the beach for an afterno...

Pic by L. Pendleton The sign of a really fantastic beach day is that feeling that you have of extreme blissful exhaustion. Your hair is a little salty and rough, your skin is still gritty from the warm sand, and your mind is still filled with the roar of the sea rolling in to shore. It is a feeling that can't really be matched. I grew up by the sea, and I know that has been a blessing to me. As a child I spent so many hours on the sand and in the salty sea that I might have sprouted gills if that were possible. When I moved "inland," and I say that loosely as I was only about four hours from seaside, I missed the ocean so much that I made myself a beach in a jar to take with me to university. The jar was filled with pinkish sand, shells of all shapes and bits of rock and sea glass that I picked up on the shores of my Island home. I found it weird to swim in a lake. There were tadpoles (ewww) and we scoffed at the little bit of sand they had trucked in to make a mi...