Prince Edward Island

This is from Keri. Alright all you Anne of Green Gables fans out there. It's time to be jealous! Yesterday we drove the 3 1/2 hours to Prince Edward Island to go see the setting for Anne of Green Gables. Growing up, my best childhood friend, Casey Bryant, and I watched Anne of Green Gables or Anne of Avonlea almost every day of the summers. We swooned over Gilbert and memorized most of the movies. Yesterday morning before we went, I couldn't wipe the smile off of my face! I was so excited! It was a long drive, but so fun to see the island and see the places that inspired Lucy Maud Montgomery to write the Anne novels.

Once on the island, we drove through farmland to reach Cavendish, on the opposite side of the island. We found the farmhouse that LMM's cousins lived in, which was the house that inspired "Green Gables." They've restored the grounds to look like the descriptions in the novels, and have created trails through the woods around that inspired some other parts of the novels such as "Lovers' Lane" and "The Haunted Wood Trail." Some of you may remember Anne and Gilbert's rambles down Lover's Lane, and the time that Anne fainted in the woods when she heard the trees creaking and her imagination took over. It was windy when we were there, and the trees on the Haunted Wood Trail were creaking! The house itself was fun to see, but it was based on the novel, not the movie, so it was slightly disappointing to those of us who obsessed over the movies in our childhood.

After the Green Gables house, we went down to the beach to see the dunes and red sandstone cliffs. Then we drove all the way back to Halifax! So worth it, though!

The LONG bridge over to PEI. We're not happy because we just found out about the $40 toll.

Keri pretending to be Matthew milking the cow in the barn on the Green Gables property

Green Gables

Scared before the Haunted Wood Trail

Dunes and Sandstone Cliffs. Can't you just see Anne's story papers blowing in the wind?

C.J. skipping stones

The Valley

Keri had a big presentation for Grand Rounds this morning in front of several rehab staff and medical school personnel. The presentation went well. Afterwards, we headed out to "The Valley," meaning the Annapolis Valley, about an hour away from Halifax. Our wheelchair skills research team was doing an all day conference with two presentations, so we drove out on a beautiful fall day to see it. Before we went to the conference site, we headed up to a look off point overlooking the valley and the Bay of Fundy. For those of you who don't know, the Bay of Fundy has the largest tides in the world. During extreme tides, it can vary up to 50 feet between high and low tides!

After the presentation, we met a delightful elderly couple through the two wheelchair skills team members we were with. The man is an artist, and gave Keri a tiny sculpture of puffins sitting on an actual piece of whale bone that he found down on the beach by the Bay of Fundy! We went out to eat at the local hot spot, which is known for their pie. Good pie, good company, good weather. Another good day.

The view of the valley and Bay of Fundy

More beautiful fall colors

Cape Breton Island

Last Friday after work we headed out for the Cabot Trail (a scenic road that winds along the coast and through Cape Breton Highlands National Park) on Cape Breton Island. Cape Breton is the northernmost part of Nova Scotia. We'd been told by numerous people that this was a "must see" for any visitors to Nova Scotia. We drove a few hours after work and stayed in Antigonish (we're not sure what they have against gonish) which is about half an hour off the island itself. We planned to drive the entire Cabot Trail and get back to Halifax all in one day, so we set out fairly early on Saturday morning.

We'd been praying that the weather would be good, and it rained for most of the morning, but we did end up having decent enough weather in the afternoon to get in a 4 mile hike. It was absolutely beautiful. Though it was rainy, the volume and brilliance of the fall colors was amazing! Cape Breton Islands is home to moose, bears, whales, bald eagles, and deer, but our repertoire of wildlife sightings was sadly limited to a squirrel, 2 bats (that nearly ate our faces on our hike), and a frog (while we were driving...may it R.I.P.) Overall, it was a great day and definitely worth getting up early and not getting back to Halifax until 10 pm.

Waterfall right off the road

The Cabot Trail

At our trailhead

The end of our trail

Moose sign every 5 miles does NOT equal moose sighting

What the "H"?

Why, oh why can't people leave our cars alone?! We found our "H" stolen off the back of our new Honda Accord. I guess it's doing better than our last new car. The last one got hit in the church parking lot 3 days after we got it. At least this one lasted 4 weeks before something happened to it...Sigh...If I believed in luck, I'd sure say we have bad luck with cars. I guess it could have been worse.

You'll never walk alone by Nate Ballast

(This one is from Keri). We're home sick from work today, but still wanted to share this post! Whenever we would cry as babies or kids growing up, my dad would sing the song, "You'll Never Walk Alone" to us. Now that he is a grandpa, he has continued the tradition with his two grandsons. My parents just got back from a trip to Seattle to spend time with our nephews, and obviously, this song came out a few times. We received this video the other day of Nate and can't stop playing it! He gets almost all the words and most of the pitch changes in the song too! Keep in mind that this little boy is not yet 2 and half years old! The words to the song are below.

"When you walk through a storm hold your head up high. And don't be afraid of the dark. At the end of a storm is a golden sky and the sweet silver song of a lark. Walk on through the wind,walk on through the rain, tho' your dreams be tossed and blown. Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart and you'll never walk alone. You'll never walk alone."

The Pumpkin Regatta

As promised....the story of floating vegetables! Apparently, every year in Windsor, Nova Scotia (about an hour west of Halifax), they have a pumpkin regatta. This involves a pumpkin weigh off (this year's winner came in at a whopping 1202 lbs) and lots of fair-like activities. There's a picture of the winner and his pumpkin below from the website since we weren't there for the weigh-off.


Not only do they do crazy things like grow ridiculously large pumpkins, but they actually paint their huge pumpkins and race them by paddling them across a lake! See the video and pictures below. Although it rained most of the time, we had a little bit of sun just for the race. Can't get much more unique than that for a Sunday afternoon, eh?

Peggy's Cove and Sailing

We headed out to Peggy's Cove this morning. For those of you who don't know what Peggy's Cove is, it's pretty much a tiny little fishing village (population = 40...seriously), but definitely a tourism hot spot for its lighthouse and scenery. It was about a 40 minute drive, and we saw beautiful fall colors pretty much the whole time. We're planning on heading to Cape Breton Island next weekend and hope that the leaves aren't gone already. After lunch in one of the two places in town, we went out to see the lighthouse and the waves crashing on the rocks (check out the video below). It was pretty spectacular.

After Peggy's Cove, we drove to Dr. Kirby's cottage (we work for Dr. Kirby in the lab). Dr. Kirby invited us to sail with him this afternoon on his boat. Though we've been on lots of boats, this was the first time either of us had sailed. Dr. Kirby was gracious enough to explain all that goes into sailing a boat and had us help with different parts of it during the trip. It was so peaceful out on the water, and we had with Dr. Kirby's dog, Jake, too. A little preview on tomorrow...we're not going to give it away, but it involves floating vegetables. Check back tomorrow for more...

Keri and Jake (1st mate) on the sailboat

C.J. and Dr. Kirby putting the cover on the sail

Hockey

This one goes out to Mike Werkheiser and Kim Torgerson (our hockey playing friends from STL).

"When in Rome, do as the Romans do." When in Canada, go watch hockey. Tonight we tried to be as Canadian as possible and went to support the Dalhousie (pronounced Dal-how-zee) Tigers men's hockey team. Dalhousie is the university we're working at right now. Unfortunately, they lost, but it was a close game, and we had a good time. The funniest moment of the night was the very beginning when we all rose for the national anthem, and Keri immediately put her hand over her heart expecting to hear, "Oh say can you see". Hmmm... We looked at each other and laughed when a different song started! Keri started to sing along to "Oh Canada" (Ruth-remember rehearsing it in our dorm room for our Canadian friend freshman year at Calvin?!), but CJ promptly told her that it's "treasonous" to sing along to another country's anthem. The other highlight of the evening for Keri was the Zamboni as it's one of her life aspirations to ride/drive one someday (you always taught me to aim high mom and dad!).

REALLY excited about the Zamboni

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! We've got the day off of work, and this afternoon we're heading to the Graveline's (the family we first lived with) house for a Thanksgiving dinner with some other families from church. We haven't found anyone here that has heard of green bean casserole, so we're bringing a great traditional American dish. It's kind of fun that we get to celebrate Thanksgiving here because we'll be in Peru for American Thanksgiving.

We had another great day yesterday! After church, we headed to Point Pleasant Park, a beautiful park with hiking/biking trails right on the ocean. It was sunny, but chilly in the wind off the water! We can't figure out how some of the Canadians here seem to be immune to cold weather. It was about 45 degrees, but many of them had shorts and sandals on while we each had at least 4 layers on top! Brrr!

Us by an aircraft carrier anchor in the park

A view of the water from the park

This chipmunk was chillin' in the sun on a 15' pole

Walking down the path in the park

After the park, we headed downtown to walk around by the harbor. We got ice cream at a place called "Cows" which is voted the best ice cream in Canada by Reader's Digest. They have really good homemade waffle cones and pretty good ice cream, too! After downtown, we came home and read and relaxed with the wonderful thought that we didn't have to go to work today and could sleep in!

SOCCER!

We got to watch three soccer games today and listen to a webcast of a fourth. I know most of you would think that's some kind of punishment, but we had such a great time. We found out from one of our coworkers earlier this week that the Senior Club National Championships were taking place here in Halifax this weekend, so we decided that we should take advantage of the opportunity. The teams in the tournament were all adult teams that had won their respective provincial titles, so it was some pretty competitive soccer. Good soccer + good weather = good times.

When we got home after our seven hour live soccer marathon, we remembered that Dordt College, where C.J.'s little brother goes and plays soccer, webcasts their home games live, so we got in on most of that game too. Kevin is just a freshman this year, but he made the team and has actually been starting the last few games. We're proud of you, Bud! Dordt won in sudden death overtime 5-4. Nice...

And, we've got LSU-Florida college football to look forward to on HDTV tonight. Oh, and Monday is Canadian Thanksgiving, so we get the day off. We're loving this weekend!

Life in Nova Scotia

It's time to write a short blog about what we're actually DOING in Canada (besides picking up the accent, eh?-you're so right Robyn!). We are working for an MD named Dr. Kirby who has an entire research lab devoted to wheelchair skills testing a training (a long-time passion of Keri's). We are actually getting to collaborate together on one project, but it's CJ's mainly. He's looking at a few tools for assessing the accessibility of curb cuts and combining and adding to them to make a usable and useful tool. Then he is going to pilot test the measure on the streets of Halifax. It's kind of fun to combine our skill sets on this project (CJ's background in civil engineering and Keri's in disability/accessibility/environment). Keri is working on learning the lab's wheelchair training and testing protocol and also looking at the new international guidelines for wheelchair provision in developing countries. She's going to make a report card for a facility based on these guidelines and test it in Halifax on a few places. So that's what we're up to during the work day! Other than that, life has slowed down. We walk to and from work which is about 25 minutes each way. When we get home at night, there's not much to do! We're enjoying reading and hanging out. Oh! And the good news....we have a TV in our room so we can watch The Office! We were worried about having to miss the new season and couldn't fit a TV in the car. Good stuff (Bob, no need to Tivo 3 months worth anymore :) Below are some pictures of where we're living.

Our Nova Scotia home (except we live in the basement)

Our front (their side) door

Oh, Canada

Time for a bit more lighthearted post. We've been (pronounced like bean in Canada) for almost a week now, and we've actually had some good times despite all our housing woes.

To start off, our housing woes are actually over! We found out today that the possibility we talked about in one of the previous posts is going to work out. We'll be living in what we're being told is a "granny suite" in the basement of the home of an occupational therapist from the hospital we're working at. It's about a 20 minute walk from our building, and we're actually going to be living in it for FREE! It is so amazing how God just gives us so much more than we could have expected. Tonight will be the last night with the Gravelines (the family we've been living with), and we're actually a bit sad about that, but we are excited to be in our "own" place and to be downtown near the university. Thank you all for your prayers about this issue. God is good. He definitely made it so that this gift was obviously from him and not out of our hard work.

We've had some good times laughing about some things that are (or actually aren't...oops) Canadian. Our first (what we thought was) Canadian experience was right after we got off the ferry and stopped at an A&W for lunch. We got our food and noticed that our drinks didn't have ice in them. We proceeded to discuss for at least 10 minutes why Canadian fast food restaurants wouldn't serve ice in their beverages until I (C.J.) noticed a little note on the cup. Apparently A&W (all A&W's) do not serve ice in their beverages because they want to preserve the taste of their quality beverages and not let the ice dilute them. We totally thought we had it figured out though...

The speed limits in Kilometers have taken a little getting used to. As much as I'd love to test the handling of our new Accord at 110 miles per hour...just kidding, Mom. What's a little factor of 1.6?

The gas is sold in dollars per liter. Much to our disappointment, the exchange rate is about even right now (gone are the glory days of a Canadian dollar being worth 69 cents US), so $1.07 per liter adds up quite quickly when our tank is almost 60 liters.

Celsius is still taking some getting used to. (9/5)C + 32F = Temperature in Fahrenheit is just a bit tough to do in the head.

Green lights and arrows sometimes blink here. We're still not sure what that means, but we should probably get to that...

$1 coins (loonies) and $2 coins (toonies) are a bit strange. It's easy to spend more than you think when it feels like you're putting a quarter in a parking meter. Their paper money is all different colors too. I'm sure that would be nice if we actually knew what color went with which denomination.
The Graveline kids have a "Dance Dance Revolution" type game that is made by Veggie Tales. Let's just say the hard setting is appropriately named--nothing like sweating to the "I Love My Lips" song.

We made reference to our bug-infested hotel room (which was actually a really nice, but way too expensive room). Let's just say "Don't let the bedbugs bite" has a whole knew meaning to us. Apparently they're real and bite they do. Nine loads of laundry and black garbage bags around all of our stuff later, we are sure that they haven't made the trip out of the hotel with us. I'm sure we'll be able to laugh about this one later.

Canadians actually surf around here. Kannon Beach is about 10 minutes from the Graveline's house. We were told that it is a pretty good surf beach, and being from SoCal, we had to witness this for ourselves. The waves were actually decent, definitely better than Lake Michigan, but at 10 degrees Celsius (Americans, see the above formula), I don't think I'll be joining them any time soon. Thick wetsuits with hoods and booties were definitely standard apparel. I can wait until we get to Peru.

Again, thanks for all your continued prayers. Things are definitely looking up around here now that we know where we'll be living. Since this post is plenty long, we'll update about what we're actually working on here in another post. Enjoy the surfing pictures below!