A Week at the Ocean

 So, the trip to the Oratory was really en route to the Beach House in Nova Scotia.  The shores of the Minas Basin (part of the Bay of Fundy) called us again and we spent a week vacationing with my parents and my sister, Sister Ilaria.  We arrived on Saturday afternoon after a night of driving.  Well, Dave drove, the kids slept and I dozed intermittently waking to use the bathroom and ask Dave if he was still OK.  In his all-nighter mood:  "What would you do if I wasn't?  Drive?"  Umm, no.  We arrived in one piece (or, rather, eight pieces all tied together in one van) and Sarah immediately demanded to be pushed on the swing.  Luckily, there were well-rested siblings who could perform such tasks.

 We enjoyed bonfires at the beach where we ate marshmallows and hotdogs.  And not much else.  How time flies:  in last year's picture Sarah was only 11 weeks old and only nursing.  She has graduated to marshmallows.  A dubious rite of passage.

 So many walks down this beach.  The older kids would trail after my dad searching for fossils - which they actually found!  Hannah's first discovery was quickly lost by Joseph, much to her chagrin and consternation.  Joseph also later lost his Crocs in the lowering tide.  They were somehow recovered.  Thankfully, Jacob was also recovered when my father almost lost his eldest grandson to the outgoing, silent and malicious forces of the highest tides in the world.  I will take Jacob over Crocs any day.  Thank you, Guardian Angels.  Thank you, Grandpa.  Thank you, swimming lessons.

 So beautiful and yet so cold and so uncaring.  Keep a safe distance.

 On another note, the wind was great for flying a kite.  Surprisingly, some people down the beach also seemed to be flying themselves.  At first we thought that two people were hang-gliding off the cliff.  We soon realised that they were somehow tethered to the cliff and simply floating above it like two kites flown by a giant hand.  For the life of us, we could never manage to see the tether and really couldn't figure out how they were performing their amazing past-time.  It did look tempting, until my mother reminded me that, with Jacob's track record, such a fun activity would quickly devolve into  a massive coast guard rescue.

 Dave and I became so enamoured of our seaside vacation that we imagined buying a seaside cottage and spending years welcoming children and friends to our home-away-from-home.  Until we realised that we could probably only afford the above.  Plans for retirement.

 Sarah began the week half-walking and half-bumscooting.  By the end of the week, she had firmly landed in the walking camp having perfected her skills on pebbly beaches.  However, at the point at which the above picture was taken, she was still getting around on her bottom and was convinced that the icy Atlantic was akin to the lakes of Ontario.  Thankfully, Isaac has not a malicious bone in his body (in regard to Sarah) and kept a firm eye and hand on his sister.  Daddy also rushed to the rescue.

 Hannah spent some time skipping stones, a feat which I still can not manage.  She has inherited all things athletic from her father and can skip stones multiple times.  Mine just land with a plunk.

 Ben picked me a wild rose for my hair.  These roses are so abundant in Nova Scotia that the locals call them ditch flowers.  A rose by any other name is still as beautiful.

 Somehow my rose made its way into Hannah's hair.

 And a lot of this went on:  Sarah walking by her daddy's side.  Much patience required.

 My mini-me.  Sweet, sweet boy.

 My dad and Jacob investigating the rocks.  Actually, I think that some reprimanding might have been going on as a rock had just been thrown in the ocean and had, unfortunately, missed its watery target.  The head of a brother had intercepted the rock and we had narrowly missed the emergency room, yet again. I will leave that all in the somewhat ambiguous third-person.

 Everyone happy at the same time?  Impossible.  Take heed:  these boys will one day marry your daughters ... or hear your confession.

 The adults are a little bit more in control of their emotional lives.  My sister-Sister said that when she is out and about in the big city she and her fellow sisters get a lot of stares.  So much so that one of the more out-spoken sisters simply asked point-blank to the man with the hastily hidden iPhone, "Do you want to take a picture?"  My sister said that when she goes out with Dave, me and the six children she experiences the same phenomenon except that people don't know whether to look at her or us.  If you could see beyond those windows, you would see the people glaring - no joke.

And, we'll end with Sarah in one of the last pictures of her bumscooting.  She is officially a walker now and I am very, very happy that we thought to take at least one video of her scooting on her bottom back in June.  Time passes, sometimes far too quickly.