When Lewis was born, we had a parade in his honor. It was the biggest parade in PEI, and took over an hour to pass by our street. Here are some of the floats.
Well, I suppose it wasn't really for Lewis, but it sure seemed that way. This was his first full day at home, and there was a parade running past our street!
Now at this time, we still has Jen, Liz and Liona here visiting, and Jen took Chris out to see, while Liona, Liz, Lewis, Mel and I took turns watching from the front porch and making breakfast, and getting ready to go shopping for the essentials that we'd forgotten in the days previous.
As you know, Lewis was born on August 11th. This parade was held on the 15th. So what happened in the 4 days previous? Well, not a heckuva lot, to be totally honest. Mel was trying to nurse, but Lewis wasn't for having it. She pumped milk into bottles usig this medieval looking piece of equipment:-
After a few days, they were allowed to leave, as long as we had a plan. Our plan was to pump milk into bottles using a slightly less archaic device. We stuck to it for a few weeks, supplementing Lewis' feeds with formula. Gradually, however, the formula took over, and now there's no breast milk. Lewis never really took to the breast in any case.
The next few weeks were filled with visits to the park (with the outdoor pool) and, although I'd taken paternity leave, I went back early so that I could spend some time with my Mum and Dad when they came to visit. We were relaxed in our world, our routine beginning to set in again.
Then it happened, suddenly.
There's a global recession, and the price of oil hasn't bee as high since the seventies. It's pushing the price of bread and milk up, and the drivers are feeling the pinch at the pump.
That's as far as it goes for many of us, but it smacked us in the head this time. It closed an airline company called
Zoom. This meant that my Mum and Dad were not coming here, but more importantly, Liz, Jen and Liona weren't going home!
Panic ensued at this side of the Atlantic, while Mum and Dad said, "Ach, we'll just get other flights, we'll get our money back on the Zoom ones anyway." Jen and Liz and Liona did eventually get home, but they simply wouldn't relax, they just wanted home at this point, and so they went home early.
On the same day that they left, my Mum and Dad arrived. They did get other flights after all. Dad hired a car in Halifax, and got the Wood Islands ferry to PEI.
Dad's Drive (Click to View Route)They stayed in the
Heritage Harbor House for the first few days, visiting us daily. After that, they moved in here, and slept on the couch.
They started out by doing some sightseeing around Charlottetown.
They took us to Cardigan (where we saw the world's smallest library!) and Montague. We also went looking for seals and buffalos on this trip, we found one of these at Buffalo Provincial Park, but the others were elusive.
Then to Summerside, and Moncton, but we didn't have much time in either place, as we underestimated the time it took to get there.
MORE SOON... Got to go just now, I'll finish this post later.
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