New Hampshire – a beautiful and VERY treed state. The trees still have leaves and are full of color. The temperatures have been terrific lately, but are expected to fall in the next few days. This week we have enjoyed temps in the mid twenties-apparently so has Alberta so we can’t even brag about it.
The campground we are staying at is very nice. The owners have a daughter who is in grade seven-she would seriously like to take our kids to show and tell with her at her school (they are checking with school). Just imagine bringing some real live Canadian kids to school- wow! Kass is game, but Ryley is not thrilled at the idea. We’ll let you know how it unfolds.
We have been focusing on school and completing lots of projects. The campground has a great pond for looking at habitats. The pond also has a nice rocky shore that is also good for falling into the pond from-make sure to ask Kass about the experience sometime! We are happy to report that no crayfish ended up in her clothes!! The kids have been catching tadpoles, toads, frogs, newts, crayfish and more tadpoles. The most they caught (in one hour) is 70…some with legs…some without…some disabled…some nearly dead.
We had the opportunity to visit the Stoneyfield Farms Yogurt Factory-(they were closed for tours, but we did get all you can eat yogurt). Not too exciting you might say, but when they have flavors like vanilla truffle and chocolate underground it’s easier to get excited. After the yogurt factory we toured the Anhauser-Baush Budweiser Brewery to visit the famous Clydesdale horses. The tour was interesting…the beer terrible (good according to Jay)…the horses amazing.
Leaving comments on the blog. Some people have let us know that they have been experiencing problems posting- we think the best way to comment (if you want) is to go to “post comments” and then comment as “anonymous” --that way you do not have to have a Google or Blog account that will expire. You can leave your name within the actual blog. We hope that works better.
Thanks for the e-mails and we wish you all a terrific Halloween!
Friday, October 26, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
A Festival According to Ryley
This entry is taken from Ryley’s journal (word for word) regarding our experience of the Keene Pumpkin Festival in New Hampshire on Saturday, October 20, 2007
Today I went to a pumpkin festival in Keene. Lots of pumpkins. Last year alone there was approximately 29 000 pumpkins. Wow! The biggest one was 720 lbs. Very Big! Some other big numbers are, there were 80 000 people last year at festival, probably more this year. You had to waddle like a penguin just to get anywhere. Kass went into a pumpkin pie eating contest. She got second place in her heat. She lost to a really big kid. The parents were CRAZY! One lady elbowed me in the ribs just to see her grandkid (well probably her son, but she looked REALLY old) lose. Then she didn’t move she just stood in front of me and complained about how her kid (grandson) had “Twice as big as piece then anybody” and “That’s why he lost” I wanted to say, “Shut-up GRANDMA! The reason the kid lost is ‘cause he didn’t eat all the pie on his plate! Even if your kid’s (grandkid) piece of pie was the same size as everybody else’s he STILL would have lost!” After that we got some burgers and got really annoyed of all the people and went home. Sounds fun eh??? GTG. Bye.
Today I went to a pumpkin festival in Keene. Lots of pumpkins. Last year alone there was approximately 29 000 pumpkins. Wow! The biggest one was 720 lbs. Very Big! Some other big numbers are, there were 80 000 people last year at festival, probably more this year. You had to waddle like a penguin just to get anywhere. Kass went into a pumpkin pie eating contest. She got second place in her heat. She lost to a really big kid. The parents were CRAZY! One lady elbowed me in the ribs just to see her grandkid (well probably her son, but she looked REALLY old) lose. Then she didn’t move she just stood in front of me and complained about how her kid (grandson) had “Twice as big as piece then anybody” and “That’s why he lost” I wanted to say, “Shut-up GRANDMA! The reason the kid lost is ‘cause he didn’t eat all the pie on his plate! Even if your kid’s (grandkid) piece of pie was the same size as everybody else’s he STILL would have lost!” After that we got some burgers and got really annoyed of all the people and went home. Sounds fun eh??? GTG. Bye.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Crossing Over!
October 14-16, 2007
Blogging the old fashion way…no such thing you may say - yet I sit here “writing” out my thoughts with pen and paper. The laptop CRASHED! I am not sure we are surprised- it has been a hot commodity in our “house”→serving us many hours each day; downloading…uploading…storing our nearly 1000 pictures, our 10 hours of video, home school plans, resources, budget tracking spreadsheets, 1584 songs, PowerPoint’s, letters, blogs, addresses and so much more. Our computer has been a portal to home while we are away. It has been our link our friends and family >>>e-mail, msn, hotmail, FaceBook, BlogSpot, on-line banking, the news, research, THE OUTSIDE WORLD! OK- that’s dramatic, but it worked hard and we figure it deserves some dramatic accolades. We wrote our stories as we drove across this country on the bumpiest highways (Alberta does have some great roads-so don’t complain…unless you live near Leedale) and now we are done this country and apparently so is our computer! The nice tech person at the computer shop was nice enough to recover all our files-thank goodness! PS: remember to back up regularly.
The fall here is in full bloom and beautiful. Certainly worth the wait! We are making our way south-slowly after spending 3 weeks in Nova Scotia we are in New Brunswick side tracked by the computer crash and other business needing to be taking care of before leaving Canada 5 months. We have been gone 60 days and travelled over 10 000kms and Jay can proudly say we’ve “rarely” drove the same road twice.
As we enter the United States we can gladly cheer…thank goodness fuel is only 75Cents a liter here!
Take good care, The Hohn’s
p.s. Here’s to the dollar being at par! And the Computer is fixed!
Monday, October 8, 2007
Saturday, October 6, 2007
DRUM!
Saturday, September 6, 2008
5 tickets to DRUM!: $145.00
Supper at Applebee’s (including appetizers): $53.16
Juice after the show: $5.30
Getting to go on stage after the show with Len LeBlanc: PRICELESS!
We traveled into Halifax yesterday afternoon. The day was beautiful (+22) and we enjoyed some shopping while waiting for Jay to finish his final exam for one of his English courses. I was thinking about Thanksgiving and all that I had to be thankful for…one of which was the fact that I was not the one taking the test. Apparently, it was a PD day back home and the kids were “miffed” that they had to do any schoolwork, but we did break up the day by shopping at Chapters (picking some new books), enjoying supper out (of the holiday trailer) and attending the musical production of DRUM at the Halifax Harbor, Pier 20. The show was amazing. I cannot begin to explain it well enough to do it justice, but it was entertaining, educational, and so meaningful. The show consisted of a musical portrayal of the four main cultures of Nova Scotia living and enduring through their cultural music. The brochure says it well: “…celebrating four of Nova Scotia’s Founding Cultures: Aboriginal, Black, Celtic, and Acadian.”
Ryley, Kass, and Triana had the task of reporting and reviewing the show as an assignment. The girls choose to be television reporters on scene at the Theatre, while Ryley opted to do a written newspaper review. While hanging around videotaping some of the theatre for the video reports after the show we had the opportunity to meet one of the lead male performers, Len LeBlanc. Of course we had to asked for a photo with the kids-he was kind enough to not only say yes, but insisted it be on the stage with some of instruments… including a mini-lesson on each instrument along with some visiting. You’ll be happy to know that he not only knows where Rimbey is (he used to live in Red Deer), but that he actually did some dry walling in our town once. Small world! Anyone know him?
We want to wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving…our hearts will be homesick this weekend for sure!
5 tickets to DRUM!: $145.00
Supper at Applebee’s (including appetizers): $53.16
Juice after the show: $5.30
Getting to go on stage after the show with Len LeBlanc: PRICELESS!
We traveled into Halifax yesterday afternoon. The day was beautiful (+22) and we enjoyed some shopping while waiting for Jay to finish his final exam for one of his English courses. I was thinking about Thanksgiving and all that I had to be thankful for…one of which was the fact that I was not the one taking the test. Apparently, it was a PD day back home and the kids were “miffed” that they had to do any schoolwork, but we did break up the day by shopping at Chapters (picking some new books), enjoying supper out (of the holiday trailer) and attending the musical production of DRUM at the Halifax Harbor, Pier 20. The show was amazing. I cannot begin to explain it well enough to do it justice, but it was entertaining, educational, and so meaningful. The show consisted of a musical portrayal of the four main cultures of Nova Scotia living and enduring through their cultural music. The brochure says it well: “…celebrating four of Nova Scotia’s Founding Cultures: Aboriginal, Black, Celtic, and Acadian.”
Ryley, Kass, and Triana had the task of reporting and reviewing the show as an assignment. The girls choose to be television reporters on scene at the Theatre, while Ryley opted to do a written newspaper review. While hanging around videotaping some of the theatre for the video reports after the show we had the opportunity to meet one of the lead male performers, Len LeBlanc. Of course we had to asked for a photo with the kids-he was kind enough to not only say yes, but insisted it be on the stage with some of instruments… including a mini-lesson on each instrument along with some visiting. You’ll be happy to know that he not only knows where Rimbey is (he used to live in Red Deer), but that he actually did some dry walling in our town once. Small world! Anyone know him?
We want to wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving…our hearts will be homesick this weekend for sure!
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
October in Nova Scotia
The never ending question when you arrive at a new campsite lately is “Does it have a pool?” The pools have all closed for the season here, however the kids are eagerly anticipating the day when we arrive at a campground that has a heated pool. The next one on our itinerary is in Maine…so that won’t be happening for a while. Keep on dreaming kids!
We have been doing a bit of campground hopping lately in hopes of finding a spot as great as the one in the Annapolis Valley. We struck out twice, but have now found a nice one near Peggy’s Cove. We will be staying here for a while, as Jay has two exams later this week in Halifax and it seems like a good time to get ahead in school.
The weather is still holding out and we have been hiking and biking as much as possible. The trees have just begun to change color and the daytime temperatures are near 20 degrees. Yesterday we visited Mahone Bay and viewed the scarecrows that lined the street. Apparently it is a festival that brings thousands of visitors to their small town of 900 people. We took over 70 pictures of the various crows- we will spare you by only posting a few!
What a beautiful community Mahone Bay is…so many Victorian styles homes--keep on dreaming Darla! The community was established in the 1700’s along with the neighbouring community of Lunenburg where the sailing ship, the Bluenose II makes its’ home. We missed the last sail of the season on the Bluenose II, but we did get to visit before it was docked for the winter. It doesn’t look much like the boat represented on the back on our dime without the sails up, but it beautiful and massive. The kids were astounded that the family who built the Bluenose replica in 1963 - sold the ship to the province for $1.00 in 1971. Pretty good deal hey? They were a beer making family and apparently they made good money and good afford it! Could there be truth the stereotypical believe that people drink a lot of beer here?
We continue to meet nice people as we travel, but none as nice as home folk. We want to wish happy birthday to Miss Amelia who just turned one, to Cole who is now a teenager-(yikes), to Raelyn from Kass, and to Casey who insists that he is still in his 30’s- ya right buddy!
We have been doing a bit of campground hopping lately in hopes of finding a spot as great as the one in the Annapolis Valley. We struck out twice, but have now found a nice one near Peggy’s Cove. We will be staying here for a while, as Jay has two exams later this week in Halifax and it seems like a good time to get ahead in school.
The weather is still holding out and we have been hiking and biking as much as possible. The trees have just begun to change color and the daytime temperatures are near 20 degrees. Yesterday we visited Mahone Bay and viewed the scarecrows that lined the street. Apparently it is a festival that brings thousands of visitors to their small town of 900 people. We took over 70 pictures of the various crows- we will spare you by only posting a few!
What a beautiful community Mahone Bay is…so many Victorian styles homes--keep on dreaming Darla! The community was established in the 1700’s along with the neighbouring community of Lunenburg where the sailing ship, the Bluenose II makes its’ home. We missed the last sail of the season on the Bluenose II, but we did get to visit before it was docked for the winter. It doesn’t look much like the boat represented on the back on our dime without the sails up, but it beautiful and massive. The kids were astounded that the family who built the Bluenose replica in 1963 - sold the ship to the province for $1.00 in 1971. Pretty good deal hey? They were a beer making family and apparently they made good money and good afford it! Could there be truth the stereotypical believe that people drink a lot of beer here?
We continue to meet nice people as we travel, but none as nice as home folk. We want to wish happy birthday to Miss Amelia who just turned one, to Cole who is now a teenager-(yikes), to Raelyn from Kass, and to Casey who insists that he is still in his 30’s- ya right buddy!
Monday, October 1, 2007
Some Beach...
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A few more pictures to share with you. A beautiful beach-Mavilette Provincial Park on the west coast near the Digby neck. A fixer upper (boat) at the town of Meteghan and a few pictures from a Scare Crow Festival at Mahone Bay- there were hundreds lining the main street. Very fun!
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