We Went to Moncton

There wasn't enough snow in Dartmouth, so we went to Moncton.  On Thursday morning Tara, boys and Bob and I drove to Halifax and picked up Nathan from work and we drove to Moncton.  We stopped along the way and had lunch at Subway and Kentucky Fried Chicken ( because we all couldn't agree on one place).  It was a beautiful day with blue sky and above freezing temperatures.  There is a toll road along the way between Nova Scotia and Moncton and it cost us $4 to drive it.

The following two pictures were taken from the doorway of the Delta Hotel in Moncton.  I don't know what it is, but maybe it is a clock in the center of the city square.

After we got settled in the hotel we walked to a mall.  It reminded us of the mall in Lethbridge.  It had a Bay at one end and a lot of empty shops.

The sidewalks were covered with slush and had high snowbanks beside them.

The mall parking lot had been cleared of snow and it was in a big pile at the edge of the lot.

 Keaton and Lochlan  loved the hotel. We had adjoining rooms.

 

In the evening we had planned on going to Nathan's favourite restaurant - the Windjammer, but it was filled and we couldn't get in so we went to "The Keg" and had a good meal.  After supper the boys went swimming and had a great time.  Thursday was a good day.

Thursday was followed by Friday and it wasn't so great.  We woke up and it was snowing and Liam was sick.  We left Liam at the hotel and went to Cora's for breakfast.  The point of going to Moncton was to take the boys to the Crystal Palace which is an amusement park somewhat like the one in West Edmonton Mall.  Liam really wanted to go even though he was sick so we checked out of the Hotel and went to the Crystal Palace for what we thought was 10 a.m. opening.  Would you believe that it didn't open until noon on week-days?  We spent some time next door at Chapters and then walked through the Mall and ended up in the food court for lunch.  Liam was feeling worse than ever and just kept his head down on the table.  We went back to the Crystal Palace and were going to do one ride before leaving for Nova Scotia, but didn't feel like standing in line for tickets so left.

Moncton is a bilingual city.  We heard a lot of French in the malls.

We drove home in the slush and rain.

The Spirit of Scotland

On the 7th Feb. Bob and I took Orson, Liam and one of their friends to the Movie:  On the Day:  The Story of the Spirit of Scotland.  If you are interested in pipe bands :
http://www.onthedaymovie.com/

As Orson said, "the movie was pretty good for a documentary".

It was at the Bayer Lake theatre in Halifax and we only got there with the help of our lady of the GPS.  It was only the second time that we have been to Halifax since we arrived in Dartmouth.  I don't have a clue where in Halifax the theatre is located.

One Seventh

Last night I was quite surprised when Bob mentioned that we were 1/7 of the way through our mission.  I was surprised that the time is passing that quickly and also that Bob is keeping track.

Snow Days and School Holidays

In the past two weeks there were three snow days for the area schools.  Now the schools are closed for two weeks because of the Canada Winter Games.

It is too bad that the figure skating tickets were not sold individually instead of in a block with other events.  I would have liked to see some skating events.

Last week was different from our usual weeks.  We cleaned at the Temple Monday through Friday.  The cleaning went from nine to five each day except on Friday when they shut down at one p.m.  However, the longest I ever stayed was four hours.

Marge and Larry invited the missionaries for supper on Tuesday and we joined them.  We went out for lunch with the Hepplers on Friday.  Friday evening was a ward party - the musical program was excellent.  Saturday evening we had supper with Nathan and Tara.

Today there is no cleaning at the temple, so we can clean and do laundry here and go grocery shopping.

The temperature is above freezing today, even though we had more snow last night.  Maybe spring will come.

Lights of Dartmouth

Here is a view of Dartmouth from the street that we live  on.  We can't see it from our house, but can see it from the street a few houses down.

The temple is closed for two weeks for cleaning and guess who has to help clean.

Mail Delivery

The letter carrier drives this little right-hand drive vehicle.  He stops at every house or so and hops out and delivers the mail.  Perhaps it is because we have no sidewalks on our block.

Digging Out in Dartmouth

Our big storm started Tuesday afternoon.  We spent the evening at Tara's with the boys as Nathan was in Newfoundland and Tara and Liam were out.  Our house is up on a hill and when we tried to get home the old Honda would not go up the hill.  Bob had to turn around and go back down the hill and we went home a different way with a more gradual incline.  We thought we wouldn't make it, but we finally did.  It stopped snowing overnight.

Wednesday morning we went to the temple.  It closed early because of the forecast that there would be a heavy snowfall.  The forecasts are uncanny here.  They predict that it will start snowing at 1:00 p.m. and it snows at 1 p.m.  The schools and malls shut down.  It snowed all day and then the wind came up and blew the snow into drifts.  Our neighbour is away so we parked in his driveway because it is not so steep as ours.