Wedding

town of Placentia

Bert's House

Fantastic Weekend Part Two

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OK, now on to the rest of the weekend. We drove into St. John's on Saturday morning. St. John's is "the city" in Newfoundland. I asked Jer before we went if he knew how to get there. This turned out to be pretty funny since the directions were pretty much, take a right out of Harold's driveway and drive for about an hour and twenty minutes and you'll be there! Not too many roads around here!

 

St. John's is a beautiful old fishing "city." Quaint streets, lots of churches and rows of colorful houses that they refer to as Jelly Bean Houses. We went to the wedding ceremony at 2:00; the church was gorgeous. It was built in the 1800's by a bunch of fisherman...for no charge. It took them 29 years to finish! The ceremony was beautiful. We had until 7:00 until the reception started and Jerry's cousin Wayne owns a pub in the city. Many of the guests went there in between for a pre-party! Jerry, his Dad, myself and a few other "non-Newfoundlanders" had a surprise waiting for us. They have a very fun tradition up here that they refer to as "screeching in," which means they make you honorary Newfoundlanders! Unfortunately, it involved kissing a dead cod fish and taking a shot of "Screech," which they say is Rum, but it tastes more like a cross between whiskey and battery acid! What a fun time we had! You can see our official certificates in the picture. The reception was so much fun and Aimee looked beautiful. Jacob and Emma were so good about wearing those darn "fancy clothes" all day and they looked great. They really had a good time the whole day.

 

On Sunday we spent some time in St. John's with Jerry's cousin Sheila and her family. For those of you who came to our wedding, you may remember Sheila as the girl with the beautiful voice who sang at the church. It was so incredibly windy on Sunday that we could barely walk through the city. Sheila told us we now know why "Newfies" walk bent forward! We went up to Signal Hill, which is the site of the very first inter-continental communication between North America and Europe. It was SOOOO windy up there that we literally had to hold onto the kids because we thought they might blow away! Even the locals said it was unusually windy, you can see for yourselves in the pictures!

 

We drove back to Placentia Sunday night. As we were driving down "the hill" into town, there was a white SUV in front of us. The driver pulled over to the side of the road suddently, without signaling, so Jerry drove around her to avoid hitting her. The next thing you know, she has pulled in behind us and is right on our bumper, driving exremely aggressively and flipping us off!! She was on the phone and Emma said "she's calling the cops!" We laughed and said she was not doing any such thing. About 20 minutes later we were at the restaurant in his family's hotel having dinner with Sheila and Scott. A police offer comes in looking for John Kelly (that's Jerry's cousin who lent us his car for the weekend while we're here. Someone says, "Jerry, aren't you driving John's car?"  And don't you know it....the girl WAS calling the police!! It turned out that when Jerry explained what happened, the officer said that the locals pull over to avoid the potholes all the time. He gave Jerry a warning, but we had such a laugh about it!!  We didn't tell John about it because we had planned to frame the warning and give it to him as a gift! Too funny, of course he found out about it (small town and all!!). The kids think the whole thing is just hilarious!!

 

Anyway, we're still loving it here. The kids don't want to leave tomorrow. Everyone is so nice and friendly. Everyone we see says "Oh, you're not from around here. You must be in for the wedding then, right?"  I'm finding myself speaking with a little Canadian accent, saying "right?" at the end of every sentence! I have to run for now, but will update again soon!

Fantastic Weekend Part One

Having trouble with pictures, but here is our update...

So much has happened since our last check-in! We're having more and more fun every day! I'm posting a few pictures with this first part, these are pictures from Placentia, which is the town where Jer's mom grew up. One shot is of the whole town from up on the hill across the water. As you can see, it's a small town built basically on a sand bar! The house you see in the picture with Jer and the kids is the house where she grew up. It's one of the oldest houses in the town, built in 1887.

 

We walked over to the "beach" on the edge of town. And yes, we put our feet in the water. Jer's mom said "now you know why I don't swim!" So, Auntie Jen, you can tell Uncle Sean that the temperature of the water up in Newfoundland is...coldER than Maine! Our feet were numb in a matter of seconds! You can see Jacob's reaction in this picture!

 

I'm also posting a picture of the ferry we took over here. It was really quite amazing. I'll share pictures of the inside when I get home and have more time to post. OK, I'll do a second post with a wedding update.

We Made It!

Hello from Placentia, Newfoundland!! Our ferry trip up to Newfoundland was such a great experience. I don't have any pictures today because I haven't had a chance to upload from my camera yet. I'm sitting in the lobby of the hotel that Jerry's family owns so that I can have a wi-fi connection. We arrived in Newfoundland yesterday at around 3:30 (time here is an hour and a half ahead of home). The trip over was great, wait till you see pictures of the ferry. It was massive; complete with a lounge, a restaurant, a gift shop and many cabins! We slept great, although we didn't get to bed until almost 1:00 in the morning! We got up and had a little breakfast and explored the ship. Then had a great buffet lunch, played a game of Monopoly and before we knew it, we had arrived.

 

It's been 10 years since our last visit to Newfoundland, and I forgot just how beautiful it is here. We have the RV parked at Jerry's cousin Harold's house. We are here for his daugther's wedding, which is in St. John's tomorrow. Harold and his family are already in St. John's but have left us run of their house, which is absolutely beautiful. Jacob and Emma want to move in with them! I have to admit that as nice as the RV is...it was great to sleep in a house and take a real shower! They have a gorgeous inground, heated pool, which overlooks the most beautiful scenery. I can't wait to share some pictures. We swam four about 4 hours today and are now going to do some exploring. Last night we got to see the house where Jerry's mom grew up. Jerry's cousin Sheila has renovated it and stays there with her family when she comes back to visit. Jacob and Emma loved seeing where Nana grew up!

 

The town is fantastic, and Jerry has quite a few cousins still living here. Everyone is just wonderful and couldn't be any more welcoming. I'll log back in when I get some pictures uploaded. No screw-ups today...but stay tuned, we've got over a week to go!!

Yup...We Did It. And It Only Took 5 Days!

OK folks, here's the story you've been waiting for! I could easily save our pride and not share this, but I would hate to deprive you of a good laugh! For those of you who told us to watch the movie RV before we left (and we did), you will appreciate this story. We wouldn't be "us" without something like this happening. At our last campground Ruth gave us the advice to walk around the RV twice before we drive away. You want to be sure you are not still connected to anything, make sure your bikes are tight, make sure your storage area is locked. What she should have said was walk around and look down...and up.

 

You guessed it. We got in and pulled out of the site to exit the campground...with the awning still out!!!! OMG are you kidding me??? And yes we did...it hit a pole and bent the metal holding it on. WHAT IS THAT NOISE?!?! Jerry stops and I open the side door to see the awning. Holy panic button!! I tried to put it in and it wouldn't go in. Until he turned the engine off. Wow, good thing there is a safety feature that doesn't allow it to go IN with the engine running! God forbid we try to roll it in while driving. But it's no problem to start the engine and drive away while it's OUT!!!!  Thankfully it still rolled in and we stopped and found a garage where the mechanic replaced the couple of bolts that popped out. But we can assure you that we won't be trying to roll it out again until we get home!! Oh man, I've got a feeling this is going to cost us. But we have to keep our sense of humor and be thankful that no one got hurt, right?!

 

Ugh, it's been a long day! We are now on board the Atlantic Vision ferry and have just pulled away from the dock. It's 11:30 Nova Scotia time. We'll be heading to bed soon and will enjoy this cruise ship sized ferry boat in the morning! The weather has been great and we're still having a fantastic time.

 

I hope you all had a good laugh at our expense! It's OK to laugh...we did too as soon as we knew it rolled back in! I'm on the ship's computer, didn't think we'd have wi-fi so I left my laptop in the RV. I only get 15 minutes and it's just about up so I have to go. Will check back in tomorrow. Good night all.