A Nice Visit

My parents came to visit last week. Their plane landed around midnight on a Wednesday and by 1am I had them at the house. There is only one flight into St. John's from the US every day and it is scheduled to be here at 10:30pm, but it is almost always very late due to heavy traffic in Newark. Blah.

The next morning we all got dressed and we went to do a little exploring. We went down to Middle Cove beach and drove through Torbay before having lunch at Jungle Jim's, Ryleigh's most favorite place in the whole wide world! After lunch we took a drive through down town St. John's and up to Cabot Tower on Signal Hill. My dad wrote his and my mom's name in the sign-in book at Cabot Tower and took great pride in declaring that they had to be the only names in there from Monahans, Texas. Cabot Tower is about as far away from Monahans as you could possibly get and still be on the same continent.

On Friday we took them to By Da Beach, our favorite little fish 'n chips dive which just happens to overlook Conception Bay. Friday night we got the sitter to come over (o praise our most excellent sitter) and we all went downtown for dinner and drinks. Dinner was at The Cellar and drinks were on George Street. We had a fantastic time and I think that my parents were pleasantly surprised that the end of the earth does have night life.

Saturday was Avery's First birthday party. I made "The Elmo Cake", the same cake that I made for Ryleigh's first birthday. We had a few friends over and it was a lot of fun. Kids everywhere!

Sunday was a bit of a rest day, though mom and I did manage to sneak off to the mall for a bit. Monday was lunch at Casbah followed by a trip out to Cape Spear.

Tuesday was a bit of a dreary day weather wise, but it was Rememberence Day which is sort of like Verterns Day in the States, so we went hiking up Signal Hill! Signal Hill is where Cabot Tower is located. Cabot Tower being the small castle like structure that was built in 1897 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the discovery of Newfoundland. Signal Hill is at the mouth of St. John's harbor so when you're on top of the hill on a clear day, you can see out across the Atlantic Ocean for miles.

We parked at the bottom of the hill around 11am. It was me, Jeramy and my dad and there were a few little rain drops coming down on this not so warm day. After a little debating as to whether we really wanted to attempt this, we headed up. Where we started you could look out over the harbor and see the ships coming in. On Rememberence Day you can also see the firing of the canons. I just hope someone expalined to the cargo ship entering the harbor what that was all about. As we climbed Signal Hill we came around the ocean side and the higher we got, the better the view. It was a pretty easy hike, though the last stretch is a bunch of steps that go pretty much straight up. Ouch on the thighs! An hour later we were at the top and then the rain came. The cold, cold rain. We had agreeed to take the scenic way down so that Jeramy and my dad could look at 201,356 different old cannons and read all the historical stuff where things were learned such as a man named Henry Shrapnel invented the "shrapnal" spreading explosive. My quest for knowledge was just not as strong as my quest for dry pants so we did make it down fairly quickly and headed home. It was a lot of fun hiking with my dad and my husband. It was nice to be in decent enough shape to be able to make the hike.

All in all, it was the most excellent visit I've ever had with my parents. It was such a stress-free week and I couldn't help be be reminded over and over how lucky I am to have such a wonderful and loving family around me. It's been a long journey for my parents and I and I'm very pleased that we've arrived at this very happy place.

Mom and Dad, thanks for coming, you are welcome back any time! But next time, you will be kissing the cod!