Hurricane Irene

'Our beach' at Magadavic lake!
My very simple wedding cupcakes

Well summer is ending and with it comes the nights starting to draw in and the weather cooling, the leaves on some trees are turning too. This weekend hurricane Irene paid us a visit. Thankfully by the time it passed by us it had been downgraded to a tropical storm which basically meant lots and lots of rain followed by the wind which brought down trees and power lines but none of it affected us this time except for a couple of little flickers of our lights. Our garden is well flooded as is our basement which has a pump fitted for heavy rain anyway so that was no surprise.

David and Sarah went home just over 2 weeks ago now and our next visitors Doug and Hilary arrive on Saturday. We love having visitors so please come and see us, we've no more booked in till next July time!

I had 2 more fantastic weeks on my stall then had to move back to my old stall again which isn't as good. I did my first wedding order this week. A lady said she wanted 36 cupcakes for the following week for her friends wedding- it was so simple, if only all my orders we so easy! We've found that weddings over here are so much more laid back, some still have all the frills and spend a fortune but you can get married anywhere so I've heard of 1 in the local park followed by a BBQ and one at a campsite!

Our snake paid us a visit again this time it was me who nearly stepped right on it, I think my screams frightened it off (hopefully forever) It was about 18" long and 1" wide and was probably what's called a garden snake which is completely harmless!

We've started to harvest the apples in our garden, we have so many trees we're concentrating on 1 main one. The wind brought down hundreds of windfalls which are being turned into cider, stewed apples, crumble, apple crisp, apple and cinnamon scones, pies etc. The ones we're picking are lovely to eat too and hopefully will keep well if we can find the right conditions. My neighbor showed me the fruit trees in my hedgerow so I made chokes cherry jelly and have frozen the remainder of my raspberries, zucchini and the blueberries I buy from the market.

The kids go back to school next Tuesday, Monday is Labor day so we have a long weekend to look forward to.

David and the boys are busy building a deluxe hen hut as our chickens are ready to go out. The ones we hatched and gave to Rich & Jen started laying eggs last week, ours won't start till October, but I can't wait as I go through dozens of eggs a week. We are getting 6 turkeys on Thursday and 4 piglets in about 5 weeks time so soon my freezer will be bursting with yummy meats.

The big news in Fredericton is that Costco opened a couple of weeks ago! We really do live near a very small city when this is the highlight. It is great for me buying flour, sugar etc in bulk but it's one of those places you pop in for 1 thing and come out with a huge trolley full so I have to limit my visits.

1 year and a few days on...

Summer sunset over Yoho
The official 2011 family holiday snaps

The most Northerly point on PEI

Uncle David & Amy

Harriet, Sam & Maeve frog catching
Ben & Sam having a water fight!
One of our babies

I can't believe August is well and truly here and I haven't update the blog for over a month, sorry will try to do better this month.

Last Thursday we'd been here for 1 whole year, we certainly have tonnes to be very thankful for. It's not all been plain sailing as you can imagine moving to a new place brings plenty of challenges which have been overcome one by one with the help of God, our family, extended family, church friends, work colleagues, neighbours etc. We are very happy and settled here and especially in our new home and with all our new found friends. We still miss everyone back in the UK and wish we could just hop on a plane to visit once in a while but unfortunately realistically speaking that isn't going to happen for a good while so we'll just enjoy each visitor who comes to see us at the moment (and the galaxy, marmite and haribos they bring across!).

We haven't seen much of Isaac this summer as he's volunteering at Green Hill Lake Camp sometimes as a junior cabin leader and other times on maintenance or camp life. He comes home late Friday night and returns Sunday afternoon each week, he is in his element up there.

His vegetable garden is producing an abundance of crops without his help. We've eaten radishes, strawberries, lettuce, raspberries, zucchini, broccoli and are waiting for squash, potatoes, apples, leeks, tomatoes, peas and cucumbers.

In preparation for David & Sarah's visit our lifegroup at church came and helped us weed the garden, mow the grass, paint Harriet's room wash floors, windows, clean up etc. We still have lots to do again when they leave but at least we got to a livable state to welcome visitors. They arrived over 2 weeks ago now and stayed with us till last Wednesday and are now at Richard's. My holiday at work coincided with some of the time they were staying so we had day trips to different places. We also decided to go away for the long holiday weekend to PEI. I spent all Wednesday morning before we wanted to go on the Friday trying to find a place available and big enough to sleep 14! By lunch I was ready to stay home all weekend as the only offers were 3 motel rooms or a camp site. With bad weather forecast I didn't fancy either. Josh then got on the case and found a big house in the middle of nowhere which was not only available but big enough and very reasonable to rent for 3 nights. We had a fantastic time together and the rain wasn't too bad.

On the few very hot days we've had this summer we head for a lake, this is usually Yoho but we also found a beautiful spot on Magadavic lake and the kids have been to Harvey lake too. Harriet bought herself a water slide which she pours cold water down when she's hot. On the whole this summer has been very wet, it's not really cold thankfully but certainly not hot like last year. This is quite good as the 2 really hot days we did have no one could sleep and we had to go and buy fans for each room.

We celebrated 18 years of marriage last week too which made us feel even older.

David is continuing for another month in his new role at work and now has a real desk and everything! He really enjoys his job.

My job is going well and fits in well with the market. I was moved to a better stall this week and had a fantastic week, I have 2 more weeks on the same stall so lets hope they're as good.

We saw a baby bear when we were driving down the highway this week and Isaac found a snake in next-door's garden, thankfully I didn't see it! Max is getting huge now but is still as cheeky.

Our rabbits keep producing more rabbits! The chicks are now quite big and we have brought the cockerels back from Richard's who will join them soon or be pies!

We've had over 6 weeks of summer holiday now so only 4 weeks left.