Around d' bay...

We quite often hear the response, "Around d' bay". This can be in response to, "Where do yo live?" "Where are you from?" "Where are you going for the weekend?" "Where did that happen?" Almost everything can be answered by "around d' bay". I've often wondered, exactly what that meant...so today we decided to take a drive....around d' bay. It was a beautiful day and Brittney and Jake were away at Spring Forth. We headed out around 8:00 and what a beautiful drive it was. We went up to Grates Cove...which is the other peninsula across the bay (or is that around d' bay) from where we live. So cool to see 'our' peninsula from the other side of the bay.

Click on the pics to enlarge them...

Sunrise from our deck before we left...



Newfoundlanders are very proud of their athletes and whenever one does something spectacular...they get a lot of things (roads, lookouts etc.) named after them...


I believe this ship, stuck here, is The Kyle

Closer up


A write up about Danny Cleary, located at the Danny Cleary Lookout


Looking north at the Danny Cleary Lookout



Newfoundland is home to some of the most interesting town names ever. Here is one --Heart's Content. I think it would be sooo cool to live in a town named "Heart's Content". Can you imagine telling people the name of your town while giving your address.


And...some random shots taken as we made our way up the coast (or is that... around d'bay ;) )


The water was absolutely gorgeous shades of turquoise, navy blue and bright blue.











Finally...up at the tip of the other Peninsula -- Grates Cove. What a cute post office! So tiny.






Across the bay is the peninsula we live on (only the other side of that peninsula)
















Another town with a cute name. Cupids.

There is also Heart's Delight and Come By Chance...to name just a couple. I'd be really interested in learning the history behind how these towns got their names. Hmmm...I sense a homeschool history lesson in the making ;)

How cool is that?

Larry's job requires him to be on-call, five days a week. With never knowing from one day to the next if he'll be working or not and then needing to be able to go at a split second notice, it makes planning/committing to anything else very difficult.

With his evening job, he must travel from place to place for one hour sessions.

Both of these jobs together require a vehicle be available to him every day, from morning to night and at a moment's notice. Add into that Tyler's job which requires at least an hour of daily travel time...well....it makes things really complicated (especially for the rest of us who also require transportation to get to various things.) It's a constant juggling and rearranging of schedules (most times at the last minute as Larry is rushing out the door to his last minute call). Day after day it becomes quite exhausting.

Many things we simply aren't able to take part in, but a few things are just so important we simply can't miss. One such thing is appointments with my homeopath. She has helped me so much and I find keeping regular appointments the key to continued success. However .... with the good chance I'll have no way to get there come the day, I've not been able to make an appointment.

I'm already a month past when I should have gone to see her. Trying to figure out a plan has been causing a lot of stress for me. Knowing it will be July before I can commit to anything, I emailed her to ask if we could set up a phone consultation. She did this for me once before when I was in too much pain to make it into her office, so I was hoping she'd be ok with this set up again. Much to my pleasant surprise, she emailed back right away to say she's quite often in my neck of the woods and would be glad to see me in my home if that would work ok for me!!!

Wow...a house call.....how cool is that?

Early Morning

This is what early morning in Pouch Cove looks like.

Click pics to enlarge

Off to College

Last week, Tyler learned he's been accepted into the program of his choice, so come the fall, he'll be heading off to college.

Way to go, Tyler! Congrats!!!

This means moving to another province (about 3000 kms away....not that I'm counting or anything).

A lot of mixed emotion at home, I must admit. Jake was quite upset at the thought of his big bother moving so far away. He expressed many thoughts about it as well, statements like:

"I like this family just the way it is and I don't want it to break apart."

and

"I'd rather be stupid and stay home than go away to college just so I can be smart."

After a lot of talks though, he's more accepting of the idea.

Tyler has worked hard to get to this point. Being a homeschooler, meant no "official high school transcript", which was a road block he had to work around.

The thing that goes against conventional thinking though, is his program of choice.

Animation.

That in itself is not unusual, but the fact he has ended up choosing this field, is. In our years of homeschooling, we covered the academic subjects: Math, English, Science, Chemistry, Physics, French, History/Geography/Social Studies and Music (through outside piano lessons). Phys. Ed. was covered through normal, everyday activities, like bike riding, walking, road hockey etc. We never, however, covered art. Never. Not one single class.

In the beginning, our work days started at 7:45 a.m. The deal was, when the day's book work is done, you're done for the day. This schedule usually translated into working until about 11:00, followed by lunch, practicing piano and then chores. That left the rest of the day "free" for them to explore something of their own interest. Some may think they would choose to spend this time watching tv or playing video games, but this was not an issue.

It was during this "free" time, Tyler developed an interest in cartooning. At first, he didn't tell us. He wasn't hiding it, he just didn't think it was a big deal. When I walked into his room one day though and saw all of them arranged over the bed....I was more than a bit surprised. There were several of them, all cartoon stories, all drawn, coloured and written by hand.

Here are some of his first cartoons... (click to enlarge)



From that point on, he'd use any spare time he had to work on his cartoons -- Holidays (he'd lug all of his materials from van to hotel room), while waiting for Brittney and Jake to complete their piano lessons, even some nights after lights were supposed to be out.

One time he showed his work to a professional artist and his comment was, "Wow, you're art teacher must be very impressed with your work." Wish I could take some credit, but I can't. Up until this point he's been all self-taught but that is about to change. He's looking forward to this next challenge and it's one we're certain he's up for.