July 1 - 7 Canada Day , Mini-Vacation is over and Flying Ants Galore

The annual Cardigan Canada Day Parade went ahead despite the rain and the whole family turned out to watch.

Waiting for the Parade to begin

Afterwards Evan, Hope, Scott and I headed to "town" Charlottetown and took in a movie to get out of the rain. There were a lot of new ones to choose from ... We went with "Yesterday" and all really enjoyed it.  Popcorn for lunch.

Nearby is the Cows Creamery which offers a self-guided tour of the ice cream making, t-shirt making and cheese making process.  Cows ice cream is delicious and they are well known for fun t-shirts reflecting popular culture.

By this time it was a running joke and sad fact that the sun had not come out since Evan and Hope landed in PEI on Thursday (now Monday). We were very excited when it appeared for less than a minute in front of the creamery and quickly snapped pics of our shadows to prove it. You can just make out my shadow above.

Cows Creamery Visit. Scott, Evan and I with the big cow out front.

Hanging with family later in the evening before they headed to the fireworks
Emily, Kayla, Peyton and Dom's arm

Hope and Evan

Evan and I

Evan and Hope had an afternoon flight out so we headed to Charlottetown for a look around, some lunch at the Peake's Wharf followed by a Cow's Ice Cream (we hadn't had one there the day before). There's a smaller cow at the wharf, great for pictures.

They flew out a 4:55 pm, right about the time the sun came out. Hard to believe. Better luck next time.

We were happy to see the sun as the contents of our storage unit was being delivered to us that same evening.  There was no way the tractor-trailer carrying our stuff (along with other people's thing) would make it down our driveway so we borrowed a truck (thank you Trevor) and met them at the end of the driveway. Unloaded everything into our car, trailer and the truck and were able to get it unloaded into our newly built shed before the end of the evening. Slept well that night.

Scott worked on Tuesday and I got back to it on Wednesday. More house destruction. It is unbelievable how much material we've taken out of the house so far. It's taking us longer than expected but I'm sure the house is breathing a sigh of relief. 

Scott imitating the Hunter-Duvar family stance

See thru walls

Jackie (Scott's niece), Perry and Tyler were here for a week from Ontario and invited us to their rented cottage for a lobster and chicken "feed". Jacob (nephew) had scored lobster from a friend coming off a lobster boat on the last day of the season that day.

Dom holding one

Pam teaching the kids how to handle lobster

Jackie blowing out the candles - they do not accurately reflect her age in case you are confused  :-) 

Jackie had arranged the dinner and was surprised when Perry brought out a Birthday cake for her upcoming birthday.  

After some more work on the main floor Wednesday Scott started on the footings in the basement. He has been jacking the house up slowly over the past month and today he took out the old, still heavy support posts. His body was getting a workout with the posts and then lugging the "easy to handle" (as it says on the packaging) 30 kilo (66 lb) concrete bags down sketchy stairs.

The old largely rotted "support" posts

Mixing the concrete

With the hose in the basement he washed off the corner stone to reveal the date the foundation was built. 1896 (September) along with the initials of the stone masons.

I am still working on the upstairs but am happy to have a new an improved mask. The paper mask was not cutting in against the dust, insulation and mouse crap.  

Friday afternoon I noticed some ants (each around 3/4" long) with wings crawling around. One, two, five, ten, twenty......what's going on!!!! I looked around following where they were coming from and had a small freak out.... there were hundreds swarming out of the one of the walls. Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!

I don't think I disturbed them so much as they had all hatched thanks to the very hot weather we'd had for 2 days. Way too creepy for me so I called Scott who had had the foresight to buy some Raid for a situation like this. Needless to say that ended my work upstairs that day and I moved to the main floor.  Sadly, I was too spooked to get any pictures.

Saturday after a couple of dump runs we hit the beach. Water was foot numbingly cold so we just enjoyed the down time reading.

Sunday was a nice down day. Some RV upkeep ... dump the tanks and fill up the propane

And a wonderful visit and dinner with 

Uncle Gerald, Aunt Eleanor and Veda (she and Eleanor are sisters)