Weeks 4 & 5 - Thanksgiving!

Weeks 4 & 5 and our first Canadian Thanksgiving!
The "settling in" period has really begun to "settle down"......... Laura has now finished all her driving theory lessons and just has to wait awhile for the on-the-road lessons as the driving licence people are on strike at the moment. This also affects Paddy and I as we can't apply for Canadian drivers licences yet 'til that's over. In the meantime, we have been having numerous phone calls back and forth to Quinn Insurance trying to get my insurance for the new car sorted out and finally today (after 2 weeks of calls back and forth) we have made progress and I am now insured to drive again - hurray!

Ellen and Patrick have both had "School Photo Day" and so we will be able to send home some pics of them in their new schools shortly! We have also begun our ice-skating lessons in the Invista Centre.......... Patrick is in a junior group on Wednesday evenings which is great fun and he is coming along nicely. Paddy, Ellen and I are with the adult group on Thursday evening and we are making (slow) progress. On the first outing, I thought I was doing brilliantly until I did quite a spectacular wipe-out and landed flat on my back/ass on the ice! thank God they insist on helmets cos it was quite a thud...... in fact, I'd swear I had whiplash for about 4 days afterwards!! Last Thursday was better tho and none of us fell at all!

Thanksgiving in Canada is earlier than the USA - it fell on Monday 12th so it was a holiday day here - no work or school!...... The Grand Benders had invited us up to join them at the cottage again and also very kindly extended the invite to Laura's pal Rachel to come too. Luckily we had the new car with the extra seats in the back which was still a squeeze with 6 of us and our various bags, some food etc. but off we headed on Friday evening. It was a slow journey through driving rain the whole way (reminded us of home!) but eventually we got there about 11pm!! It was great to see the Sinead and family again, and Al & Shelley too. We had a great laugh with them all on Saturday over dinner and played the game "head bands" which had us all in stitches. The girls ended up staying up til 2am with Chris and Alex playing rock band on the Wii so a fun night all round. Al and Shelley had Laura and Rachel stay over in their cottage and they got 5 star treatment - they even got a chocolate on their pillows!!! The kids had great fun playing with each other - its great that they all get on so well and love being together.

Then on Sunday we had Thanksgiving - it was great! Judy (Chris's mum) joined us all and we had a delicious feast of Turkey with all the trimmings including butternut squash which was a new vegetable for us Irish, and finishing up with Judy's desserts of pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake and carrott cake - it wasn't just the turkey that was well stuffed!!! It was gorgeous and no mean feat to serve up such a great meal for 13 people, so once again our thanks to the Grand Benders for looking after us all sooooo well.

Other news is that Laura started working properly at the shop "blueprint" and they want her to be a keyholder and do opening and closing so good for her! she is enjoying it so far..... her hours are mixed during the week as they are open late some evenings and at weekends so she is still managing to enjoy her social life as well. On Friday we had our new oven installed - halleluia! and after an initial fault which was fixed by a technician on Saturday, we had our first roast dinner at home - might not sound like its worthy of mention, but believe me, it is!!! On Wednesday last, the girls and I got tickets to see Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance which was on in O2 - nothing as fancy tho from what I've heard. The show was fantastic and we thoroughly enjoyed our night out.

Last Sunday was a beautiful day - tempertures were up again to about 12/13c and the sun was shining so Paddy, Ellen, Patrick and I (Laura was working in the afternoon) got the car ferry to Wolfe Island and went to a corn maze (i could have called it a maize maze but that would be too corny) where we spent the afternoon trying to find our way out of the maze!! it was great fun and good excercise too since you're basically walking around in circles for hours!!! Anyway, we all enjoyed the day. In the middle of the maze, we had a phone call from my mum and dad who were just back from their hols so that added to the enjoyment for me too!!