One Year Later...

Janelle's new bike — March Break

I've been absent for quite a stretch this month! I blame it on March Break and too many dentist appointments. I've also added extra days to my volunteering schedule. Last week, the first after the break, I was either at the school or the dentist every day. I received two complaints today from two of my most faithful readers (you know who you are!), so I decided to dash off a quick one before the kids get home from school.

March 13th marked our first anniversary living in this house in London. I mentioned it to Chris and the kids that day, and we all commented on how much has happened this year, but also about how quickly the year has flown by. In most ways, it still feels like we're the "new kids in town", but we do have a number of good friends now, and we're involved in our church and our community. We have a couple of babysitters that we call on a regular basis, so Chris and I can get out on our own again, which was a big hurdle a few months ago. I'm part of a book club that I look forward to attending every month. I have a couple of dear friends who get together each week to have lunch, share whatever is on our hearts, and generally support each other. I volunteer at the school at least twice a week, and I'm part of the planning committee for a Literacy Night coming up this month. Chris and I attend a Community Group through our church weekly, and we've made some great friends there. I even found a walking buddy! And as always, I'm volunteering in the Kids Ministry at our church, which our kids are happy to be part of. In many ways, we have settled into our new community and found a place for ourselves. Things have changed a lot since I started this blog, just over a year ago.

Connor's new Ripstick — March Break

But we're still Maritimers at heart! This weekend Chris, Connor and I were excited to be able to cheer the UNB hockey team on to the national title, as we watched the tournament held at the Aitken Centre in Fredericton on TV in our living room in London. It was nice to capture a bit of home as we watched and cheered, especially when UNB shut out Western! Chris looked forward to gloating to a number of his collegues who are Western Alumni. We still grab hold of pieces of our Maritime heritage and hold on to them tightly. Chris found a sale on Paderno pots a couple of weeks ago and decided that our old pots and pans desperately needed replacing, which was true. So we now have a full new set of Paderno pots, proudly made in PEI. We both love the fact that they are Maritime made! Connor loves to tell anyone who will listen that his favourite place in the world is New Brunswick, with Mexico coming in a close second. Both of the kids would say the highlights of their year have been their visits "back home" in the summer and after Christmas. It's been a year that we've been here. But we're still very tied to the Maritimes. And that's just fine with me.

Halloween on Westwick Walk

Our first Halloween in our new neighbourhood has come and gone, and we've all survived, and stocked up on enough sugar to keep the four of us on a high until Christmas. I had no idea how many "spooks" to prepare for here. My neighbour said that since this is a new street, the number increases every year. So I bought candy --- LOTS of candy. And we really didn't have that many trick-or-treaters at the door. Not nearly as many as we had on Crocket Street, anyway. I'm not someone who counts each bag I plop a candy into, but I would estimate we had around 80 kids at our door this year. Unfortunately, that means lots of candy left for me to munch on. And if it is made of chocolate, I am helpless to resist it!

Usually Connor and Janelle both know what they are going to be for Halloween long before the actual day arrives. Connor loves to get a costume and then make it even "cooler" with stuff he finds around the house. This year he had decided he wanted to be a werewolf. I almost gave in to actually making him a werewolf costume, but gave up after I couldn't find the right faux fur and realized it would really be quite a lot of work. I looked everywhere for a werewolf costume for him, but didn't find one until this week at the party store, where we found the perfect werewolf costume advertised -- for way more than I was willing to pay. Connor begged and pleaded and offered to pitch in half from his allowance, so I gave in — only to find that the "perfect werewolf costume" was sold out. We considered buying a mask and gloves and making the rest, but even that was so expensive I couldn't justify it unless Connor would be perfectly happy, and he didn't think he would be. So he resorted to an orange prisoners' jumpsuit. Much more economical. And as we found out Saturday afternoon when the zipper broke, CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP! Between Chris and I, we managed to fix the zipper temporarily — meaning until about five minutes before the trick-or-treating train was leaving. So out came the safety pins, which surprisingly, Connor was okay with. Needless to say, this is not a costume I'll be selling on Kijiji!

Janelle, on the other hand, knew what she was going to be for Halloween last Christmas. Aunt Tracy gave her a sweet Hannah Montana costume, which she used for dress up all year, but until a couple of weeks ago, still planned to wear on Halloween night. That's when Camryn from down the street arrived with a purple princess dress that she thought Janelle might like to wear for Halloween. First Janelle thought she might combine the two and be "Princess Hannah", but by Saturday she had decided that the Hannah wig had gotten way too messy to wear, and she really wanted curls in her hair. So yesterday around 4:30 we got out the curling iron and the hairspray and started attempting to curl my daughter's pin-straight hair. It took a lot of patience and bobby pins, but by 5:00 it looked adorable, and by 6:30 when they were ready to leave, a few of the curls were still in their places. Princess Janelle was happy anyway, and really, what else matters?

Chris and I divided up Halloween duty this year. He took our princess and escaped prisoner north up to the end of our subdivision and back to our house while I handed out candy, and then I took them south as far as the three of us could manage. I actually enjoy the fun part of Halloween. I hate the gruesome costumes and decorations, the horror movies on tv, and the desire to scare the living crap out of people. That isn't a holiday I want to celebrate with my kids. But carving pumpkins, fun costumes and some community commaraderie -- that's the part I can get into. I really enjoyed going door-to-door with the kids, visiting with my neighbours, and seeing what familiar faces from school live in which houses. I actually ended up travelling most of the way with my neighbour from across the street, who was dressed to the nines as a witch: green face, green hair, tall black hat, black dress, striped stockings and heels, while she pushed her baby in the stroller and followed her six-year-old Avatar from door-to-door. I had put on Janelle's Halloween headband with two orange and black pigtails, so we made quite a pair. My biggest struggle was getting Connor to wait for Janelle. He would have happily run around the whole neighbourhood if I had let him, and little Avatar was keeping up with him every step of the way. But just after 7:30, the baby started to cry and Janelle announced that she was done, so I sent my daughter home with the Wicked Witch of the West, and I soldiered on with the convict and Avatar. We arrived home at 8:00, to find most of the candy I had bought waiting for me.

Janelle, who is really amazingly self-aware for a seven-year-old, told me that she had already eaten her two pieces of candy and was ready to go to bed, and I had her tucked in and heard the story she wanted to read to me by 8:30. Connor, who would fight bedtime every step of the way, took a little longer, and was much more of a struggle to keep out of the candy, but by 9:15 he had settled down and we had finished reading a chapter of Harry Potter together.

Our first Halloween on Westwick Walk. Fun. Delicious. Exhausting. Over. Time to go put away the decorations for another year.

Community Spirit

We live in a great little part of our city. Until an amalgamation several years ago, Lambeth was a small town outside London. I love that! London isn't a huge city, but it is so much bigger than anywhere that I have ever lived. I feel far more at home in a small town than a big city. The people here have known each other forever. I met a woman last spring whose entire family of five brothers and sisters still live in Lambeth. Natives of this area would tell you they are from Lambeth, NOT from London. It reminds me very much of Marysville, our adopted neighbourhood in Fredericton, and I think that's one of the reasons I was so happy that we found this community. We have our own grocery store, banks, pharmacy, dentists, diner, candy store, soccer fields, ball fields, library, arena and community centre, all a quick walk from our house. Within a five minute drive I can get to all kinds of U-Pick farms and orchards. I really never need to leave my little corner of the city, and I can fool myself into thinking that I don't live in a big city at all.

Until last week, there were two public schools in Lambeth: A.E. Duffield and M.B. McEachern. Now there is one school that all students from JK to Grade 8 attend: Lambeth Public School. On Friday, the "Lambeth Flyers" hockey team provided lunch and school t-shirts to every student in the school. It was quite a celebration, and just in time for the Lambeth Harvest Festival, which was held all weekend. Students were all encouraged to wear their school t-shirts to the Festival Parade on Saturday, and Connor and Janelle did so with pride!

We really didn't participate in the Harvest Festival a whole lot. We went to the parade and the hot dog lunch and the yard sale and the craft sale. I was a bit distracted by the new furniture I wanted to buy (more about that later), and we were happy to have Aunt Lori visiting on Saturday, and yesterday we were busy with church and the church barbecue in the afternoon. We didn't check out the fun fair or the adult dance or the baked bean dinner, or countless other Lambeth Harvest Festival traditions. But we did get a taste of what it means to be a part of this great little community. Last night as we watched the fireworks over the soccer field, with most of our neighbours sitting on lawn chairs in front of us, I was filled with a sense of gratitude and peace. I am so thankful that this is where we have found ourselves, where God has led us, and that our family can be part of this close-knit community, even though we are far from home.