It was a very early morning… 6am wakeup, packed up, and down to the parking garage to load the car by 6:30. Had a delicious, although very rushed, breakfast buffet at the hotel, and a quick exit towards the ferry which was a 5 min drive away. Our ferry reservation had said we should be there one hour early, so we did our best to arrive almost on time. Since we had already ridden a ferry on our trip out west, this experience wasn't as novel to the kids, but still fun, nonetheless. A memorable story from the ferry ride was watching the kids try to get out of the car once we were parked, thanks to a poorly parked car on one side of us and a mesh fence on the other side. It was like a modified version of the game “Twister”. The ferry was very cold inside so I headed back to the car to grab both of the kids blankets and my toque. The kids enjoyed a showing of the movie Wall-E on the TV near where we were seated. But once the ferry started moving, we decided to head outside. It was very cold on the deck. We were trying to make our way to the front of the boat but I guess they don't allow passengers that way so we turned around and made our way to the very back. We loved seeing the pets that were enjoying the fresh air with their owners. Katie spotted a woman wearing a hat with the “Kooy Brothers” logo that she recognized from her hockey team sponsorship. I approached the woman and asked if she was a relative but it turns out she's just a customer of theirs since her son is in landscaping. She said they get a lot of nice free swag when they buy things from Kooy :). We eventually found the sunny side of the boat and stayed there since it was most comfortable. We were optimistically hoping to spot some whales. Unfortunately no whale sightings but we did see some dolphins surface! We eventually needed to go back inside to warm up so we caught the tail end of Wall-E and played a single hand of euchre. We were estimating this trip to take 2 and 1/2 hours so we were pleasantly surprised to see that we actually arrived in 2. We snuck one last peak from the deck outside before heading down to our car.
Funny story for the day: I had picked up a coffee to share with Ryan (and the kids may have stolen a few sips too). While finishing it up on our last visit to the ferry deck, I spit out what I thought were coffee grounds at the bottom of the cup. Turns out it wasn't grounds, but rather a small fly/insect of some sort. Yummy (or rather… ugggh!!). I still shudder and kind of gag while I type this out. I may never buy a coffee on a ferry ship ever again. LOL
After squeezing back into the car doing our reverse twister moves, and a slightly stressful departure out of the tight turn we had to make, we found ourselves back on land at Digby, NS. We made a very quick stop at the supercharger outside the Canadian Tire, had a washroom break and then hit the road. I had suggested we find a kid-friendly stop along the way, but the majority was in favour of getting to our destination as quickly as possible. A couple hours later, we arrived in Dartmouth, stopped at Costco to get some needed food supplies, and then made our way to my cousin, Sarah's house. Sarah had taken some time off work that afternoon, and her husband, Trevor, works from home, so they were both there to greet us with a warm welcome. It turns out they own an electric vehicle too (license plate: “GASFREE”) so they had a super fast charger that we could plug into. They showed us our “lair” in the basement and we took advantage of the comfortable setting to relax/nap, let our hosts do a bit more work, and wait for their kids to get home.
When the workday ended, Sarah went to pick her kids up from daycare and stopped to get some pizza on the way home. When the kids arrived, it was a whirlwind of activity. Hustling and bustling, running and jumping, scootering and sliding. We loved getting to meet and play with Evelyn (6) and her twin brothers, Elliott and Arthur (3). We enjoyed our pizza supper - Swan pizza and garlic cheese slices from another local favourite that Sarah and Trevor thought we should try out. The pizza came with a Donair dipping sauce that was a whole new taste experience. After supper our family went for a walk with Evelyn while Sarah and Trevor got the boys bathed and in bed. Our walk turned into a solid 4km adventure as Evelyn was determined to show us her favourite park - Shubie Beach. She was enthusiastic about getting there, even running at times to get there faster. It took so long to get there, that in the end, we couldn’t actually stay too long. We took in the scenery of the beach and checked out the playground at the campground nearby. The walk home was at a dramatically different pace. Lol Evelyn took turns alternating between holding each of our hands. And at times, was hanging off our arms in a zombie-like state, until she regained enough energy to keep going. When we finally got home it was time for Sarah to put Evelyn to bed. I did a load of much needed laundry and the kids watched an episode of the Rookie on the giant screen TV that was conveniently located beside the couch that Ben would sleep on that night. After a while, we told them it was time for bed, and Katie happily retreated to her very own bedroom for the night.
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