I'm Baaaack!!!! Lots of Vacation Pics

I know I haven't posted for awhile, but I have a great excuse! My Dad and his wife came out for a holiday! They have never been east before, so we had a blast playing tourist with them. Here are some pictures of our first week!

The first day Dad and his wife were here, we went downtown Halifax, and of course they already had a new favorite beer, so we had to stop by the Alexander Keith's Brewery. You can see they had their priorities all messed up! lol

Then it was onto the Navy Frigate HMCS Halifax. My husband arranged a tour of the ship for us. My Dad was so excited, he just loved it! Here is a picture of him in the Captains chair.

The next day we took a short drive out to Peggy's Cove. This is the Peggy's Cove Lighthouse. It's always so busy out there, but it really is a sight to see. The rocks aren't jagged, they are rounded and so smooth. They go on for miles. We did some hiking on the rocks, and I was quite the chicken as I am terrified of heights! lol

Pic of the rocks and Dad and Mom.

We took a walk into the town of Peggy's Cove. It's a tiny little fishing village. It is so quaint. There are some beautiful little shops on the walk down and we had to stop at every one of them.

I thought the lobster traps might be a nice picture, so I took one. The people in the village of Peggy's Cove rely heavily on the tourist trade and fishing.

A very short distance down the road is the Swiss Air Memorial site. Everytime I stop there I get a very sad feeling and tear up. It's so tragic that so many people lost their lifes that day. We didn't live in Halifax when this happened, but I hear that the people in Halifax and all surrounding areas spent days, weeks, recovering bodies, and just trying to help. Many people opened their homes to family members that lost their loved ones that day. Every year there is a beautiful service to remember that day, and this year was the 10th anniversary of the Swiss Air tragedy.

We were tired out after spending the day at Peggy's Cove. We decided to go to Citadel Hill the next day. I will give you just a bit of history on the Halifax Citadel. The Halifax Citadel endures as a gateway to Canada's military heritage and passage to nationhood. Once the command post and landward bastion of Halifax's defences, the Citadel stands watch as it has done since the city was the principal British Naval station in North America.

Since Halifax was founded in 1749, Citadel Hill has served as the site for four different forts. Each was built during a time of percieved threat. This Citadel was the last to be built (all were built in the same location) and took over 28 years to complete. It was finished in 1856, and was intended to deter an overland assault on the city and dockyard. Such was the strenght of the Citadel and harbour defenses that no enemy ever dared to attack. The British garrison of Halifax was ultimately withdrawn in 1906 in response to the growing tensions in Europe, leading up to the First World War. The Citadel continued to serve an important role with the Canadian Military. During 2 world wars the Citadel served as a sentinel on the home front and a symbol for those departing for overseas.

In 1952 the Citadel was declared a national historic site, signalling the end of it's proud military career. Today it's restored walls welcome all who wish to learn about the defining moments in Canadian history.

I really had a great time here, it was fascinating to read about everything they endured at the fort. While we were there we saw the reenactment of the firing of the noon gun and the change of the guards.

Since none of us had been to PEI (Prince Edward Island) we decided to go there for a couple days, but loved it so much we stayed 4 days. It is a beautiful island, so clean and everything is so well maintaned. I can't wait to go back!

This picture is of Confederation Bridge. The curved, 12.9 kilometre (8 mile) long bridge is the longest in the world crossing ice-covered water, and a decade after its construction, it endures as one of Canada’s top engineering achievements of the 20th century. It's really an awesome site to see!

We took a drive up the Northeastern site of PEI to North Cape, along the way there were wind farms. And at the Cape there was a huge windfarm, as far as the eye could see. It's quite breathtaking to see it in person.

This is the lighthouse at Cape North.

This was one of the windfarms along the way.

We went to a beach at Rusitco and there were sand dunes. I couldn't resist taking a picture of my footprints in the sand.

A view of the beach.

We walked out on a old washed out wharf, and I saw these spider webs and had to take a picture. It was soooo windy out there, the sand gets caught in the webs.

It was hard to get a decent picture of the lighthouse, as the wind was so strong I couldn't stand still, and Dad was holding on to me so I could try to get a picture from the wharf. You can see in the picture the different colours of the water.

This is little wharf we stopped at along the way.

Then it was time to start our journey home. This was taken from the Ferry.

A picture of Mom and Dad on the Ferry. What a beautiful day it was. We saw a bunch of seals and saw 2 whales, but none of us were fast enough with the camera to take pictures.

We also went to the Green Gables House. It was incredibly beautiful. I have pictures of that as well, and inside the house, will share those with you tomorrow as well.

If you stayed and looked at all the pics, thank you for your patience. I know this was a long post, but I just had to share some pictures. I feel restored, and ready to get back to the real world again. I also feel that my muse has returned. Today I am going to actually get some stamping done! lol

Have a great day everyone!!

:)
Kim

PS...you can click on any of the pics to see them better.

New Look and a Card

Hi there,

Well, I was getting a bit bored with my blog, so I decided to give it a bloglift! It's been a learning experience for me....the background part was easy (from The Cutest Little Blog, link in the sidebar). But changing all the colours on my blog and getting it to match, that was a challenge for sure. Then the banner (Thank you Flower!), trying to get it to fit was almost impossible! But I managed! I am still trying to work out one thing, and hopefully that will get figured out tonight.
So....what do you think, be honest!? I find this alot easier to read than the black background. I kinda liked the black as a background for my cards, but this is alot easier on the eyes.

I also noticed in the past week that I hit 50,000 hits!! How exciting. I am going to have to go shopping for some blog bling (candy) to celebrate, so check back soon and I will have a picture of the bling, and some kind of contest. Thank you all so much for stopping by, and leaving your comments. I really appreciate you leaving your kind and thoughtful words. I just want you all to know that I appreciate constructive critism too, so if you have a suggestion, please post it! I am always up to learing something new, or just trying something a bit differently. What a wonderful group of people rubber stampers are!! Thank you for being here!

Ok...now for the card. I worked on this last night, and not really sure what to think of it. I wanted a bit of a retro look, not sure if I achieved that though. The stamps are from My Favorite Things. Oh, I just love their stamps! I used a couple cuttlebug folders on this one, and the flower die cuts are from Cuttlebug as well, from the Gratitude die/emboss set. The image was stamped in Black Archival Ink, then coloured in with Copic markers. I cut the circles with the nestabilities. Sheesh, what did we do before we had all these awesome toys? lol

I am still stamping tonight, trying to finish up a few projects. Hopefully I can share them with you tomorrow.

A friend that I work with just stopped over to fix my hair. She is a hairdresser by trade, but not working in that field right now. Anyway, I called her and begged her to come over tonight, she had been busy on the weekend. On Sunday morning, my bangs were in my face so badly, and I couldn't bear it anymore. I got out my CutterBee scissors (gasp!!) and decided I could cut my own bangs (uh huh..right). Well, the bangs didn't look too bad, so I carried on....BIG MISTAKE!!!!! I haven't left our condo since! Oh it was bad...I almost cried when I realised what I had done! It's kinda funny now that it's fixed, but it wasn't funny then! Anyway, I feel alot better, and won't be embarrassed to go to work tomorrow night! lol She just chuckled when she saw what I had done, and said "don't worry, we can fix this"...what a sweetie!!!

Well, on that note, I guess I best get back to it!
Have a great evening everyone!