Little Dumer News: Newfoundland with the Little Dumers

Cygni graduated from pre-school and Jordan said good-bye to all his friends and teachers at CHSC in June and the very next day we flew out to visit Nanny and Papa Charlie in Newfoundland!

The plane ride went a million times better than we could have dreamed! We flew out of Vancouver on a gorgeous clear day. The kids were great. Jordan discovered a love for Lego on the airplane and hasn't looked back since!

Here we are at the end of our two legs / 10 hours on planes, it was about midnight in Gander and we had to wait quite a long time for a taxi to take us to our hotel. But they were all smiles the whole time, and even sang a round of "All You Need Is Love!"

After a couple of days recuperating from our travels, it was Canada Day and Nanny hosted a BBQ party to welcome us and allow us to meet all the Newfie friends and Family.

Cygni learns how to speak Newfie while she helps Nan with the prep-work

Chris with his cousins Julie and Dianne

All the ladies love Cool J! Aunt Isabel and cousins Julie and Nancy love on the J-man

And we got Screeched In!

What does that mean? Chris' words:

This is the final step in an ancient Newfoundland ritual to humiliate mainlanders and make them honourary Newfies

We had a grand time! 10/10 we recommend

And we topped it all off with C's first fireworks show!

We made a trip to stay in Twillingate for a few days and on the way I held my first lobster! It was a good sized one too! The fella who sells them says this one would run about $65

Lupine

I amped up the contrast on this photo I took outside of a defunct church

This was the gorgeous old saltbox house we stayed in while in Twillingate, called "Above the Tickle," because it is situated above the tickle (in Newfoundland, one definition of a tickle is where two bits of land almost meet.)

Cygni loves creepy-crawlies!

Nanny and Papa Charlie treated us to an Iceberg Tour!
By all accounts, Twillingate has seen some mighty icebergs but we were impressed enough with ours! Captain Dave even chipped off a couple hunks of ice for the kids to taste.

On the way home, we stopped at a lobster shack that Jordan's teacher Stacey recommended. We lunched on Lobster Rolls that were so amazingly delicious they make me salivate three months later! And Mary brought home enough lobster for a big ol' lobster "scoff" when we got home. YUM!

Cygni has her first taste of Lobster!

We made little jaunt to Leading Tickles, and its black beaches comprised of not quite sand, not quite pebbles. Cygni loved the beach-combing she got to do this whole trip. In the picture below you can see some very large 'bergs way out in the distance.

Friday Harbour

We got to spend a couple of days in Gros Morne as well. Lots of time spent as rock hounds and shell seekers on the beaches, and enjoying glorious sunsets too. Chris and I would like to come back sometime when the kids are older and can do some hikes with us to appreciate this World Heritage Site a bit better, but what we did get to experience was gorgeous.

Friday Harbour Sunset from our hotel room!

One night, I saw there was a traditional Newfie "kitchen party" going on the in hotel pub, Chris declined the invitation in favour of tucking in early so I popped in and look who I ran into! Had a fun time singing and dancing with the musicians and the crowd, and Charlie tried his best to show me a few steps. Lots of fun!

While Charlie and Mary went on a boat cruise up one of the fjords, Chris and I took the kids to The Arches Provincial Park. It was stunning! Not for the weak of ankle though! Still, isn't geology mind-blowing?

We found a handful of geocaches on our vacation, here is one Cygni found near The Arches

At the end of the day we popped by Lobster Cove Lighthouse, a five minute drive from our hotel for some pretty views and then back into town for dinner.