Last Week of School

Exciting and sad times this past week at school. With the end of this school year brings the end of the Adult High School in the CCRSB. So graduation this past Wednesday was rather bittersweet.

The graduation was lovely, I was one super proud teacher and particularly excited about wearing my STU hood again. I'm a nerd, yes I know.

To celebrate the end of my first semester teaching Greg took me out to eat at a great little spot in downtown New Glasgow called The Bistro:

This was the amazing dish I ordered: linguine with smoked salmon, avocado, prosciutto and dill!

Graduation took place in Truro at this lovely old church:

Tables set up with the many awards for students, and check out those pipes!:

A little squinty, but check out that sweet STU Education hood, really I think it might have laid the nicest out of all of the hoods - way to go STU!

Our school team, small but mighty...and fuzzy, whoopsie!

Because grading day is a fun day I decided to make a bunch of bite sized treats for the students and the staff (they went over pretty well). Up first, mini pumpkin muffins:

Up next, mini cinnamon buns, I omitted the chocolate from the receipt. Oh and this mini muffin tray was great:

The finished product:

And the third treat was Scottish Oat Cakes, the recipe came from my notebook but I'm not sure where it came from initially:

I just came home from the last day and I must say it was a pretty emotional experience. Overall an awesome first teaching gig and I hope the first of many to come.

Johnny Miles Run

*click the photo on the left for lots more pictures*

This past weekend Greg and I participated in the Johnny Miles Marathon...but the 10km portion of the event. We had beautiful weather and it was great to take part in a run that we could walk to from our house!

An important part of any run, ensuring your bladder is empty. A pit stop at the port-a-potties. There were lots and lots of people milling about and the run was actually sold out with just over 2000 runners/walkers.

Greg and I before the run, I definitely wasn't wearing the long sleeve while running, it was a super hot morning!

I came in at 57:58, my personal best. Greg ran along with me and I'm sure if he was really trying to compete his time would be much better, but being the lovely guy he is he ran with me and helped bring my time down.

This is post run with another couple of medals to add to the pile. It's excellent to receive medals just for participating!

After we finished we joined in the crowd to cheer on the incoming runners.

We were both really keen to watch the marathon runners come in, particularly because we could AND because a runner was trying to win his 9th marathon. He's a local so the crowd was really loud when he came around the corner and down the finish line. It was a pretty big deal.

After putting in a good run and hanging out in the community all before noon we headed home for a hearty brunch. Monster breakfast sandwiches with egg, tomato, lettuce, cheese (lactose free!), bacon and avocado. Delicious! Oh and we got juice boxes from the run so we had those too:

Since the Euro Cup is on and we don't have cable we headed to one of the two sports bars in New Glasgow to watch the Netherlands and Portugal game. The place was pretty empty as most people were on the deck, it seems that soccer doesn't draw a crowd in this town.

Greg taking in the match:

Overall a great run and a great Sunday. Perhaps I'll try to get a new personal best next year.

A Delightful Saturday

*click the picture to the left for many more pictures*

This is the first weekend in awhile that Greg and I were home in New Glasgow. Somehow we managed to get a lot accomplished while relaxing quite a bit.

First up,  our first visit to the New Glasgow Farmers Market!

There was an open house at the Carmichael Museum that we checked out. The museum is a house jam packed with historical items from New Glasgow. There was also punch served and many, many treats. It was delightful. Oh and there was a penny farthing outside! That's a bicycle with one big wheel and one teeny tiny wheel - good trivia knowledge. You're welcome.

There is a garden behind the museum, many flowers aren't quite out in full bloom yet, but this one was just lovely!

Later on Saturday Greg unpacked a bin of childhood treasures, we had a good laugh over some items, such as these royal seals!

A Walk in Trenton Park

*click the image for more pictures*

This past Thursday I went for a lovely walk with friends in Trenton Park. One friend is from Germany and her brother was visiting so we were on the hunt for a beaver, there's a dam in Trenton Park and being that beavers are particularly Canadian it seemed fitting.

I've only seen a beaver at a reasonably close distance once before, but it wasn't a very good view. We were REALLY lucky on Thursday and one was gliding around the little pond in the park and wasn't very shy of people. At one point the beaver was coming towards us in the water, there were a pack of geese (2 adults and 6 teenager geese), ducks swimming towards us and either a hawk or an eagle overhead - it was a pretty surreal Canadian moment.

Despite warning that geese DO chase people this lovely friend (not from Canada) decided to test my warnings. The goose chased him, hissing with its beak open, it was great.

The Past Week in Instagrams

A beautiful view from my window, quite the busy day in the skies:

Beautiful flowers from my Drama students after they completed their final exam - a play they wrote, directed and starred in:

Purchased! Greg and I will be heading to Sackville, NB this August. Yippee!

Pictou County Bike Week

*Click the photo for a few more pictures*

Last week was Pictou County Bike Week put on by the Pictou County Active Transportation Committee and although it was a pretty rough weather week I managed to make it out to one group ride and Greg toughed it out and made it to two.

The first was on Sunday and it was just a 9km loop around New Glasgow. There were people of all ages biking and it was great to see so many people out.

After the ride we met back at the marina for ice cream and there was even dairy free options - huzzah! I know there is no ice cream in any of these pictures, but I think it's worth mentioning.  Isn't that why people ride bikes? So they can eat ice cream?

Vegetable Garden Update

Moderate amounts of success! The potatoes we planted have come up in full force and are growing leaves like crazy. This evening Greg "hilled" them which means piling dirt around the plants until the bottom leaves are covered. We will find out in due time if this was done correctly. In the meantime we have some decent looking greenery!

And for awhile there our tomato and cucumber plants looked like goners. After bringing them in the house for a weekend (the weather was much too cold it turns out) they are bouncing back. Two tomato plants are looking really strong and healthy, the third is coming along.  We are working on the cucumber plants, one died and the other two look better than before but it's still up in the air whether or not they will end up making cucumbers.

Thankfully no wildlife has really gotten into the plants. There have been a few paw prints in the containers this past week but I think they were more investigative rather than destructive. I'm keeping my fingers crossed it stays that way!

Summer Wedding #1

*Click the photo on the left for MORE photos!*

Greg and I headed to Halifax this past weekend for a wedding on Friday and a show on Saturday night at the Seahorse. We made it to the wedding, but due to the extreme awesomeness of the wedding we slept much of Saturday and didn't make it to the show. Womp womp. When did this type of behaviour become acceptable?

I wasn't as snap happy as I typically am this past weekend, but here are a few from the wedding:

Myself and Ashley, the beautiful bride!

It's a bit fuzzy, but what the heck!

We met up with friends for lunch on Saturday and went to the Smokehouse on Argyle for meat, meat and more meat. I had a pulled pork sandwich that came with lots of pork, some veggies and french fries on the burger...I drew the line at the french fries.

After sleeping for about 3 hours on Saturday afternoon we pulled ourselves together enough to go out to eat, we went to Curry Village and it was AMAZING! Sadly, this amount of physical exertion resulted in a huge wave of sleepiness. After walking around a bit we decided to bail on the show and went to bed. Again, when did this change in my life happen again?