Gros Morne~ Day 3

 

This morning we went for a guided hike in an area called the Table Lands.  It is where the earth has shifted and caused the rock below the earth’s surface to be exposed.  It is pretty cool to look at it and see a barren mountain of rock and dirt on one side of the road and on the other side of the road is lush green mountain with bushes and trees.  After hiking the Tablelands we went to Trout River for a picnic and to look for some more sea glass.  While at the picnic spot Kayla was looking out at the landscape and noticed that one of the mountains looks like an elephants head, thus being called “Elephant Mountain”.  After playing we came home changed and walked into Woody Point for dinner.  We were able to sit outside and have the ocean and mountains for our scenery. 

"Elephant Mountain"

Nathan searching for sea glass

Luke would sit in the water and pick up and drop rocks over and over.

Our view at dinner

Gros Morne~ Day 2

         This morning was an early start with an hour drive to Western Brook Pond where we took the boat tour of the lake.  It is a landlocked fjord, but since it is all fresh water they cannot call it a proper fjord so by default all freshwater bodies of water in Newfoundland are referred to as ‘ponds’ regardless of size.  The exposed rock, carved by glaciers, were 1,250 million years old.  To get to the boat tour you park by the main road and have to walk about 45 minutes in to where the boat is.  The land all around the pond is a bog.  While on the boat we saw a black bear FAR off in the distance.  It was a pretty place and well preserved.  To get the boats into the pond they had to pull one in over the frozen land in the winter, so as to not disrupt the plant life that grows in the bog, another was airlifted in and 2 others were built there in a boat shed.   

Black Bear

        After a bite to eat at the café there we hiked back to the car and went to Shallow beach.  It is a beach, with white sand and a lot of jellyfish.  We were amazed at how many jellyfish there were on the shoreline.  Not sure if during low tide they get beached then high tide pulls them back out again, but there were a lot of them.  The water was cold, so there was not a lot of swimming in the ocean.  They all got in, but did not last very long.  It took Paul a long time to get warmed up after his swim. 

 

Gros Morne~ Day 1

        Today started with an early morning departure at 4:00 am.    With a few stops for coffee, breakfast, potty breaks, and gas we arrived in Gros Morne by 1:00.  We could not check into the house until 3:00 so we went to the town/village of Trout River.  There was a rocky beach that the kids enjoyed playing in the water and looking for sea glass, this beach became known as the “The Sea Glass Beach”.   Brooke was not sure of the water but after a while was happy to walk through it and drink it up.  Once we got to the house and unpacked the kids wanted to check out the beaches by the house. We were staying in the town of Woody Point.  It has a population of about 500 people and is a fishing village, a lot of the fishing sheds ad lobster traps.  The beaches are rocky and were rough on your feet.  The kids enjoyed looking for shells and walking in the water.  Nathan even found a few crabs.

 

 

 

 

 

Snow Day!!

It started snowing last night and snowed all day today we had about 6-7 inches of snow and the kids had the day off of school.  It was a good day of just relaxing and playing in the snow.  We even got to try out our snow ball makers and they make some really good snow balls.  The snow is still really dry and with the snow ball maker it compacted the snow really well and made good snow balls. 

HOME!!

We're home!!  After having been in OKC for 2 weeks we are home.  On the return trip our flight from Oklaoma city to Denver was late leaving which left us with 30 minutes to catch the flight from Denver to Toronto.  We made the connection, unfortunately our luggage did not.  Fortunately we have most everything here at home we were missing our heavy winter coats, so we stayed inside to stay warm (temperatures were 15 degrees).  The car seats were also missing which was fine as they gave us a car seat for Luke and Reagan used her old one and Maddie was fine with out one for a day. We had a great trip visiting with friends and family.  THANK YOU  to everyone that made it possible.

Texas and Luke's Baptism

What a great weekend!!  This weekend we left OKC and headed down to Texas to visit with friends and have Luke baptized.  Friday we visited with our previous neighbors and  then spent the night with our friends that were the kids surrogate grandparents when we lived in England and Spain.  It was a night of laughs and good conversation.  Saturday we had lunch with Reagan's godparents, who have a pond for fishing, chickens for chasing, dogs and cats to play with and horses feed and try to pet.  For dinner we met up with Luke's godparents and the kids had friends to play with!  Sunday was church and Luke's baptism.  Luke's baptism was a wonderful ceremony.  We were blessed to have friends in attendance as we welcomed Luke into our church family.  After the service friends gathered back at our friend's home for snacks and drinks.  The kids were able to run and play outside while adults talked and caught up.  Thank you to everyone that came to help us celebrate and a HUGE thank you to Thumper for putting so much work into getting things ready!!!