Family dinner at Two If By Sea

We had a family day today, so we took Nate across the harbour to Dartmouth to see his buddy Zane at Two if By Sea.  By chance, we found out that there had been a cancellation for the family dinners that they'd started hosting.  Date night!

We had a fabulous time!  Great food, great hosts, and we got to meet some really great people as well.  New friends we hope to see again soon!  

Missing friends

A couple of weeks ago, Nate wandered into my room in the morning and woke me up with this:-

'I miss Vancouver. I like Vancouver better than Halifax. I miss my friends there and I miss your friends at the coffee shop.'

Then he slumped his shoulders forward, as if defeated and launched into an overly dramatic wail. At the time I thought that he just wanted some attention, and so I pulled him up onto the bed and cuddled with him while we talked about the good things that came with our move to Halifax.

He hasn't let it go yet though. He's brought it up several times since then. We've been here for almost 8 months now, and in the past couple of weeks it seems to me he's mentioned missing people in Vancouver more than he did during the entire 7 months prior.

He's not the only one though. I've been missing my friends too. When I first moved here, I made a conscious effort not to pick up the phone to call people back in Vancouver, or to check in too often on Facebook. I felt I needed to let go a little, if you will. I didn't want to be living my life in Vancouver via the phone/internet while I was here in Halifax. Of course that didn't stop me from thinking of my friends there. I guess Nate hasn't stopped thinking of his friends in Vancouver either.

And so my friends out West, know that you are missed by a little boy, and his dad.

A reunion

Myself, and my friends from high school. That's Gary on the far left in the black T-shirt, and Lun Cheak in the middle in the blue T-shirt. When I was still working in Singapore, the three of us would meet up in the evening and spend hours at the beach, drinking coffee and talking. Some of the best talks I've ever had happened on those evenings chats.

The posse has gotten somewhat bigger in the last few years. We all had dinner together one evening with our families, and it was nice to see the kids get along and play. And we got to the beach for one more late night chat before I left Singapore. It's nice to know that even after so long, some things just never change. It was just like old times, only this time we got to talk about our kids as well.

The love of friends

These last few days have been a whirlwind of emails, long-distance phonecalls, excitement, stress and disappointment. Did I mention stress? Some of you may already know that we are planning to move to Halifax, NS in the next little while. We've put our place here in Vancouver up for sale, and we've been looking for a house in Halifax. Not the easiest thing to do from Vancouver.

Patty left for Halifax Thursday evening to check out a house and be on-site for the building inspection. As it turns out, this particular house will require far more work than we feel comfortable taking on at this point. A disappointing end to what had been till then, a mostly exciting, if somewhat stressful time.

I've been home with Nate and Snoopy. Of course I usually work Thursday through till Sunday. The first 2 days weren't too much of a problem since Nate was in daycare. But who was going to spend hours with him on Saturday and Sunday while I was at work? Some fabulous friends of ours of course.

Our friend Lauren offered to spend Saturday with Nate. She took him out for a sushi dinner, sang sea-shanties with him, and probably had to endure monster-truck TV. I'm sure she could have just come and hung out with Nate and done nothing else and he would have been just as happy, mostly because he just loves spending time with his Aunty Lolo.

On Sunday, my friend Bree took Nate to the pumpkin patch, and by all accounts he had a blast. How could he not? He got to hang out with his Aunty Bree, ride tractors, see farm animals, tromp through mud in his rubber boots and pick apples and pumpkins!

And in the days prior to me finding a sitter, one of Patty's co-workers Shona offered to hang out with Nate for a few hours on Sunday, and my co-worker Manuel offered to come and watch him during my Sunday shift.

All these people have busy lives, and yet they offered to help me out and spend their days off with Nate. It could just be the sappy father in me, but I think that's pretty special. So thank you all my friends, I feel so loved.