We had a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend and following 5 days with friends, Mary and Steve from North Carolina. Such a treat to have them visit. We had so much fun, we forgot to take too many photos! We explored the area together and did a wine tasting and overnight trip to the Valley. Huge thank you to, my friend Lisa, Best in Class pie baker for the third year in a row in Mahone Bay, made us an amazing apple pie for Thanksgiving Day. I got some lovely Thanksgiving decorations from Svenya's pop-up store in Lunenburg too! The weather was wonderful, and we enjoyed many laughs.

What an amazing weekend in Mahone Bay. I had the pleasure of volunteering at the Pie Baking Contest on Saturday and the Faerie Tea on Sunday. Wow - my friend Kate Cocks organized both events and both were highlights of the festival. Mahone Bay is filled with talented and creative women and the best of them was on display on the weekend. The pie contest continues to grow and this year was the first, surely not the last, Faerie Tea. The creative bar is so high in the community. It was humbling to spend just a bit of time as a day of volunteer.
50+ pies, in 5 categories, Apple, Blueberry., Strawberry, Tree Fruit and Fall Harvest - plus Best in Show. For the third year in a row, our friend Lisa Rhuland walked away with the top prize, Best in Show. No small feat, three years in a row, with a different pie each year, apple, pumpkin and this year's winner Blueberry. Additionally the church had a baked bean luncheon during the pie contest - so many people volunteering to make our community the wonderful place it is. Apologies, didn't get many photos because I was working.
The Faerie Tea was amazing, I got great photos before folks arrived so they don't tell the tale of how successful this event was - more than 160 folks enjoyed tea and sweets, made headbands and wands. It was wonderful to see the Dads and daughters, the wonderful kids all dressed up as faeries and how much fun everyone seemed to have. The decorations, planning, food and so on were all over the top!

What an amazing day.  It was beautiful if a tad cool. The Inn at Bay Fortune was quite a drive from North Rustico and we set out at 1pm. We had to go via Charlottetown where we stopped to pick up knives we were having sharpened followed by a coffee for the road and some scarecrow viewing. 

The Feast at Inn at Bay Fortune starts with a self-guided tour of the farm, followed by a Farm Lecture on seed to seed culinary farming. After the lecture we got to enjoy a number of different offerings - food booth style. All cooked with fire. Wonderful tacos, tune, porkbelly, radishes, chicken hearts, oysters and more oysters and the most wonderful smoked salmon. Each station was manned by one of the many chefs at the Inn. The chef's come from all over the world and this year eight countries were represented. At 6pm we all met on the lawn outside the restaurant for a toast and then enjoyed dinner, family style, at long tables. The Inn also has two sommeliers. It was a magical evening from start to finish.

Adrian - thank you so much for a wonderful, delicious and memorable birthday!

What a glorious fall so far. We came to PEI on September 11 and have been enjoying the weather the beach and lots of family. Justin and Shannon joined us on Sept 19-20 and we had a Bohach birthday celebratory weekend on Sept 25-30 with Carrie, Kyle and Brooklyn. Lots of September birthdays, sadly Dylan, Lark and Faith weren't able to join us this year.
Beach walks, scenic drives, great food and so much family fun. The weather cooperated for a quick dip on Sept 29 - whoohoo!

We had the opportunity to attend a Ukrainian concert in Charlottetown. Large diaspora here and the hall was filled with folks excited to connect with their culture and homeland. While 98% of the event was in Ukrainian - so I didn't understand much - you didn't need to speak the language to understand the patriotism, the sense of community and family.

Adrian and I are spending the long-weekend at our Beach House in PEI. So wonderful, great weather and the tourists are leaving - our beautiful beach feels like a private oasis. Happy to be here, one of the few times we've come just for fun, with a little work thrown in, instead of the other way around.

Adrian's been in Calgary for the last few days so I took the opportunity to tackle some gardening - ugh! Feeling pretty good that I moved the dark mulch from the new fenced in garden into the old front garden and then replaced it with new red mulch. I also got the weeds out from between the driveway bricks, managed to catch our last butterfly just as it was emerging! Even managed to put together our new fire table.
Adrian managed to move all the furniture from our condo in Calgary on this visit 

We're very excited to have our first butterfly arrive, hoping for at least two more!! Hatched last evening just as we headed into the hot tub.
​And if that wasn't exciting enough, while we were in the hot tub, too dark for a photo, but light enough to for us to see, we were visited by a family of raccoons. They were hanging out in a tree near the hot tub, watching us watch them. 

Gorgeous summer day to celebrate Adrian. We had a lazy start to his birthday Sunday, followed by some time enjoying our deck. Later we headed out to the Seaside Shanty, in Chester Basin.
​Huge thank you to Jamie, Liz, Carrie and families for the wonderful meal. Could only have been better if you'd been here to join us. 

Our friends, Ginny and Sandra, have an annual summer get-together where we all get to enjoy their fabulous deck. They live in a penthouse condo at,The Quinlan, that has an amazing deck. We've missed the last couple of years so this was Adrian's first time in this condo building.
Great friends, good food and a lovely evening. Such a wonderful event and we were so happy to continue to be included and to actually make it this year!