Summer and Fall Have Come and Gone

It’s been a while since the last update, so we have a few stories and photos to share with you. Summer was beautiful here, with perfect temperatures and gorgeous blue skies. We took advantage of the weather and got out and about as much as we could.

Early on in the season there happened to be a British car show on in a place called Rexton, which is about a 2.5 hour drive away. Ben especially was excited about seeing the cars, although I will admit to enjoying the games they had there just as much!

Cars at the British car show in Rexton

One of many MGs

One of Ben's favourites

One of my favourites

Rexton also happens to be the home town of a friend of ours, and she happened to be visiting home at the time we were in the area. Her parents very kindly invited us to visit and stay for dinner, and fed us a delightful feast of steak and lobster! Well, only Ben tried the lobster, but it was fun to watch him make a mess.

Later in the summer we revisited another place in New Brunswick called Nackawic. We first visited when we came to the area on holiday, before we moved out here.

Walk along the rivier in Nackawic

River walk in Nackawic

Nackawic is famous for its axe (the world's largest!)

The axe

The requisite self-portrait photo

Another summer trip took us to Maine. If you read the previous blog post you will have found out that we needed to cross the border to officially activate our permanent residency status. We decided to make a weekend of it, and spent a couple of days in a small town called East Machias, not too far across the border into the US. It was a pleasant town, close to Machias, which we also visited and spent some time in.

Inside the house we rented

View over Machias

Apparently, ‘Machias’ translates roughly to ‘bad little falls’ in Passamaquoddy, and so the waterfall in the town is named Bad Little Falls.

By the waterfall in Machias

By the waterfall in Machias

We had a tour around the Burnham Tavern Museum in Machias, which was very interesting. Machias is famous for being the place of the first naval battle of the American Revolution.

Burnham Tavern Museum, Machias

We took a walk along the nearby beach

We couldn't resist eating at Helen's Restaurant

The crossing back into Canada went very smoothly, and now we’re officially permanent residents! Yay! In a couple of years from now we can apply for citizenship.

Summer wouldn’t be complete without a visit to a fair or two. We went to Keswick Fair, which is about 20 minutes or so from Fredericton (actually, I went twice!), and also to Stanley Fair, which we went to last year as well. The Keswick Fair ran from 1848-1966, but they decided to hold it again this year, fortunately for us.

Feeding the animals

It must have been nap time

Yep, definitely nap time

No New Brunswick Fair is complete without a good ol' woodsmen competition

A friend of ours has a camp/cottage on the water not too far from Saint John, NB (it actually belongs to her parents). A few friends were going down for the weekend and we were invited to come along. It is rather rustic, with no electricity or running water, but it sure was a pretty setting. There are a few beds in the cottage but it was pretty crowded in there, so we decided to sleep in a tent.

The cottage

Our tent

It happened to be New Brunswick Day when we were there, so as loyal New Brunswickers our group made up a New Brunswick flag to erect. On the water near the camp is a small “island” (extremely small!), which has been nicknamed ‘flammage island’. I won’t go into why! We all decided that it would be a great idea to erect the flag on the island.

Journey to erect the New Brunswick flag

View out to 'flammage' island

Triumphant!

A couple of our friends have a cute dog called Asia, who came along for the fun weekend.

Asia

Camp decor

View in the morning

This next photo was taken by a friend, and worries me as a LOST fan. Can you spot why?

LOST fans - that weird black smoke-like thing looks scarily familiar...

In September, there was a special CFL (Canadian Football League) game that came to Moncton, NB. There are currently no CFL teams in Atlantic Canada, and this was a one-off event to test the reception of a CFL game in the area. ‘Touchdown Atlantic’ was the first ever regular season game to be played in Atlantic Canada. The game was between the Toronto Argonauts and the Edmonton Eskimos. We managed to get tickets, and had a fun time!

Before the game started

As the teams came out

Mid-game

Eerie figure keeping watch over us...

A better view, and a touchdown!

In October, my dad came to visit for about a week. It was his first ever visit to Canada! As it was slightly out of season not everything was open, but we managed to find plenty to do anyway. We went on quite a few walks as it was the perfect time of year to see the beautiful fall colours. We also visited a few museums, played bowling, and me & dad went to Saint John on one day. Ben & dad played golf on another day, and the rest of the time was spent relaxing and eating lots of nice food.

View of the river in Fredericton

Walking around Mactaquac

Dressing up at the York Sunbury Museum in Fredericton!

I don’t have too many photos of his stay here, and I’m eagerly awaiting to see his photos once he’s worked out how to upload them to Facebook!

The last exciting thing that happened recently was Ben’s graduation. He now officially has three degrees! One of his friends came back to Fredericton for the graduation, so it was great to see him again.

Ben Griffin, BA MA MA!

Well, that was a bit of a mammoth update, so well done if you reached this far! Knowing my slack rate of updating this thing, the next post will probably be after Christmas! The weather is now getting increasingly wintery, but we’re yet to see any snow. I’m sure that will come soon enough.

Until next time, take care!

Helen & Ben

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