Days 6-12 - Family Vacation/PEI

We are now officially residing in Prince Edward Island (PEI). It is beautiful, peaceful, serene, and calm. PEI reminds me of Alaska. All the locals know each other and everyone is so friendly and welcoming (yes even to US citizens). They do not seem to be concerned with politics, who has more money, who has the most prestigious jobs – they just live their lives simply and efficiently. Everyone is equal and is treated as an equal. Traditions abound – children remain close to their parents and grandparents and remain on the Island. We stay at Jewell’s Cottages. T’s family has been staying in these cottages every summer for 35 years. The cottages are located on the “quiet” side of the island. Beautiful red sand beaches with sea glass and sand bars – which is excellent for wading and swimming. No worries of fast currents or deep sea sweeping away the kids. PEI is truly one of the few places I have been that I consider to be paradise on earth.

And now on to the daily activities:

Day 6-Monday

Memere deluxe breakfast – what’s this you ask? More food than anyone has a right to have available- pancakes, sausage, bacon, Scottish bacon (ham), jam, real maple syrup and if there is something else you might want – Memere will fix that as well – just amazing.

We decided to venture in to Charlottetown. Papa knew about a free play at the Confederation Center. More free tourist stuff –and now we know where T gets this quest for “FREE” stuff. We saw a great little play called “We are Canadian” presented by the 2008 Young Company Creative Team. It was a presentation of Canada’s history and was a musical. The theater troupe consisted of young high school students from Quebec and PEI who travel around Canada doing this play. It includes not only singing but dancing, violin/fiddle, flute, piano, and drums. The young actors are all super talented in multiple theater skills. K & A were entranced with it.

Day 7-Tuesday

A very rainy day – but plans are to go to Summerside and see some little woods with miniature replica castles. We stop at Spinnakers Landing which is a cute little wharf with shops. We find out that the little woods thing did not open this season and so decide to go to Sharkys for lunch and head back home.

The girls stayed with Uncle M, Aunt T, and cousin K as we were invited to go out with the older generation. The older generation consists of T’s parents, the Jewell’s (owners of the cottages), and the couple in cottage 1 from Vermont who have also been renting at Jewell’s cottages for 30 years. We went for a fancy dinner on the north side of the island. I guess now that we are over 40 we are considered the older generation. A little bothersome at first, but hey a night out is a night out!!!

Dinner at The Pearl – I would say this was magnificent. Beautiful house converted into a restaurant. Absolute gourmet menu choices. I had the lobster ravioli – giant fresh homemade ravioli with lobster, onion and peppers drizzled with a lemon herb sauce. Finally I am validated in my quest for lemon with my lobster!! I am always the only one wanting lemon with my fish here on the east coast. T had prosciutto wrapped tenderloins (or as T puts it bacon wrapped steak). I don’t think T enjoyed it as much as I did, but he tends to shy away from places that serve flowers and spring greens on the plates!! Definite quality versus quantity on this one. 

Day 8-Wednesday

Again a huge breakfast then to the Bulk Barn to buy candy for the play. Bulk barn is this awesome store – everything imaginable that you can buy in bulk. Not bulk like Costco- bulk like Sweet Factory where you fill your bag with what you want and pay per pound. We were there to get candy (2 aisles worth to choose from) but it also had nuts, granola, pasta, flour (all kinds imaginable), spices. All of it in big bins and you could scoop out just what you need – so cool. Next into Charlottetown for the Anne of Green Gables matinee musical. It is very well done and the girls were on the edge of their seats with excitement for most of the play. Kind of a tradition and presented each summer (like Nutcracker ballet is in Seattle) but it was new to us and I thought it was quite a great musical. 

After the play we decided to hang out in Charlottetown and go back to the visitors center to see the Sand Castle Sculptures. They were pretty amazing – huge sculptures made out of PEI red sand. After the sand castles we went back to downtown Charlottetown for dinner at this great little Italian restaurant with flat bread gourmet pizzas. No flowers on the plate, but definitely way up the food chain from Pizza Hut.

Aunt J, Uncle C and cousin E arrive at about 10:00PM after a long days driving to PEI.

Day 9 – Thursday

Headed up north to Cavendish (Anne of Green Gables Land) and Shining Waters water park. Great little water park with 4 water slides, a wading pool, a petting zoo, paddle boats, pirate ship fun house, and a little adventure hiking trail with a suspension bridge, crooked house, swamp monster, and house of mirrors at the end. I almost did not partake of the waterslides, but then Aunt J said “You’ll regret it if you don’t’ try it – it makes you feel 10 years younger”. I knew I would regret it if I didn’t try it at least once– so tried it. You sit on little tubes and then you shoot down this slide into this toilet bowl where you swirl around and then go down the hole to another slide – yes it did make me feel 10 years younger and I did not want to leave!! Thanks Aunt J for the encouragement. The tubes acted as a sort of cushion so I did not need to worry as much for K or my safety. There was also a double tube so that 2 people could go down at the same time – went with K first then with T – quite fun – the heavier you are the more you swirl in the toilet bowl (think giant turd in the toilet bowl in the case of T & me!!!). The other tube slide did not have toilet bowl – it had this section of complete darkness and you could not tell which way you were going or where the next turn was – it was an incredible adrenalin rush!! There was also 2 regular water slides (the kind you don’t use a tube on) which were not as popular – A figured out quite quickly that you did not have to wait in line if you did these slides, so she kept sliding, then running back up the stairs of the slide and sliding – she was getting in about 4 runs to one of ours and having a blast. One thing to work on is how to decrease the giant wedgie received from the water slides. Each time I saw A – I was asking her to pull down the bottom of her suit.

Completed the day with dinner at the boardwalk – Subway sandwiches for K & A and fish and chips for T & me. The hardcore tourists – Papa, T, Uncle C, cousins E&K, and A all continued on for black light mini golf. Memere, K, and I headed back to the cottages as we were exhausted!!

Day 10- Friday

That 10 years younger I felt at Shining Waters caught up with me around 4 AM this morning – I ached like I was 10 years older (so this must be what 50 feels like- huh Kathy?)  I am going to need a lot of Advil. Still had a blast yesterday and would do it again in an instant!!

Gold Cup Parade – I am told (multiple times by multiple people) this is the 2nd largest parade in Canada. It is a nice parade. You can really get a feel for what the island is about by viewing the parade. I am told that they used to throw candy for the kids, but did not do it this year. Why have so many parades stopped with the candy?

After the parade went to Indigo bookstore so Aunt T could let K pick a book for her birthday present then went to Eastside Marios for lunch – fun Italian restaurant chain. Used to be one in Worcester MA, that we had been to, but it no longer is there. Back to the cottages for rest.

B did laundry – ugh even on vacation. I went to a little laundromat next to the convenience store about 8 miles from the cottages. K went to Victoria with Aunt J and Uncle C. Victoria is this cute little artsy community. K came home with a slab of glass from a stained glass shop – we will now attempt to transport home an 18 inch X 2 inch piece of glass. Not sure what vision K has for the glass – if it makes it home will determine what she can do with it I guess!! T& A stayed by the cottage. Then after dark we had a fire in the fire pit on the cliff above the beach and roasted some marshmallows.

Day 11 – Saturday

Relaxing morning and leisure day.  Beach combing and trips to Best of PEI store and Dairy Barn.  Pre packing for big move tomorrow.

We had a multi-celebration for K’s 12th birthday, cousin E’s 4th birthday, and the Jewell’s grandson J’s 15th birthday on Saturday night. Mussels, chowder, and pizza. It was quite fun – everyone from all 3 cottages. The last trip to PEI we had celebrated K's 3rd birthday - it is hard to believe we are celebrating her 12th birthday.

Day 12 – Sunday

Time for the cottage switch – Memere, Papa, and cousin K are headed back to Massachusetts and checking out of cottage 2. We are in cottage 3 and need to switch to cottage 2. This means we need to wait until Memere and Papa are out of cottage 2 and on the road so that we can move our stuff over. Usually they do not have 2 cottages and everyone stays in cottage 2. Cottage 3 was available for 1 week, so we lucked out, but it means a move in the middle. Aunt J usually follows Memere and Papa with her week, so she is used to the departure and adjusting to PEI without Memere and Papa. She also has a strict ritual that she follows to clean out the refrigerator after they leave. After we moved our stuff from cottage 3 to cottage 2 – in order to make room for all the food – we were trying to eat what we could. Points were awarded for consuming the items no one else wanted or for alcohol (10AM). No one actually had any alcohol – but extra points were offered.

After we ate and ate – the tide was high which meant no beach by the cottages, so we decided to venture to Brackley Beach. This is a beach on the north side of the island and has white sandy beaches. It was gorgeous. The kids played in the sand and surf while Aunt J, Uncle C, B, and T figured out life’s perplexities. We just about had them all figured out when dark clouds moved in and we decided we should probably head out. Just as we got everyone loaded in the cars – it began to pour rain – whew that was close.

We went back to the cottage and looked for sea glass as it was low tide. Tried to consume more of the leftovers from Memere and Papa. T&B consumed the remainder of Saturday nights chowder. The level of alcohol in the fridge was lowered. Uncle C took control of the remote and found the Patriots preseason game. Not sure if he saw it to the end or not, as the rest of us had headed to bed in preparation for our departure on Monday.