Louisbourg

One of my favourite places to visit on the island is the Louisbourg lighthouse. Most times it is foggy out in Louisbourg and today was no exception. The fog actually adds to its' charm. By the time we were ready to leave, the fog was starting to lift and we had a pretty good view of the fortesss, which is a rare sight from the lighthouse location. Mom, Tyler and I had a great time exploring the Havenside Lighthouse and of course, we got some photos for you to enjoy.

Monday Morning

This morning we woke up to some rain. It was so nice to have a rainy day for a change. Back home in Maryland, we are still in a drought and I longed for the day where we could get some rain. Though I was talking to Steve this morning and apparently they got rain a 15 minute shower last night.

After the rain shopped this morning, we decided to head out and get a few caches in the area. One of my favourite things I love about caching is that it sometimes brings us to areas we haven't been before. So this morning, one of the caches brought us to a trail I never knew existed. The three of us went for a little stroll and really enjoyed the beautiful scenery along the river.


Here is a photo that I took of the river. We had such a nice time walking along the trail that we really could have stayed longer, but we had more caches to find and the flies were hungry. We will definitely be back some day and finish our walk though.

Another cache we did brought us to an area that I knew existed but was rather spooky. The house that it was near is a well known haunted house and is actually listed with the Most Haunted Places in Nova Scotia. My friend Tanya used to live nearby and I remember her telling me all about it. I attempted to get this cache last summer, but because I was by myself at the time I chickened out. This time I had Mom and Tyler to keep me company. To say the least, I'm glad to have that cache done and over with!

There's No Place Like Home

After a long day yesterday involving three flights, we are finally back home in Cape Breton! We arrived late last night. It had been a year since the last time we were home. Sadly it is only Tyler and I, but Steve will be joining us later on after he returns back from his deployment to Cuba.

This morning, Tyler had fun playing ball with Grampy out in the backyard. The farmer next door cut the hay yesterday and left a few bales behind, so we took advantage and got a few updated Grampy and Tyler shots. Then we had a nice visit from Tyler's buddy, Andrew and the Baillie's. We just had a phone call from our friend down the street, Mohini. Mom had told her we were coming home. It will be really nice to see her again as well. It feels really good to be back home and to see all of our friends and family again!

Our Produce Dept.

This is what our garden used to look like...

















and this is what it looks like now! The tomato plants are now taller than Steve! We got lots of cherry tomatoes, tomatoes, and now the peas are starting to come out. We still have strawberries and green and red peppers to go.

Toy Chest?

So here I am trying to pack and gets things ready for tomorrow's flight to Canada, and I notice Tyler took everything out of the chest that has the Build A Bear clothes in it . I didn't think anything of it because it usually does this and he likes to try on the hats. However this morning, after taking everything out, he dragged it into his room and started putting his toys in it. I thought it was pretty funny. I'm assuming that he is trying to tell me that he has better use for the chest now.

Command Picnic

Today Steve's command had their annual summer get together. This year instead of going to Six Flags, they decided to have a nice picnic on base. However, before the picnic started, Tyler had to get his immunizations up to date.

While in the waiting room, everyone noticed Tyler's big smiles he had for everyone. They were all sad at the thought of him not knowing what he was in store for, meaning the painful shots. To our surprise, he only cried for a few seconds. He received a total of 3 shots! One of the girls in the waiting room, called in to us, and asked whether he was finished because they all couldn't believe that he hardly cried at all. When we returned to the waiting room, he had smiles for them all again and they all said how good he was. The technician forgot to give Tyler a sticker, but one of the girls in the waiting room reminded him of it. So Tyler left with not only a smile but a Winnie the Pooh sticker too.
Then we went to the playground and waited for Steve to go to the picnic. Tyler got changed from his play clothes into his picnic clothes and away we went. The picnic was a lot of fun. I got to meet some of Steve's co-workers and Tyler had a great time playing with all the balls he could find. There was a sandy area for volleyball that the kids played in and Tyler met some new friends. By the days end, we were all pretty much exhausted and ready to head back home.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!
Hope you have a great day today! We will celebrate when Tyler and I come home this weekend. By the way, who is that baby you are holding in the photo?! Tyler has changed so much in the year since you last saw him. See you soon!
Lots of Love, Heather, Steve & Tyler
P.S. Happy Belated Birthday to Erika's Mom!

Steve is Sailor of the Quarter!!!

Congratulations to my wonderful husband. His command, the Naval Media Center, gave him the award of 'Sailor of the Quarter' for his outstanding work during several months. To receive the award he had to be nominated and then go in front of a board and answer questions regarding current events and the military.

It is nice that his command is recognizing his hard work. Since his deployment to the Caribbean last month, he has been constantly working on getting his All Hands magazine article ready and his news stories. During the past two weekends, he has been busy working and yesterday he even brought home his editing gear to work on it more. The first photo is of Tyler is looking at Steve on the video from the Caribbean. He doesn't usually wear cammies but for that assignment it was required.

His hard work doesn't stop there, he is already scheduled to go on another deployment to Cuba at the end of August!

Doing Laundry

Practically everywhere I go in the house, Tyler is sure to follow. Tyler is always curious as to what I'm up to. I usually describe to him what I'm doing so it is more interesting for him and so he will also learn. I'll ask him if he wants to help Mommy do laundry and he replies with a "yeah" and then goes to the washer and dryer. He likes to participate, for instance when I'm doing laundry, he takes the clothes out of the hamper and passes them to me as I put them in the washing machine. He even started bringing Dad's socks he finds on the floor to the hamper in our room.



So this morning, we did Tyler's laundry and I took some photos for the blog. However this time, I let him just be on his own and see what happens. Usually after he passes me the clothes in the basket, I take the basket and put it back in his room. Well, today, he decided to take the basket to his room all by himself without any prompting from me whatsoever.


Then after he got the basket in his room, he went to where the cover was and tried to put in on himself! He actually did a pretty good job for it being his first time, though I had to help him a bit.









Once we had the cover back on, he attempted to bring the basket where I keep it beside his crib, however he went in first and then tried to bring it in afterwards and got stuck in between it and the wall. In conclusion, he did a marvelous job! By the way, the chicken slippers he is wearing actually belongs to our Build A Bears. They fit him just perfect and how cute they look on his feet!

Work and Play

After having little storm a few days ago, a yard work day was required for today's agenda. Strong winds blew several branches and leaves into the yard. After cleaning and mowing the lawn, we headed out and got some flowers to plant. We picked the pretty variegated periwinkle in pink. The added colour really made a difference in making our yard beautiful again. Our azaleas and mums were done for the season.

After Steve and I planted the flowers, we gave Tyler a little treat by putting him in the wheel barrow for a ride around the yard.

Tyler turns 17 months old today!!! Also cousin Garret turns 18 months old!!!

*A very special Happy Birthday goes out to one of our best friends, Larissa!

Truckin' Tyler

When reading Tyler his "Things that go" book, which is currently is favourite, he listens and looks at the pictures of trucks, boats, motorcycles, rockets, buses and other various vehicles. However when he gets to the picture of the dump truck, I pause before saying what it is and wait for him to point to his own dump truck on the floor. Within seconds he is pointing to his truck.

Tyler loves to play with his dump truck. He has fun putting things in the back and rolls it back and forth. Just wait until he sees Grampy's cement mixer when we fly home next week, he is definitely going to be really excited!

Beary Best Buddies

Tyler is now at the stage where he loves big stuffed animals and is big enough to carry them around. Yesterday he brought me each one of his big bears from his room and wanted me to sit them up on the couch . Then he climbed up on the couch too. I set them up so they are sitting beside him and couldn't resist taking some adorable photos. Enjoy!

Neighbourhood Watch

Less Napping, More Playing

According to the 16 month old milestone chart, babies at this age usually switch from taking two naps a day to one. Most babies before this age take a nap in the morning and a nap in the afternoon. We had Tyler on a schedule, he would nap at 10:30 am and then take another nap at 3:00pm. However as of last week, Tyler has reached this new "napping milestone".

Tyler never really had much of a problem taking his naps, I would tell him it was time to go for a nap, pick him up and carry him to his crib and he would put the pacifier in his mouth and lie down and go to sleep without much, if any fuss, at all.

This is not the case anymore. He no longer requires that morning nap and instead takes a nap just shortly after lunch and sleeps for a few hours.

A Day in the Park

On Sunday, we didn't have any plans so we decided to download some caches to do. Steve picked caches to do all in the same area so we wouldn't have much driving to do. He found a park that had a few in it. We had never been to this state park before and we really hadn't heard much about it, so we were just expecting the same ole' park with hiking trails and such.

To our surprise, this park turned out to be quite amazing. The 166 acres of land was once owned by a captain in the late 1600s and boasted having the original manor in which he lived in. The land has horse riding facilities for people with disabilities as well.The state park is beautifully kept. Kristin came to mind when I saw the huge rose garden.

One of the caches we found in the park was in this adorable container. It was hung up in a tree and we had to pull a string attached to get it down.













Another cache was located near one of the old barns on the premises.




We took Tyler out of his stoller and let him explore around the barn area. He had so much fun that he didn't want to leave.








The park was adjacent to many cornfields, it was a lot of fun walking along them. Steve could hardly believe that it was my first time walking through a cornfield.













Overall, we had a fantastic day and we found our new favourite park!







***A special birthday message goes out to our niece, Bryanna, who turns 4 years old today!!!

"Awww Mom, not a picture of me with my morning hair."

Reach for the Stars

We've been noticing lately that Tyler has been able to reach things he couldn't before. He must be going through a little growth spurt, though I haven't really noticed it yet in his clothes, though that could be due to the fact that he wears shorts everyday because of the heat here. Anyway, we really have to keep an extra close eye on this guy now as he is finding more things to get into.

Muddy Buddy

Last night, Steve took Tyler out around the yard while he watered the plants. Tyler loves the water and always tries to walk in it as it is being sprayed; and because the ground is wet and slippery, he always falls and gets all full of mud.











He also likes to play at the same time. Tyler goes from the water spray back to playing in the mud with his sticks.

After we sprayed him down one final time before going back in the house, he went up to Steve and got the hose nozzle and started drinking water from it! Both Steve and I were amazed that he figured how to do that since we don't drink from the hose ourselves.

Our Little Helper

The other day we were outside cleaning up around the yard, picking up sticks, pine cones and various other things we could find. Tyler, of course, was out and about with us. He noticed us putting things in a big garbage bag and before we knew it, he was joining in our clean up!


The only thing is, with his clean up he didn't include the sticks because sticks are his favourite outdoor toy. It was really cute watching him go back and forth to get things to put in the garbage bag.What a great little helper he is!

A Nice Evening

Last night, Steve's cousin Kara and his Aunt Nancy and Uncle Jerry came over for dinner and to finally see our house. Kara lives in D.C. and her parents are up for a visit from Florida.

We had a really nice time and we are going to try and meet up again before Aunt Nancy and Uncle Jerry go back home.

Alls Well That Ends Well

First of all, we would like to thank everyone who has said prayers for us, as well as my brother, Joe, who we have called numerous amount of times during the past week looking for help in solving our problem. A special thanks to Ute and Anthony for allowing us to borrow some of their water.

The well company finally came this afternoon. After some investigating using their cool gadgets, it was determined that the problem was a result in a broken wire that was connected to the pump.

We are so excited we had to share the news with you all...now to finally take a shower!!!

Deployment to the Caribbean

For those of you who didn't know, Steve was recently deployed to the Caribbean to do another 'All Hands' magazine article as well as some news stories about the US Navy helping out in some of the communities in the Caribbean.

Deployment was made on the Swift, which is actually a ferry leased from Australia.



Each day was a busy one for Steve and his co-workers. He had a photographer and a camera man with him, so he didn't come back with as many photos this time. They did get to do some site seeing while there, including this church, which is "The Oldest Church in the Americas".



This is the donation collector inside the church.

While there, Steve made port at both Belize and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He said both countries were both extremely poor and there were people everywhere asking for money. This is what a typical downtown street looks like in Santo Domingo.

The craziest thing he saw there were the telephone wires. He said they were everywhere and some in places, he would have to actually duck down before entering a building.

Their main mission was to help aid the communities the best they could. Steve got to visit two orphanages. However, he was not allowed to take any photos of any of the children there, because many times people would come from away promising the orphanage that they would provide funding and take photos of the children and then come to find out in a few months, people arriving at the orphanage wanting to see the child they had been sending money to help feed and the orphanage people wouldn't have a clue about it. How sad!!!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this little tour of Steve's deployment to the Caribbean. Now that he is back, he is extremely busy putting it all together.