Family Time on Prince Edward Island

Hello My Dear Great Ones,

Ever since I read about Prince Edward Island's great biking trails and spectacular scenery several years ago I have yearned to visit Canada's smallest province.  When Oma offered a trip to PEI this summer for a family reunion and to celebrate her 80th I could not utter, "yes," fast enough.  Celia and I arrived in PEI last Saturday with Eli and Elsie and met everyone at our PEI base of operations, Sundance Cottages, in Cavendish.  Cavendish, if you are not up to speed with PEI history, is where Anne of Green Gables was written.  The books are internationally known by millions of women, for they are really girl centric, but I have to admit upon reading a few paragraphs, L.M Montgomery (the author of Anne, is an excellent writer.  Probably a few guys have read her stories due to her tremendous use of words.  I am sure if Montgomery had written a war story, with plenty of violent action, that she would have found a following among men. 

Here is a brief rundown on what we did:

Day 1

Lovely Cavendish.

 This is the church where L.M Montgomery attended.  I went for a service with Celia and Elsie and we were the youngest people there.

 The service was charming.  The sermon was about how God can turn a little faith into something plentiful (loaves and fishes story) and wonderful.

 After the service we explored the beach by Cavendish.  The red rocks and red earth of PEI is unique and very common.  The reason?  High concentrations of iron-oxide (rust).

 Just like when they were kids.  Eli and Elsie inspecting some natural wonder.

Day 2

On the way to Charlottetown.  The scenery was beautiful.

The houses in Charlottetown were charming.

 Province House.  In 1864 several delegates met here to discuss the formation of Canada.  Three years later, July 1, 1867, Canada was established.

These three were not delegates.

 Celia and I fooling around at a cool artsy display in an art museum in Charlottetown.

 St. Dunstan's Basilica.

 Eli at the old battery that once protected Charlottetown.  

Day 3

 Off to the Haunted Wood Trail.  We had to pass an old graveyard to get there.

 Anne of Green Gables house.  Elsie was pretty pumped.

 Elsie with Anne!

 Celia with Anne!

 How symbolic!  Note Celia in the carriage.

 Charming.

 Elsie with her Anne of Green Gables items.

 Later in the afternoon we went for a bike ride along the north gulf coast trail.  Was interesting, very flat, with great views.

 By some salt marshes.

 Iconic PEI.

 We took a break by a beach that stretched for kilometers.

Later we picked up some wood.  Note the bucket to drop three bucks in per load.  How is that for island quaint and honesty?  Awesome.

Day 4

We Celebrated Oma's 80th birthday with a lavish seafood meal, family photos, and a stirring ultimate frisbee game.

Seafood lunch.  Fresh from the Atlantic. 

 Was great to be together.

 Oma and Opa with their grandchildren.

 A good looking group.

 Oma and Opa with their three kids: Dirk, Sven, and Karen.

Oma with her grandkids.

A rousing game of ultimate frisbee with all the grandchildren and a few uncles and aunts.

 

 Later we went to the beach and admired the sand castles.  The water was a few degrees above ice temperature

.

Day 5

On this day we (Dirk, Celia, Eli and Elsie) went on the most amazing bridge ever!  The Confederation Bridge is a massive 13 kilometer bridge that connects PEI with NewBrunswick.  We drove over on a beautiful sunny day and stopped on the New Brunswick side for pictures.

Wow!

Wow!

Nice!

 Wow!

Wow!

 Wow and Wow!

We then headed to Moncton to meet Sven and his boys Bryce, Evan, and Ryan at "TreeGo," for an afternoon of climbing, ziplining, and traversing various obstacles high in the trees of a lovely forest.

About to embark on our adventure.

Eli way up high.  Two metal clips (carabiners) attached to short sturdy ropes on a harness around our waist kept us falling from certain calamity.  For extra fun we had a pully thing and another carabiner for ziplining.  Very fun, a great work out, and challenging.

Eli traversing over to another tree. 

Sven and Celia warming up on a practice course. 

Once you traversed over to one side there was a new challenge awaiting you.  The course got higher and more challenging as you progressed through it.

Celia and I ready to traverse over.

Fun but challenging.

 By the end we were all pretty tired but happy.

Day 6

Today we checked out, Avonlea, Anne of Green Gables home town.  It was a quaint and charming tourist trap selling everything and anything related to Anne. 

 Eli and Elsie were charming as ever.

Later we we walked by the Cavendish beach area.  Nature is great there.

Celia took this great picture.

Finally we watched the sunset at Cavendish beach.  Our time at PEI was totally fantastically great.  A very great family vacation time.

The sunset was beautiful. 

The Budwills taking pictures of the sunset.

God bless you.

Love adios and ping on!

Dirk