A Week of Firsts: New House, New City, New Gap, New School and a Visit to the Hospital

Gaelan and her family left on September 3rd to drive from Sparrow Lake, ON to Moncton, New Brunswick where their first home awaited them. The trip itself was pretty uneventful but they enjoyed the scenery and eating in parking lots. On day three arrived safe and sound. The moving van arrived the next day but they had Winnie’s bed and a mattress delivered earlier in the week.

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On the last leg of the their trip. Winnie and Lucy are exhausted.
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After checking out the new house the family took a 20 drive to the ocean where Winnie was in fine form.

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Immersing herself in the culture of the east coast

On their first day in the new home Winnie lost another tooth.

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She can’t wait for the tooth fairy to visit
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On Wednesday Winnie started her first day of school in a new school in grade one.

After a wonderful first day of meeting new kids Winnie came home and promptly fell off a bed and bit through her upper lip. Another first was the trip to the hospital where luckily it was determined that she wouldn’t need stitches, just a steri-strip.

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Winnie returned to school on Thursday and had quite the story to tell her new classmates. A special thanks to Winnie’s parents for the wonderful photographs.

Lucy and a Trip to Hamilton

…..my daughter and son-in-law have moved to a larger home

On Thursday and Friday, our daughter, G and her husband packed up their tiny apartment and left Toronto to start a new life in Hamilton. We offered to dog sit so that their Bassett Hound, Lucy, wouldn’t get underfoot. Lucy is a lovely dog but not the easiest to look after.

One of the things that Lucy likes to do is take over the chaise lounge and she won’t stop barking until the offending person gets off. If you’ve ever heard a Bassett Hound bark you know how irritating it can be and Lucy is relentless. By the way she also loves to be covered with a blanket.IMG_4664

Our dog Frances gets along with Lucy in short spurts. After awhile she becomes very territorial and she refuses to let Lucy pass to go up the stairs or down the stairs. We always have to separate them at meal time and Lucy finishes first so if Frances doesn’t finish we have to put her food up high and out of the way. IMG_0179_2

Lucy’s nose is always close to the ground; a very common trait of Bassett Hounds. When we work in the kitchen she is always underfoot, hoping that we drop something. She also loves kale and if we’re not careful she’ll pull it out of the fridge when we open the door. On several occasions when Lucy has been taken for walks down Yonge St. she’s jumped up onto to a city planters and pulled out the ornamental kale to chomp on. Our daughter is mortified when this happens.

Today our son-in-law returned the moving truck. We put Lucy in the car and picked up BT and drove them back to their new home in Hamilton. This was Lucy’s first exposure to the new house. We were a little worried about the stairs but a new carpet has been laid and Lucy was very comfortable going up and down the the steep staircase. Normally she doesn’t like stairs. IMG_4657

Lucy checked out the backyard. Clearly she’s going to need to be trained as to where she can and cannot walk and pee. The flower beds are definitely out of bounds. The front porch quickly became a popular spot to hang out with her loved ones. She’s content to be near her family and she didn’t bark at the folks that walked by the house. Hopefully that part won’t change. IMG_4644 IMG_4643 IMG_4642

The new house will be a bit of an adjustment for Lucy. There are still a lot of boxes that need to be unpacked and before we left BT started to paint the living room. I’m sure Lucy will learn to love her new surroundings and why wouldn’t she. She has a big backyard to play in and lots of new places to explore in the house and outside in the neighbourhood. I didn’t see any planters with ornamental kale but if they exists she’ll be sure to find them.

When we got home our daughter sent us a photo of Lucy. Apparently she has already decided where her new favourite place in the house is. So typical!

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