Tag Archives: Moncton

Sunshine with Sunshine

Okay, when last we left our favorite blogger-couple they were basking in the afterglow of a staycation that didn’t quite live-up to their expectations (but was still a lot of fun).  But alas, that was only HALF of their weekend!

We woke up on Sunday morning feeling refreshed and excited about the day ahead.  It was expected to be another warm and sunny day (20 celcius/68 fahrenheit) and we had no plans since it was a holiday and everything was closed.

Breakfast consisted of eggs, bacon, & English muffins…mmmmm.  We finished watching Sherlock Holmes (AWESOME movie, by the way) and after some…umm…”personal time”, the decision was made to go out to a local hiking trail and enjoy the day.

We went to the Dobson Walking Trail, which is a local trail completely maintained by volunteers.  Compared to some of the other trails we’ve hiked in her neck of the woods, this one wasn’t quite up to par…but it was still a pretty nice stroll.  The sun was shining, there was still a bit of snow on the ground here and there, and there were no bugs…which was an amazing benefit since this part of the country is known for its mosquito population.

At one point, we even stumbled upon a fire pit that was lit…allowing us some time to sit down for a short rest and just take in a beautiful spring day.

The fire pit at the Dobson Trail: 04-04-10

Sunshine at the Dobson Trail: 04-04-10

Dobson Trail: 04-04-10

Dobson Trail: 04-04-10

Dobson Trail: 04-04-10

Ooooohh...it's the *SPOOKY VALLEY!! (*not really spooky)

After about 30-45 minutes, we decided to make our way back out of the woods.  I had suggested that we head down to the waterfront and enjoy the sunshine that way.  All along the way, we were talking and laughing and just thoroughly enjoying each other’s company.

Gunningsville Bridge from Riverview looking at Moncton: 04-04-10

We made our way down to the waterfront.  I live in Riverview, which is literally a drive over a bridge away from Moncton (i.e. the primary city in the area).  We decided to walk across the Gunningsville Bridge and along the water to a skate park before making our way back.

In theory, it sounded like a great idea.

The problem, though, was that it was a LOT longer of a walk than either one of us anticipated.  It wasn’t until we had actually walked for almost an hour that we realized just how far we had gone.  So we just sat down on a bench and took a breather for a few minutes before making our way back. 

Gunningsville Bridge: 04-04-10

Huh...it didn't seem that far away when we were initially walking.

View from Moncton waterfront looking over at Riverview.

Thankfully, the walk back seemed a LOT shorter than the initial walk there…so we were back to the car before we knew it.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at home.  Sunshine made an amazing spaghetti supper, I forced her to watch Pirates of the Caribbean for the first time (she didn’t hate it…lol), and we ended up simply enjoying each other’s company before passing out for the night…exhausted from a very long day.

In the end, we both felt as though this was a better day than the staycation day before.  The ability to just walk and talk with the person you love is something that should never be taken for granted because it’s something that can’t be done in every relationship.  I, for one, treasure every moment and feel that this is just one of the benefits of being in a long-distance relationship; we can appreciate the little things.

Sunshine left on Monday morning for home and a new job.  Our next visit is just a week away and it’s already lined-up to be a busy one with get-togethers and birthday parties.  When you know how busy life can be, you should never have a problem standing in the sunshine and just soaking it all in.


The Staycation

Sunshine and I had planned on getting away together for the day.  I mean, we’re not in desperate need of time away or anything…our weekends together are normally “just us”…but we thought it would be fun to maybe get away on an overnight outing of some sort, just to be different.

We then decided that we could hit two different cities over the course of one day and have just as much fun as we would if we just stayed in a motel overnight somewhere.

Best laid plans and all that…

It was Sunshine’s turn to visit me this time so Moncton, New Brunswick was going to be our base of operations.  We had gotten up Saturday morning at 5:50am (we couldn’t really sleep) and were on the road before 8am.  The forecast was to be sunny and extremely warm, so excitement was running high.  We made our way to Saint John as the plan was to be in Saint John for the morning and then move along to Fredericton for the afternoon. 

Driving with Sunshine is awesome.  We can literally talk for hours and never get bored.  Add to that the cheesiest of cheesy 80’s songs for us to sing and it’s just a great time from beginning to end.

We arrived at our first destination at around 9:30 or so.  Needless to say, the sun had not yet made its way to Saint John.

Saint John, NB: 04-03-10

Saint John, NB: 04-03-10

Okay…so without the sun shining (and yes, it was as cold and damp as it looks) we could at least still do something in the city as we made our way to a pretty popular city tourist attraction, Market Square:

Market Square - Saint John, New Brunswick: 04-03-10

Market Square fountain - Saint John, New Brunswick: 04-03-10

Sunshine lightens up the Market Square fountain - Saint John, New Brunswick: 04-03-10

Is it wrong that Sunshine's only comment was that this little girl holding balloons had "man hands"?

Nothing much was open (we were there pretty early), but at least a tourism information kiosk was.  The friendly guy told us that their cit market was pretty famous around these parts…and without anything else being open and with the clouds still out in full force, it only made sense to check it out.

Saint John City Market: 04-03-10

This is basically dried seaweed...and Sunshine LOVES the stuff. Eww.

Ooohh...lookit...I'm all fancy with my artsy view of local artsy stuff!

C'mon...admit it...this looks absolutely delicious!!

Sunshine was getting a little desperate for somebody new to talk to.

At this point it was 11 o’clock and we were bored so we took off for Fredericton.  We were excited about going to Fredericton for a few reasons:

  1. We both lived there back in the late 90’s and wanted to check out our “old stomping grounds”.
  2. Through conversations we realized that we both lived in the city at about the same time around the same place in the city, so we just wanted to find out how close we actually lived to one another.
  3. We were going to meet-up with Miranda…otherwise known on Twitter as qt_pie1602…who was our first “Twitter friend” that we were going to meet in person.

Literally 15 minutes after we left Saint John the sun came out and the temperature got a lot warmer. As it turns out, the sun never came out that day in Saint John so I suppose we never missed anything in leaving.

Yeah...it's a "super buffet"

Arriving in Fredericton, we were anxious to relive our pasts and compare notes.  We were also hungry as it was now after 12 o’clock so we decided to eat at a place we both remembered from our previous stays in the city. This was a Chinese buffet restaurant called Jubilee.

Let it be known that I never EVER want to eat at this place again.  Even if it’s free.  Seriously…in my opinion it was one of the worst food experiences I’ve ever had.

We immediately wanted to forget our $30 mistake and quickly found out that we not only lived in the same part of the city at the same time, but we lived on the same frickin’ street at the same time!  It was very weird.

We met-up with Miranda at 1:30pm and weren’t sure how the meeting was going to go. I mean, it’s the internet…her picture could have been taken 10 years ago.  She could have a beard.  She could be a man.  Heck…Sunshine and I could be completely fictitious, too. 

Just sayin’.

Anyway, it was 4:55pm when we finally realized that we needed to stop talking and continue on our journey.  Yeah, it was that good of a conversation.  We talked about everything…and Miranda sums it up quite nicely on her own blog. She’s awesome and, thankfully, has a great sense of humor…

QT_Pie1602 & Canadian Bald Guy: 04-03-10

Sunshine & I decided to drive around a bit more, maybe grab a bite to eat, maybe go for a walk and enjoy the weather, maybe try to figure out what to get for groceries tomorrow…

OMG…there’s NOTHING OPEN ON EASTER SUNDAY!!!

Yes, we had completely forgotten that everything was going to be closed on Easter Sunday so that all of our plans on shopping were completely thrown out the window.  The decision was immediately made to head back home and do as much running around as we possibly could do.

And that’s what we did.

It’s funny…the day didn’t exactly turned out the way we had planned it.  We still had an awesome time together (and with Miranda, as well), but thoughts of doing all of the “sight-seeing tourism” things that we wanted to do didn’t materialize.

So that left us with Sunday.  How would we spend the day?  Would the weather hold out?  Would our “staycation” end up being a 2-day affair?

Yes…I’m leaving you with a cliffhanger.  Heh.


My apologies…and a story!

First off…my apologies for not posting regularly this week or for reading/commenting on your blogs.  Between work and spending the rest of my time with the love of my life, spare time to properly blog just hasn’t been there.  I promise…I WILL catch-up on my reading very soon.

While I do have a bit of time at the moment, I’ll just tell you about our Canada Day celebrations yesterday/last night.

Y’see, I work for an American company and deal with American customers so I actually worked on this great Canadian holiday.  No worries, though…that just means I’ve got the Fourth of July extended weekend off…silly Canadian one-day-off-in-the-middle-of-the-week people!

Anyhoo…

Red Pepper - Moncton, NBAfter I got off of work I went home and Sunshine & I got ready to go out.  We hit one of my favorite little restaurants for a bite to eat.  It’s a Mongolian stir-fry place called The Red Pepper.  It was a great meal and we had some great conversation.  With a couple of hours to waste before the fireworks were to start, we made our way around the downtown area to take in the city celebrations.

First stop? A side street party that included a DJ playing 80′s and 90′s favorites like Sunglasses at Night and Rhythm is a Dancer.  And of course, there was the obligatory drunk dancers who not only didn’t care that it was daylight and that they were dancing around, but revelled in it.

You have GOT to keep your eye on the dude…

So then we made our way to the concert taking place in front of city hall.  It was definitely a fun time.  For all the people that were there, we really didn’t pay much attention to them.  How could we when there was a weird-looking deer statue to touch?

Touch my statue!

You know you wanna touch my statue...

So eventually the darkness came out (along with the mosquitos) and we sat along the waterfront with a few thousand of our closest friends to take in a pretty sweet fireworks display.

Sunshine was prepared, too…

Glow sticks!!

Glow sticks!!

Glow sticks in action

Glow sticks in action

As the fireworks began, I was prepared to use my amazingly awesome $60 refurbished camera to take some amazingly awesome fireworks pictures.  Unfortunately, my batteries died just as the show began.  Luckily, I got one amazingly awesome shot…

Trust me...it got a LOT better: 07-01-09

Trust me...it got a LOT better: 07-01-09

So once the show was over we made our way home.  And you know what?  When she’s here with me…it truly feels like home.

Life, my friends, is pretty awesome right now.

Two of a kind

Two of a kind


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