Ever After...

Deep down I think we all love a Royal Wedding.   I remember watching with wide eyes and anticipation as Charles and Diana were married.   Diana's pouffy dress with the longest train that I had ever seen.  Prince Charming waiting at the end of  the aisle waiting to sweep her from her life as a preschool teacher into a Royal Fairytale of  ever after.   We couldn't get enough pictures of them and how we longed for them to be the happily ever after that we all wanted them to be.   We all know how that story ended.  
  To celebrate the Royal Wedding of Kate and William Nate and Paige's school is celebrating the nuptials by dressing up and wearing suits and fascinators.  We went out last night and found Nathan a suit and I made Paige a fascinator to wear with her fancy shmancy dress got at Frenchy's.  Nathan and I hit the suit rack at our favorite French boutique at supper time and found him a suit and a shirt and tie.  We stopped at the dollarama and found all of the fixings to make Paige her hat.   Nathan rarely likes to dress up but the thought that he wanted to wear a suit and celebrate the royal nuptials in this way encouraged no hesitation on my part to open the pocketbook to invest thirty dollars on wedding attire for a 10 year old.  I may have to wait til his wedding for him to wear another one.   Paige always wants to wear fancy dresses and mostly she wants to wear them places and at times that are not appropriate but after four children and realizing that the clothes they wear and where they wear it is not an issue of eternity I tend to just let it ride.   

     We realize that their excitement of this marriage is the excitement of the "ever after" fairytale that is now real life for them.  All the Disney movies of princes and princesses that told a story of everlasting love and happily ever after is now real with a future King and his future Queen.  

 

     This is probably the 10th time we have headed for the second hand store to find costumes for the kids for different events for school.   Anti bullying, Halloween, breast cancer awareness, school spirit day, Christmas, St. Paddy's day, and so on and I don't want to even add up what it has cost us.    Those are all great celebrations and causes but there is something about a wedding.  TRUE LOVE for EVER AFTER.   What can be a better celebration than that?   Unfortunately for so many (Statistically over 50%)  love is not ever after and forever.  For Charles and Diana it ended before it even began.  Affairs, betrayal and hurt were a part of their life together before it even began.   Our children's classes are full of families who are broken and some try to put the pieces back together but there are few that have the Happily Ever After.   Some Have the Ever After minus the happily, others happily don't have the ever after.   Let's Celebrate True Love and Ever After.  We need help our children know they can have their Prince Charming and True Love and they can have it forever.   The Prince may be an IT professional and the castle may be a hundred year old farm house but true love still exits for ever after.  Today is not just a celebration of Royalty and Pomp and Circumstance, it is one of hope for a future.  There is no better celebration!  Today I celebrate that I found my Prince Charming and he found his Princess.  Our Children celebrate the hope to find their TRUE LOVE 

Winter's woes are washed away

  Spring has definitely sprung in the maritimes.   There is such excitement surrounding the first signs of new life and as we transition from our cool winter into the warmer months.  For the Bickford household, spring means the bikes come out and the children ride circles around our driveway for hours on end.   Our driveway has had no snow on it for awhile.  I should rephrase that.  Had no snow for almost a month until our April Fool's Day snowstorm brought us more than we ever needed.  It also means skateboards and helmets ( Mark has already had a concussion this year).  Soccer balls, footballs, tennis balls, basketballs and all the ball that the dogs buried last year are starting to appear.  Jump ropes, hoolahoops and chalk have made their way out already.  I think after the long winter months we are so desperate to change gears, open up the windows and breathe the sun in.  This past weekend was our spring in so many ways. 
   We had the privilege to go to my cousin's wedding in Beaupre,Quebec.   We shared the car ride with my parents and their Chinese girls.  Another blog, but long story short they are doing their masters at Acadia mom and dad met them in the fall on the street and now they are family.  Our family is smitten with them.  And now as I write this I am not sure we are going to see them before they go back to China so I will save the tears for after I write.  
    We were not totally sure that we were going to make it to Quebec last weekend.  Jason  is crazy busy with work, We just spent 5K we didn't have on a bathroom reno that we really couldn't afford but couldnt' afford  not to.   We decided that after this long and somewhat stressful winter, we were going to make it a priority to go and we are so beyond glad that we did. 
     Eight and a half hours of driving is a lot in one day and it is a lot with your family in the same vehicle but it was fantastic.  Such a nice time to catch up with what is going on in the "adult world" because when I am talking to my mom it is mostly about who threw up, which one of the kids had a bad attitude, and how exhausted I am with dealing with them.  8.5 hours of adult conversation.  Amazing.  Can't remember when the last time that I had that long of a stretch.   I had been to Quebec when I was younger but other than that the only part of the province that I have seen was inside the Montreal airport.   Quebec is beautiful and we always say that we live in one of the most beautiful places in the world here but it is so amazing to find see that the creator spread the beauty around.   Wedding events didn't really start until Saturday night so Jason and I went out to supper on our own to a place we found on the GPS.  Turned out to be a fantastic local spot and most people spoke some English we had found but not there.  Jason had ordered Poulet...and ended up with poutine but it was the best poutine he had ever had.   I think he may need to dig out that bilingual certificate he got a few years ago. 
   Saturday morning entailed a breakfast with family at the inn and then we were off to explore Quebec City with Mom and Dad and our Chinese girls Natasha and Lauren.  What a day!   Jason and I love to remember walking the cobblestone streets in Vilnius when we were there and feeling like we were a part of the history as we strolled through Old Town.  Quebec City was the same for us.  There is so much beauty and history in Old Quebec and we loved every moment of it.  In China it is a tradition to walk arm in arm so for a lot of our probably 8 km stroll, we did just that.  Jason informed me later he was a little worried that the girls would try to walk arm and arm with him.  Funny boy :)   The girls are sushi crazed so Lauren popped in a sushi spot and brought out the best sushi we have ever had.  Really.  Yummo!   Sushi was what stayed down when I was pregnant with Paige.  Couldn't handle eating much else but spent every last grocery dollar on fresh sushi for weeks on end.  So... I do know a little about it and go figure Paige loves it!   We had sun, warm, family and friends.  We couldn't ask for anything more but the day wasn't over.  We still had the wedding!  The wedding Inn was right on a river with a large deck that was just a couple of meters away from the gorgeous water and it was warm enough to have the wedding outside...In April.  Love was all around and so was the unity of the two families.  Two different provinces, different languages, but a shared love and joy.  We danced the night away...and then off to bed for a long drive home in the morning.
    We really decided to treat the weekend like a getaway because who knew when we would get another one alone.  We used our handy GPS and found a quaint and very old Inn to have our breakfast Sunday morning while my parents went to mass.  We checked it out the day before but didn't go inside the dining room.   We love history and things of old so this was right up our alley.   The inn was probably 200 years old with exposed beams and stone walls.  Tables for two with white linens.  Everything was perfect.  The meal, the company, the conversation and the atmosphere.  Such a wonderful way to end our getaway.  I say end, but for us it was the beginning of our spring.  We paid more for that breakfast than any meal we have eaten out in the last few months but it was memorable and it was our time together.  It was almost as though time stopped for us for that weekend.  No projects, no kids, no fighting, no schedule.  The weekend was the beginning of our spring and we said goodbye to the winter.  I think that our marriages go through an ebb and flow  and we experience the seasons cyclically in our marriage relationship.  Sometimes summer comes early, as in the birth of your child, or winter comes too quickly and stays beyond it's welcome with financial struggles or the loss of a loved one.   Our winter was long but spring has sprung and I hear it beckoning Summer to come to us soon.  Oh how I love Spring...
   
                   And Spring arose on the garden fair,
                   Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
                   Each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
                   rose from the dreams of it's wintry rest.
                  ~Percy Bysshe Shelley~
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