Caleb's Coastal Life: Talk of the Town

All grown up!

We officially have a 6 year old, and we spent the entire week celebrating how happy we are to have him in our lives. And it was a big, big week beginning on the Saturday before Cale's actual birthday. Our little town is one of many across Canada who have stepped up and formed a local committee to assist with the relocation of Syrian refugees. The town has been raising money, collecting donations and even renovated a beautiful old home and filled it with furniture and firewood in anticipation our new family's arrival. There has been a lot of discussion about refugees in our household because the house that has been purchased for the refugee family is directly across the street from us. This means, sometime in the coming weeks, we will be welcoming new neighbours who (hopefully) have a couple of children for my boys to play with.

Caleb, being the incredibly empathetic and generous little fella that he is, was quite concerned when he heard about why the family needed to leave their home country and how they would be arriving here with very little. He thought it was exciting that a local group had come together to help them settle into a new life in Canada, and he wanted to help out to. So the idea of a fundraiser was born - and after recruiting a couple of his friends, we held a 'Hot Chocolate and Cookie Cale' at the new outdoor skating rink in Annapolis Royal. Caleb personally began collecting money around our house (we have no more loose change anywhere!) and donated money he received as Christmas gifts and even the toonie left to him by the tooth fairy.

Caleb and his friends, the Froese sisters, were hoping to make 10 or 20$ from the sale, but after spreading the word around town, people came out in droves to support the cause. People donated cookies to sell, the local coffee roaster turned up with pots of coffee to share and even the fire department was out working late the previous night to flood the rink and make sure it was ready for the big event. I was utterly blow away by the support. The kids ended up making $769 in 2 hours, and the local paper was there to report on the event. The article captures the spirit of the day, and Caleb was delighted to be interviewed. His week continued to get better as his teacher read the article to his class and people commented to him that he was the 'talk of the town'! It was wonderful to feel we did a little something to contribute to this nation-wide effort, but the real work will begin once the family arrives and we are given the opportunity to be the best neighbours we can be in order to help the family settle into their new life in our community.

Here's the article link!

Photo by Annapolis County Spectator

And unbelievably, the birthday week fun was only beginning. On Caleb's request, we decided to head to Fredericton to celebrate with friends, family and most importantly COUSINS!! We spent 4 days and nights playing outside, watching Aly and Ava play basketball, seeing the new Star Wars in the theatre (!!) and squeezing in as much fun as we could. Here are some photos and our annual birthday interview!