Pay It Forward: A Week in Review

Hello again!

What a week we've had! As promised, here's a recap of what we did to celebrate our 'Pay It Forward Week'. This week has shown us how simple Paying It Forward can be and that random acts of kindness can and should be done more often. What a world this would be if everyone joined the Pay It Forward bandwagon! We will now challenge ourselves to continue this trend - we hope you will do the same too!

For our first 'Pay it Forward', we decided to recognize a couple of the incredible Bed and Breakfasts we've stayed at during our travels over the past few years. In particular, we wanted to acknowledge the 'Hollywood Bed and Breakfast' in Hollywood, California, and 'Bed, Books and Breakfast' in Stavanger, Norway. These friendly B&B's helped make our vacations more enjoyable and our experiences more unique, so we wanted others to know about them! For that reason, we wrote complementary reviews on Trip Advisor with the hopes that other travelers would stumble across them during their trip planning and visit them in the future. This was an easy gesture on our part, but we know that in a competitive hospitality market, a good word or recommendation makes the world of difference. Hopefully our reviews prove helpful to others and bring business to two B&Bs that are truly one of a kind!

Next, we thought it would be fitting to donate school supplies seeing as it's back to school time. We found the Caring and Sharing Exchange program which "is a local charity that provides assistance to Ottawa families and individuals in need, during the Christmas season and the back-to-school season". Upon doing some research, we found that there was a drop box for supplies at our local library. Since we are no longer in school and no longer make the back to school supplies trip, we had fun going up and down the aisles picking out items that we know will be well used. Going to school was always something we enjoyed; knowing that we will be providing a child with the necessary tools to succeed and will potentially help them enjoy school like we did, warms our hearts :)

 

Mid-week, we thought we'd incorporate our love for baking into our Pay It Forward Week. We pulled out our favourite no-fail chocolate chip cookie recipe and went to work! It wasn't hard to decide who we wanted to reward with these delicious treats. Every morning when we walk into work, we receive a warm greeting from the Commissionaires (Security Guards). We always show them our ID pass, say hello and wish them a nice day. This morning though, we thought we'd give them a little bit more. We handed them a bag of cookies to enjoy and help make their day a little bit 'sweeter'. We don't know that many people stop to acknowledge them in the busy-ness of the day, so we hope that this small gesture brightened their day and made them feel appreciated.

 

To continue with our Drive to 25's reading and books dimension, we decided to buy two Chapter's gift cards and pass them along to two un-expecting people. Just like it's a surprise when you find money in your pocket, it would have been a big surprise for our Librarians when they opened the drop off box to our two gift cards. We could have given the cards in person, but this way the act was anonymous and would have come as a surprise. As we frequent the library often, we know that the ladies there work hard and have a love for books. We hope that they were excited to receive something special in the drop box and, who knows, maybe they will be inspired by this act and pay it forward too.

 

 

Finally, to close off Pay It Forward Week, we thought we'd donate to a cause close to us, our Reading Room fundraising campaign with Room to Read. This is a global Pay It Forward initiative that we are proud to be a part of. Although it is hard work to fundraise and to commit to making a difference globally, in the end, knowing that hundreds of children will benefit from a new Reading Room and will be able to share in our love of reading, makes everything worthwhile. By both donating to our campaign, we are making strides to our final goal of $5000.

 

Although these are the main Pay It Forward events we initiated this week, we did our best to go that extra mile to smile at strangers, hold the door open longer, and to inquire about someone's day. What we didn't realize was that at the same time, we would also be receivers of generosity this week. When we stopped to think about our days, we noticed that kindness was all around us - we just needed to take a moment to reflect and take it all in. From getting the brake light fixed on our car for free, having a co-worker ask to help with a busy workload, to having someone unexpectedly buy one of us a muffin - everyday was and is filled with its own special moments that can make you smile. And that's exactly what this week was all about!

 

We hope our Pay It Forward Week has inspired you to take the extra effort to make a difference. The feeling is contagious and we know that we will continue to act on and look for Pay It Forward moments every day.

 

“Together we can change the world, one good deed at a time.”

 

 Melissa and Laura

 

 

 

Pay-It-Forward Week!

Hello everyone!

"Don't wait for people to be friendly, show them how." - Author Unknown

 

We've decided to deem this week 'Pay-It-Forward Week' and are very excited to get started! The whole idea began after reading a friend's Facebook post. Five years ago she lost her son, Mark, to HCM, a heart condition, at the age of 18. Tomorrow, August 19th, is the anniversary of his passing, and because 'Pay It Forward' was one of his favourite movies, she is asking that her friends and family take a moment to honour Mark by 'paying it forward'. Mark was a very close childhood friend of our brother's and we have some very fond memories with him as well, such as playing basketball boys vs. girls and always losing! Her Facebook post really hit home and we knew we wanted to do something.  

So, we started by thinking... what one thing could we do, but since we easily came up with quite a few ideas, we thought we needed to devote an entire week (or maybe more?!) to Paying it Forward. A big part of our 'Drive to 25' has been giving back and thinking of others - 'Pay-It-Forward Week' is another chance for us to keep this going! We have some things planned that we're looking forward to!

Check back at the end of the week to hear all about our experiences. We can't wait to get this week started - there's just something about knowing you might make someone smile that puts that extra bounce in your step!

Hopefully this may spark you to have your own 'Pay It Forward' moment this week, whether it be in honour of Mark or someone else that's close to you. Old or young, big or small, it doesn't take much to make a difference! You never know how far a simple compliment can go!

"You may be only one person in this world, but to one person at one time, you are the world." -Anonymous

Whale Watching - A Lesson on Conquering Fears

Hi everyone!

Well - we did it!!! We're back from our mini vacation to St. Andrews, New Brunswick and can officially check 'whale watching' off of our bucket list!!

Despite the horrible weather and the VERY long drive (11 hours there and 11 hours back!!), the trip, as a whole, was fabulous! St. Andrews is such a cute, quaint town right on the beautiful Bay of Fundy. We stayed at an amazing bed and breakfast which we would HIGHLY recommend - the Montague Rose B&B. Joe and Rose-Anne are wonderful hosts and are definitely fabulous cooks! The breakfast was truly one of a kind and we enjoyed relaxing in the morning chatting with the other guests. Their home, built in 1859, is incredible!

 

There's so much history in St. Andrews and we had fun just walking around looking at all the old, well-kept homes. It's neat to imagine what life would have been like in this town more than 100 years ago! It was nice to shop along the main street, walk along the beautiful coastline, and enjoy a cup of tea at the local Honeybeans coffee shop! We were also super happy that our grandparents from Moncton met us for lunch one day at the famous Kingsbrae Gardens! All in all, we packed a lot into our short trip to St. Andrews, but there's still more we wish we could have done!

But...now for the main reason for our trip - WHALE WATCHING! St. Andrews is famous for it's whale watching and there are several companies that operate in the town. We chose Fundy Tide Runners as it had been featured on the Rick Mercer Report - so, we figured it must be good!!

 

 

 



Our boat

Before leaving, we put on these massive fluorescent orange safety floatation suits and headed out to the boat. The boat was actually quite small - for someone who was really scared to go whale watching, this boat was a little small for my liking, but there was no turning back at this point!! There were 12 passengers along with Captain Dave. Since my Dad's name is Dave, I figured I should be able to trust him! We lucked out and got to sit in the only two seats at the very front of the boat (I say lucked out now, but at the time I wasn't so sure).

As we sped off further and further into open water, the nerves really set in - whales could be anywhere around us!! ahhh.... Our Captain said that we would see Minke whales which are a smaller species, and hoped that we would catch a sighting of a Finback, the second largest whale after the blue whale. We eventually slowed down and started keeping our eyes peeled for whale sightings. What happens next, I will never forget. Right in front of us, maybe 50 feet, a FINBACK WHALE RISES TO THE SURFACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I screamed and grabbed Laura, this was quite the introduction to our whale watching adventure! We continued to spot the finback throughout the rest of the journey. It was actually very neat to see it come to the surface to breathe - you could really hear the blow and see the spout of water. Our Captain said he believes the whale was about 50 feet long and weighed about 50 tonnes! MASSIVE!
 

Finback rising to the surface

In a distance - clear sighting of the 'fin back'

Going to lunge feed - turning on it's side

Side of it's tail as it dives back into the water

  

The other whale we got to see was the Minke, which looked kind of like a dolphin as it is quite small. There were quite a few Minkes out on the water and they were easier to spot as they rise to the surface much more frequently than the Finback. We also saw a lot of bald eagles and a ton of seals - it was definitely an aquatic wildlife adventure. 

Beautiful out on the water - you can see the incoming storm

Bald eagle flying away

 

Even though our trip was cut short by a few minutes because of an incoming storm (we never escaped the rain the entire weekend!), we saw so much!! Thank you, Fundy Tide Runners for such a memorable evening! It was truly incredible and although I can't say that I no longer have a fear of whales, I am definitely happy that I pushed myself to do this!! It was really an awesome experience, a real sight to see, and something everyone should try! If I can do it, you can too!

A rainbow after our adventure
 

 All in all, an absolutely awesome mini-holiday! We can't say enough about our wonderful hospitality, the charm of St. Andrews, the excitement of whale watching, and the beauty of the Bay of Fundy.

Here's to challenging yourself and conquering fears!!

Melissa and Laura

**The photos are ok, but since you can't predict when the whale will surface, it's hard to get the 'perfect' shot. It's more about the experience than capturing the Kodak moment!