Sonya's Blog - Day 103 - Visiting in Clare

Sonya's Blog - Day 103 - October 3rd - Visiting in Clare

So many relatives to see, so little time. We were not in too much of a hurry this morning because it was so chilly it was hard to get going. We did get the kids up at 8 and started them on homework (only later in the day did I realize it was Saturday - oops!). Once everyone in the house was up we went on over to say good morning. They cooked up a wonderful breakfast for us, which was really nice. I wanted to get some sheets washed as they have a nice big washer and dryer. Ours will wash the sheets, but it is so tight in the drum, they don't dry well.

For lunch we had Rapure (Rappie Pie), which is a traditional Acadian dish. There is a restaurant across the street that makes really good Rapure so we went over there and got some. Traditional Rapure is with chicken and potatoes. You use dry (all the water squeezed out), shredded potatoes, chicken and chicken stock. The potatoes are cooked for a long time and then you make a casserole of the potatoes and chicken and stock and cook it for a long time. The result is that the potatoes are really goopy. So it is a goopy potatoes and chicken dish. We also got a beef rapure to try. I have had Rapure before, but the kids have never had it. They thought it was okay and ate some, but it wasn't their favourite.

This whole area is called Clare and then there are individual towns in that area, like Belliveau Cove, Little Brook, Metaghan, etc.

It was then time to go off and do some visiting. I am going to do a little family tree for you, because it gets confusing. When people introduce themselves here, the refer to themselves by their family tree (the Acadian side). So Blake is Blake a Cathy (his mother) a Sara (his Grandmother). Pretty much everyone we are meeting comes from the same LeBlanc line, starting with Joseph (Cathy's Grandfather) and the children he had.

We went to visit Jocelyne first. She is Jean's daughter, who was Sarah's (Cathy's Mum) brother. She lives in the house that Tante Marguerite used to live in for the first years of her marriage and it is next door to the house that they all grew up in - Cathy's Mum Sarah and all her siblings (the homestead). Jocelyne is so friendly and welcomed us to her home. We took many pictures and had a look around. We then headed over to the homestead house which is where Hector now lives (Jocelyne's brother). This is also the house that Jocelyne was raised in with her mother and father and brothers. We had a good visit and got to see the houses that have been in the family for generations.

After we were done visiting we went back to Michel and Mariette's house. Michele was making a fish soup for supper, but he had put a pizza in the oven for the kids in case they didn't like the soup. Jocelyne also came over for supper so it was a good crowd. The soup was really good and we had a good meal. Natasha had pizza and soup. Isaac tried the soup, but preferred the pizza:)

After supper we went to visit Pierre, Aunt Marguerite's son. He lives in his mother's house, which is where we stayed for our last two visits to the Clare area. He lives with his girlfriend, Corinne and her grandson Tony. They have done a lot of changes to the house since we last visited so we had a tour around to see what the changes were and the next plans that they have for the house. When we were leaving Pierre gave us a gift of 3 jars of Strawberry freezer jam that Corinne had made - yummy! A great gift for when we are on the road!

If I have anything wrong with the spelling of names or who is who, it is all my fault. I tried my best.

We visited for the rest of the night. Blake set up our computer so that everyone could see our pictures on the TV. We went through so of our pictures on the computer that we had from before we left and during our trip.

Sonya