Yesterday afternoon, my daughters and I watched Anne of Green Gables for the first time together. I had checked out a stack of movies from the library because I’m trying to make more of an effort to tear myself away from books and watch movies with my family.

It was so exciting to watch their faces as they were introduced to Anne Shirley (with an “e” of course). We have the book, and I tried reading it out loud a few years ago, but I remember one of the babies kept crawling all over me and being noisy, so we gave it up. This movie complements the book so well.

It was fun telling the girls later that their Daddy and I have actually BEEN to Green Gables. It’s a real place, in the city of Cavendish, Prince Edward Island. My husband and I traveled there together, in those long ago days BC (Before Children.) We visited during the month of August, and the beaches were gorgeous.

The night before we visited Green Gables, we camped out in Cavendish. I remember I was so excited I couldn’t sleep a wink. The next day, I felt like I’d stepped right into the storybook when we drove up to the house. This was the former home of some relatives of author Lucy Maud Montgomery, where she spent many happy years of her childhood. She loved it so much that she was inspired to write a novel about it, Anne of Green Gables.

I remember going to the post office there to send myself a postcard so that it would have the postmark of Green Gables. It was truly a magical place, the whole island was. We even had dinner one night at a restaurant at the base of a lighthouse.

I hope to take our children there someday — we may need to buy a bigger tent between now and then if we hope to camp there together! If you’ve never ventured to Prince Edward Island, I highly recommend it.

According to the PEI official tourism website:

Prince Edward Island is Canada’s smallest and greenest province. Cradled on the waves of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Island is known for the vivid colours of its gently rolling landscape.

Prince Edward Island is surrounded by miles of sandy beaches and red sandstone cliffs and is sized just right for touring. Visitors to the Island return home not only relaxed and refreshed – they often claim to have been transformed, which leads us to wonder “What if the World Had Been to Prince Edward Island?”

My parents visited PEI in the winter one year, and the waves in the ocean were frozen! OK, I can’t write about this anymore because I want to jump on a plane and go back — RIGHT NOW.