Thanksgiving Weekend

Saturday started off with Mark's hockey game which was edge of your seat excitement. It ended up being a tie game...the ref blew the whistle to end the game at exactly 10:30am with 52 seconds left on the clock, Mark standing right in front of the net and the puck coming right at him. He threw his arms up in disbelief and shook his head a number of times. He would have broken the tie I'm sure. The coach is very proud of him. He has himself a nickname now "Wheels" because he's pretty fast on his skates. After the game we headed to the trailer and enjoyed very, very warm weather.

• Jade just loves her Grandpa. After pushing her on the swing for hours, he listened to her read Dr. Seuss books to him. Jade's teacher's favourite author is Dr. Seuss so Jade has been reading all of our books again. She picked 10 of them to put in her backpack to take to the trailer. Do you know how heavy 10 Dr. Seuss books are?!?!

• On Thanksgiving weekend 2 years ago I didn't go with Mike and the kids up north because my cousin was getting married. Because the mean ol' mom was away, fun loving dad bought a pellet gun. It's really not dangerous, but a gun is a gun, right? So, you will find me nowhere near this when they pull it out to shoot at empty cans.
  
  

• We all went for a long hike in the woods. Jade found a grasshopper and put him in a jar and we all had to take turns carrying him. Jade also lost a tooth while we were away. She was quite shocked that the tooth fairy left Canadian money because we were in the states.
  
  

• Mark wanted some exercise, so we let him run behind the truck! I took this shot from inside the truck with the back opened. Jade and I were cheering him on and he did run a lot farther than I ever dreamed he would....and farther than I ever could run!

• Sometimes it's fun to light the fire the old fashioned way with a stone and a flint.

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving.

Camping in the Rain

We are smart people....we knew it was going to rain, but that didn't stop us and our friends from dragging the trailers out for one last weekend of camping. Mike built a shelter out of tarps and we sat under it with our Smirnoffs and our snacks and had probably one of our nicest camping days ever. All of us adults felt zero guilt for just sitting around...I mean, what else could we do right? We gabbed and laughed for 10 hours straight!!



The 5 kids didn't let the rain stop them either. They were soaked to the skin and filthy from the mud but they were having way too much fun playing in the rain to make them stop.

Our perfect little sheltered area was starting to flood so these 3 beautiful engineers dug a trench to keep us dry.

Somehow Mike kept the fire going all day. Even in downpours the fire never sizzled out. For being such a crappy day everything couldn't have been more perfect.

Pinery

We had some company while we were camping in August. Grandma and Grandpa came out for a day and we took the kids fishing. I think Grandpa enjoyed fishing just as much or more than the kids did.




Grandma and I supervised.

Jade caught a little guy.

Our neighbours came out for a bbq and some s'mores. We tried them with Reece's peanut butter cups and Caramilk bars as well as just plain old chocolate. The peanut butter ones were soooo good.

Our campsite during the second week was right along the river so we always had the canoe ready to go. After dinner Mike and the kids would go for a boat ride. I took them once by myself and after we got the hang of going straight down the river instead of zigzagging from shore to shore it was quite relaxing and fun. I told the kids I would do this more often it was so enjoyable. When we turned around to come back we really had to fight the wind and my tune changed...I was never doing this again!

Jeff, Tammy and Craig tried out camping in their new monster size tent. They had so much fun they stayed for an extra night.

Mark had a friend come out for a visit too. Mike dragged them on this nature trail. He said they complained the whole entire walk! It probably didn't help that Mike told them it was a 6km trail when it really wasn't!

Camping Pics

Because Mike can't take time off work we usually go camping on the weekends. We decided this year to camp for 2 weeks in our favourite park which is only an hour away and Mike would drive back and forth everyday. We survived it....but 2 weeks may have been a tad too long! The first week Ron and Pam decided to do the same thing so Pam and I hung out with all the kids for 3 days.

We have to drive to the beach so all the kids piled in the back of Pam's truck and they sang the Kid Rock song "All Summer Long" at the top of their lungs.


I think Lake Huron has the most beautiful beaches. Forts were made and were the envy of other beachers near us.

I ♥love♥ how all three girls are posin' in this picture!

These are all pictures that Pam emailed to me. I forgot my camera that day...bad blogger...*slap*

Camping Again...

Tis the season where the majority of tales will revolve around camping! After fishing with nets last weekend, Mark wanted to fish with a rod and worms. We found a quiet spot and spent a couple of hours catching and releasing fish. Well, they did....I brought a chair and a book and yelled out "Good for you" or "Nice one" at appropriate times!



There were some pretty big snapping turtles in this fishing spot. They are so ugly! They even had fungus growing on their tails and shells. So gross. No one was allowed to stand in the water to fish with nets here!

Later, we caught this monster!!

Karen and Ed pitched their tent and stayed the night. Good times as always!

• Before we left to come home on Sunday Mike was chasing the kids with a green pinecone that looked like a huge caterpillar. Mark was trying to get away from him and ran right into a tree. He had a huge goose egg on his forehead. Thankfully he's alright. All that is left now is a small bruise there and one on his cheek.
• Jade asked me to find her a school that was open for the summer. She cannot believe that there isn't one!! We signed her up for a day camp the first week of summer and she is ok with that! She isn't even nervous about taking the city bus to get there!! I'm more nervous than she is...
• We have had so many severe thunderstorms here in the last week or so. The weather is really, really wierd.

Mike bought a new toy for our camping trips. A canoe. We took it for its first trip on Saturday afternoon. A couple of times I was sure the thing was going to tip over....but it didn't! It was a really nice ride.

Later in the afternoon Ron and Pam came out for a visit and to drop off Emily who camped with us overnight. She had a blast, saying we should do this more often :)
Emily has the funniest personality. She had us all laughing as we sat around the fire roasting marshmallows.

The kids were wishing on the first star they saw and Mark's wish was that he turned purple (I don't know why he wished this!) So we all pointed at him laughing and telling him he turned purple! Here is the picture to proove it:

Two friends ready for bed.

There is a store in the park which my kids have renamed "the candy store". Mike and the kids rode their bikes there on Sunday while I packed up to go home. Emily's dad gave her $5, her grandma gave her $3 plus she had some other money to spend and it was burning a hole in her pocket. She spent all of it! She did buy the cutest little stuffed chipmunk so it didn't all get blown on candy!

Beach Day in April

On April 18, while I was spending $$$ in the Toronto Eaton Center, Mike and the kids were at the beach! The temperature was 80 and, although the water was cold, the sand was perfect.






This is my kind of day. I can't wait to spend time on the beach. We are going to be at this beach for 2 full weeks this summer. We have never camped for 2 full weeks and we are all very excited about it.

By the way, shopping in Toronto is also my kind of day...