Mystery

What are these crazy kids doing?

Mud in the Desert

Somehow, in the desert wasteland of my backyard (we've had about 1/4" of rain in the last month) my boys found MUD.  Boys will be boys, I guess.  Hard to know if I should get them in trouble for their mess-making skills or laugh at their creativity.  In any case, I think they had a lot of fun!  Nothing that a sprinkler can't fix, especially on such a hot day.  When I checked the weather at 3, it said it was 35 but with the humidex it feels like 47.  I was expecting to see my dear hubby home a little early today because of the heat - he's going to be toast (almost literally) after a hot, hot day of framing. 

The guilty culprits

 I don't think he can claim innocence

 Another face full of evidence

 Cooling off and cleaning up!

A Week at Grundy

We returned home on Friday evening from a week camping at Grundy Lake with friends of ours.  We had absolutely lovely weather - a bit cooler than the scorcher days at home, (almost) no rain, and nice cool nights for sleeping.  The kids were big fans of camping and were quite upset at the idea of going home - I think they wanted to camp forever.  Unfortunately for them, camping forever is not an option.  We did some hiking, canoeing, fishing, crayfish hunting, biking, swimming at the beach, and of course campfires. 

The boys love to help their Daddy out with work around the campsite. 

Peter practices his firewood stacking

The kids all had fun playing together.  Both of our sites were quite grassy, with an area of sand which was perfect for the kids to play in.  The sand pits kept them happily occupied for hours!

Our section of the campground was quite empty, which was also great for the kids.  They had the freedom to go back and forth between our campsites without worrying too much about traffic, taking turns pushing each other in the wagon or riding their bikes. 

This picture is a little out of focus, but I think it's hilarious.  

He's got such a weird, crazed happy look on his face

 The kids on one of our hikes

 Family picture time

Peter and Aaron took turns being the leader, looking for the little yellow dots or arrows marking the path.  Nate for the most part was quite stubbornly independent, telling us to "go away" if we tried to hold his hand through the more difficult parts of the path.   

 Stopping for a quick snack break

 Aunt Dell came up from Wednesday to Thursday morning, and we managed to pack a good Grundy day in with some hiking, biking, swimming, and a campfire. 

 We did some crayfish hunting, which Aaron was particularly fond of.  He was so excited to try to catch them, but yet so upset when they got away! 

 All the boys in the creek searching for critters

 Somehow this little guy didn't fall in

 I think we might see this picture down the road a few years in a wedding slideshow perhaps?  Haha!  He was not very pleased when the crayfish pinched him

  But he quickly forgot he was angry at the little critter

 When we got back to the campsite, Mike boiled one crayfish and ate parts of it, like a mini lobster

Peter was surprisingly pleased to have the empty crayfish head on his finger

We brought about a dozen of them back to the campsite, and this Rubbermaid bin served as a temporary aquarium, very popular with the kids

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Altogether, we had a great, relaxing week.  It was good to spend some time together as a family and to enjoy the great outdoors.  Goodbye, Grundy!  See you again sometime!

Fireworks!

Last night we took the kids for their first-ever fireworks display!  My family came over for the evening, and when dusk approached we drove to a nearby park and from there walked to Port to watch the Canada Day fireworks from the beach.  It started at 10 pm, which was a little late for them, but they had all had a nap in the afternoon and were excited to see the "firebombs".  I had to wake them all up this morning in order to get to VBS on time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Airshow

At the end of last week, I brought the boys to Hamilton to stay with Mom and Dad M so I could help Mike with his report cards and some year-end cleaning up and organizing in his classroom.  Thursday night I joined some other ladies in a workshop Mom was hosting, building easels and creating living artwork.  Lots of fun!  I like how it turned out and I think it makes a unique focal point in its new home in our garden.  

As a bonus, the Hamilton Airshow was taking place on the weekend, and the planes were out practicing on Thursday and Friday.  The boys definitely enjoyed watching and we all appreciated seeing some spectacular aeronautical displays!  We discovered that the trick to encouraging more airplane action over the house was to send someone inside to get drinks or answer the phone or something.  As soon as someone went inside, planes would fly over the house.  Here, Peter is getting personal airplane identification lessons from Opa the day before the show.  Dad worked as a marshall at the airport for the actual airshow on Saturday, one of his duties as a volunteer at the museum there.  

Getting botany lessons from Oma.  He is constantly impressing us with his perception and memory - he'll make a good biologist some day.  The other day he saw an overhead screen and the background image was a faded photo of a locust tree.  He pointed that out as being the same kind of tree that we have in our front yard.  I certainly didn't notice it before he pointed it out. 

I believe this is FiFi, a Boeing B29 Superfortress, but I could be wrong.  Actually I'm probably wrong about most of the following airplane identifications, but I'm sure Opa can help me out with some of the names?  Opa? 

Harvards doing some formation flying - got to love the sound of those engines!

The Snowbirds in action, what an absolute treat to watch them fly

The DC-3 on the left, and the Canso on the right

It was hard to catch a photo of this one, the CF-18 Hornet

Mom and Dad's Visit

Mom and Dad VD brought their RV to the Niagara region for a few days last week, and we enjoyed spending some time with them.  Wednesday evening we went to the beach for a walk and to watch the rain clouds roll in across the lake. 

On Thursday evening, we headed out to Mom and Dad's RV and enjoyed dinner and a campfire there.  The two older boys were very excited to sleep over in the RV, although they were a little disappointed that Grandpa wasn't going to drive it somewhere once they were tucked into bed. 

Breakfast in the morning

The next morning we all headed out to Safari Niagara to enjoy the animals for the day.  What a lot of fun!  The big cats were not as active as when we visited on a cooler day last fall, but the monkeys gave us a good show!  We first heard them hooting when we were in a wooded area, and Grandma told Aaron that the noise was a boy getting squished.  He spent the rest of the day trying to find the elusive "boy who is getting squished" and at the end of the day declared it to be his favourite animal. 

Conquering the fireman pole!

Those little boys were having so much fun "hanging around" 

that Daddy just had to join them!

Cooling off in the pool when we got back home.  After dinner we brought out the bikes and went for a 14 km ride down some of the trails close to our house.  We were all pretty tired by the end of the day, but we had an enjoyable time together, and it was really good to spend some time with Mom and Dad.