Vacation Photos, Part 3: The Lake

There was a big family reunion at Lake of the Woods this summer. Nine kids, ten adults, one camp and five days meant for tons of fun.


Here's the whole group: 3 grandmothers, 3 sons, 2 daughters, 3 wives, 1 husband, and 11 grandchildren. Phew!


The girls got to do some new things, like driving a boat and water skiing!



Don't they look great in those wet suits?


We think those kids had a good time, don't you?

Vacation Photos, Part 2: Old Friends and New

Aside from hanging with the cousins, we did manage to meet up with some old friends and their young children.

Lissa and Ken and almost-2 Ben have bought a house which we checked out, along with the Beaches Jazz Fest. Ben loves fans and has the cutest way of saying he wants to try something. Sarah and Alison mimicked his "Ben do?" line frequently.



Suzan and the Frasers (sounds like a band, doesn't it?) invited us to visit up in Muskoka. Emma and the babies (sounds like a band again - is this a theme?) were excellent hosts at Littlecroft and Rustle's girls had lots of fun. They also liked having a chance to play with Olive, since it had been over a week since they'd seen their own puppy.

Here's the group getting ready to take Olive for a walk:

Swimming from the dock:

The girls loved helping with the babies. Here's Sarah feeding Busy Miss Lizzie a bottle:

And the gorgeous, almost-2 Emma, showing us the way to the dock:

Vacation Photos, Part 1

We kicked off the vacation with a great visit with Gramma and Grampa, Sue, Alex and Mackenzie. The girls were busy running around with the cousins at Gramma's house, so much so that the only photo I got of them was a solo of Alison in the back yard. Hmph. I did get some beauties at Wasaga Beach, though.




Then we got to spend time with the other cousins at Mary and Ed's house. Lucas, Jack and Sam were lots of fun in the pool. As an added bonus, Nana and Papa were there too. Yay.

Tree Climbing

On our vacation, we have had lots of time to spend playing with the cousins. Here we are at Springwater Provincial Park, climbing one of the most interesting trees we have ever seen.




Rustle did not make the flight to Ontario. He is busy at his favourite doggy camp. He was so excited to go that he jumped out of the car window when we stopped across the street! We miss him, but we know he is enjoying himself.


EDIT: I mentioned how cool the tree was, but you can't see it in these pictures. Here's a shot of the amazing tree:

Badminton

While friends in the neighbourhood have outdoor pools and trampolines, our tiny backyard was sadly lacking in fun stuff for kids to do.

Not any longer!

We are now able to invite friends to play badminton in the backyard! Just as long as they don't hit the birdie too hard...

The Maiden Voyage of the Bob Special

We set out aboard the S.S. Bob Special for our first canoe trip in the mountains. It was a lovely summer day to launch Bob's birthday present from almost a year ago. We chose Gap Lake, near Exshaw, and it was great - little wind and beautiful scenery. Alison even took us for a solo tour of the calmer waters at one end of the lake, and Mom got out to take some pictures of Sarah and her dad paddling a resting Alison over to our picnic spot.

Retrospective

Looking back through some old photos, I found these gems of the beautiful girls...

Baby Sarah and friend (about 15 months)

Baby Alison (about 7 months)


Little Sarah at the beach (age 4)


Little Alison on her bike (age 2 1/2)


So very little and cute!

At the zoo

We took a little trip to the zoo last weekend (too rainy this weekend). The neat thing about having a zoo membership is that you can take time to explore different areas of the zoo.

This trip we explored the dinosaur park. Here are the girls hiding behind some hoodoos.

Soccer Season 2007

It has been a wild soccer season this year. Four nights a week at the soccer pitch, except in the snow or rain, the girls have been having a ton of fun playing soccer. Soccer mom has produced a video to celebrate the fun it has been.



I didn't notice until I was putting this together that Sarah on the Maroon Under 10 team was playing yellow, while Alison, on the Yellow Under 8 team was playing maroon. Funny little coincidence.

Trapped!

For Rustle's fans, and you know who you are, Jack and Sam and Gramma, here's a short video of the puppy trapped in a room. He really wants to get out there and greet the girls' visitor, but she's afraid of big dogs, so he has to stay put. It's all very sad. If you are Rustle, that is.