Cottage country, Canada July 2010

I have been away from most Internet connections for a month now, so I apologise to my loyal five readers for my lack of posts. Not saying this one will make up for the break, however, I am uploading photos as I type! If I am so inspired, I may even add my "oh so witty captions" (that you would have already read if you are on FB).



Let's see... the beginning. Ahhh, yes. The first few days it was just our crew and my parents and my mom's brother, Calvin and his wife, Darlene. Many evenings of cards and days on the beach. Sophia had a hard time exchanging her Knitting Dresses for a bathing suit (even though the one I found for her is UBER DUPER CUTE). Dylan would walk around the shore in an inner tube, parking it on the beach and then re-launching it. He only dunked his head once under water the whole trip, and lets just say it was a shock to us all (and quite accidental). Note to self, Dylan, when submerged under water, stand up immediately and close your mouth and eyes while under water. Talk about a scare!



Ainley and her crew arrived next and we all went up to Cooks Creek for Sophie and Peter Oleksuk's internment. The mosquitoes were TERRIBLE the first couple weeks and were unfortunate to be present for the internment. Shed some tears, shared some memories and took comfort in family.



The rest of the vacation was at the cottage with brief trips back to Selkirk every week for mad laundry loads, gardening duties (mmm, raspberries, carrots, beans, lettuce, broccoli, cucumbers...) The monsoon from the previous months were hard on the garden and Tomatoes and potatoes are not coming up.

The first couple weeks were pretty rough on Dylan - poor little guy was eaten to bits by mosquitoes - literally head to toe. luckily after that there was a mysterious fish fly invasion for a couple nights and then the mosquitoes were quite tolerable (so long as you stayed out of the trees and shade which my dear Dylan seemed strangely attracted to...)

The boys next door - Carson and Chase were a big hit with all the kids. Carson was especially nice and looked out for the younger ones and tried to include them in their games. Sophia and Dylan are still asking for the boys.

Most of the fun for Dylan involved running up and down the beach (about a million times) sometimes with a truck and sometimes without. The winds picked up the last couple days and he was very entertaining with his crazy dance on the beach. Sophia remained more of a land lover most of the time, however, turned around the last week and became are real water baby. Now she keeps looking for chances to dunk her head in the water and practices every night at bath.

The last couple weeks my back started acting up and would go from intolerable pain to tolerable. My stroller tire was going flat everyday, so that had me worried for my trip home and changing planes on my own with the kids. Luckily the pain bounced back to tolerable the day of travel and my new tire arrived two days before departure. I have to say I was NOT happy with Delta in my travels as the flight crew were pretty rude and snooty as well as completely unhelpful at the terminal where I had to change planes. Was not too pleased either to find that the two bags that I paid $50 for as checked luggage AND both car seats did NOT come home with us. After running with four carry-ons, two kids packed in a stroller whose wheel was not properly inflated and was bulging at the side and all wobbly to catch my connection we sat on the plane at the gate for at least 40 minutes and the bags STILL didn't make it??!! grrr. It had been a good 3 hours or so since we could last use the bathroom and Sophia had to go pretty bad after getting on the plane. The flight attendant was so rude in our exchange to let her use the bathroom. Made it sound like we were going to be causing the plane to me late to depart. Well, Sophia got her poop out in record speed and then we sat on at the gate for that 40+ minutes. grrrr. anyway, not a great return story, however a good vacation was had. Gains: S&D were sleeping later in the morning (yay me), they learned how fun it is to play with others and each other and they got more used to and started ENJOYING the water. yippy! Now, enjoy some photos!