Adventurous, crazy, exhausting, and unforgetable; are just a few words to really describe our last two weekends. I am sure there are other words but FUN is how Mark describes them the best. Two weeks ago was the "Run, Walk, Bike" fundraiser for the local camp that our church here supports and that Ray and family have spent years being involved in some way or other. Ray biked the 70 kms about 10 years ago and had planned on being involved again when we first started talking about moving here. 70kms is out of the question for me to bike but Ray and his Dad were up to the challenge. Dad had a lot more time on his hands to train for this but thankfully took his time and biked along with Ray who did amazingly well for having little training in such long distances. There rest of us family members who participated knew what we could handle with kids along for the ride, and choose the 5km walk. Although most of us could have easily walked the 10 km (meant for runners) the kids would prefer the 5km.
Mark and his cousin walked almost 1/2 of it anyways so it was a good thing we were on the shorter one. The younger kiddo's in the strollers were not so sure of the whole thing as one made his voice known, the other crashed to sleep. Mark followed suit just before returning to camp the walk exhausted him and he also fell asleep in the stoller for a quick lights out. Leaving an hour after the bikers gave us perfect amount of time to enjoy the nice hilly walk to the park/beach (which we stopped for about a 1/2 hour) and back to camp with just enough time to watch the bikers come back and enjoy lunch together. All in all I think there were about 60 participants and we all helped raise $15,000 for the camp so that for sure made it all worth it. Mom and Dad won the door prizes for having the most Grandkids involved in the fundraiser and for having the most family members involved. I'm sure they will enjoy their well earned gas and Pizza coupons.
So that was the first weekend of adventure and exhaustion.
This last weekend was meant to be a weekend of camping with our "C3 - young marrieds" group from the church. Instead it was C3-turned P3.
Ray and his family along with nermerous other families from the church began a tradition when their kids were pre-teens. They would met every May long weekend for a camping trip get-a-way. Many fond memories and stories shared. I have heard so much about these weekends I was eagar to see the place and camp there ourselves. As it turned out it hasn't happened in years so the tradition was to be started again. Ray and I were looking forward to a weekend of getting to know more couples from the group and of course camping is always a bonus!! It's the long weekend, and like every May long weekend you can never count on the weather. So we awoke Saturday morning to find it was raining outside. Now it would be nothing if it was just spitting, but this was a down pour. Our sister-in-law phoned us up just after 8am "just wondering if you're still going??" Yep we say, we maybe CRAZY but the rain will pass and we'll have a great time. (were we trying to kid ourselves by saying it out loud or did we really believe it this very moment we're not sure). They were not so easily convinced and debated the whole camping idea. So with the rain coming down Ray packed the van and I got the kids ready to go. We took our time eating a nice breakfast hoping the weather would change, but it didn't. We get another phone call from our concerned Sister-in-Law, "just want to let you know Mom and Dad are at the campground (they went up there Friday and are in a trailer) and said it was raining hard up there too". Thanks we say, we'll keep that in mind. They have cancelled thier reservations but hope to come up for the day on Sunday. "We'll see you then" we say and we're off. I guess you can say we were the only die hard campers of the whole group. We arrived to find yes it was raining here too, and yes everyone else in the group cancelled too. That's ok we said. "We'll make the best of it and have a great time." Atleast Mom and Dad were there so we could hide out in their trailer until there was a break in the rain long enough to set up tent. It did soon after and by 4pm were were canoeing and swimming to the dock. We were so happy to not have given up. We could have missed out on such a fun adventure. It was unforgetable that's for sure. Saturday was full of sandcastle building, swimming, canoeing, kyaking, bike ride to the park and a campfire with roasting marshmellows and games to finish off the night. Kyla was amazing taking it all in and seemingly loving it all. Mark also loved it too as he kept himself very busy.
Sunday came and the other two families joined us making it a P3 event (3 of Mom and Dad's kids and their families). Sunday brought SUNSHINE, WIND, brief bits of RAIN (in the evening) and SNOW. Yep we were in for all weather this weekend. Snow I can handle on May long. That's really what I remember about camping Maylong weekends the swimming in the lake this time around was the strange thing for me. There were many times that my family would go camping in the mountains and often had to shovel the snow just to set up camp. Or atleast wake up to snow on the ground. This of course was different. It wasn't your typical snow. We all sat at the beach and the Cottonwood trees began to "snow". The cotton fluff was everywhere. Even if you didn't have an allergy you were bothered by this stuff. It was everywhere. Going up your nose, making your eyes itchy, if you left your mouth open you may even eat it. Besides that great annoyance we had a great family time Sunday afternoon and evening. The boys loved the chance to play in the sand and lake and especially love to ride their bikes round and round the camp circle.
To end our weekend we added one more stop at Tickleberries for icecream. Mark got a baby bear cone. I almost ordered hime a K-9 thinking it was a smaller size only to find out it really is for K-9's. The rest of us got "child" size which was plenty - 2 scoops on a waffle cone. There were many flavours to pick from as well as many things in the shop to look at. Cute store full of sayings. These are just a few; (we do not endorse them nor live by them). "Friends are the chocolate chips in the cookies of life", "Friends welcome, relatives by appointment only", I would love to live in the fast lane, but I'm married to a speed bump", "Bathroom Rules: Hand towels available for guests only. If you are not a guest use your pants", " I never said I wanted to be wrinkled when I grew up". They sure got us laughing. I wish I could remember more of them there were tons.
Well, that wraps up my summary of the last two weekends. The summer is ahead of us and I'm sure there are many more adventures to be had. Lookforward to sharing them with you.
