Summa Summa Summer Time... What to do, what to do...

It was gorgeous the week of July 7th, so we bought a skim board and went to the beach a few times, went to Teddy's grandma's for swimming a few times, we went to the bike park, we played in our back yard a lot.  Oh, and we met Kami and her boys in Deep Cove for Kayaking too.  Had ice cream at the beach once or twice and had Moby's Fish and Chips on the beach another day... Fun! 

Then I was exhausted and just wanted to hang out at home to catch up on laundry for the next week!  But hanging out at home general leads to kids fighting and watching TV or playing video games too much.  Sigh.

School over...now to the US to celebrate Canada Day! (Huh?)

The end of the school year was somewhat abrupt for Callum, due to the teacher Strike action.  At the time, I was looking forward to a break from chauffering around and making lunches, but I confess that a week into the break and I'm reminded that lunches and driving are a small price to pay for my kids that are stimulated!.  Max's school ended normally, with a special goodbye to his teacher going to Rwanda with her family.
 

June 28th, we left for the Cascades, again, for our traditional Canada Day camping trip.  I did actually look into campgrounds in Canada, but they are just so busy and to get a decent one you have to travel pretty far.  So, we went to Colonial Creek Campground on Ross Lake with my cousin and his wife, Mike and Diana, and their 3 daughters, and my brother Scott and wife Samantha came too with their 2 girls, so there was a good group of us Canadians together anyway (not that we actually did any celebrating - oops!).

It didn't start out so great, with Simon throwing up during the car ride there and while setting up tents, then it poured rain in the evening and during the night, then I spent the night and next day with the flu!  However, we were there for 4 days, so things got better and the kids just had such a great time together!  We tried to get a few decent hikes in, but most of the trails still had too much snow, (even the parking lot at the trail head to Lake Ann and Rainy Lake was completely covered!), so I'd like to go back later in the summer to try again for those ones.

And because Scott came, we were able to get some pretty decent shots of a few places we went.

 

 

Satisfying Production!

I have learned what a great sense of reward and satisfaction one can feel when a vegetable garden is successful!  

I am quite proud of my little effort at growing my own food, especially when, after only 45 minutes of harvesting, I bring this into my kitchen: 

We are almost at the end of my raspberries and snap peas, my beans are just starting to produce, but we have been enjoying lettuces, kale, swiss chard, a variety of herbs including some very happy basil, beets and carrots for several weeks now!  I will be seeding more arugula and spinach since we've eaten it all (though I am glad for a little break from arugula - we had so much and were experimenting with putting it in everything!), and it appears my squash and tomatoes will put out a good crop. Its a good thing Jeff eats only salad for 2 meals a day!  My strawberry patch became victim to a greedy racoon, so I'll have to put up some protection next season...