August 15, 2011

Outdoors=Great!

Friday morning, we packed up every inch of our Honda Civic with gear, grabbed our passports, and headed for the Canadian border...






We joke around that we went "fake" camping.

Truth is, we pitched our tent in a huge, grassy field on the edge of an RV park in Surrey, BC (called Hazelmere if you ever want to check it out). There are RVs, yurts, and tent camping. There is a swimming pool, a playground, and miniature golf. So - not in the middle of the forrest, hike-in type camping, but kid-friendly camping :) They were super excited to just go camping and sleep in a tent!

Once we set up our camp site, we took full advantage of pool time! And then, the playground, which was an old-school playground with a big, looooong metal slide that the kids loved :)

So - sort of "fake" camping, but it's oh-so-real! We got the kids each their own sleeping bag for Christmas last year and they were excited to sleep in them, in the tent. We don't have any blow-up mattresses or anything like that, so in that sense, they def. got the sleep-on-the-ground camping experience.

Sawyer was especially excited to get bundled up for bedtime.

I wish I could say Aspen was equally excited to sleep in her sleeping bag. We should've known better...

Pretty much, we all laid there pretending to go to sleep (saying "Aspen, lay down and go to sleep!") and she literally ran around the tent like a little hooligan from the time we tried to go to bed (around 10pm) until midnight. We were part amused, and part frustrated. Somehow Sawyer fell asleep while she kept running across our legs, tripping, falling down purposefully, saying "tickle tickle" and then trying to jump on our legs while singing, "no mo momees umpin bed!!!" (her interpretation of "no more monkeys jumping on the bed". Hilarious. At first. But at midnight, we were glad we had brought the pack n play as backup, we set it up and put her in and in 5 min. she was asleep. sigh.

and then...

Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed the next morning!
(half way through the night I was worried Aspen would be too cold in the pack n play so I let her share my mummy bag...good times ;)

Amazingly enough, our neighbors didn't want to strangle Aspen in the morning...in fact the two kids and their Dad, camping literally like 20 feet from us, were actually super excited to come over and play the next morning.

The girl was 6 months older than Sawyer, and the boy was 6 months older than Aspen. We played together for a good two hours, playing impromptu games of soccer and then Sawyer and his girl buddy having balance bike races while the younger tots cheered them on.

After breakfast was consumed (and shared with our cute neighbors) and we freshened up a tiny bit, we drove about an hour north to Lynn Canyon and the suspension bridge. There were lots of trails (luckily the further you went, the less the crowd) so we ended up hiking around the trails a good 3 or so hours.

I was proud of our generally-cautious boy, for wanting to walk across the scary-ish suspension bridge. It feels like those shaky playground bridges, only a bit more pronounced the more people that are on it - and WAY WAY WAY higher.



I felt great to take our time and hike to our hearts content with our two little kidlets. Good times!

Later, we drove back to White Rock, this cute little beachy town near our campsite. We walked out on the promenade and pier and watched fishermen, sailboats, and got to see them pull in some fresh crab.

Oh yeah, and the train goes right by here.

Oh yeah. And we went out to pizza for dinner one night. It was a joint that had huge screens with sports on. There was a football game on - and we realized our kids have never seen a football game (we don't have tv in our home, and even if we did we'd never watch football). When the players would get tackled or fall down or throw themselves on the ground, our kids would shout, in unison "fall down!" and then laugh laugh laugh. They thought it was sooooo funny!



Aspen was so funny on the board-walk. She didn't want to step on the cracks, and then she kept bending down to look through them and see the water. I'm not exactly sure what she was thinking, but it was pretty funny to watch. Sawyer, on the other hand, loved running out to see the fishermen and sailboats. It's a beautiful place to watch the sun set.



Overall, we had a wonderful 3 day weekend. Always a lot of work packing up and then unpacking, but always worth it, too.

The second night was better with Aspen since we used the pack n play. But it did make us re-think the 5 day trip we had planned in a few weeks - half of the time which would be backpacking in - no way we would bring a pack n play. So, maybe we just need to come up with a different plan or a different trip until we do a few more "practice" camping test-runs. Wouldn't hurt if the kids were older and could carry a few pounds of gear, either :)

It is always so refreshing to just get away and be unplugged from everything for a few days.

Hooray for camping!

ps- good thing our swagger wagon account continues to grow...we have pretty much outgrown our Civic even with just two kiddos!

August 1, 2011

In the Beginning...


Tonight for our weekly Family Home Evening,
we went to the Rose Garden up the street.

Jacob rides past it on his bike-route home, so he got to stop half-way up the big killer hill to enjoy a nice little picnic and a bit of relaxing in a gorgeous setting (with his favorite peeps, no less!).

We ate our picnic and walked (well, let's be real, with two lively little ones there was lots of RUNNING going on as well!) around the garden, admiring the flowers.

And then, we talked about The Creation.


I asked Sawyer: "Do you know who made this garden?"

He answered (looking around) "Was it those guys, over there?" (a couple enjoying a stroll through the garden)

Gotta love kids. Since we have a garden and have worked in it, he was probably thinking about who planted and nurtured this particular garden, so I guess it wasn't a bad guess? His answer was a perfect opening for our conversation about our topic, nonetheless. We are, after all, the stewards of God's Creations.



We enjoyed talking a bit as we walked around the gardens, and then we decided to walk to one of our favorite nearby parks to let the kids burn off some energy.

I just looove long summer days. And I don't mind that we stayed out until the sun went down, that the kids got into the bathtub at 9:15pm and in bed at close to 10pm. I loved scrubbing their dirty feet - dirty from running around in the glorious dirt that God gave us. Sweaty little faces from enjoying running in the beautiful garden, and playing hard at the park. I let Aspen wear her new shoes to bed (upon her insisting) and I smiled when I peeked in at her a few minutes later and she had her little bum in the air - with her pink crocs under her. I love the smell of roses. I love my little family. I love that Jacob is always game for all of my ideas and for many many many summer picnics.

I love all of this. I am so grateful for the gifts God has given me - for all of his Creations, big and small.

If you haven't done so lately, I encourage you to take just a bit of time to stop and "smell the roses", as we did this evening.
It's wonderful for the soul!

next week's lesson: a continuation of talking about The Creation by visiting some more of God's creations - salmon - at the Ballard Locks. If anyone would like to join in, please let me know ;)