Huntmeadow Playground

Last week we found a new park just by wandering around our neighborhood (by car). It's small, which is great. I don't have to worry so much about Henrik falling off big stuff. It was a little dirty - litter and branches from the most recent hail storm. But it's remote, with no busy streets around it, and it has shade to sit in. Because it's so close to home, I think this is my new favorite.

Bryn has recently discovered see-saws.  She loves them!

4 days in the 'Wack

In Chilliwack I wanted to do stuff that we just can't do in Calgary.  I really wanted to make some memories with Bryn that she would love and would never forget.  To a certain degree, I think we succeeded. We spent one day at the waterpark, and another at the beach, both things that we don't have here in Calgary.  Bryn hated the slides, refusing to go on any but the baby ones.  And she hated the beach, refusing to go near the water. Sigh.  My nervous little girl!  I do hope that she grows out of it someday, at least most of it.

Bryn and I did make a sand castle. A very sad little sand castle.  What can I say?  I'm very much a city girl!  She had fun doing that.  And she liked our picnic lunch.  She always likes lunch.

 Henrik, however, LOVED the beach. He liked the water, walked all over the sand barefoot, and picked up everything.  He and Arvid had a great time.

I am not a fly.

We went on our annual family vacation to British Columbia this year.  My parents have a cabin at the Shuswap Lake, and are very generous in sharing it with all us kids!  Arvid's parents live in the Fraser Valley, and we try to visit them there each summer, too.  This year, we combined the two trips, spending 4 days at the cabin, then driving on for 4 days with Arvid's family.

I had every intention of doing several vacation posts, or at least writing down a few things each day to share, but it was a really low-key vacation, so I didn't make many notes.  The most eventful day was the first day.  The kids were great for the 8 or so hours in the car, with only a few fights.  Henrik growls.  Bryn doesn't like Henrik to growl.  So she screams at him to stop, then continues to cry and scream when he doesn't stop.  It was a lovely half hour, but in all the trip was surprisingly calm.

Then we arrived at the cabin.  The first thing Henrik did was fall halfway down the main stairs.  They're carpeted, with good padding underneath, so he wasn't really harmed.  A few minutes after he calmed down from that fright,  he ran head-long into the edge of a door.  A very solid door.  This is the result. The good thing is that he got most of his injuries out of the way on that first day, and did pretty well until the last full day there, when he managed to topple the high-chair over backwards!  What am I going to do when this boy starts really climbing on things!



Bryn loved the lake.  Well, not the lake so much.  The weather wasn't super hot, so we didn't spend much time in the water.  But she loved the toys and playing outside on the deckm especially with Grandpops.  On that first day, Grandpops  found a tiny frog outside and asked Bryn if she wanted to see it.  Bryn's response: "Yeah! The frog won't lick me because I am not a fly!"  Yeah, she has some pretty serious critter phobias, but at least she looked at the frog with Grandpops!

Summer Adventure - Allen Bill Pond

Inspired by Jenny, I've been trying to get out and do more adventure stuff as a family. When the kids woke up from their Sunday afternoon naps, we packed everyone up, along with a picnic supper and Bryn's bike, and headed out to the mountains.

We went back to Allen Bill Pond, in K-Country, which we had been to last summer with the Noblets and the Franklins from our ward. We had supper as soon as we arrived, thanks to grumpy boy Henrik.

 We played in the river awhile, Bryn rode her bike around the pond, then we packed up the car again.

Arvid asked if we had time to take the scenic route home.  I asked which route is the scenic one.  He said 'Turn left instead of right, then find our way home from there."  Sounded good to me.  We ended up on a very long, very bumpy, very dusty gravel logging road, which was a blast for the first 20 minutes or so.  The kids laughed as we jostled and Bryn kept asking if there was going to be more bumps!  But after about an hour, it got pretty tiresome.  And it was way past Henrik's bedtime, so he cried.  A lot.  But we made it home (thanks to an ox-in-the-mire stop at the PetroCanada west of Calgary), and have a fun adventure story to tell.  Isn't that what it's all about?