It was very weird to not go anywhere. We typically go visit family in WA for 3 weeks, but this year we stayed home and my parents came to us for the last week of summer.
After coming back from North Bay, we tried to find local places to check out. We had 8 weeks available to us. C was busy, so I and a friend took our little kids to Decew Falls. It's near Morningstar Mill maybe 10 minutes north of us.
Free parking at the mill, and it was amazing. Not going to lie to you though, it's a bit of a trek to get down to the swimming hole. Like really steep and using roots as stairs steep, but even the little guys made it. The river was clear and so refreshing and there's a swing and the swim hole is up to my chest to neck depending on how much water is in the river at the time.
We also chipped in with our neighbor to replace the fence between us.
We even dealt with the tree right on the property line
Shortly after we had a bunny move in under the deck. He's been with us the entire summer. V has been leaving water out for it. As long as we stay on the deck, it sits in the grass eating the clover and we stare at each other. We also have chipmunks who have apparently built a whole castle under our backyard slope.
We got crafty. The kids and I have been trying rollerblading-the whole family has a pair now and I was getting confused with all the elbow and knee pads, so each kid learned how to make a simple drawstring bag to hold their stuff.
I spruced up the entry way be repainting this table from my inlaws who are downsizing into their retirement home. We'll miss the pool, but I'm sure they won't miss the upkeep.
V turned 8! She had friends from school over to celebrate. In a huge miracle everyone RSVPed 2 weeks in advance and only one girl couldn't come because she had out of town guests.
I made a pinata per her request. I'd never done the fringe decor before but it was so easy!
V did her second summer on swim team with her first year competing (she practiced last year but because we were traveling, she never competed). She got lots of ribbons (though, she laments, never a first place ) and loves it so much that she'll be taking a program where she did lessons last year practicing strokes like swim team practice in the off-season.
She's the biggest cheerleader besides the coaches.
We signed the kids up for free bowling. We only went once so I probably didn't need to sign up for the parents' passes, but it was nice to know it was available to us. We played 5-pin with little balls for the kids.
We went to Zooz/Safari Niagara and tried out the ropes course, saw some animals then spent the rest of the time in the splash area as it gets hot here in the summer.
I went crazy on groupon and we got a Niagara Falls fun pass-we did two rounds of 18 hole mini golf, a mirror maze, two different arcades, a majic show and walked crazy amounts.
We also got a groupon for Skyzone
We checked out our friends' new coffee bar in town-Font. V decided the paint your own cookie was a great way to entertain herself while mom had a coffee.
We played lego when I made the kids get off the computers/xBox/ipads
We took a trip to Fantasy Island in NY. They let Canadians in for $20US! It's got milder rides which is perfect for my little scaredy cats. Except H who rode the Silver Comet wooden coaster with us several times. There's also a water park and H went on every single water slide and proclaimed it was "better than video games" which is pretty much his highest possible compliment.
Besides roller blading by the canal, we also rode bikes. We were very blessed by our local bike store who not only gave out free helmets (V and C) but we won a new bike at the local streetfair! (H got that one)
H also got to try a paddleboard class for FREE! Our local water rental through the city got a grant to teach kids 8-12 paddleboarding. He said it "exceeded (his) expectations."
H and I discovered kombucha on the recommendation of a friend. We now travel supermarkets and farmer's market in search of the best we can find.
The husband went out to help my parents pilot the boat in Alaska for almost 2 weeks. I received this picture as the longest form of communication while he was away:
And he came back with a beard.
If you want to know what happened you'll have to read my parents' blog
We spent a lot of time in our regular hammock and at the end of the season got an amazing deal on a smaller swing/hammock so that the kids will stop fighting over the danged hammock have more options available to them when they want to read outside.
We watched a few of the husband's baseball games. H seems very in to figuring out the rules and critiquing the team's techniques. V checks the score often.
My parents came out during the summer. They have only been out in the winter and we lament that many of the activities here are only open Victoria Day (kind of like Memorial Day in the US-the kickoff to summer) to Labour Day (like Labor day, but without the U) and my mom remarked several times, "it's so pretty here in the summer!"
We took them to Niagara Falls
Balls Falls
Rockway falls
Which, as you can see was pretty dry. This is H standing literally in the middle of the falls/river where the water is supposed to be.
We took them to Decew Falls and hiked up a bit since we'd only ever stayed in the swimming hole.
(lower falls, accessible from swimming hole)
H and his beloved rope swing.
Then, lest they think there's only falls here, we took them to the Comfort Maple
And the Royal Ontario Museum which none of us had ever been to. There was a lot to see but the kids' favorite were the dinosaurs and the rocks/gems.
I took my parents to Port Dahlousie. It was pouring rain but I insisted they ride the 5 cent carousel (that's like 3.5 cents US)
Sadly, I have some issue with motion and going around and around so I took pictures and waved like a maniac at them everytime they came around.
Then my parents left and the kids went back to school. They are grades 8, 5 and 3 this year.
You can see how much the teenager has grown when you view this back to school picture taken 2 years ago and you compare what panel of the garage he measures up to. He's almost 1/2 a panel taller! Also, our family has lots of Minecraft creeper shirts-we've done two birthday parties where guests made them. They are in pretty much every dresser in the house now.
This first week back has been busy. I'm so lucky that my job is flexible so I took off the week my parents were here, so I've been filling out school paperwork, catching up on housework that was just not that important compared to catching up with my parents and catching up on work jobs. Next week I'll be working so that I can take another few days off to go to my annual scrapbook retreat to put all these lovely photos in scrapbooks. I'm looking forward to a weekend to just chill. There's also a beautiful lake to run around there.
