Camping at Deer Lake

In April we bought a 1986 tent trailer and we finally got to use it this past weekend. We went camping with our RayGin friends(yes we have other friends too:-) So we headed up to Deer Lake near Harrison Lake on Friday. Probably the first thing we noticed when we arrived was the large amount of mosquitoes, but the bug spray was inside the trailer! With is being our first time actually using the trailer in a camping situation, it took a little longer than it normally to set up, but we eventually got it up properly. Meanwhile we all got our share of bites, unfortunately for Kyle he got a number of them right around his eyes. Once we were all set up the kids wanted to go to the lake and try their hand at 'fishing'.
Here is Kyle at the lake after eating some cherries.

We know Shelby's dad is hoping to take the boys fishing one day, so here is Shelby showing Kyle the basic technique.

Here is Kyle trying to get the hang of it and is slowly learning, Aaron however was doing quite well and would have made Shelby's dad(Bubba) quite proud!

At the dock our kids and some other kids were trying to catch some fish at the dock.

Ray was at his usual sandcastle building, this time finding a stream to provide water.

Later the kids enjoyed the camping tradition of roasting marshmallows although most of them preferred regular marshmallows.

The next day we weren't sure how Kyle's bites would affect him. When the kids woke up the next day Aaron exclaims "Kyle is blind just like in the Bible!' We had just read the story of Saul's conversion on the road to Damascus where he becomes temporarily blind. So we looked at his eyes and he was quite swollen, but could fortunately see a little out of his one eye. Kyle seemed to take it all in stride and saying 'I have not two eyes, just one eye!'

Kyle only has a tricycle and when Madi and Lexi brought their bikes and were about the right size for him he wanted to try it out. What better time to try to learn to ride a bike when you can barely see out of only one eye??

Later Ginny and I took the kids(except Kyle) to look for some geocaches. Ginny and Lexi had not been before, but were intrigued how Madi was so into it. I ended up picking a hard cache to find as the co-ordinates were off a bit and sent us bushwacking and walking through mud when we really didn't have to in the end. They were troopers and still searched till we eventually found it. Ginny found a little rubber ball in their car for Lexi to put in the cache while Madi took a bracelet. When Lexi realized that the ball was staying at the cache she was very upset and cried for about 20 minutes. We went on to find another cache in the area and were telling her there might be another ball in the next cache. I had no idea what was going to be in the next cache but really hoping there was a ball to make this little girl happy. When we found the next cache there was no ball, but there was a shiny turtle which made Lexi forget about any rubber ball she was looking for. In the end they all seemed to enjoy it.
On the way to the cache we found this large stump.

Here is Ginny and the kids finding the cache.

Minus the mosquitoes, camping went pretty well in our first time using the trailer, seems the more we set it up and take it down the faster it gets, hopefully we will have many more good memories using it.


And today we wish Auntie Sara and big Happy Birthday! Here is Kyle(in his birthday suit) giving her a Canucks condiment holder of her very own! Enjoy!

PS. Kyle's face was swollen for about 2 days and is now pretty much back to his regular self.

Long Beach USA

Last week we spent 4 nights in Long Beach, WA which is on the southwest tip of Washington State. We went with our travelling friends Ray and Ginny and their girls. We left the Lower Mainland in plus 30C temperatures and as we got closer to the coast, we met the ocean mist, which never cleared up that much for our trip. It was still fine as it was about 20C. We stayed in an a townhouse-type resort on the beach, although it was about a 100m walk to the beach. Long Beach's claim is that it is the 'World's Longest Beach', I meant to check to see if that was indeed the case, nevertheless it's pretty long at over 45km, I wonder if they have ever thought of making a marathon down the beach?

This first section of pictures is from our time at the beach. We all enjoyed the beach for different reasons whether it was for flying kites, making sand castles, running through the tide pools or taking a drive down the beach. Here are a few beach pics.

One day Ray decided to build a fairly large sand castle, the castle looked better from the other side, but the kids didn't look as good in that picture , so here is the back of the castle with the builder trying to make himself seen in the background.

We knew this before, but this trip reminded us just how much Kyle loved the beach, I am sure if we left him to play all day on the beach he would.

Keisha enjoyed the fact that the beach is dog friendly...

and we liked that it was vehicle friendly. It's pretty cool that they encourage you to drive on the beach, we each took a few turns driving on the beach. We also took turns flying various kites. Here is Kyle flying the Canadian fighter jet kite.

The kids also enjoyed the pool. With the kids enjoying the beach and pool, it reminds me of our Mexico trips, but perhaps not as tropical.

In Long Beach they have Go-Karts. The kids weren't old enough to go on their own, but were able to go with an adult. The guy running the track said I was driving too fast, why don't they just make the go-cart only go a certain speed? Anyway we all had fun with that.

We were browsing the shops and came across a hat store and got the kids to try on some hats.

After we walked out of the store and went down a half a block Aaron points out that he still is holding the glasses he tried on in the previous picture. We quickly took them back before anyone noticed. Afterwards we had an ice cream and Aaron just happened to sit in front of this sign.

One day we took a trip to Seaside, Oregon about an hour away. It's a nice tourist-type town on the Oregon coast where we spent a few hours looking around.

The kids took a ride on the train...

and Aaron and I went on the bumper cars...

and Kyle checked out the swings on the beach.

The swings seem to make Kyle happy but, nylons on his head do not...

or maybe they do!

Back in Long Beach there are some lighthouses nearby. Shelby had the camera for a while and took this shot. I should give her the camera more often.

Here are the kids hanging out near the lighthouse.

Later I took Madi out for her first geocache experience. She said it was her favorite part after swimming. A new caching partner in the making?

In the townhouse Ray slept on the couch in the living room and when the kids woke up between 6 and 7am they watched TV for a bit while Ray tried to keep sleeping.

While we were there it was Canada Day, we didn't celebrate that much, but Ginny decorated the place a bit 'Canadian' and made Canadian chocolate bars. They look yummy although, I never did get to try one.

We came home the day before July 4th, but while we were there Long Beach was getting ready for the 4th of July celebrations. Seems the tradition in Long Beach is to buy fireworks and drive to a spot on the beach and light your fireworks between 10pm and midnight on July 4th. Perhaps not coincidentally, July 5th is Beach Cleanup Day. Unfortunately we missed all this phenomenon, as most of Long Beach is booked for the US long weekend months in advance.

We has originally planned to spend the first week of July in Westbank, but the house there is undergoing renovations and unfortunately was not finished by the end of June as was hoped. Shelby found this place on Long Beach at the last minute and it turned out to be another great vacation. So a big thanks goes to my wife for making it possible, a travel agent in the making?:-)

Summer Fun

We returned a couple of days ago from our trip to Long Beach, WA. We had a good time and I took a fair amount of photos. I'll make a post about that soon. These pictures are from before we left for our trip.

This picture is from my birthday party in which we had some friends over for a BBQ. Madi came to the BBQ dressed as a butterfly and Kyle took a turn sporting the wings.

The day before we left we were at Madi and Lexi's house and Aaron and Kyle were checking out the diggers they had. Madi pointed out that, they never use those toys.

The weather was nice and warm and the we took the kids to the water park nearby in Aldergrove. Here are a few pics from that.