Camping Trip #4 - Fintry Provincial Park

*I have been super busy with going back to work and school start up. I had several posts written that I didn't hit publish on, so they will appear over the next couple of days. 

Our fourth camping trip this year was spent with a group of families who have adopted locally. Cory and I have been very blessed to connect with some amazing families who have been a great support system as we jumped head first into parenting. Many of these families have welcomed children into their homes during these past few years and friendships have flourished between the children (and the parents) while enjoying our play dates, summer camping trips, park days, skating afternoons and winter cabin weekends away.   

Last year, as few of the families got together and rented a group site at a local provincial park.

 
We had a great time and decided to do it again this year. In the end we had close to 60 people, with about 45 of those kids. It is a great low key camping weekend with families visiting and no set schedules of events. The kids spent their days and evenings splashing in the lake, tubing/wake boarding behind the boats, playing on the playground, hiking the local trails, roasting marshmallows, running around with glow sticks, and generally just having a great time.
(Side note: I don't have many photos of my kids without others in them, and I don't like to post those pictures unless I have permission from the parents, so photos are lacking in the cuteness factor!). 

The playground where many hours were spent...

 Some families went on one of the local trails to check out the Fintry Falls...

One of my favorite memories was the large group game of "kick the can" one evening. This game is similar to hide and seek, with almost all the 45 kids (toddlers to teenagers) hiding together behind tents, trailers and picnic tables.   

We even had our (now) annual communal pot luck dinner of deep fried turkeys and all the side fixin's as we all gathered together to share a meal of thanksgiving! On the following day many more adoptive families joined us in the afternoon for a BBQ lunch, it was quite busy as there was close to 125 people (and several hundred wasps lured in by the smell  of food!). I'm sure we must have confused many other campers about how we were all connected! The BBQ was hosted by the Adoptive Families Association of BC - thank you Diana for bringing all the food and hard work organizing the BBQ! 

If you live locally and have adopted (or are currently waiting to adopt), keep your eye out for the dates for our next year's AFABC Okanagan family camping trip!   

Our little Jawas....

Sigh...it appears that my techie/science fiction loving husband is trying to indoctrinate educate our children on some of the essential classic sci-fi movies.

On the top of his list is Star Wars. In order to foster a connection he is focusing on the various short stature characters, starting with...the Jawas. For those of you who have lived under a rock since the late 70's and don't know who the Jawas are... (you can read about the Jawas HERE)

Jawas as conceived by George Lucas.

How is he doing this you might ask? Is he subjecting them to hours of movie watching with pop quizzes afterwards? Is he testing their knowledge of obscure facts about the different movies, or asking them to hum the theme song? Is he helping them to speak wookie, you might ask? No, he is much more diabolical and covert than that. 

When drying off the girls at night after their bath, he asks them if they would like to be burritos (arms wrapped up) or Jawas. The girls usually ask to be jawas. I think they are a little cuter than their counterparts above, right?

 "Daddy, we want to be Jawas!"

They of course find this hilarious and laugh and laugh...

Double sigh...not sure how he is going to incorporate the other characters into their vocabulary, but I am sure the Ewoks are next. George Lucas would be proud. 

Better late than never!

Yes, we have been home for ten months now, but we've been busy! I can't believe how much she has grown over such a short period of time! Her smile continues to make my heart sing with happiness...I can only hope we can give her the same measure of happiness she has brought into our lives. 

Our announcement cards will be going out in the mail sometime in the next week or so depending on how my the school start up goes, so those of you in our families who actually read our blog now have had a sneak preview - watch your mail boxes!