Monday, August 2, 2010

Are We Home Yet?

Our family LOVES to travel and to be on the go, but I think we've hit our travel threshold for awhile. Usually the constant question is "Are we there yet?" but lately it's turned into "Are we home yet?"

In the middle of July we left for our annual church camp in Harrisonburg, Virginia, but before we even got there, we started our adventure. We headed down to the middle of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg to be exact, to meet up with my cousin Tim who is assistant manager at the coolest store ever: Bass Pro Shops! We spent a LOT of time wandering around the store while Tim showed us the neat things in every nook and cranny of that place. From there we headed to Maryland to meet Robin, a fellow Watkins associate. Robin, her husband and two lovely girls live on a cattle and sheep farm. We spent our way-too-short visit with them on one of the hottest weekends ever!

Finally we headed down to the Eastern Mennonite University that our church rents out every year for one week in July for our church "camp". It's really not a camp. It's more like a conference because of the air conditioned facilities and all the amenities of a university campus, but it's always been called "camp" since waaaayyyy back, Webster Springs, WV was a real "camp". Anyway, we had a wonderful week at Camp, despite the 98F/38C temperatures. The boys enjoyed it, too, and you could tell because I ran out of Band-Aids in the first three hours that we were there. They got a lot of playing accomplished in those first few hours!

After Camp we headed to Grandpa and Grandma's in Ohio and spent the evening with Uncle Roger, Aunt Amy, Daniel and Ryan as well. Five boy cousins cooped up in a house while a major wind and rain storm beat down outside = lots of noise and activity in an otherwise quiet home of the grandparents.

Finally, we were on our way home to Canada for a few days while we washed clothes, mowed the lawn and repacked for our next adventure! Several months ago, Fred came across a fantastic deal from a golf resort up north - with the condition that we listen to their time share presentation. No problem for us! Since we've never really taken a family vacation like this and since we are not easily swayed by those kinds of tactics, we headed up to the "We Saw The Beach" (Wasaga Beach) area for a mini vacation. That was a LOT of fun! We spent our time swimming in all the pools, going to the beach, splash pads, recreation centers at the resort and touring around the local ski resort/tourist areas. On our way home from there, we stopped by Uncle Henry and Auntie Jo's cottage since it was so close. We enjoyed a BBQ supper with them, but didn't get to go for a boat ride or for a swim in the lake since it rained. Oh well. Time for home anyway!

Today is a holiday here in Canada. These Canadians love their holidays! We had plans to maybe go to Storybook Garden in London or down to Niagara Falls. Those plans scaled back to just going to Riverside Park's splashpad, but even that took a back seat to just being at home!! I'm the only one who left the house today and that was to go grocery shopping. We are HOME and are going to stay put ..... for awhile anyway.

2 comments:

GramS said...

FUN! Busy fun! but oh, the memories the boys will have in the next few years! I remember those days when I could say "There's no place like home. There's no place like home." and I was probably the only one saying it at the time :)
I'm glad you had all these opportunities this summer! Come again on a nice weekend and we'll walk to "Grandpa's" park.

Karen said...

I wish I could feel that warmth and I wish I could be on a vacation! :)