Camping at Slave Lake

It's been a few years since we've been camping at Slave Lake and it was really nice to be back.

We went camping for 4 days and even thought it was a LOT of work for me and Jess, we all had a lot of fun.  The weather wasn't super hot and was pretty windy most of the time but it could have been worse.  There were barely any mosquitoes and it only rained on us once.

One day at the beach, Shae and Connor decided to build a teepee out of driftwood.  They worked together for a long time and their finished product was VERY impressive.

 

Once they were done, all four kids played in it and pretended they were shipwrecked on an island and they had to build a shelter before a hurricane blew in.

Naptime at the beach!

One day at the beach, Maira's gum fell out of her mouth and the wind blew it right into her hair so here she is getting a couple inches chopped off her ends to get rid of the gum.

Minnow catching was an ever popular pass time. 

 My favourite thing to do was to sit at the beach and enjoy the sound of the surf and the sound of my children playing nicely together, while I knitted or read.

 

We discovered that our eating tent was missing a few pieces when we went to set up camp so Jess rigged up this lovely tarp shelter for us to keep us warm and dry while we ate our meals.

Every evening, we gathered around the campfire for stories, songs, and marshmallow treats.

We really had a lovely time, and can't wait to go back!

Connor's Baptism

In our church, when a child turns 8, they are considered old enough to be accountable for their actions and so that is when they are old enough to be baptised.  It was such a lovely day to spend with friends and family to celebrate this milestone in Connor's life.  It so happened that his cousin Amelia turned 8 around the same time so we ended up combining their baptisms into one service so that was fun.

Here we are in the church, just before the baptism.

 

And then afterwards, we went out to the temple grounds for some more pictures.

 

 

Afterwards, all the family came over to our house and we had dinner together in the backyard.

The kids have really enjoyed getting to spend time with their little cousin Brinsley, they all think "her is so cute" (to quote Hudson).

And here are some recent pictures of Hudson, just because.

We do actually buy toys for Hudson, in case you were wondering, but here he is having the time of his life playing in the gutters in front of our house. 

And yes, he even tasted the gutter water (I was not there at the time, I would have told him to stop, his father  decided instead that he would take a picture).

And I just thought these pictures were cute - he was having a blast pouring water on his head in the bath.  Thankfully Jess got there before the entire contents of the tub ended up on the floor, just some of it.  And then once he had Hudson pointing the bucket of water in the right direction, he grabbed his camera.