Thanksgiving Camping......Part Two

And here's a few photos from our night of camping - we couldn't have picked a better weekend weather wise, so gorgeous.  But SO cold overnight, brrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!  We brought our canoe, and the kids all took turns going out for a paddle.  It cracked me up to hear Maya and Kea taking Elsie out.  She was so excited, but then started to get nervous as they were putting on her lifejacket.  She kept saying, "I'm not sure I want to go" and they kept dismissing it with "oh, you'll be fine" as they continued to do up her jacket, hand her a paddle and helping her into the canoe, the whole while she's telling them she's not sure she wants to go anymore.  It was all done kindly, but it just made me realize how tough these youngest born become in a family:-)  And they were right, she was TOTALLY fine in the canoe:-)

Ry, Lucas and Tiegan spent most of the time in the hammocks.  We learned later that it had become a fun game to throw chips from the hammock - fun at the time, NOT so fun at midnight when all the raccoons in the area come mulling around our tent to have a snack.  Oy:-)

Sean and Chloe brought all sorts of great foods to eat, and it seemed we snacked non-stop.  Spinach dip in pumpernickel bread, chestnuts roasted over the fire....

Tofurkey, green beans, brussels sprouts, potatoes and stuffing cooked in the ashes.....followed by pumpkin pie.  YUM!

The girls became an assembly line, creating tin foil packets of goodness - with water to steam it all.

You just can't beat the view from our campsite....

Thanksgiving Dinner, part two - 

It was kind of a sleepless night for us all.  In part because of the afore-mentioned raccoons, and then the kids kept getting cold and crawling into our sleeping bags, and then kicking sleeping bags off, and getting cold again - oy, such a fun dance at 3 am:-)

My first views first thing in the morning.  The mist was thick for the first couple of hours, loved it!

The kids practiced starting a fire with flint and stone - though Jamie was the only one who was successful on this morning.

Warming up apple crisp (and a few numb toes) with our morning fire:-)

It was a great way to spend Thanksgiving weekend, we were so happy to have been invited along - a great chance to catch up with this segment of the family we don't often see!!!!!

And this wraps up our Thanksgiving weekend - I think we drove home in the afternoon, unpacked all of our gear and put it away, hopped into a hot bath and just collapsed after a very full weekend.  Tired but oh so thankful for this wonderful life we are living!!!!  xo

Thanksgiving Camping.....Part One

Sean and Chloe alway take their family camping each year for Thanksgiving, at Taylor Lake in Gatineau Park.  This year they invited us to join them, and since the weather called for gorgeous sunshine, we decided to go ahead with one last night of camping for the year.  And since we were heading all the way out to Gatineau, we thought we'd fit in a good hike as well.  So we got up first thing in the morning, and headed out.....in the gorgeous mist:-)

We decided to take the Quyon Ferry over to the Quebec side, for something different - and I'm so glad we did.  What a beautiful start to our morning!!!!!

Then we drove through a whole bunch of back roads here there and everywhere to finally get to the beginning of our hike - heading into the Lusk Caves.  Great hike, we really enjoyed it.  And the leaves, wow.

Above is most definitely a most rare photo of these two.  They have their moments, for sure, but so often they're like oil and water together, oy!  So capturing moments like this sure does my mama heart good:-)

The caves were super cool to explore.  We didn't end up bringing extra shoes or clothes, and we knew we were going camping after this so didn't want to get too wet - so we definitely want to come back one day more prepared to do more exploring!  Jamie couldn't help, though, exploring a wee bit - and teaching the kids how to scale walls.  They had a BLAST, no one got wet feet and they all popped out the other end in one piece.  I didn't feel comfortable taking the risk with my camera gear (and there were so many other people around on such a gorgeous weekend that I couldn't leave it out) so look forward to heading back another time.

Jamie was in his absolute ELEMENT!!!  We literally had to drag him away from wanting to do more, go deeper, take bigger risks.  Oy, this guy......

I, for one, was THRILLED to have taken a 10km hike with hardly any complaining whatsoever.  It's so great to be at this stage where we can do some real hikes as a family - now to continue our search for great hikes in the area.  This one I would HIGHLY recommend:-)