Jada and Animals

Like I said .. .Jada likes animals, so we made a few visits to see various animals.

Rob took the kids to the pig barn one evening so they could all get their fill of the baby piggies

Jada and Thumper, Marietta’s bunny

Lightning had kittens this spring so the kids could often be found out in the barn playing with these

This year Rebecca is part of the 4H Miniature Horse club.  We couldn’t go visit Rebecca’s horse because the horses owner (Rebecca’s leader) was on holidays when Jada was visiting.  So instead the went to visit Tiana as she also has a miniature horse.

And we made a stop next door to collect eggs and chase chickens … or at least Jada did, we just watched her.

Goat Farm

Jada loves animals, so we made a point of seeing a few different animals during her time here.  We had the opportunity to go visit a goat farm one evening.  This was a new experience for all of us, not just Jada.

Jada spent some time trying to catch this little goat, but it was much to fast for her and could zip through the fence from one pen to another while Jada had to take the time to climb the fence.  She finally gave up and decided to try some larger goats.

Older goats are very skittish and would just run away from Jada …

So we moved over to the younger goats, born this spring.

These were quite the opposite as you have to push them away and tell them to back off as they want to chew at you and jump on you.  This was the first time I seen Jada exhibit some fear of animals as she suddenly panicked when all these goats kept coming at her and jumping on her.  Once rescued from the pen she was okay but didn’t want to go near there again.

They also had a few calves outside that the kids went to feed and see

Before we left Jada made friends with the dog as well.

Fresh Air Picnic

We were able to participate in the Fresh Air picnic again this year where the kids could go swimming, boating, tubing, roast marshmallows, eat hotdogs and good food and enjoy each others company.

Jada and the girls, especially Marietta, spent most of the time swimming and jumping off the dock.

After a bit Jada finally decided that maybe she would like to give the tube a try and so off she went for her turn.  She discovered it was fun and was a bit upset that she only got a short ride.  There were a lot more kids then last year when we attended so they could only have a short ride.

Since the kids waiting so long to decided to go tubing and boating they only ended up going for one ride as by time they decided they wanted to go riding the drivers were done for the evening.

But there was still time to roast some marshmallows, enjoy an ice cream cone …

and some more swimming before we headed home.

Noah’s Birthday

We celebrated our nephew/cousin Noah’s first birthday at a park near Mark and Val’s home.  After the kids had run off some steam on the playground Marietta got them going on some group games of Hot Potato and Duck, Duck, Goose while they were waiting for supper.

Noah, opening his presents, completely oblivious to the whole significance of the event.

The kids watching

After supper we went down to the beach (Lake Ontario) for a bit so Noah could smash his cake and the kids could go swimming.

There were decent size waves and the water dropped off quite quickly.  It was all fun at first, until Matthew strayed a bit too far (which really wasn’t all that far from shore) and the waves came rolling over his head and he could not get back.  After a panic moment of yelling at the girls to help him (who were standing right by him but completely oblivious to the fact that he was not coming up above the waves) I was just about to go running in when Rebecca clued in to what I was yelling.  Let’s just say Matthew had enough of swimming for that night.

The girls didn’t want to get out, but as the sun set it was time to go home.

Summer Soccer

The kids participated in Summer Soccer again this year and this was Matthew’s first year playing.  He had been looking forward to being part of this, but after one or two times decided he didn’t really like it so much afterall

So this is where we often found him … sitting on the sidelines watching.  He told me after I inquired why he was always on the sidelines that “If I tell me coach I’m tired and need a break she lets me go sit.”  His attention span was not quite ready for longer concentration on one thing, which is often the challenge with this age group.  Hopefully next year, after being in school for a year, he’ll be able to focus a bit better on the task at hand.

This year I coached one of the senior teams, which both Marietta and Rebecca happened to be on.  This mean that I often did not get a chance to see much of Matthew playing.  I would sneak away from my team for a bit while they were playing to go see what he was doing … with the hopes that he’d actually be on the field and not just sitting and watching.

Jada was able to participate during one of our soccer weeks.  She arrived on a soccer day and so after we picked her up from the bus she came and watched the girls playing.  The following week she dressed to play and spent the first part of the evening with me and participating in the drills that our team was doing.  For the actual game time she went and joined Matthew’s team since she wasn’t quite big enough to play with the seniors … altho she was really too big to play on the junior team and should have been with the intermediate, but she didn’t know anyone over there so we let her play on the juniors.

Wishing You a Blessed Christmas

 

This Christmas and always, may you delight in the many blessings God has given. 

“Every good and perfect gift is from above…” James 1:17

            Warmest thoughts and wishes for a Merry Christmas     and a Happy New Year

Marietta’s 12th Birthday

Marietta’s birthday fell on a Saturday this year and so this meant that Rob would be home and we could spend a day together as a family … but, much to our disappointment Rob ended up working that morning of all Saturday mornings to work.  So our plans for the day were changed to just an afternoon walk and picnic supper, which was still a good time.

Marietta had chosen ice cream cake for her birthday cake, but we surprised her in the morning with a simple vanilla birthday cake decorated by Rebecca, which we had for morning snack.

After lunch we headed to Hamilton to go for a walk to see the Chedoke Upper and Lower Falls.  Our girls, especially Marietta love waterfalls and really enjoy it when we go for nature walks that involve climbing or waterfalls.

We have gone to the Chedoke Falls before and followed the trails and tried to see the falls but didn’t have very much luck.  I remember how we could hear water but couldn’t see it.  We had kept to the trails along the upper part of the gorge but besides enjoying a fun hike were not very successful. So we thought we would give this one a try again.

This time we had better luck finding the Lower Chedoke Falls, but not because of the trails.  As we walked we see the fence at the end of the gorge had been mangled and pulled down and so we decided to take that route … a much more exciting route as we actually got to where we wanted to go as the aim of the game is not just to see the waterfalls but to actually get in it and get wet.

It was a dry summer and we were in need of water, so you can well imagine how much water could come through her during spring and fall time, hence the reason it’s fenced off.

Making our way upstream, finding little waterfalls along the way.

Tada, we made it to the Lower Chedoke Falls and the kids had to get right in the water … which was deep by the actual base of the falls

At one point Rob was nicely checking out the other side of the falls

And the next time we looked he was standing at the top of the falls.

This of course meant the kids wanted to join him, but he had climbed a very steep part of the gorge, much too hard and dangerous for the kids to climb.  Marietta probably could have made it as she’s quite the climber but not the other, especially not Jada and Matthew.  A lot of time when they go off climbing I just need to look the other way and try not to get too uptight, but this time I just said “no, not taking that chance”.  So we headed back downstream and tried to find a path that would take up to the Upper Falls.

We ran into the same wall that we did the last time we did this walk.  Rob climbed up the wall to see what was beyond and it was someones yard … guess we took a wrong turn! 

By this time it was supper hour and we were all getting hungry so we decided to give up for the day.

Matthew enjoying a lollipop (someone had pulled it off the golf course and he found it by the water)

We found a playground with a splash pad and had a picnic supper before heading home.

Games are always a well loved gift around here as the girls love playing games

An electronic handheld version of Phase 10, a game we all like to play here.

Music for Marietta to play – the Psalms by Cor van Dijk

Rebecca’s present started out looking pretty big but involved a lot of unwrapping before Marietta actually got to the present

which was a bracelet that she made

Before heading off to bed we enjoyed O Henry Ice Cream cake … a favourite around here, a recipe passed down from my mom.

And now we have a 12 year old in the house, old enough to babysit outside of the home … thankfully we also have a 10-year old so when the 12 year old is gone we still have a built in babysitter.