Sending the kid away

to camp that is...and only for a week.

He has never been to sleepover camp before, but I went for a couple weeks when I was 11 and I loved it. He is not so sure but a friend of his is going, so he decided to give it a go. I hope he enjoys himself.

It will actually give us both a break as we have been butting head quite a bit lately. He is 14 going on 30 and KNOWS absolutely everything.

We need to head out tomorrow at around 1:30pm, it is a 2.5 hour drive and registration begins at 4pm. We will also be driving his friend and his sister who is also attending.

Jarrod and his friend Austin are going to the boy's extreme camp - they will be camping out, hiking, wake-boarding, rock climbing, and BMX biking. Austin's sister is going to horseback riding camp at the same ranch.

It is Circle Square ranch - do you remember the Circle Square kid's TV show? It was put on by the same Christian organization.



I was stumbling the net today and came accross this - very cool but the price is ridiculous!

Click the photo to go to specific page.

Hubby would have to sleep somewhere else :)

 

I think this is SO cool!

Camping Supplies

I know it is almost winter, so what am I doing thinking about camping right? Well, to get a decent spot at Provincial parks in Canada you really do need to book early - they fill up fast.

Before the kid was born, DH and I used to camp most weekend each summer. We had a couple Rubbermaid totes filled with all all our camping gear that we just threw in the car each weekend. Then when kiddo came along, the list of items required about tripled, so we stopped going.

I would really like to get back into camping. we had planned to go this past summer, but somehow just never got around to it.

We have most of the camping gear we need, but if there is anything we don't have, we will definitely find it at Adventure Gear.

This mosquito net looks pretty cool. There is nothing worse than a mosquito buzzing around you at night is there?

This place literally has pretty much everything you would ever need for camping or outdoor adventures.

They also have some really cool watches.

If you just aren't into camping, many of the items found at Sierra Adventure Gear would make great gifts for all those hard to buy for men in your life.

Check it out!

Rosette Pavilion at Landon Bay Centre

The Landon Bay Centre is where we went camping last weekend.

They have what they call the Rosette Pavilion - it is a garden. It is built so that it has little walkways branching off in each direction and each has different raised beds and flowers - the center has a small pond. It is really quite cute. At the end of some of the branches there are benches made of the same wood and bark as the raised flower beds.

My camping adventure Part 2

If you haven't read part 1 - scroll down and read that first.

Once my friend L and her exchange students arrived, we all sat down to a picnic-style lunch then got to work setting up my tent with the newly arrived tent poles.

L taking pictures of me taking pictures of her

Afterwards, we piled into 2 cars and drove down the road a bit to the 1000 Island Boat launch.
We took the 1 hour tour but got there about 45 mins early and had to wait. The tour was broadcast to us in 3 languages, English, French and Chinese. It was hard to remember when to listen. We had a nice time. At one point Elodie's camera opened and out spilled her rechargeable batteries. We were able to grab one easily, but the other rolled under the bench and to the other side of a barrel - we had to let J scramble under there, holding his legs to get the battery - our hero :)

Elodie (L) & Belen (R)

Elodie, J & Belen
J on the boat - see the barrel to the left? That is
where the battery was, at the far side of that.
The bridge to the U.S.Part of Boldt castle on Heart Island

Front of Boldt Castle
Back side of Boldt Castle
Me - my nose not looking as burnt as it did when we got off
the boat - oh and those are my new prescription
sunglasses - what do you think?
That is T & Elodie behind me.

Random island

When the tour was finished we drove into Gananoque and had dinner at an Italian restaurant.

Once back at camp J went swimming again while the others explore the campground.

He tells me the water was REALLY cold

We made a fire and L made Spider dogs for everyone to roast - I had never heard of these before. You slice an X in each end of the hotdog so you have 4 legs, leaving the middle inch or so solid - then when you roast them the spider legs curl up. They look kinda creepy to me actually :)

This picture kinda shows what the Spider dogs look like -
but Elodie is shaking the stick so it looks like it has more legs than it does.

Around 10:30pm the real fun began - it started to rain on us so we all went to bed. As I was getting changed in the dark, my son says "I feel water"

Not exactly what I wanted to hear. Yup sure enough - our tent was leaking right in the middle - and right onto our double air mattress. There was nothing I could do about it - I folded a towel and placed it where it was dripping and tryed to go to sleep.

I could hear the girls in sis's tent next to us exclaiming about the rain and the bugs that managed to get into the tent.

It was very hot Saturday night in comparison to Friday. I would start to doze off and then the rain to would get harder and wake me again - these were VERY hard rains - I am just glad we didn't have thunder and lightening to boot.

I slept on and off throughout the night (son had no probs and slept fine).

In the morning we discovered puddles in each corner of the tent and my towel was quite damp but the comforter only slightly.

I dragged my sweaty tired self up to what they generously called the showers - a little tube-like structure that has a door that sometimes works, and a little piece of shower curtain inside. I was lucky that day and only had to shower with a single wasp and not a dozen mosquitos, like I had done the day before.

The girls took one look at the facilities and decided to wait until they got home to shower.

L looking cheerful - her tent did not leak.

J again decided to go swimming and then we set to taking down camp. I had to mop up all the water and try to get the outside of the tent dry before taking it down.

We managed to get everything down and packed away at around 10:30 am, just as the rain started yet again.

We went back to the same restaurant as Saturday and had breakfast. And then we all decided that we were too tired and feeling yucky to head to Fort Henry and just drove home - in the rain.


I had a good time - I realize I am not as young as I once was and sleeping on an air mattress in a tent isn't as fun as it used to be - and that I need to be more thorough with the sunblock - and that I really really hate bugs of all types - but I am glad I went and I got tons of pictures!

My camping adventure Part 1

Well my sister, son and I left home at about 11am Friday morning and drove the 2.5 hours to the campground in Gananoque.

Only once we set up my sister's tent and started to set up mine did we run into some trouble.

Sis's tent and car

A little back story here - I had my husband locate and bring the tent up from the basement for me on Thursday evening. I asked him - no less then 3 times if he checked that all the pieces where there. He said yes each time.

He was a little surprised when I called him at work on my cell from the campground to tell him he didn't include the tent poles - any tent poles.

The way things were scheduled, he was lucky. My friend was coming up the next day, so all he had to do was get the poles to her that night after work. My sister's tent was large enough for my son and I to sleep with her that night - she would be sharing it with the exchange students who were coming with my friend on Saturday, hence the need for my own tent.

My friend's husband did come up on Friday evening, but he had already left home by the time we arrived and found the poles missing.

There was a pool at the campground right near us. When we arrived it was full of kids but soon emptied and we assumed (incorrectly) that is was then closed. So all afternoon I had to listen to my son state at least 567,943 times how bored he was.

Doesn't anyone but me read stuff? Read #5 and tell if you notice anything.

Until evening and we started the fire.

Oh we had dinner of cold oven-fried chicken first - kiddo didn't care for it because it was cold and he wanted to know why we couldn't just heat it in the fire (which wasn't yet lit), you still following?

Please ignore the carcass on the side - I had already
eaten one pc when I remembered to take pictures.

My lovely sister D and in the background you can

see T, my friend's husband setting up his tent.

And my son J, not too sure of cold chicken,
and T in the background again.

So we got the fire going, got the kid to stop whining and had a pleasant evening. J saw fireflies for the first time - hey we live in the city.

J stuffing his face and T wondering when
I am going to put my camera down

J playing with the flashlight like a light-saber
(and no the stuff on the table is not on fire - just looks that way :))

Friday night was pretty cold, colder than I had expected, but we huddled together and kept warm, (finally falling asleep around 1:30am when those inconsiderate people down the hill finally put their screaming/yelling children to bed), until a lovely noisy bird woke us up around 7am.

On Saturday my son took advantage of the pool and met a bunch of kids his age. As there was no lifeguard, I sat and watched him. Only after almost an hour, did I realize we had forgotten to put on sunblock. So when my sister came to the pool, I ran back to get it. I then proceeded to slather him in it and put some on my arms and legs - completely forgetting my neck/chest area, back of my neck and face. So where did I get burned?

And what is this nonsense with my skin burning anyhow - I have always tanned easily and quickly, I was always the darkest kid in the neighbourhood in the summer, I never burned. And now I burn - getting old sucks!

My friend and her exchange students arrived around 12 noon on Saturday.
She has a 14 yr old girl from Spain - Belen (pronounced Beh-lynn), and a 17 yr old girl from France named Elodie (like Melody but without the M, ie instead of Y and more of a French accent El-O-de).

Neither had ever been camping before - it was sure to be a fun weekend :)