Canada, Camping, & Calamine

Camping is like a rite of passage for a Canadian kid.  You've gotta grow up knowing what it feels to have campfire smell saturate your skin and hair, be covered in dirt, bug spray and sunscreen, wear clothes covered in marshmallow innards.  More than just the physical transformaton camping causes, it ignites a primal instinct that we all share...The urge to gather branches to whittle into weiner-roaster or fire-pokers...The comaraderie and comfort of sitting huddled in a blanket and staring at a campfire - everyone hoping that someone else takes the initiative to get up and put another log on the fire.  Showers are missed, toothbrushes are forgotten and even helmet rules are ignored with a shrug of the shoulders and the adage, "Ah, we're camping!".  Camping invokes a sense of freedom and exploration that simply can not be paralleled in the comfort of your own home. 

We set off to celebrate our freedom and exploration as Canadians with a family camping trip to a lovely tourist town not even an hour east of home.  Picturesque is a word that comes to mind.

It seemed as though most of Canada had the same idea for the weekend but we finally found a campsite off the beaten path...

Bikes? check.  Marshmallows? check.  Burly-man with an axe? check.

Ghost stories? check.

Staying up way past bedtime? check.

Happy camper? check.

The second day we were joined by our good friends and their kids.  It is so much fun to camp with friends!  The only problem was we were also joined by mosquitos.  The climate was perfect for them to hatch and they were buzzing like crazy!  R is allergic to bites and she got covered in welts, and then I covered her in calamine!  Poor kid. 

No time to wallow, though!  There were lots of Canada Day festivities...pancake breakfast, live music, flag raising, parade, fireworks.  The town was full of Canadians proudly decked out in their red and whites.  We took the kids to the flag raising and they may not have understood it but it meant a lot to me to be able to celebrate our country with them. 

 

R&B were definitely jazzed by the pedal car we booted around  town in and they waved their flags proudly...



...and they were thrilled by the  fact that they got to stay up until 10pm for the fireworks on the beach....

It was a  Happy Canada Day!!!

We woke the next morning to clear skies and we had a date with a lake.  It was like the kids were starved for the beach.  They were slinging mud, rolling in it, catching minnows, and generally acting like beach babies.

 

More friends joined us on the beach and it was an entire day of splashing, digging, sculpting, snacking, and chatting.  A perfect start to our summer!