Goodbye Summer, Hello School...

Hey, Blogger pictures are working again!! I can click and drag them.... Yay!

Anyway, once again it was time to send everyone back to school this morning. We had a good summer, and there were not too many days of boredom, but I think they were all ready to go back!

Especially Natalie, who has been counting down the days for weeks already.... She is SO EXCITED for KINDERGARTEN!!!!!

Here she is this morning, all ready to go with her new shoes and backpack. At 8:00 she wanted to know why we weren't leaving yet...
This year, Covenant has their largest student population ever, at 68 students!!! 26 of those are new, including Grade 1 and Kindergarten. So there are lots of new friendships to be made in every class! We have certainly been blessed, it was very evident this morning as our chapel could barely accomodate all the supporters that came out for the Opening Assembly. Mr. Meinen put the new Powerpoint projector to good use again for this Assembly. This is the Theme text for the year:

Other highlights from this morning:

Grades 1-4 lined up to go inside.

Grade 5/6 ready to get to work! Deanna is by the window in the pink shirt.

Grade 7/8. Tim got to pick his own seat. Mr. Meinen gives him a week before he ends up in the front row... :)

Grade 3/4. Allison is standing with a light pink shirt, Amanda by the window in dark pink.

Singing the Welcome song in kindergarten. It is so cute to see this small class - there are only 4 in total... including an adorable little Down's Syndrome girl, Esther. She was unfortunately ill today, so missed the first day of kindergarten..

HarseCamp 2009!

Was held at Balsam Lake Provincial Park this year, due to the difficulty of finding enough sites at Killbear Provincial Park. We had 5 sites in total, with various comings and goings through the week. The only ones missing altogether were Mike and Kathryn, but they had a pretty good excuse. Babies go on their own timetables, they don't understand camping reservations....
The summer has been so cold and rainy and un-summerlike, we were a bit concerned, but apparently we picked the right week! It was hot and sunny pretty much the whole week, with just a bit of rain on Monday evening. We spent most of every afternoon at the beach...aaaahhhhh! Just what the doctor ordered...
As always, the pictures tell the story:


Our campsite.

Mom and Dad's campsite right next door! Harpert and Marg were next to them, and then Brian and Barbara. John and Kim were across the road. Assorted kids could be found at various campsites throughout the day. Depending where the food was better.... like Froot Loops in pancakes... or other such silliness.

"Our" spot on the beach

Fun in the water

Tim and Jeremy on the attack! Those water cannons were VERY popular toys....

Mom and Dad having coffee at the canoe dock

Action shot!

Allison relaxing with a Fundip and an Archie comic book. Does it get any better than that?

Cousin bonding time! Deanna, Olivia and Bethany floated around all afternoon in those tubes.


More cousins, more bonding.


The Larson!

Natalie taking good care of Tyson.

And then she had to pee... what's a girl to do?

A pair of porpoises!

Harpert and Marg leaving early.... such a sad day. Goodbye Larson. Goodbye Opa Wim. Goodbye GREAT Uncle Harpert and GREAT Aunt Marg.

*sigh* is it time to book for next year yet?

Ontario Place 2009

Yesterday the kids and I headed out to Ontario Place with Alicia, Reuben and Jonah. We had been planning to do this for a while, but our lovely rainy summer kept interfering with our plans. We finally decided to just go and take the weather as it came, and what do you know, we had a great day! It sprinkled a few times, and we thought we might get soaked, but then the sun would come out again...

The last time we went to OP was 4 years ago, Natalie didn't even come with us, as she was just a baby. It was fun then, and the older kids still remembered and talked about it. So I cashed in some Airmiles for tickets, thinking we would go when Art was up North last week. Too bad he couldn't come with us, but it was still fun. It's great for the kids to spend time with their cousins, Reuben was especially glad to hang out with Tim for the day...

On to the pictures.....

I took lots of them. I'll try to not post too many (sorry, Barbara) but we both have such photogenic kids :-)

Excited to be here, and ready to start playing!

Alicia and Deanna watching the action.

Natalie pretending to be trapped.

Feeding the geese her lunch.

Waiting in line for bumper boats

How do I steer this thing???

Silly faces.

Natalie was surprisingly good at this!

Reuben and Tim hanging out.

We met Elmo, Cookie Monster and Abby.

Natalie loved the splash pad

Giant slide...

Free Fall! Natalie was really mad that she couldn't go on this one.

Reuben on an ATV.

We ended up staying at the park til closing at 8:00. It was a late night, and a long day, but definitely worth it! The girls are already asking if we can do it again next year... anyone else want to come along?