My mom and I recently took the boys on a camping trip to Santa's Village. What a great time we had. A little rain (enough to test out our new tent), nice cool weather while in the park but hot weather for the pool at the campsite. Here are the kids arriving at the park the first day. They got their elf hats, and took the elf pledge!

They got to be elves for two days!and even got to visit the big guy himself!

Here we are just plain elfing around!

Here is Kaeleb doing some animal watching!

Daelin made friends with the "wetlands lady". She was in charge of an information booth promoting the preservation of our wetlands. She gave Daelin a special membership into the Junior Naturalist Club and now its his job to teach people about the wetlands and why they are so important. He also has to identify a whole list of animals and tracks too. He is taking it very seriously and gave me trouble for letting Kaeleb kill an ant in our kitchen the other day :-)

Everyone had a turn at the drop zone!

Believe it or not I got Daelin on a rollercoaster! We went to look at it as he wanted to see what it was like. He was pretty freaked out. When I said I wanted to go on it he got really mad and said "no mommy, it's too fast!" so I snuck away when he wasn't looking and jumped on (I love no lineups!). My mom said that he got really mad at me. I motioned for him to join me and he did! He loved it so much that we ended up riding it over and over, I lost count how many times. We even made it back at the end of the day and caught the last ride!!
Even Mormor got in on the fun! Next year, she'll have to ride the rollercoaster!
Everyone took a turn at the drop zone! Even Mormor!

Here are the boys waiting out a rain storm while camping. They did pretty good keeping themselves busy in the tent while it rained, but it did get a little crazy. We were happy to be able to get outside and head to the park when the rain stopped!

One of Daelin's most favourite things about camping is the campfires and roasting marshmallows. The first night we were camping it was far too wet to get a fire started. Daelin was so disappointed. But the next two nights I got a roaring fire going and we enjoyed singing and roasting marshmallows. On Wednesday night we enjoyed a very clear sky. Daelin saw his first shooting star and he even saw Rudolph's red nose high up in the sky. He said it was Rudolph, keeping in shape for his big treck on Christmas Eve!

Here is Daelin and his lizzard collection eating dinner.
I never thought that my mom's cooking could get any better, but it was fantastic after a day outside at the park!
The weather co-operated pretty well even though we had some rain. The first day we set up in the sunshine and decided to take the kids for a swim at the pool. Shortly after we got back it started to rain. We broke one of the first rules of camping by going for a swim before out site was totally put together so we ended up throwing stuff in the van and diving into the tent. We sat out a very heavy downpour that lasted at least 2 hours if not longer (we were trying not to count). The tent stayed dry (which is what we needed to test) but it was a real soaking rain! We did end up having a bit more rain that night but the sun was there when we wanted it and it was cool when we were at Santa's Village. We also got to pack up in the sunshine and bring home dry gear!

Daelin & Kaeleb recently got to visit Captain Uncle Mike (aka. Uncle Elmo Hat) at the firestation. What a great time they had!
They learned all about the equipment used to fight fires...
and even got to try on Captain Uncle Mike's gear!

Part of the fun was getting to sit in the big trucks! Once Kaeleb got over his initial shyness (yes, Kaeleb can be shy) he had a lot of fun pretending to drive the firetrucks (and ambulance!)

Daelin & Falkor
Neriol & Daelin!

We found out about a nature trail at Springwater Park and Daelin couldn't wait to try it out. He was NOT disappointed!

The trail highlights different native wildlife with wood carvings in the forest. The kids had so much fun and they can't wait to do it again.

We enjoyed a lovely day at the park with Mormor
and we really enjoyed the nature trail, we'll certainly be doing that again!

This is Springwater Parks newest resident, a Bobcat. We don't know his story or why he's there but he sure isn't happy about it. He growled and swatted at Daelin as he looked in his enclosure, did Daelin ever jump! I wouldn't want to meet up with one of these guys in the woods on a bad day! He sure is beautiful though. Hopefully he can be re-released one day. All the animals at the park are there because they cannot survive in the wild for various reasons. They do not purchase or capture animals for display.
Kaeleb is brave enough to go down the big slide this year!
Clowning around on the playground.

We found a really neat tree and I decided to take a couple photos of the boys. Hopefully next time Mormor will be there with us and she can get a shot of me and the boys!

Here is Kaeleb...you'll have to excuse the Nutella face :-)

Here are the boys!

and a couple really nice shots of Daelin!