A dip into cottage country

With S away in Oklahoma this past week, I knew it'd be pointless to try and attend a church solo - would mean I'd be stuck in the nursery with three kids as the churches we've checked out have no childcare during the service.  I opted instead to call Elsie, a lovely lady we'd met last year in Oregon at a conference, now a co-worker of S.  I asked if we might be her 'guests' for Sunday at her church so she could help me out with the kids.  Instead, we ended up with a weekend invitation to her cottage an hour east of the city on the Whitemouth River.  Having had a particularly challenging day with the kids on Friday (and they with me), I was keen to be with others.  We left late Saturday morning and arrived for a nice lunch with Elsie and Peter.  

The timing wasn't great in terms of a nap.  Iz went down for a little while, but Ai goofed around under the covers.  I hauled him outside instead, but we paid for his lack of sleep on Sunday!  Didn't help that in new environments he won't fall asleep until 10 pm or so (keeping poor A up with his chattering).


We spent a good chunk of Saturday afternoon helping to harvest the carrots from the garden.  That was mostly A, ever ready to be helpful.  She stuck with it through all the stages of picking, cutting off the tops and bottoms (perhaps a little too enthusiastically) then scrubbing and drying them.  She's a good guest.  Didn't even complain about the cold - and it was!  There were bits of sunshine here and there to make it a beautiful place to be, but when the sun disappeared for a few minutes, eight degrees didn't feel so great!

"True Temper" - the name of the wagon suits Ai rather well!

After the gardening, they loved exploring the property . . .  

. . . and playing on the swing.  They loved hanging on it in all kinds of crazy ways.  So much fun (except for when they squabbled about who's turn was next.  Not a problem with Iz and A!)

After a restless night of sleep, thanks to sharing a bed with Iz, I wasn't sure how Sunday would go.  Ai was very temperamental, but we had a nice morning and afternoon all the same.  Elsie and Peter took us on a tour of the area nearby - Whitemouth Falls Provincial Park and Pinawa -  really beautiful places in the Canadian Shield.  The trees and the rocks, though different than 'home', still were such a welcome sight.  The wind made it a very cold trip out exploring, but the kids were troupers. 

Not impressed with the cold

Massive erratic boulders are so fun to climb 

After our jaunt, we returned for a wiener roast and then home.  The fact that Ai fell asleep 15 minutes down the road (something he only did after 4 days traveling across Canada!),  shows how tired he was.  It was so nice to enjoy the company of Peter and a wonderful 'substitute Omi' (not that there can be one - but anyone who goes by the name has to be pretty special!).   Ai grew particularly attached to Elsie, asking her politely to not hold Iz's hands.  "You need to hold me."  Iz, who is particularly attached to anyone nice she meets, was happy to just be out and seeing, enjoying their company thoroughly.  A's been saying, 'Well, maybe we can go back again this weekend."  Clearly it was a nice time had by all - hopefully by our hosts, too!   And as a bonus, S returned late Sunday night.  Once again, it was a weekend to be thankful for unexpected kindness.