Camping At Presqu'ile!

(Grandma gets to be a guest poster, since Marya forgot her camera!)

Marya and the boys invited me to go camping with them this past week.  We went to Presqu'ile.  Our family used to go to Presqu'ile  every year when the children were younger.  Presqu'ile is a great place for families--lots of activities!  Great campsites, daily visits to the park store, visits to the Lighthouse and the Nature Centre, morning or afternoon hikes with camp staff, monarch butterfly weekends, nature films (not videos!) at the ampitheatre, campfires with park staff re-enacting "The Sinking of the Speedy" (Stephen--remember? the captain is the last one to leave the ship!), outdoor church, etc.

We weren't able to do all of those things, but we made a good start!

The weather was warm, so after we set up, we went to the beach:

 The boys started building an island.  Liam was on the island, and a moat was being built around him.

 The island got smaller and smaller...and Liam had little land on which to crouch!

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The moat was VERY deep--Isaac almost fell in while digging it!

 And afterwards, it became a great pool!

 Friday morning the rain woke us.  It was a gentle rain, but, none the less, rain.  So it did cramp our style a bit--but we rose to the challenge!  After breakfast, we went to the Nature Centre (a beautiful new building --not the old one by the Lighthouse--with lots of great exhibits.  All four boys earned the title of "Expert Fossil Hunter", and have certificates to prove it!  At the Lighthouse, it is always fun to play on the rocky beach.

 Evan is quite the expert at skipping stones--just like his Grandpa!

The sun came out in the afternoon, and so we went to the beach, taking along an air mattress.  It provided lots of great fun!

 Isaac needed to have a rest...

...while the other boys continued having fun in the water.

Thursday's pool was still there--and so Liam curled up in it for a little rest.

 Before going on the Boardwalk Saturday morning, we played a game of Viking chess--a great lawn game!  (My team lost--Darren and I!).

 Great weather for the Marsh Board walk!

 Very tall marsh grasses--another invasive species that just arrived at Presqu'ile in the mid 1980s, and is already overtaking much of the native marsh grasses.

 And of course, we had to try out the giraffe trees!

 Evan and Liam singing "Bless the Lord" at the Ampitheatre (where the outdoor church service is held on Sundays).

 And you can't go to Prequ'ile without  sorting through rocks and finding special stones!

 This was our campsite just before we starting dismantling it!  It was an excellent site--large enough for 2 tents and the dining tent, and close enough to the washroom.  Evan and Darren had their bikes and spent a lot of time biking around the sites (looking for firewood that had been left behind).

 It was a lot of fun!  I was really impressed with how well the boys managed camping.  I think they will be expert campers!