Cousins, More Cousins & Camping

I thought I would travel back in time a bit to share about our summer. I'm mostly doing this for our extended family's sake so bear with me!

Each July we go to the Island for our week-long summer holiday. My parents have timeshares in Parksville so we go there every second July with my parents, sister, bro-in-law & their three kids. Often we have other family & friends join us as well. It gets to be quite the group! This time we went over a day early and spent some time with Jeremy's family. We didn't get to see everyone but enjoyed our time with those we did see. The kids especially enjoyed going out for dinner with Grandma & Grandpa Olson, swimming at their cousins' house, and eating candies at GG's (Great Grandma)!

After visiting Jeremy's family we headed up to Parksville to join up with my family. There was quite a group this year - my parents, us, my sister & brother-in-law and their kids, an aunt & uncle & cousin, my sister-in-law & youngest nephew, my parents' pastor and friends from my parents' church! All in all, we had an average of about 13 people with a max of about 17! Not everyone stayed the whole time so somehow things weren't too chaotic!

Jeremy & I thought our holiday would be busy with people and activities - it usually is. You know how you go away only to come home and feel like you need a holiday to recuperate from your holiday?! Well, surprisingly, we didn't feel that at the end of our week. We had two suites which helped to spread people out and because it rained most of the week we didn't go out and do a lot of sightseeing & activities. I even read a Nicholas Sparks novel! I was hoping to go to the spa as well, but I left it too late so it didn't happen. Oh well, I'll just have to book an appointment here in town instead!

Our kids had a great time with their cousins. Because of the distance between us we always try to make the most of our time together. We went to Cathedral Grove for a walk in the woods to see some huge & old trees. We also enjoyed our tradition of going to Coombs for a little shopping and ice cream. Then we got to pet the goats on the roof of the store! They even tried to eat our hair!

All in all we had a great week spending time with family - something I'm learning to not take for granted anymore.

Then, in August, we went camping with our church cell group (small group). Now anyone who knows me probably knows that my idea of camping is going to a 5-Star resort. I don't like bugs and dirt in my food and I don't like outhouses!!! I really think God has a sense of humor because over the past couple summers my feelings on camping have been changing. This spring we went "camping" for the day and the kids had a blast. It was then that I really realized how much my silly dislikes was affecting my kids. Then when our cell group started planning a camping trip I thought "Either I can be a party-pooper or I can suck it up and have fun". I chose the latter. And I did have fun, despite the outhouses (I am now a believer that outhouses don't always smell!) and the torrential rains. (I can see God smiling right now)! The disappointing part of the weekend was that two of the families (they each had a little one) had to leave early. It was either that or they were going to be swimming in the night! But Friday night around the campfire was fun. We even had a visit from the Ranger reminding us to enjoy ourselves a little quieter! We tried - we really did!

Those are the highlights from our summer. Hope you enjoyed them and that yours was fun too!