I love celebrating my home and native land! I love that the Sunday before the 1st, we sing ALL four verses of the national anthem. It is truly beautiful.
This Canada Day was a lovely day with wonderful weather and my sweet family. The festivities started the night before. The town of Sidney does free cake and fireworks on the 30th. They're really for Sidney Days but most everyone just says they're for Canada day. We got there about ten minutes after the cake started being served and got in the long line. They started handing out napkins, which seemed like a good sign. Why would you give out napkins if you weren't going to have enough cake amiright? BUT about five people before us, it was all gone. I was so disappointed because I had told Oakley we'd get cake and got him excited and then there wasn't any. :( So, like any good mom (ha ha), I took him down to the store to get a cake replacement - two bite brownies. We enjoyed our brownies and some sour jujubes on the lawn while some lively Canadian band played. It was so much fun and so family focused. Then the fireworks began. Let me tell you how much I LOVE the idea of doing Canada Day fireworks the night before: you stay up late and then have a holiday so you don't have to worry about getting little sleep before work the next day. Brilliant. Emmett was mesmerized by the fireworks. He wasn't one bit startle or scared, he just watched them all so intently. Oakley was a little more hesitant about them but enjoyed them by the end. He still talks about them. "Works. Up. Sounds." :)
Oakley enjoying the music
The beautiful sunset over the ocean
"How many cheezies can I fit in my mouth at once?"
Canada Day itself was very chill and relaxing. We didn't do anything with crowds. We made a waffle breakfast since there were no free breakfasts in Victoria. Seriously, Victoria, you've got to work on that. Edmonton is beating your butt with free Canada Day breakfasts. Step it up. Anyways, after our nice breakfast, it was off to Aylard farm beach again to soak up some sun. It was the perfect day. Blue, blue skies, no wind, and the sun just bathing my skin in delicious warmth. The beach was surprisingly not busy and the water was surprisingly still freezing. So much for my plan to go swimming. Instead, Emmett and I found a small tide pool and hung out in there. And Emmett ate his first sand and sea weed. Yeesh, that kid is fast! Nearing nap time, a sweet stranger at the beach lent me one of those half tent shade things so I could lay Emmett down. It was one of those tender mercies. Thank you again, kind stranger! Oakley was all over the rocks, exploring the beach and finding little treasures. I love that little boys can find treasure in the simplest of things. Life is so magical in the eyes of a little boy. He makes my life pretty magical, too. I was drawn in by the anemones again. I find them so fascinating. This time, I found a whole lot of them out of the water as the tide had gone down. I don't kno why, but I thought they looked really cool. After a nap and lots of munching, exploring, playing and mess-making, we packed up and headed home.
We had our first ever visitors last week! We got a message from Matt's cousin, Kayty that they would be on the island and wanted to see us. I was more than a little excited. I didn't realize how much I have missed physically seeing our loved ones back home. Kayty and Clayton arrived Sunday after church with their littles. Because they were visiting a new place, we wanted to take them somewhere we love. Gold Stream Park was the chosen location.
We packed up a lunch and headed out. The plan was to return to Niagara Fall and then make more plans from that point. Off we went. I was very surprised at how much the water had gone down again. The waterfall was significantly smaller (although still very beautiful) and the stream died out shortly after the water reached the bottom of the waterfall. There was lots of climbing around, rock throwing and fun.
The boys running up ahead
They both had fun with this tap
We're very excited about the tunnel. :)
The men exploring and checking the depth of the pool
And all little boys love to throw rocks
They found some neat little spots
And everyone loves the maple leaves. :)
It was decided that we would continue on up to the old train trestle bridge up the valley. Um. Holy. What a hike! We definitely will not be doing this hike again on a Sunday. Not quite sabbath day walk material. I also think Clayton was a drill sergeant leader. Ha! :) But, I made it. I wanted to die, but I did it. THEN the guys headed out onto the bridge - the REALLY high bridge. I started walking out with Kayty and we made it to the first beam, which was far enough away from the solid ground that Kayty could have fallen through. Yikes. I didn't want to continue, but Kayty went and gave me the courage to do it. She was a lot faster than I was, so soon I was by myself. I almost turned back about a thousand times. Seriously, so scary! But I did it! There's something so invigorating about doing something you didn't think you could. I was very, very grateful to be back on solid ground. It was an incredible view and I might even do it again.
Gingerly walking to the other side of the bridge for another photo
I'm sad we didn't take a picture to show how far up we were but to give you an idea, it took Clayton's spit 12 seconds to hit the ground. Yikes!
The whole crew!
Running on the tracks. Hopefully this doesn't stick.
Here's a sort of view of how high we were but then like triple it.
And then we hiked down.
A nasty Banana slug next to Kayty's hand for a size reference
It's too bad I didn't get a video of Emmett with their sweet baby girl. They are only three weeks apart and when Emmett saw her for the first time, he was smiling and laughing and they were grabbing each other's hands. It was so cute! So, this will have to do:
