De La Salle Beach

 

We've been spending quite a bit of time at the beach this summer- so far only at Sibbald Point because its close and (being a provincial park) day passes have been free this year. We have a much smaller and a little bit closer beach that I haven't been to since last summer, but have been avoiding assuming that it would be even more crowded than Sibbald. But we decided to try it with some friends from church. Since it is a local beach and only residents of our town can get free parking, it was much less crowded and we had a wonderful morning playing in the water and the sand!

My friend made her daughter into a sand mermaid and we made Heidi into a hill with buildings on it- a giant earthquake happened when Heidi got up!

Once Natalie got into the raft, we had a hard time getting her out.

Asher and Leif discovered body surfing in on the waves, although the waves weren't very big and nothing like the ocean. They'll get to experience that someday!

 

Raspberries

 

One of our summer traditions since moving to Canada has been to go raspberry picking right around Asher's birthday (when they are perfect!). We went a few days after Asher's birthday this year and didn't get quite as many as previous years, but we had plenty to make in raspberry shakes, a raspberry pie, and of course just to eat alone.

Natalie and Trevor needed quite a bit of help picking raspberries that were ripe and not just any berry they could see


Trevor picked it up after awhile, but Natalie needed a buddy the whole time to make sure she was only picking ripe berries.

The kids especially love this pick-your-own farm because they have a fun playground with a few farm animals. Heidi spent almost all of her play time checking out the pony.

And here are our raspberry treats:

Soccer

 

We were so excited to do soccer again this summer after not being able to do it last summer because of COVID. We had to go to a different soccer club located a little south of us, but the drive times aren't much different anyway. Heidi was so excited to get to play this year and Asher and Leif are on the same team again, which makes it nice because that's one less day a week to drive out to games. Heidi just happened to get that same color as her brothers, but she is on a different team and a different day of the week. 

 

Swimming Lessons

Only Trevor and Heidi took swimming lessons this year, but since my friend's daughter is the one teaching them, the other kids are free to splash around and practice their swimming the whole time too. For the first week, I had to get in the pool with Natalie while she played with her little floatie on, but by the second week, she was confident enough to get dressed, get her floatie on, and get into the water with very little assistance from me. She was very comfortable floating around in the water, although it typically only lasted about half an hour before she wanted to get out and go play on the swing set, play in the sandbox, or swing in the hammock.

Trevor and Heidi are both making significant progress and getting better at swimming in the deep end.

Asher and Leif are both confident swimmer and are safe in the water. They don't have amazing technique, but I know they are safe and they love to jump and splash all around.

 

Asher is 10!

Wow! I can't believe my first baby is already into the double digits! Time goes by too fast and its both exciting and a little scary how fast he is growing up. He is growing into a very fine young man and is a pleasure to have around. He is very caring and helpful, loves to be active and involved in anything that's going on, is very intelligent and loves to read, and is overall just an incredible guy!

Our day started not only with chocolate waffles, but with whipped cream faces for all the kids (except Trevor, who is allergic) because they all think it is hilariously fun to get whipped cream sprayed in their mouth and on their faces.

Trevor out-did everyone by eating at least 5 chocolate waffles. He claims it was more, but I'm pretty sure that's what he got to. He also ate about half of all the strawberries I had cut up to go with the waffles.

Both Trevor and Natalie were eager to help make Asher's birthday cake, mostly because they are fascinated by the beaters and argued over whose turn it was to use them.

Asher and Leif were kept busy most of the day putting together a Lego space shuttle from Austin's parents.

In the evening we had some friends over for a waterballoon fight on the trampoline, hamburgers, and cake.

Asher didn't bother to change out of his swimming suit for cake ;)

He also got a pair of rollerblades from my mom, so he went out to give them a try with Austin, Leif, and Heidi, but I didn't get a photo of that. A highlight of his evening (and one that kept us up way past bedtime) was that we finally caught one of the raccoons that lives in our backyard (one of the babies, although its getting big enough that it doesn't really need its mom anymore) and he got to go with Austin the next morning to release it in a wooded area about 5-6 miles away from our house. We still have 5 more raccoons to go, so hopefully they don't come back!

And here is my favorite birthday tradition: the birthday interview

 

 Who is your favorite person? Natalie

What is your favorite color? Robin's Egg Blue

What is your favorite thing to watch on TV? Studio Gibli Movies (he got his very favorite of these-Castle in the Sky- as a gift from my dad) and Minecraft

What is your favorite outfit? Under Armour t-shirts and shorts

What song do you like the best? How Great Thou Art

What is your favorite cereal? Cinnamon Life and Cheerios and Sunrise Maple Crunch

Who is your best friend? Everyone in my family

What do you want to do when your grow up? Be an Artificial Intelligence Engineer

What is your favorite book? The Hobbit, Phantom Tollbooth, Chronicles of Narnia Series, Little House on the Prairie Series, Anne of Green Gables Series, Mrs. Frisby & the Rats of NIHM, . . . and Lord of the Rings will be (He is still waiting for Leif to finish it so he can read it)

What are you really good at? Everything- Minecraft, Reading, Soccer, taking care of Natalie

Where do you wish you could go on vacation? Colorado

What would you buy if you had a lot of money? R/C car (remote control)

What is your favorite dinner? Pot pie, Taco Skillet, Hamburgers, Lasagna

If you could have a wish, what would it be? I'd wish for more wishes

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and Mint Chocolate Chip

Who do you want to be like? Me

What do you like to do with your friends? Play Minecraft and Lego, hide and seek, tag, waterballoons

What do you hope you'll get to do before your next birthday? Go on lots of vacations and camping

What is your favorite thing to do? Play with Natalie

What are you proud of? Having a big, fun family

What are you afraid of? Fear

What is Mom's favorite thing to do? Make cookies

How strong is Dad? Really strong

What does Dad do best? Drink Coke and eat chips

What does Mom do best? Take care of us

What do you like best about Dad? He's fun

What do you like best about Mom? She's fun