Summer kicked off with swim/dive lessons. Beca really did well, and has the rudiments of both the front flip and back dive. She worked hard, and seems to feel confident with them both. Hopefully she'll hang onto that feeling and next summer won't be start from scratch!
After her swim/dive lessons were done, she had a week of Girl Scout Camp at Is-Sho-Da. She enjoyed the activities, and had fun at the sleepover, but again the social issues were not easy for her and she wasn't exactly looking forward to her 2nd week. Luckily she had a nice long week at home with O and I in between. We bored her sufficiently that she WAS looking forward to the week come Sunday! The sleepover on the 2nd week didn't go as well, and somehow she and A. got into some kind of grr-err on the first or second day and never really got over it. So it was not a great experience. Oh my. Well, next summer perhaps something different ALTOGETHER! I'm actually considering 2 weeks of Undirondack camp. I'd like to visit it and also talk to other parents who sent their young-ish girls there. It's not a decision I will make lightly, or alone.
Remind me to come back here before NEXT summer and put in some new pictures.
A few days after camp ended, we left for RUBY CREEK!!!
The flights out were ok, not great, but I nursed O almost the entire way there, and he seemed to sleep well. Renting the car through Budget was a MISTAKE of grand proportion. Although it didn't cost us our entire savings, it was NOT cheap, and it took over THREE HOURS to even GET a car! Anyway, it worked the entire trip, so I shall stop complaining. It was just a rough start. Once we got to RC things really took off for us, and we all had a nice chill session.
Jerry had a meeting with the sibs and lawyers the next day, so we worked around that, and really it was fine. It put a bit of a bitter taste on his chill time, but he was back before dinner and got in a swim and stuff. I think Jerry really enjoyed his time up there - kite flying, exploring with the kids, swimming, watching CBC news. Since we only got the one channel, it was easy to decide what to watch!
We had a load of visitors there, including cousins and second cousins, friends like Joanne, Lukas and Jacob,
Tasha, Loreena,
and old family friends. Pat and Jim were able to come up a few times, which was fabulous.
Ken and Di were there for our first few days, but Ken was out of vacation by the start of the next week, and we really didn't see a ton of them. The time we spent together was great, though!
Beca has some fun sleepovers at Loreena's and at Lucas's houses, then we all trooped off to Robert's Creek and stayed at D'Arcy's for 3 nights. WOW WOW WOW!!!
D'Arcy is living in a geodesic dome that is awesome to be in, and her property is amazing. The cabins are so cute!
D'Arcy has recovered so well from the car accident, you'd never know she has had a major brain injury! Everything isn't back to perfect, but she's got her same flare and wonderful sense of humor, and she's running her B&B with only a bit of help, now.
And the beach is wonderful.
I'll have to process my thoughts and feelings about all that and write more on a diffferent day - time to go get dinner going here already! - but it was awesome to see D'Ar and a truly wonderful place. Sigh. I miss her and RC a lot.
Once we got back from our trip there were only a few days before school started. And that brings us back to homework and dinner and me skipping out on the rest of the afternoon! Bit embarrassing really. Ok, I'll try to get back later tonight and post up pictures. Hopefully everyone is REAAAAAALY tired. :D
