Beattie Time

Up on the top of a hill in Westcastle the Beattie's settled in for a weekend of fun. Grandma took Brayden and Sydney up to Westcastle on Thursday night in her motorhome so they could get an extra night in on the action. They sat on a couch at a table in the motorhome and coloured and read books the whole way up to the mountains. Talk about travelling in luxury! I stayed home and waited for Ryan to arrive home from Montreal with our new fabulous van so we headed out early Friday morning. As we pulled off the road towards the coveted camping spot Jes and Jim claimed two quads met us at the bottom of the hill with Sydney on one grinning to her ears. Brayden had already left earlier that morning to go fishing with the older boys (where he caught his first fish!).

We got our tent set up and enjoyed the freezing brisk air filling our lungs with crisp smells of pine. Loved it. Once we were all settled in and did a little showing off of the new van we all went for a walk down the creek to throw some rocks. I have seen so many breath taking landscapes in the last five years as we've been fortunate enough to travel through south east Asia but there is something magnificent about the rich green pine trees, crystal clear water and blue skies of the Canadian mountains. A little bit of snow caps still in the distance thanks to the late summer with the sun warming us. It got to be quite warm up there and after lunch after the boys got back from fishing we went swimming in the lake. I want to clarify by "we went swimming" I don't mean me. That water seriously felt like it was on the verge of freezing over so I decided to try to stay warm on the beach and watch all the kids teeth chatter instead.

The rest of the weekend was filled with just as much fun. Kaden has his own quad, perfect mini quad, and he took Brayden for a drive. We brought a small parachute with us and Ryan had some fun with the kids while we got lunch prepared.

My kids got so filthy it was on the verge of disgusting. If I didn't have the excuse that we were living in a tent I would be ashamed of myself but you know what ... we were camping, we lived in a tent and they are just kids. Kids are supposed to be disgustingly dirty when they play outside all day. If they came back clean I'd be suspicious. Who cares really when they cleaned off in the river wading or cliff jumping like Brayden!

We played games and had some great laughs. I can't remember what the game was called and apparently I've missed out on it's awesomeness on TV since being in the Philippines but whatever it was, Ryan kicked butt and won! The kids just ran around and were never bored exhausting themselves so that all three kids were easily put to bed even if all three of them were all beside each other in the tent. The first night we celebrated Brock's birthday so we had pinata and cake! Seriously I'm not too sure how we could have done anything more then we did. One night we all sat around the fire and we threw flour into it making it HUGE. Probably not the best game to be playing with Ryan the pyro right there but it was cool and the first time doing that for me. We had church up in the mountains and even got a primary presentation with all the kids singing us a song. It was great.

Of course we ended with a little photo shoot down by the creek.