Ok, so the excitement of playdough does wear off after a while and keeping the children entertained inside can become quite a challenge when there are a few of them, especially when they start squabbling over who should have the shapes or the amount of playdough they can have, it almost becomes territorial!

Luckily, very luckily, Nour’s brother has a swimming pool in the back yard, this brings some relief as the children forget, very quickly, about the playdough and discover that they all used to be fish in a past life.  The fact that the weather has been absolutely awesome pretty much every day, usually around 30, does help a lot!
  

    
 

No words needed to describe how she feels about having a pool on her doorstep other than get out of bed (late), stretch a couple of times, change into swimming gear, jump and enjoy!

   
    
 

Probably not the best title to a blog I know, but I strangely feel quite sad that I am approaching my last few hours, a mix of a variety of emotions, it was just yesterday that Nour and I celebrated our thirteenth wedding anniversary (I will post this next as we spent most of the day in downtown Toronto yesterday with her two crazy but very loving nieces).

…I am writing about my last few hours of being in my thirties, I may look it (especially on a bad hair day!) but I certainly don’t feel it and I feel excited, apprehensive, slightly nervous, fortunate, spirited and all the other words that may explain a total mix of feelings that I experience at this moment in time while reminding myself of the decision Nour and I have made collectively to be here for this year…time will tell how good a decision this was but for now all feels overwhelmingly positive.

So here I am turning, becoming, living, experiencing, adventuring into the next phase of my life which will dictate the path of my, our next journey in life with my beautiful family and amazing friends for which I am eternally grateful…

Nour’s younger brother returned from Lebanon and as you can see, decisions, decisions, decisions! 

 

It got too much this morning, too many children, too much noise and chaos looming,  things became desperate, then we remembered play dough!

  

  

  

  

  

We joined our friends who were camping in a place called ‘Six Mile Lake Provincial Park’, about an hour and a half drive north of Toronto.  It’s always exciting to be in bear territory with lots of varied wildlife and later found out that the area has rattlesnakes too!  Unlike the name suggests, the lake is not six miles long.  The name dates back to the logging industry as it as used to indicate the distance left until they reached Port Severn.  We joined them for the day to have a BBQ, together we were three families, it was a lovely campsite surrounded by beautiful scenery and an easily accessible lake and walking trails.

The weather was incredible however the forecast was a thunderstorm later in the day…it lived up to its prediction as it rained so much and did not stop for hours, to be honest it simply enriched the experience, we swam in the lake, ate very scrumptious burgers, an upside down pineapple cake that was made on the BBQ, drank amazing coffee with very yummy chocolate chip cookies, danced in the thunderous downpour and sat round a camp fire as we all tested our skills of who could BBQ there marshmallows the best!

The journey back home was truly incredible as we witnessed a torrential downpour and an amazing, truly fantastic lighting display for two hours, although we were driving on some stretches of the highway where there was nothing, the surrounding area was lit up with magnificence every five minutes or so, we were left in awe of natures reminder of how powerful and incomparable it is…praising God and his majesty was very natural.

Another great experience for us all with the people we love and respect, a very long day and sleep was the priority when we got home….guess what, Sara decided to get up at 6am, beautiful!

http://www.ontarioparks.com/park/sixmilelake