Point Farms

With the last exam written for Kevin, Kade getting ready to leave on a trip to Campfire! with his class, and Kylie with just a week left of school, we headed off to Point Farms with Mike and Jenn. If we waited until the last minute to plan these weekends, we would probably never make it. Thankfully we booked it at least a bit in advance and then later found out that Kade's class was leaving EARLY Monday morning from school for Owen Sound.  So we worked out a plan and their caravan agreed to meet us along the way which was wonderful for all of us. We still had to drive almost an hour to meet them, but it sure beat packing up at 5 in the morning to make it to school by 7am.  This worked well!

We picked the kids up at school (pulling Kade and Kylie from Water Fun Day a bit early . . ) and then over to PRC to grab Kevin and then north we headed. We had never been to Point Farms before and were looking forward to exploring a new campground.  And another first? We beat Mike and Jenn there. I almost had to lock her out of the camp office to attain our win, but we did win!

We set up and then headed next site for supper.  After supper we headed down to the water and enjoyed the water, the sand, and the sun going down.

It didn't take long for intense conversations to begin . . . 

Even resorting to drawings in the sand to illustrate a point!

The younger girls chatting as well.

The boys doing a little less chatting and a little more activity.  Seaweed fights!

Swimming also happened and as usual the water was definitely CHILLY! Never seems to stop them.

The big boys getting far too grown up! 

Then it was Saturday.

We began the day with a soccer game - each family pitted against the other.  I'm not sure who won or lost but I do remember that it ended abruptly because the gentle rain that felt pretty good to play in for a while . . .did not stay gentle for all that long.

And so began the rain.  Into the trailer we all piled and lunch was had. So cozy. Or not.

Due to technology, we could discuss future plans via text and we decided that it was in the best interest of all to ditch the campground and head for town!

We got everything covered and spend the afternoon in Goderich. 

 Goderich is a pretty cool town and we wandered the circle and then stopped for ice cream which was a delicous treat!

We also went down the the water by the salt mines and took a little walk. 

Kade (sometimes) still thinks about being a coastguard, so we had him pose here.  He looks fairly thrilled by that.

These two girlies get along fabulously and can imagine away all the day long. It is wonderful. 

Our time in town was a good diversion. While it was not necessarily raining all afternoon . . in fact it was lovely in town . .  there was not a whole lot to entice us to get cozy and lounge around at camp all day.. I am glad we left for a few hours.

Off for a little bike ride while it was dry!

At one point on Saturday evening the winds picked up like crazy and it was a little scary. I didn't really know if we were safe in our tent trailer. We peeked out our window at one point because we didn't know where Kevin was and all we could see through the rain was Mike and maybe the boys trying to keep their canopy from flying away. It was blowing like crazy and pouring rain and branches were falling (thankfully not big ones!) . It is a memory that sticks with us. Then Kevin came bursting into our trailer with wide eyes telling us it was fairly wild out there. So we hunkered down again for a while and waited out the storm. 

It did calm down for a bit and we went for a bit of a walk and looked out over the water.  We then tried for a bit of a campfire but it didn't take long before the rain picked up again. At that point early bedtime was really the only option. We piled the big boys in the trailer too (partly to keep them safe hopefully and partly because their tents were not exactly dry anymore .  though doing pretty good considering!).

After a fairly loud (rain on canvas) night, we got ready for church and headed to Goderich. By the time we got home from church and had lunch, it was clear enough to head down to the water again and warm enough (I guess) to swim.  

You can see that Lake Huron's normally blue waters are rather churned up after all the activity.

Burying Karter

The kids found a spot by the water up the path a little where there was a little waterfall/creek leading down below. They spent a lot of the weekend playing there and having fun. 

They (the kids)  built a skeleton of sorts with the drift wood that was lying around  . . complete with headstone.

Sunday after supper we went for a walk/bike ride. This was an adventure. The water was so deep on many parts of the path that Kevin and Jordan would make a chair with their hands and ferry us across. This didn't just happen once. There were many very flooded over parts of the trail! Had we been in shorts, we probably would have just slogged our way through, but we were not dressed like the boys. We thought about turning around a few times, but kept figuring it couldn't get much worse:)

There were some dry parts :)

This barn is what the campground is named after (or something like that). We went inside and explored a bit (don't tell!). It was spooky enough to scare some of the kids and filled with enough mysterious details to enthrall the others. 

Monday dawned clear thankfully and Jon headed off early to get Kade to his meeting spot.  Because it was dry, we were able to get a lot of our stuff dried out before packing it up. Mike and Jenn were staying for a few more days, so our kids got to be jealous of the fact that they weren't packing up.

Monday was a good beach day and we stayed for a couple hours.

Spikeball

Karter and Konnor

Despite the rain (which we are kind of used to when we camp), it was a fun trip. The rain always puts a damper on things (ha ha), and though it did definitely lessen the hours we spent talking and sharing, it didn't take away from the fun of spending time away with friends.  We have some more wonderful memories and just being away from home even for a short time is a good refresher. (a lot of work . . but still a break in a different way).  We are so thankful for the friendships we all have (adults and kids!) and how we are so blessed by our time together. As our kids grow these trips get much harder to plan, but I'm glad we got back on track and this is a tradition we need to keep alive.  Busy will always be there. 

We headed home mid afternoon and we were not home for long before a crazy storm hit us at home too!  We needed the rain really bad at home so we were glad for it. That was the first we had had in a long time. Home was not graced with the same rains as Point Farms over the weekend.

And I can't end this post without mentioning the stars. Jonathan and I went for a walk late Sunday night and went to the lookout over the water. The stars were just phenomenal! I don't know if I have ever seen so many so clearly.  The heavens indeed do declare the glory of God!