Cottage Life

Post will be very heavy on pictures, so I'll go light on words. Our cottage experience was AWESOME. It was the kids first time in fresh water (a lake), first time tubing...first time at a cottage, in fact:-) My Aunt Collette and Uncle Mike (My mom's sister), have this nifty cottage in Bobcaygeon, Ontario. So we spent a day with my mom's siblings, and their descendants. Sooo fun!

Uncle Mike, Teegan & Tatum (my cousins)

The cottage. A view from the dock

Fire pit area

Me, before I got changed:-)...on the dock, while all my cousins soak in the sun

Mattea & Kayla (my sisters girls)

tubing fun

Kenna tubing for the first time ever!

Uncle Mike and Teegan gave people rides on the Sea Doo

Cousins: Kenna and Kayla

Grey, a bit of a loner as always, mostly played by himself

Decks and docks. The perfect outdoor space

My mom's younger brother, my Uncle Trevor

My Grandpa Shantz (my moms' father)

Me, talking to my Aunt Caralyn (married to my Uncle)...looks like my cousin Teegan is eavesdropping? :-)

Uncle Trevor teaching Brooks how to fish

Brooks caught 4 fish. Bass, and sunfish

Another one Brooks caught

Trevor was like the Pied Piper...all the kids had to come and see all the fish!

My Cousin Tatum with her 1st cousins once removed, Grey (orange shirt) and Canaan (lifevest)

Cousins Kenna, Mattea and Grey

Going on my boat ride with my uncle Mike, my sister Lauryn and my brother in law Mark

We are on the "X Qs Me"

Mattea and her Great Uncle Trevor, fishing

Kayla eating ice cream

fish touching

Auntie Collette hung the pirate flag, ripped up an old pillowcase (to facilitate proper headgear), and declared a water war! Brooks, Kayla & Kenna, with their 2nd cousin Aaron.

Nicole (my cousin), and Katie (my cousin Jordan's wife) floating away

The "bridge" leads over to the 2 car garage, which is also completely surrounded by decks:-)

Aaron, Jackson (Collette's grandsons) with their second cousins, Mattea & Brooks, and their 1st cousin once removed, Holden

Tatum, creating a shield

Such fun

Grey. Playing from the side lines.

Jackson, Brooks & Holden - all cousin-ish. Holden is my first cousin, and Jackson is my cousin's son (so Brooks' 2nd cousin)

Kenna after her first tube ride. It was "so fun" but the water was "too cold" :-)

Family fun times

My Aunts, Caralyn & Collette, inside

The basement

The bar area

Water wars with Grey and Uncle Mark

Bridge to the garage

cottage

garage

My first cousin Tatum, and Brooks. Toes in the water

 

My first cousins Jordan and Holden, with my nephew Canaan in the foreground

Brooks was very brave to try tubing! When he saw Kenna take off, he yelled from the safety of the deck "I'm gonna sit here an watch you die!" I guess he decided it wasn't all that hazardous!

My niece, Kayla Grace

Toes in the water.

Thumbs up, after an awesome tube ride!

Boating around Pigeon Lake, good bye all!

Lauryn, boating

Uncle Mike

Selfie on a boat

It was gorgeous! I love feeling the water as the boat speeds along

The kids found some shells. Kenna assured the kids that they could hear the ocean in these shell. That would be quite magical, indeed:-)

My cousin's son, Jackson

Brooks and Holden. Trouble.

A loon, flying over the water

The cottage. A fun time for one and all! Grateful to my Aunt and Uncle for hosting us all!

Mennonite

I am Old Order Mennonite, on my Mom's side. Her last name is Shantz, which is wildly popular in the Waterloo region of Ontario, amongst Mennonites/Mennonite descendants. We took a little detour Sunday morning before the family reunion to drive through the "old parts" of Kitchener. (My personal branch of the family tree is not "old order" anymore, as my Grandpa's (Katie & Sylvanus) parents broke away from that faith, in favour of a more "mainstream" Christianity - like, they didn't believe all those rules were actually sins. They were shunned because of their "heretical beliefs", but unlike most shunnings (absolutely zero contact with family forevermore), they did keep in touch with certain family members, and were permitted to adopt their nephew, after his mother died in childbirth, and all children in the family that were not old enough to work the farm were given away (Approx 4 children given away). They adopted Menno Hintz, at around the age of 2 years old, and changed his name. He is my Great Uncle Carl Shantz, my Grandpa's older brother (and cousin:-). We went and saw different family history last year.

Church, in service

The parking lot was totally packed out!

A cornbroom outside of every door. A Mennonite "thing". Gotta keep a tidy space!

The house my Great Grandma Katie Shantz (nee Hintz) grew up in. This was the Hintz farm

Farm house. Built in the 1800's. Katie was born in 1900, and she died in '81. My earliest childhood memory is of her. I was  about 18-20 months old. This house had some additions added to it, Grandpa said, from the original house.

Passing by a church of "black bumper" mennonites. They have cars. But they are all black:-)

Lots and lots of plain black cars:-)

Ooops! One lonely horse and buggy amid all those cars:-)

Such a contrast between new and old. It's incredible to me how these folks remain so steadfast and simple in our crazy world.

Heading home

Another part of the Hintz farm

The property of the school where Great Grandma Katie attended, through grade 5. That was all the education she ever got. I believe that Great Grandpa Sylvanus Shantz (her husband), also only ever went up to grade 5.

Kitchener Memories

Our first stop on the trip was to my Grandpa's house in Kitchener. We stayed there only one day last year, and the kids were begging for more. There isn't a ton to do there, kid wise, but they had a blast. And it was nice to catch up with Grandpa too. He is compiling much of the family history from his side, so he was sharing stories and pictures with us.

The kids were appalled at Grandpa's breakfast.. I can't even begin to remember what is all in this bowl...but it started with cereal, milk, melons, pineapples, coconut, nuts, yogurt, and more. It is basically all the food you eat in a day, piled into one bowl. uuuh, yah. No thanks.

King Buffet! The kids were excited to go here again (Gpa's fave restaurant). I had Grey's fortune from there still in my wallet from our trip last year. "Your life is full of color, it's just missing grey" I thought that was hilarious, since it was Grey's!

From this years King Buffet experience!

Tiger Tail ice cream, a Canadian treat!

Grey, doing his "Wiley Eye Cody" impression (Wile E Coyote)

At the park "in Grandpa's back yard"

My Grandpa is a watchmaker. My Uncle Greg was training/going to be one, but he passed away at the age of 18 in an industrial accident. In Grandpa's home is the Grandmother clock they built together. It still chimes every quarter hour, and with that, memories come flooding in. They built that house the year I was born, so all the memories I have of my Grandparents are in that place. Grandma passed away in 2010, but Grandpa still keeps the place up well.

The "Grandmother" clock (a Grandfather clock, but not quite as tall/large)

The face

The clock. I will always remember its sound and chimes.

Watchmakers toolbench

Watchmaking is a dying art. Because of the "throw it away" day and age we live in, no one keeps a watch forever anymore, or even a clock for that matter. So for those that do have an heirloom piece, it is getting very hard to find anyone who can work on it.

Grandpa seemed not to approve of the "huge clock" I wear on my wrist:-) He thought it might throw back out

He has a lot of neat clocks around though

Some (just a miniscule fraction, really) of Grandma's dishes. She had a set of dishes and stemware for more than every occasion. The house is still full of all her favourite things

Another childhood memory/introduction to my kids. Black walnuts. We grew up hammering them open, and eating the "meat". Grandpa educated the kids on the appropriate way to do this. We had a black walnut tree in our yard growing up, and so does Grandpa, so they were never in short supply.

The back of Grandpa's house

Kids rolling down the big hill in Grandpa's yard

I can't tell you how many times I did this exact thing:-)

Canada Trip

We are home from another magnificent trip to Canada! It was uneventful, trip wise, which is always the best kind of trip, in my opinion. The kids were excellent travel buddies. Especially on the way home, as we did it in one day (took us exactly 14 hrs with traffic and construction delays), and they were pretty overtired to start with.

They are already making mental note of all the things they want to do next year when we go (Lord willing, we'll plan to go each year).

It seemed like it took forever before traveling was "fun with kids" but it seems like we've finally hit that stage. For so long, it was just pretty terrible and stress inducing. Yes, we did attempt quite a few times, but it was never very fun. They are thankfully now at the ages/stages when it can be done without stress and can actually be enjoyable.

Van ride fun: Adventures in Odsessey, Shari Lewis CD, Ipod music, movies from portable DVD player, and games on the tablet. And snacks. Lots of snacks. I bring lots of snacks, drinks and food, so we can eat on the go without stopping. We make a few potty breaks along the way, but it's nice not to have to stop for food. On the way up (2 days), we didn't stop for food, and on the way home, we stopped and did drive thru for dinner, since breakfast and lunch had already been eaten in the car from my stash of food:-)

I'm going to start posting pics and videos of our adventures over the next couple of days, we managed to relax AND cram a lot of stuff into a 12 day trip!