The Extended Family

We have been seeing a lot of the extended family! There was Thanksgiving, and then this past weekend we went to Great-Aunt Harriet's 90th birthday, where there were all kinds of relatives - some of whom we'd never met before!


Here is the youngest guest with the birthday girl! There was one older present that I can think of, the children's great-grandfather was there, and he is over 90!


Here are the younger members of the family having a group bounce on the trampoline. The little guy in red is David's second cousin, as are all the other young people (come to think of it!) except our children and the girl in the white sweater who is his first cousin.



All but one of David's aunts were there, as was his uncle. So it was good to see everyone, and catch up a bit on what people have been up to!

This photo is actually from Thanksgiving, it is another of David's first cousins (in university now) and Emmi. I just thought they both looked so happy!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It is good to give thanks to the Lord! Psalm 92:1

Experiencing Nature

With the lovely weather recently, we've been able to get out and see the beautiful world God made. Here is Granny with a couple of her grandchildren on one outing. They look pretty happy, don't they?

Marshwiggles Go to School!

Well, we thought it was time that the children went out to experience a classroom setting, so we signed them up for a field trip to the Jordan Schoolhouse.

The school is set up as a living museum, set in 1908, so we had to (as much as possible) dress from the time period, take a period lunch, and we got to experience the type of school students in 1908 would have. The children had a great time, as well as learning lots!

Here is Emmi eating her lunch - no plastic allowed!


This is Tim during a penmanship exercise.


As we were a homeschool group, we had a good variety of ages, which replicated the 1908 experience quite well. Here are some of the happy group on the girls' side.

Tim's Corn - The Finale

We have harvested and eaten Tim's corn! We had a bit of trouble one week we were away, it got too dry (crazy weather!) and lots of it was knocked over (racoons?) but we did get some cobs, and I don't think there has been corn grown that was eaten with as much excitement!

Canoodling Marshwiggles

The Marshwiggles often take a long canoe trip in September, the weather is usually still warm, the bugs are gone, the people fewer, it's just a nice time to be out in the woods. This year we went the third week of September for a five day trip. We left right around the end of Hurricane Ike, so our first day was very, very wet! But we were prepared, and the interior of all of us stayed dry (people and tents). After that, the weather was lovely. Some of the mornings were cool, all right, some of them were downright cold! Here are the little wiggles eating their breakfast porridge with their mittens:


We did a loop of 5 lakes, portaging between them. The longest portage was 1.5 km, wow! Half of the party got lost (that would be the part I was with) so between backtracking, and meeting up, and waiting where we thought we ought to meet the others, it took us 4 hours in total. Here are the unfortunates who were with me, on part of the portage trail (it later turned out to be the wrong part!).


We saw a good number of reptiles, a snake, lots of turtles, toads and frogs and I saw what I now have identified as juvenile five-lined skinks. They have bright blue tails! We saw a lot of birds, including a kingfisher, and more beaver lodges. And we even got a little school in (that would be the "book learning" part of school, not counting the whole experience as one big field trip!).



We had some lovely campsites, and a couple of days where we didn't see any other people. The children enjoyed playing, their favourite spot was a small island where they could run around and explore, without getting lost. They also had some fun times together:


In fact, we all had some fun times together:

Stitches!!

Well, it finally happened! One of the children needed stitches! It is amazing in some regards that we got this far without anyone needing them. Ben was the victim, he fell into a van door, not terribly hard, but hard enough to open up his forehead. The doctor closed it up again with 3 stitches. Ben was a very brave boy, and did very well! His mother (me) who was with him in the hospital room didn't do quite so well, and got very faint but no one seemed very surprised, it must happen a lot! So here's Ben with his band-aid, his bear and his brother, looking good!