Dominique's birthday extravaganza!

Dominique had her birthday party a week after the actual day and just before we left for Saskatoon.  We made tie-die like bandanas, home made pizza and played a bunch of games.

I was thankful that we were able to find some friends who were around for the summer.  The benefit of a summer birthday is that the weather was gorgeous, but the downfall is that friends may not be in town or available.

We did races.

Penny on the noodle and had to be dropped in a pool of water.

The games were movie themed.

most of them were relays.  Here they had to get the penny out with a partner only using their feet.

In this one each team member had to race to get lego pieces to build a castle, once the pieces were attached, then next player got to go run.  I let them pick 8, 6, 4 then 2 pieces going from the oldest to youngest kids.  They really got into this one.  I then asked them to describe their castle and tell me what the best features were.

There were 2 teams.  The castles were great and the frog prince ended up deciding that he would use one castle as his weekly residence and the other one as his weekend get away.

There was also a scavenger hunt.  The movie characters were giving the clues.  Princess Fiona from Shrek was in the compost box and Rapunzel in the tree fort.  Stitch who got hit by a truck in the movie was on the tire swing.  They had to work as a team to get it down.  It took several tries to get a system that worked.

Fiorella was the only one tall enough, but the other's had to get the swing close enough for her to grab the clue.  Ivan was banned at this point for giving away all the clues he already knew.

Snowwhite on the shovel, Arial on the pool...  I love scavenger hunts and the kids do too.  We should really get into geocatching-  isn't that a scavenger hunt for adults?

She wanted her cake designed with a rose, so I decided to make a rose.  It was messy, but she liked it enough.

In these pics, they had to ask yes and no questions to find out who they were.

I'm always amazed at how much planning activities take and how little time it takes them to do them!  Both with Camp Cousins and the party- tons of prep., organizing and thinking up things, also clean up and they just zip through it all.  But when she said "thank you mom" and gave me a big hug and said she loved me- it made it all worth it!

beach days

I put my trio in swim lessons before we came to Saskatoon.  I am so thankful I kept with this.  The first year, they didn't do anything, because they were cold, but they've gotten used to it now and are learning a lot.  This was Emora's first year in lessons and I've babied her some- she overwears her arm floats.  So I was a little horrified to see these waves the first day!  Ivan is in black and I think Dominique is about to do a float.  They were in the same class.

Emora braved it well and although she didn't pass her level this year, she is well on her way and got much more confident in the water.

I loved all the activities the park workers had planned!  It reminded me of going to park programs when I was a kid and gave me some much appreciated time on the beach with the kids interacting with others.

My uncle and aunt stayed past the wedding and we got to see them some, which was nice.  They camped and had us out one night where we got to learn how to make pie over a campfire!  What a treat.  It was basically grilled bread with pie filling in the middle- so delicious.  Uncle Pete could barely make them fast enough for my ravenous kids.

This is my dad's brother.

We went down by the beach with Aunt Marj to check out the sunset.

Another book nest.

This day there were water games and races at the beach.

Good times in the summer time!

We are finishing up our week in Saskatoon as I write this.  In fact we got to swim in a pool today and I wish we'd chosen indoors, because it was cold!

We got to hang with my extended family - my sister and her family and brother and his wife and my parents and play games.  I love our games nights!  So fun!