bonding with my daughter

Terra is 100% a daddy's girl. For the longest time she would want nothing to do with me, as long as her daddy was there. Which isn't that hard to believe since he has been her main caregiver for 9 months. It was really hard on me because she was everything that I ever wanted, but yet she didn't want to come to me. I had probably spent the most time crying about that in the last 9 months then anything else. When we were camping for 2 weeks I took extra time to spend with just her. I carried her (in my mei tai carrier mostly). I fed her most of her meals, I put her pj's on and put her to bed every night. I really wanted her to attach to me since I was going to around much more, and wanted her to want me. And it worked. Even more so in the last week when I come home from work she will run and push the boys out of the way so she can get to me. She cries when I leave, she wants me to hold her and we have longer periods of cuddle time. Below are just some of my favourite pictures that were taken while camping with the two of us. Just turn your head around and you'll see she is smiling too. :)
She liked being in the carrier, and then having my coat wrapped around her


On this hike we went on it was wheelchair assessable. (a.k.a. strollers can use!) So while she was still in the car seat I picked up the mei tai and she saw it and started to giggle. But then I put it down b/c I was just moving it so I could get the stroller. But as soon as she saw me open the stroller she started screaming. And she would NOT let me put it in her. So then I held up the mei tai and she got all smiles. That moment just melted my heart, b/c she was telling me she wanted to be with ME! She wanted to be close to me. So mei tai she got! lol

cuddling in the car during a storm

Andrew and the boys were down looking at a lighthouse, and Andrew snapped me showing Terra some boats out on the lake.

Out on another hike - Chance wanted to take a picture of us.

My baby girl, she wanted to sit on my lap for the fire!

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worst part of camping - part 2

I would have to say that the absolute worst part of camping - was camping in the rain. We spent 8 nights at Algonquin and it rained about 6 of those, and probably 4 out of 7 at KillBear. Now, it's not the rain part that bothers me. We still go to the beach in the rain (providing there is no lightning - you are getting wet anyways!!) We still play outside in the rain (what kids doesn't like playing in the mud?). The part about camping in the rain is having a tent that LEAKS!!!!!!!! Oh my, I was ready to pack in when we had puddles an inch deep in out tent. Our beds, blankets, CLOTHES everything was WET! Terra's playpen was soaked, we ended up using towels for her to sleep. It was horrible!

Now if I was being honest, I would say it was probably our fault. I just bought this 12 person, 4 room tent last year so this was our first time using it. We set it up, but when we attached the fly we did it wrong.(the tarp that goes over the top of the tent - if you don't put the fly on then you just have one big large screen and you will get soaked for sure). The fly had ropes over the 3 doors and we didn't attach them to the ground. Out site was pretty small and we didn't want ropes all over the place. Well big mistake. Because those ropes are actually there to prevent the fly from touching the screen top. So when it rained, the fly collected water and dropped, which then leaked through the screen into our tent. It took us about 3 days of heavy rain fall before realized this. We staked the ropes down, and it was then a LOT better. It didn't fix the problem b/c the fly had collected a lot of rain and caused the tarp to sag, so the water just leaked a LITTLE bit, and we then knew were the leaks were and were able to rearrange our sleeping situations to people were not sleeping under leaky parts.

The following pictures are of us sitting in our van at 4:00 in the morning, b/c the lightning and thunder was really close. And we were afried of 1. getting hit by lightening, and 2. a tree getting hit by lightening and falling on our tent. Sleeping on the ground is NOT the place to be during a lightning storm. So we had to wake all the kids up (how they slept through it I don't know), and moved everyone to the van.

and yes, that is Andrew in the middle of a big yawn. and Terra's eyes probably look off that is because of a bad eye infection she had.
The one night when the tent was soaked there wasn't a place for everyone to sleep. So I slept in the van so that Chance would be able to sleep in my bed as his place was soaked. However, I got really uncomfortable in the van so at some point I made my way out to the picnic table in our dinner tent were I could strech out and be dry and all my kids had a dry place to sleep. This is how Andrew found me in the morning. He looked in the van and couldn't find me. lol

worst part camping

There are two things I would consider to be the worst part of camping. And no, it wasn't the bears walking past out tent in the middle of night. The first is MOSQUITO'S So many of them, and you feel so guilty when you see your children completly eaten alive! One day I counted 62 on Terra's HEAD. Poor baby! We tried out best to keep them off the kids, but sometimes it was just too much.



There are two things I would consider to be the worst part of camping. And no, it wasn't the bears walking past out tent in the middle of night. The first is MOSQUITO'S So many of them, and you feel so guilty when you see your children completly eaten alive! One day I counted 62 on Terra's HEAD. Poor baby! We tried out best to keep them off the kids, but sometimes it was just too much.

wildlife part 1

Well here is the postS that I've been putting together for quite some time. It's a bunch of the wildlife that we saw. The first was an owl that I saw when we driving. I got all excited and I made Andrew turn around and go back. And he's like "are you sure it was a real one?". Well I THOUGHT it was real, it looked real in the split second we drove past. And sure enough, it was real. We watched it for awhile and then we realized that in a next tree over there were about 3 baby owls. but they flew away and we were not able to get a picture of it. But you could hear them communicating back and forth with each and the sound was amazing to listen too.

And what is the beach without seagulls? Joe and Manny for some reason just loved the "eagles" all they call it.
Next on one of our hikes we came across this tiny little toad.

And if you know me, then you will be surpised to know that I posted a picutres of a snake on my blog. I hate them and petifried of them. And this is the first time I looked at this picture as I walked away while Andrew and the boys were checking the sname out. This is the second time that they saw a snake. The one time Andrew and Chance went to a kids program and they found a fox snake. but the pictures did not turn out. I was more scared of this snake then any of the other animals I saw! The other problem, was at killbear they have a lot of rattle snakes. And those can kill you. So that was why I was apprehensive about going.

Here is a loon. you could always hear the loons calling out from both our camp grounds. And for some reason, Manny is scared of loons. Not to look at them, but to hear them. :)

On a hike when Andrew took the camera out to take some pictures a little grasshopper decided to come and say hello!

This is a little chipmunk. Cute little guys. Chance tried making a "trap" for him but putting treats inside his baseball glove, but he didn't fall for it. I guess he is more of a Simon chipmunck then theadore!

Here we have a bunch of canada geese.

And an amazing sound we heard one morning was at 5:30am we woke up to the sound of a pack of wolves. You could here quite a few in the pack and they only did 3 howls. But it was awsome!

wildlife part 2

I just love seeing deer. Now I am lucky, because we were live I often see deer running across the road, or eating grass at the side of the road. But I've never been as close as to these one.

I know, after seeing some beautiful wildlife pictures, here I am showing you a picture of a deer carcass. You can even see part of the leg with the hoof attached. We found this about 12 inches off of the path we took on our hike! We are assuming a bear ate it.

wildlife part 3

One of the exciting things we saw were MOOSE! It was amazing to be so close to such a huge animal. The first picture of a moose and her baby. They were really far out so I could get a good picture.
The next couple of pictures was of a moose that was literrly 5 feet away from us. We had pulled over and was standing on the shoulder of the road just watching him for about 10 minutes. He had no fear of everyone (aprox. 100 people). And when you are travelling along the highway (that Algonquin is on) when one car stops about 50 will stop too. So as soon as we see one car pulled over on the side I automatically grab the camera, Andrew stops the car, then we try to figure out if that car is stopped b/c they see or something, or just pulled over to read a map or something. LOL

wildlife part 4

One of animals that I was petrified of seeing was a BEAR! I'm camping in nothing but a tent, with 4 young kids, what I am going to do against a bear? We went through 8 days at Algonquin and didn't see anything. We packed up and moved to our next campground. KillBEAR! Yeah, now that's a name for you. I got even more worried when the first sign you see is:

And then you look to the side and see:

Yup, that's a bear trap. They have some active bears in the campgrounds.

Andrew had brought along a long staff that he had made awhile back. And this staff went with us ALL THE TIME. If we went on a hike, we had it with us. If we were sitting outside it was always within reach. When we went to bed, the staff came in the tent with us. Hopefully one good smack on the nose would scare the bear off.

Here is Chance with the staff.

We went about 10 days when I was in the dinner tent dishing out dinner and Andrew's like "Amy, there's a bear over there". I didn't believe him at first, but then I looked out and saw him in the next camp site. I thought my initial reaction would have been to grab all the kids and throw them in the van. However, I grabbed the camera and went chasing after it trying to get a good picture with Andrew yelling out behind me "Amy, don't get to close. You're too close Amy. it's coming closer Amy". So he goes back makes sure the kids stay sitting in their chairs, grabs his staff in one hand and baby in the other hand. lol

I was very upset though. Because for some reason I could not get a good picture. I took the pictures without the flash (it was about 5pm) and they would all turn blurry on me. I tried with the flash and the picture would be black. I switched it to "night mode" and you couldn't see a thing. I turned it to "action mode" and still blurry. I was so angry because I could not get ONE good picture. We got so many other good nature/animal shots, and the BIG one wasn't working. So these are the best ones that I got. I did get some video's though. so if Andrew can figure that out for me that I'll post videos.


The bear got into some one's cooler.

The bear went to the corner of the campsite and dig a little hole and then laid down it in for about a few minutes just eating.

This bear was in the "middle" of this circle of camp sites And the people on all sides of the circle would yell and scream at the bear when it went near their sites. So this poor bear was stuck in the middle and it kept trying to get out, but it just couldn't. People just needed to let the bear go and get out, go back into the forest. When you have a bear that you are all scarring you have it trapped. You are looking for trouble. Because now you have a bear that was minding it's own business, to now an agitated and trapped bear.

Andrew went for a walk a few days later, and right during his hike in the middle of the Forest a bear comes RUNNING out and stops on the path way about 10feet away looking at Andrew! He started to walk backwards slowing as the bear watched him and he kept a tight grip on his staff. but after a few minutes the bear just took off in the Forest. As Andrew's tells me this my reaction was (and I can see that he is ok) so "did you get a good pictures?". Unfortunately he was too paralyzed to pull out the camera and for some reason was just more worried with backing away slowing and not scarring him. But when he did take the camera out it was too late as he went running back into the Forest.

The sad thing was that it had no fear of humans. So when they catch this bear they will probably have to put it down. So many people leave their food and stuff out on their sites which you can't do when you are in bear country. They tell you not even to dump your dish water or brush your teeth on your site. And the clothes that you cooked your dinner leave in your car and don't wear it to bed.