Back in 2012, our friends organized the first "family camp" at Thomas Monson camp in Ontario. We went and had a blast! We went again in 2013. We weren't able to go in 2014, as that was the summer after Ali was born and we took a road trip across the whole continent that lasted the whole summer. We went again in 2015, but this time the venue changed to Lac Philippe in Gatineau Park in Quebec. Again, we had a blast at this new location! We missed out in 2016 as we were moving to India, then we missed out in 2017, as we were moving back from India. In 2018, Kaleb and Noé went to represent our family, but the rest of us stayed behind as Macy was still recovering from her open-heart surgery. Finally, in 2019 we were able to go again, and we hope this can be a yearly tradition!
Our family is so big now, that we need two 10-man tents to camp comfortably!
Can you see why we love visiting this place?
I LOVE the moss growing on the rocks and tree trunks, but the moss is there because this is a very wet place! Shortly after we arrived on Friday afternoon, it POURED down rain for 2 hours!! All we could do was huddle in our cars and visit to pass the time. After the rain stopped, we set up camp and walked over to Parent beach where we saw some deer and raccoons.
Saturday was a gorgeous day! Here we are setting out on our hike to Lusk Caves. We explored/swam through both caves. Even though I had done it before, it is still an exhilarating experience! We hiked back down to the beach at the bottom of the trail and enjoyed a picnic lunch.
Later that night, we all gathered for a community dinner. Just as we were about to eat another storm rolled in! Luckily, we were amongst several good boy & girl scouts, who were prepared and whipped up some tarps to cover our dining room.
It was Ron's 50th and Winston's 12th birthdays, so we ended the meal with cake!
Ali crashed out...
...then she got sweet snuggles from Niki. We enjoyed some time around the campfire before calling it a night.
On Sunday morning, this little guy strolled through camp.
Many of us gathered around to check him out. I have never seen a tortoise with a long tail with spikes like that before. I think he came straight from the Jurassic period! Okay, I just googled him and he is actually a snapping turtle.
We had our campsite booked until the following day, but we were all going to go home for a couple of hours (easy to do when the campsite is about an hour and a half away) to help Kaleb get ready for his Prom date that night (and to let all of us shower in the comforts of home and maybe get a little nap in- I don't sleep well camping).
However, all of our plans changed because shortly after these photos were taken our little Macy had a seizure. It was one of the scariest moments of my life! An ambulance came to take her to the nearest hospital and I went with her, while Leonard followed behind in our car. We were there for several hours until she received her strength back, then we were sent home. We were told if she didn't receive her strength back we'd be sent to CHEO, but their protocol is that you don't see a neurologist until you've had a second seizure (since then Macy has seen a neurologist- perk of having Down syndrome, and luckily her EEG came back great!).
Meanwhile, friends drove Kaleb home to get ready for Prom, while Rebekah's dad made the trek across the city to pick him up and take him to meet Rebekah. Our friends also took good care of our other 5 kiddos and they had a fun day at the beach.
Hiram can fly! (Well, he was brave to jump from really high up!)
I'm sad we weren't there on Canada Day to be a part of this group shot, but we stayed home letting Macy rest and recover. I'm so grateful for good friends!
(Roll call: Albers, Alton, Craig, Durst, B. Elliott, J. Elliott, Martin, Mejia, Piper, Rawaibula, Rochon, Rollins, Ross, Saurman, Stiles, Wang, Wilde, Williams, Wright, Zapata)
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