The Pinery

It was back in March that we booked our sites for this past weekend at The Pinery. It's one of the toughest parks to reserve a site because it's so popular. Our weekend quickly arrived and we hurried to get everything we could think of together, our camping gear and needs for all of the kids and ourselves. Caleb and Amberly were so excited, so much so, they didn't nap on the way there. We stopped half way on the side of the road at a rest stop to feed Joel his bottle. Amberly announced she needed to use the potty. This rest stop unfortunately didn't come with port-a-potties. So I taught her how to pee like a girl in the bush! She didn't even dribble a drop on herself, she excelled in it!

The Pinery is a big ground, once we got booked in and found our site, we quickly went to work at setting up our tent while the kids explored the site finding bugs and sticks and stones. We got everything up in good time and then Amberly and I went to find our dinner (not in the hunting with a gun or rod term) thinking I would head into Grand Bend. Well, I got lost in the campground, it took me forever to figure out where I was, that I just ended up at the camp restaurant and ordered our meal there. Once we got it and made it back, we in total were gone for an hour. Long enough that my brothers were there and had their tents up!

The weather wasn't so great, it was windy and cold, but we had to venture to the beach to check it out and we were so happy to see it. The kids were thrilled. They ran up a head of us, but one lady who was sitting down told us that their excitment at seeing the water lit up their eyes, she said she was thrilled to see their joy on their faces.

We had a wonderful time there, and I'm so thankful for every moment that passed by like campfires, swimming, walking, sleeping in tents, sunny weather for the last half, snack foods, checking out Grand Bend and their shops, ice cream cones, birthday celebrations, sand creations, sand food samples, a little baby boy who will crawl to find the dirt, laundry tub close by for rinsing little girl accidents, first lost tooth the whole campground needed to know about, playing hide and seek with flashlights, asking to go to bed, laughter amoung cousins, super loud hand dryers the girls thought was neat to put their heads under, spotting the tick before it made it's way into my boy's shoulder. So many things to take into memory and have for life. It's fun creating these memories, and I hope to hold on tight to them for a very long time.