A weekend at a cabin

We just came back from a lovely weekend at a cabin with my family!  It is the first time we have done something like this as a family.  We have done camping and extended family cabin trips, but never staying in a cabin at the lake by ourselves.  My parents celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary in fall and this was our gift to them.  I found this cabin as a private rental on Kijiji and it turned out to be very nice!  The weather was a cloudy and a bit rainy, but a cheery wood stove kept us comfy cozy inside and during the dry patches we took some short walks.  The guys still enjoyed canoeing in the rain with the white caps and also did a bit of fishing off the dock. 

Adalyn started walking this weekend too!  Yay!  So proud of her for stepping out!  :)  She's practicing a lot now that she knows she can do it.  She'll be a pro in no time!

"Oh Daddy, you're so silly!"

Getting ready for some heavy duty fishing

Fished all night but they caught nothing

Jarvis gets prime warm spot

Adalyn making friends with Jarvis

Happy Birthday!

Family photo!

Blowing bubbles

 

Family photo session

Ok, so now it has been a while since I started this post and it is a couple of weeks out of date, but here it is!  We took some family photos a couple weeks ago.  My dear sister was kind enough to come over and take some pictures for us kind of spontaneously.  I really wanted to capture the beauty of spring time and our apple tree which was in full bloom! 

 

This is a bit deceiving as she was only standing for about 2 seconds for the picture.  :)

Playing hide and seek with our little one.  :)

First Swim!

Mark was away for a week helping with a Bible School reno project this past week.  In the mean time my Mom and sister and I took Adalyn swimming.  I tried so hard to get her to have a nap before we left so she would be refreshed and ready, but she didn't want to so we started off with a tired little girl.  I was concerned that she would be so tired she wouldn't enjoy it, but Jesus didn't tell us not to worry for nothing!  So often what we worry about doesn't happen anyway which was true in this case.  Adalyn had fun in the change room before we went out, however once we came out into the pool area she was quite unsure.  I stood her up in the shallow water thinking maybe she would like to walk in, but that didn't work.  She clung to us for the first little while until we found a ball and got her distracted.  She slowly warmed up to her new surroundings and by the end she was really having a great time!  We all had a pretty great time in fact!  There were only about 3 other families there which was really nice especially for her first time.  It made it just a little less overwhelming.  She's not a big fan of crowds of people to begin with, never mind in a completely strange setting.

Dried off and happy after a good swim.

Chopping trees

We chopped down all the trees around our house!  Now we can see out of our windows!  We're not sure what we're going to do now.  How do you get multiple stumps out of the ground??!!  Any good suggestions out there?  I would love to plant some smaller shrubs around the side of the house, but stump removal must come first and that task seems a bit daunting.  These trees will probably grow up again in sort of a bushy manner and we could just trim them so that they are stay under the window height, but not sure about that... They are really nice trees and turn beautiful colors in fall, but to have them so close to the house isn't necessarily ideal.

BEFORE

AFTER

 I didn't get any pictures of the process unfortunately, but here is Adalyn supervising... 

 And a truck load of logs for wiener roasts this summer!

Thanking God for GREAT Grandpas!!

A week ago we celebrated my Dad's birthday.  Adalyn helped Grandpa blow out his candles...

 

From the birthday party we hurried off to celebrate Easter with the other side of the family.  There Adalyn played piano with Grandpa...

 Singing her heart out!  Up and coming piano player?  I'd say!  Look at that form!

 

A very happy day!

I've been waiting so long for this day and it finally came!  This was 2 weeks ago already, but I must record it!  My sister is finally here!  She met Adalyn for the first time on March 21, 2012!  For me that was such a great feeling and it looked and seemed so right!  I am SO excited to see her again!  She's been gone for a long time and life kind of feels normal that way after a while.  You get used to a long distance relationship and chatting on skype rather than in person, but boy do I notice how much I actually miss her when she comes back!  Though skype is a marvelous invention, there is nothing quite like giving your sister a real hug and having her sit beside you on the couch!

  

On the move...

It started off this way...

 

Pretty soon it was on to this...

 Then this...

 

Getting pretty confident now...

And then finally after all that accomplished she learned to crawl...

and pull herself up...

And now she can go pretty much anywhere she pleases...

Yup, she's going places and making all sorts of discoveries!  Time for Mommy to start baby proofing a bit better...