Camping in Bon Echo: Part 1

My family loves to camp. Or maybe I should say my husband really loves to camp, and I sort of love it. I don't mind sleeping in a tent, and I'm happy outdoors as long as the bugs aren't too bad. But I have a terrible fear of bears, and feel uneasy in the wilderness. I know that I have a better chance dying in my automobile than dying at the jaws or paws of a bear, but there isn't much rational thinking that occurs when I'm imagining myself (or my girls) being eaten alive.

Despite my reservations, I believe that camping is a fantastic activity for kids. Not only are they learning new skills and an appreciation of nature, but they're doing what kids do best - getting dirty and exploring the world!

So each year we plan a camping trip with good friends of ours, who also have two daughters around the same age as our daughters. This year we chose Bon Echo Provincial Park, about a 2.5 hour drive from Ottawa.

We reserved site #165, which is one of five walk-in sites at the Sawmill Bay campground on Mazinaw Lake. Bon Echo also has back country camping, cabins and yurts. 

Positives:

• There's a lot to do with kids. We rented a canoe for 1 hour and went to check out the native pictographs on Mazinaw Rock. The park offered amazing kids programs every morning at 10am, and most evenings at their amphitheatre.
• The beaches are sandy and clean. The girls spent many hours wading, swimming and building sand castles.
• The walk-in sites are beautiful - rocky and treed, and right on the water. You could easily jump off the rocks at your site and go for a swim. The lake is the second-deepest in Southern Ontario.

Negatives:

• For a walk-in site, I expected to have neighbours who had done a lot of camping and respected general camping rules. Nuh-uh, didn't happen. We ended up with several yahoos camping on either side of us - one couple lighting their fire with charcoal and starter fluid, another dragging giant logs and brush to burn, and a group of campers with no respect for quiet after dark (to give them credit, they weren't drinking or anything - they were just obnoxiously loud people. In fact, the following group at that site were the ones drinking and carrying on, and even they shut up at 11pm. I could have kissed them!)
• Walk-in sites and young children don't really mix (but as another positive, I'm in really great shape after all that walking back and forth!)
• Lack of policing from park rangers: our friends were staying in the main Sawmill campground, and had a horrible experience with drunken teenagers (or maybe they were 20...whatever). And in the walk-in campsites, we didn't see a single ranger in seven days. I realize funding is scarce, but I think a walk-through each evening is warranted.  I could have made the park a ton of money by handing out tickets for all the infractions I spotted
• The park was BUSY. Although I appreciate the human bodies surrounding me (as protection from bears, of course!), my hubby and I could have done with a quieter experience. We camped Achray in 2012 and it was very peaceful.

Although my negatives seem to outweigh the positives, we still had a wonderful time. The girls had a blast with their little friends, and the giant tarp my husband rigged up over the campsite saved us from days of rain. We're already planning our trip next year, and need ideas. What are your favourite campgrounds for kids?

Oh, and no bears were spotted. That didn't stop me from having a 2am heart attack after I heard what I thought was a bear - it was just a really loud racoon :)

Summer of Awesome

I love Summer of Awesome posts! My friend Amanda from Little Lotus Yoga recently posted hers, and reminded me that I needed to get my butt in gear. Summer is fleeting, and before I know it, the winter boots are being pulled out and I'm lamenting all the activities I missed over these warm months. Well not this year, Summer! This year, I'm taking charge.

My husband is currently a stay-at-home Dad, and I think he's looking forward to the summer like he looks forward to an appointment with the dentist - so, not very much :) He's a bit nervous at the thought of my oldest at home full-time. She's a tad high energy, and needs a lot of stimulation. So I figure this Summer of Awesome post is helping Daddy as much as it's helping me. I'm sad I'll be stuck in the office while they take part in some of these activities, but we're saving the best stuff for the weekends!

So without further ado, here they are, not in any real order (except obviously some festivals that have specific dates):

Petrie Island

CHEO's Teddy Bear Picnic

CHEO's Great Canadian Lemonade Standemoneum

Mosaika

Canadian Agriculture Musuem

Museum of Nature (Creatures of Light)

Bluesfest

Gatineau for a hike

Old Chelsea for ice cream (after the hike of course)

Day Trip to Lac Philippe

Bon Echo (camping!)

MS Bike Ride to Cornwall

Navan Fair

Folk Fest

Swimming! Anywhere, and everywhere (splash pads included)

It doesn't seem like a lot, but the summer weekend calendar is filling up fast. Time to get planning!

Follow Santa's Path Tonight

 

Christmas Eve is now upon us and as we all settle down with family and friends, there's still one guy who has lots to do.

You can track Santa’s whereabouts with NORAD’s track Santa site. It's easy. You can log on, show the kids where Santa is busy delivering his gifts and then tuck them into bed. (Remember Santa doesn't come if you're awake!). There are also games and links and you can see what's up at the North Pole.

From our Kids in the Capital family to yours, we wish you a holiday full of peace, love and lots and lots of joy.

Great Listens for your Summer Road Trip

Kristal Craig from the Centennial Branch of the Ottawa Public Library shares some great audio selections for your summer road trips. 

Skippyjon Jones

An overactive imagination is what Skippyjon Jones has. He is a Siamese cat who takes you on all types of silly adventures and you never know where you will end up. Fun  for the whole family.

 Jamie Lee Curtis Collection

Relive days gone by with your little ones while listening to these stories by Jamie Lee Curtis.  You will laugh and giggle and want to hear them again and again.

Puff the Dragon

We all remember the song of this magical dragon. Puff will have you and your children inspired to travel to the land of Honah Lee or any land of their choice. This lovely illustrated book will have your children mesmerized and humming right along. Delightful!

Jillian Jiggs

Jillian Jiggs has boundless energy and imagination, one minute she is putting on plays, the next minute she's a tree. How could it be possible for Jillian to make time to clean up her room when, there are so many wonderful things to make and do? What will she think of next!

 The Uglified Ducky

Think you know the story of the Ugly Duckling?  Think again!  When this “Uglified Ducky”, a young moose,”blunders away” from home, he is mistaken for a baby duck and he tries to learn to waddle, quack, swim and fly.  In the end, he finds his true “family”, who help him appreciate his own beauty.  Wonderful storytelling by Willy Claflin.

Audiobooks for older children 8 and up

Because of Winn Dixie

New to the town of Naomi, Florida,  ten-year-old Opal  tells us about her first summer and how new and exciting things happen to her because she gets herself a dog named Winn-Dixie.

The Night Fairy

A night fairy is shocked to find herself wingless after a terrible encounter with a bat. Grounded and living in a garden, Flory works at becoming a day fairy. Finding a way to make friends and a new life, she discovers that there's more to life than flight.

Savvy

At the age of thirteen, all of the children in the Beaumont family receive a “savvy” or unworldly power.  One brother can create hurricanes, the other makes electricity…. and now it’s Mibs' big day.  But something happens to her Poppa, and her mother and her big brother have to leave Mibs to adjust to her “savvy”, all on her own...

The Ulysses Moore

Jason, Julia, and Rick have discovered one of the secrets of Argo Manor -- the Door to Time. A mysterious land of labyrinths, riddles, and secrets. Hidden somewhere in the past, Jason and Rick have to find the map to Kilmore Cove, but where?

Gregor The Overlander

Gregor, an 11 year old boy, falls down a grate in his laundry room into a strange new world called the Underland. There he becomes an unwilling warrior and leads an alliance of Underlanders on a quest to rescue a fellow Overlander.  Gregor’s adventure will change everything for himself, the Underlanders, and may solve the biggest mystery of his life.

The Unwanteds

Wanted or Unwanted - 13-year-old twins Aaron and Alex ponder their fate.  What will society decide for them...  Aaron is sent to University, “Wanted” and Alex to be eliminated, “Unwanted”.   But being “eliminated” holds unknown surprises for Alex, who finds himself in a remarkable world where he can show his abilities and learn magic.

 Join the TD Summer Reading Club at any branch this summer - pick up your reading kit and join some fun programs!

Moving abroad

by Krista Our family recently marked the end of our third month living in India. It has been quite the journey for us, especially for our little people. It continues to be an adventure, that both rewards and challenges our family on an ongoing basis. While it is in many ways just as we expected, there have also been a number of curves thrown our way. This move has certainly presented a number of instances where I have been extremely proud of my children and how well they have adapted, along with a few unanticipated parenting challenges.

We are really lucky, in that Woo, age four, and Goose, age three, never really balked at the idea of moving do far away from home. From the start, we made it seem like a great adventure to them. We made them feel like they were a part of the process by giving them "options" about what flights that we would take to get here, having them "help" us decide how long we were to live here, and where we might visit while we were on the other side of the world. They took to the idea of India when they felt that they were involved in the process. It helped to make the actual lead-up to, and the flights here pretty painless.

This involvement carried through packing for both the shipment and the airplane. They were each given some containers that they were allowed to pack on their own. I didn't try to help, nor did I vet what they put in them. Sure, some crazy stuff landed in there, like cloth books they haven't touched in years, or random drawings made on scrap paper, but it was deemed important for them to have, so it all came. Some things made me shake my head, like Woo's ice hockey shin pads. I was certain they would never get used, and almost broke my rule and suggest that he take them out. I would have been wrong, as he uses them often playing road hockey when he is the goalie (yes we all brought hockey sticks. We are Canadian, after all)!

They took really well to their new house, their rooms and their school, better than we anticipated. It helps that we were able to show them pictures of the places before we arrived, and that we have found ways to make the new places unique. Their rooms here have a small shared playroom between them, where they can meet in the morning and play if they want. There is even a patio that they are allowed to go on, WITHOUT ASKING. We don't have any regular old Canadian trees in our back yard, we have a PAPAYA tree. It doesn't matter that none of us like papaya, there is a tree in our yard, so it is COOL. The new school is big and there are lots of new people there, but there is a SWIMMING POOL. We have become the masters at selling it to the lils, and this has helped us greatly.

My monkeys, making monkey faces. Excited for the first day of school

They are now extremely good travellers. We have endured several long flights and many long drives (more than I anticipated). It is fairly slow going getting anywhere in Bangalore, or travelling by car to other cities. Driving, even on the highways, is very slow and there is much construction to cause snarls and slow you down even further. Woo and Goose have taken this all in stride. Even the car trips that are ten hours long!

Adapting to the new and wonderful creatures we meet has also been a pleasant surprise. They had no qualms about having geckos living in their rooms, aren't scared of the bugs that are the size of Goose's fist, and report a cobra sighting with a nonchalence that would be inspiring if it wasn't a wee bit bothersome. Both leapt at the chance to touch an elephant when it was offered, even though it was huge. They are also so enamoured with the monkeys that roam freely in the hills near our house that they want one as a pet. I was worried that some of these creatures would bother them, but presented them all (except the cobra) as new and interesting, and they were.

We are very proud of how well they have handled all the change they have faced and the culture-shock that comes with moving from a multi-cultural society where you are part of the visible majority to one where you are in the very small minority. They have been curious but respectful, and very eager to learn about all aspects of Indian culture and the children of other ethnicities that they meet at school. Language and accent have been the biggest barriers for them, but they have been able to catch on very quickly, and are now learning words in Hindi, Spanish, French, German, and Afrikaans!

Exploring at the zoo

What has gone well for us has gone really well, thankfully. We have experienced a number of rough patches too, and my next post will talk about those.

Krista is married to Willy and mom to a 4 year old son, Woo, and 3 year old daughter, Goose. A capital family, they are currently living in Bangalore, India for a year.  You can find her at Life in the Hutch or on Twitter @kgraydonald