The Agony of Bonding

I like spending time with my children. They are really great people and they bring me so much joy. And the children like to be with me, too. They like to have little "adventures". All week, I dream up fun things to do with them. On the weekend, I grab my camera, load the kids in the car, and we go out in search of fun.

Some ideas I have are better than others. Sigh.

Dan and I took the children for a walk at Mer Bleue. The children were shocked by this "adventure". Did I really expect them to WALK???? Ummm...YES!

I had to stop three times by the time we got this far in order to deal with Dan's and the children's complaints.

There was a huge puddle blocking the path. Since Dan and I both have holes in our shoes, I had the brilliant idea that the twins should push Sarah through the puddle because they had boots on.

Turns out, both twins had holes in the boots, too (that was complaint #3).

I directed the children to the boardwalk, thinking that it would be fun for them...

...I was wrong.

Katie was annoyed because she was tired of looking at "nature".

Sarah had "issues" with the boardwalk. For the longest time, she walked like this:

I wanted a "group shot". I took about 20 pictures. This was the only one without anyone complaining. The other 19 photos are crap!

Sarah overcame her fear, and wanted to explore. The twinnies refused to walk any further. They had already walked for 7.5 MINUTES!

Even the baby was shocked that the twinnies wouldn't walk any further!

Bethie: "Please don't make me walk anymore. I'm soooooooo tired!"

Bethie: "No one loves me!" (she had a splinter)

Katie: "Just take my picture so we can GO!"

Bethie found something exciting to look at - a Tim Horton's cup tossed in the bog. She started shouting "Why did Daddy throw his cup in the water?!". I explained that it wasn't Daddy, but I'm sure that everyone who passed by thought that we were Litter Bugs. Sigh.

Sarah, too, was enthralled with the garbage.

 But she, obviously, wasn't pleased to see it.

Random "art" which my children broke into, and this attracted ALOT of attention. I headed back to the car and left Dan to deal with the children.

Another group shot. Again, I took about 20 pictures. Here's one where one child looked happy. Sigh.

Katie found the tiniest tree and asked to have her photo taken next to it.

The baby.

The best bit? Splashing in the puddle on the way back to the car. Only Sarah was allowed to splash, due to the rest of us having inadequate footwear. She had a great time, especially because we couldn't go in to retrieve her. We all had to stand around and coax her out!

So, Mer Bleue was not a hit. However, we drove by a farm. I stopped the car and let the children look out the windows at the horses. This is how they prefer to view nature: from a distance. Kinda like "Drive Though Nature".