The Park and Zoo

On the way to the cottage we stopped at the Park and Zoo with J + B and family. The kids love this long slide down the hill.... Here's Jo on his way down with Anneke watching from the bottom.Joanna James riding the merry-go-round
Here's our perfect picnic spot on a little Island. Good times! Thanks for coming with us, John and Bets!

Rock Lake Lodge

Obviously, the above photo was taken before all 19 grandchildren arrived. :) Most beach front photos of the cottage include a wide array of life jackets, paddles, buckets, rakes, shovels, towels, lawn chairs, etc. (not to mention a host of busy little persons toting pails of water from point A to point B). I'm not sure how to explain the tranquility in this pic, except to say that I guess we didn't really start having fun until M + C and R + S arrived on Monday ;).

This year we had simply amazing weather - 5 consecutive clear days & nights, and very warm for September! During the day we were in and out of the water quite a bit to beat the heat, while the nights were cool enough to be cosy (and also extra starry for the voracious star gazers amongst us).

First a group pic of the kids... might as well get it over with. :)

Some of these curmudgeonly boys didn't crack a smile in even one out of a dozen shots I took. What with all the adults cajoling them endlessly you'd think they'd at least look mildly interested! Our making fools of ourselves didn't compensate for the interruption in their play, apparently.

Anneke and Sarah

Sarah and Jesse
Joanna
Tante Marianne and Selena joined us for the week, and the rest of their family came from Sunday to Monday.
Chris and Krista

Teresa and Benjamin
The line-up. (They were taking turns standing in a hole Tony dug in the sand).

Apparently Jims is concerned about the possibility of butters-in - I love how he's pressed up against Josiah :).

All the 2007 babies
Joseph

William The Cottage is a great place to just sit around and relax... ...to catch up with family and friends

...discuss the serious things of life
...share some humor
...or just bask in the sunshine and suck your thumb till it resembles a small prune.
For some moms it's just a great place to go camera happy, apparently.
Others (though not most) consider it a good place to catch up on some sleep....
(James deserved this little snooze... after all, it's awfully tiring to be a part of the early morning wake up crew day in and day out)The cottage is a great place to enjoy the marvels of God's world......Both big and small.Sadly, we had to head home Wednesday night. Before we left the kids put on a dramatic play production for us.

Princess Hannah (Anneke)
A 'good guy guard' (Timmy)
A 'bad guy guard' (Andrew)

The good guys triumph!
A few parting shots...

Bluebeard's boat

One of the perks of waking up early is enjoying a swim before the mist and tranquility vanishes into a new day.

I hope the rest of you enjoyed your last couple days! We were wishing we could have been there! Now I just have to figure out how to convince Jims that our next trip to the cottage is too far off to warrant a countdown. Answering "When are we going to the cottage again, mum?" three times a day this past summer was tolerable, but is this going to continue to be his favorite question/conversation starter all winter long?...!

Margarita

Josiah cried when Daniel left but soon had a little pal to play with

Margarita, a sweet lady from Bulgaria, spent the day with us

fun with the cousins

The week before going to the cottage (last week in Aug) John was to speak at the OCRC YP conference and Ralph & Sharon were chaperones at our YP conference (Tamarack), so guess what we did instead of getting ready for the cottage and camping directly after that?

- thankfully Betty did take Joanna with her - that would've been too much this time - since we already had 6 with Anna being here too due to extra kids and sickness in her house preventing Sarah from going there as originally planned. They all had a great time the little cousin friends together - great warm-up for the cottage :)

Scrubbing feet is fun - it tickles

for Anna, its serious business - need to get every bit of dirt off

It was a fun week! and by the end of it, I was beat!

'cuse me, can I sit with you on the couch? Me too! and me, and me, me too! - under and over, whatever, we can still all fit! Well, mostly... Opa's chair beside will do too.

Girls Special Day

Our secret pen pals and R&M came over Sunday til Monday evening.

Our pump organ is a little tricky to play if your're not used to pumping with your feet. So they took turnes pumping while the other played - very well too.

Monday was a full day of exploring the trail...

...picking flowers and hanging out together...

....scaling walls... (I don't know how they got way up there!)

...making "stain-glass" vases and arranging flowers (Can't really tell from the photo how artistic they were - especially Zi Tynn's as it didn't make it on the picture - sorry)

...playing chess ...

...playing Dutch Blitz - every moment between meals and activities! What fun - Remember , Betts and Ralph?
...making gourmet pizzas... yum...

... giggling, snuggling, being teased by Opa, and teasing me. A lovely bunch of girls Thanks for coming girls! It was a real treat and pleasure to have you!

- even when you hogged my couch... ;) .