Cheltenham Badlands

My wonderful friend, Holly, and her family recently purchased a beautiful new home, in Belfountain, which is right around the corner from my in-laws' place in Erin.  We made plans to meet up during our visit there in Thanksgiving and after tossing around a couple of ideas, we decided to take the kids out for a hike to the Cheltenham Badlands in Caledon.

We got there and the kids took off running!

It was busy but not overly crazy and it was a beautiful, sunny, fall day.  The colours were gorgeous, and the hills definitely tired the kids out for the ride home!

Here, Evan and Connor post at the top of a hill - notice Aili, trailing up the right side, right behind the boys!

Before we rounded the next part of the trail, we managed to wrangle the kids all into a group photo!  Left to right:  Vanessa, Connor, Aili, Evan and Alicia

The combination of the blue sky, red earth and blazing colours of the leaves was astounding!

In our hike, I found this tree off to the side - the perfect photo opportunity!  Connor was already way ahead at that point, but I plopped Aili on for a quick pic!

Oh I love the colours of fall!  With orange being my favourite colour, how could I not!

Catching up...

Wow - I can't believe it's been two weeks since I've updated! I know, I know... you've heard it before... but I am determined to blog more. In looking back for a couple of posts lately, I read about things that I would have probably forgotten, had I not been blogging about them! So it's a priority now... hopefully!

We just had a great family weekend! Friday night, I scrapbooked with my sister, niece and neighbour - what a hoot we had! I spent most of the night, helping my friend and neighbour, Nancy (publisher and editor-in-chief of InRetro magazine - check it out!!) with her very first layout!! We had tea earlier in the week, both being self-employed and working from home. I was talking about my current article in the Canadian Scrapbooker magazine and after picking up the kids from the bus stop that afternoon, I dropped off the most current issue that I found in my mailbox that day! She must have felt the same tug that all of us scrapbookers feel, because she emailed me a few days later and said she wanted to try it! I know - I'm an enabler.. :D We had a great time and she's planning to join us again on the 19th!

Saturday, Connor had his golf tournament which concluded his round of lessons this spring.

The kids all played a shotgun-type tournament, with their dads/moms caddying for them, and a bbq after! I will share more photos later, including a great animation of Connor's swing! I'm glad he enjoys this sport, as 1) it is a sport that he can enjoy with his dad, 2) it has allowed Gary more time to play AND still have family time and 3) maybe he'll get a scholarship and become a PGA member so he can support his parents in their old age... Okay, maybe not the last one.

After golfing, Gary and Connor got home earlier than expected and we had time to get Connor to swim practice. Aili and I went summer clothes shopping after dropping the boys off at the pool. They have such adorable summer clothes out right now, including this bathing suit that we picked up...

Excuse the hoochie-mama pose - she thinks she's Hanna Montana! (media influence, at its' best - she's never seen ONE HM show!!)

After picking up Connor and Gary at the pool, we had a quick lunch and did some errands, while we killed time before the movie show time. We took the kids to see Up! And oh my heck! It was so funny - Gary and I were laughing out loud!! I may have actually even GUFFAWED at one point... *embarassed* It was a great kids' movie, but I think, like all Disney movies, there are little gems of adult humour throughout!

Sunday, we had a nice afternoon visit with my dadThe kids found a tiny toad and wanted to keep him, but all he/she kept doing was trying to climb the sides of the box to get out. Connor didn't want to hold him so I managed to finally convince him to let her/him go back to his watery home in our creek bed.

Now I know where the phrase, "Ugly as a toad", comes from... Ick!

Connor has his WEST end-of-year party tonight and the rest of the week will be filled with soccer, school work and getting ready for the July kit reveal!

Thanks for reading!