Final Weekend At Echo!

So this was our final weekend. I should mention that I did a 12 day stretch for our final time camping at Echo. It actually turned out pretty good. As I mentioned before, Richard was able to come on most weekends and he usually made them long weekends.

Anyways, since we were there for so long, I had to do laundry a few times. Oh I forgot to mention on the August long weekend, Abbi woke up in the middle of the night and threw up everywhere. It was all over her blankets, pillow, jammies, and in her hair. It was horrible. Plus it was raining outside. So we scooped everything up and threw it outside under our canopy. Then I gave her a quick sponge bath and got her settle in with DJ. Poor girl. She was fine after that. So we had to go do laundry the next day too. Anyways, whenever I had to do laundry I always tried to make it fun for the kids. We dropped it off one time and went and did some quick shopping and came back to switch it into the dryers. As the clothes dried the kids got to eat there huge lollipops. It worked out perfect!!


My four cute kids with their lollipops!!

 

On Friday we swam and relaxed and just had a fun day. Lisa and Brian didn't make it to the trailer until later. I think it was around 8:30pm, by the time they pulled up. The kids were so excited to see each other. They ran around and played for awhile. I went into the trailer and set up all the beds. We decided to try to all sleep in the trailer. So Richard and I had DJ with us and Lisa and Brian slept under the bunk with Spencer.

DJ swimming around with his boogie board.

Me relaxing and reading a book!

The kids went to bed great. They were all tired. We stayed up for a while, then decided to go to bed ourselves. Well we slept good for a few hours then woke up to Spencer screaming. This happened ALL NIGHT! Luckily most of the kids stayed asleep. DJ woke up once and was super mad, because he wasn't in his own bed. He was getting ready to scream. I quickly made a bed on the floor and he went back to sleep. He doesn't like sleeping with us. We just never have any of our kids sleep with us. He was happy on the floor and went back to sleep. It was a long night!

We just stuck around the trailer on Saturday. We swam and just had fun. I took a lot of super cute pictures of all the kids playing together in the water. But they are on my camera! So sad! I was going to share the pictures with Lisa. So she doesn't get any either. They played and played. We had supper and then Brian gathered all the kids together and put together some games for them. The kids had a blast. There were only a few casualties. They were doing the wheel barrel race and Brianna was holding DJ's legs up. Well half way through the race DJ's hands collapsed and he landed right on his face. Poor kid was super sad. Brianna got hurt too! Then Brian paired up the kids and blind folded one of the partners. The idea was for the other partner to talk the blind folded one through a little obstacle course to get them back together. It was hilarious. Cadence was listening to Seth and she was determined to win. She was going pretty fast, I was about to yell out stop to her but it was too late. She ran right into a car. She bounced off it and made it too Seth. She didn't cry at all, which made it even funnier! They had a blast playing the games. Then we took them down to the water and they played in the water for a bit.

Then it was time to clean up and have showers. I showered all my kids first. The cabin, was actually really busy this weekend. Bournes had some family over and the Robinson's were at the cabin with most of their family. So we all decided to shower that night, instead of Sunday morning. It was a good decision!!

Lisa and Brian set up their tent and slept in it that night. They had Spencer's play pen and he slept a lot better. We slept in the trailer with 6 kids. They all slept good that night.

DJ sleeping in the trailer. He had his blanket and tiger draped over his head!

On Sunday we went to church and then came back and had lunch. We hung around and let the kids play. Then we decided to drive to Whitefish and go up the ski lift and walk around. So glad we did. It was actually a lot of fun. 2 of my kids were starting to freak out. They didn't want to go on the chair lift at all. I had DJ, Cadence and Jazzi with me. I basically had to drag DJ on with me and he was screaming. I put him on my lap. Once we started going, he was fine and had a lot of fun. The kids had fun screaming hi to the chairlifts going down. Crazy kids!

DJ requested a fort and some quiet, shade time!! So there ya go!!

Playing on the swing set after church one Sunday!

Crazy DJ, with a stick. He was obsessed with always having a stick. Sometimes he was a little dangerous!

Brianna and Cadence!

We got to the top and found out Brianna had lost one of her flip flops. She was pretty upset about it. Richard gave her a piggy back ride and they took off. He saw where it fell and it was close to the top. So they went and got it. Then she was happy!

We walked around and went to an old chair lift station. It was a really pretty view. The kids were fascinated with all the bikers up there. People take their mountain bikes and ride down the trails. It was crazy to watch them!

Abbi, Jazzi, DJ, Seth and Cadence.

Loved this picture. Looks so cool. The kids loved looking over the edge!

Checking out the view!

We were looking over the back side. This is where we usually go skiing on the back side of the mountain!

We tried to get a few pictures up there. We got a family picture and I got some of each of my kids. DJ is a pill when it comes to pictures. Drive me crazy. But I did get a few good ones.

Here's our family picture. DJ was not impressed! Oh well!

He finally decided that I could take his picture. So this is what I got!

Cute Brianna on the mountain!

Cadence with a cool view behind her!

My cute Abbigail!!

Crazy DJ! This outfit he's wearing is something he shopped for himself. It was super cute, he came and showed me and told me it matched because there's red in the shirt. I couldn't say no!

After we came back down the mountain Richard and I decided to go for a little drive with our kids. We checked out the HUGE houses further up the mountain. You can't even call them houses, more like mansions. It was fun to slowly drive by and check them out!! ha ha! Crazy how big they are, and very fancy.

I think by Sunday night, we had very tired kids. We had kept them pretty busy and everyone was ready to go to sleep. We put them to bed before 9pm and all my kids were asleep right away. Seth had a harder time, but everyone else was tired. We sat outside the trailer and were visiting and laughing. We could hear the Bournes having fun behind us. They came over at one point and said they were a little worried about there being a skunk. We joked about it a bit and they went back to their campsite.

We were joking around and someone said that we should play a joke on the Bournes. Brian mentioned that it would be funny if someone went behind their trailer and rustled in the trees and tried to scare them. We were laughing about it and they kept telling me to do it. So I did! ha ha! I grabbed a stick and a ball. The only problem was their trailer was right up against bushes and the only way around (without anyone seeing) was by crawling under their slide out. So away I went. I was trying to be super quiet and careful. They have a big fifth wheel trailer. I got half way and all of the sudden I couldn't move. I tugged a few times and realized my belt got caught on something. I tried to unhook but was making lots of noise. So I just sat their and waited a minute then tried again. They were talking and pretty loud, so I decided to roll the ball at someones feet to see if that brought any reaction. Since I was stuck anyways!! So I did and it hit someone. But there was no reaction. Instead they were blaming it on 7yr old Kaden. He kept saying he didn't do it. I finally got unstuck and came around to the front of the trailer. Oh I should mention that I was shaking the trees so hard, but no reaction either. I was running out of ideas. So I came around to see where people were sitting. Cynthia Ralph was sitting close to me with her back to me. Nobody saw me and I snuck up and grabbed her shoulders and growled. There was seriously no reaction!! If that was me I probably would of had a heart attack. Well I ended up on my back (my legs had fallen asleep). We were all laughing and Cynthia turned to me and said, "Watch out Janae, I'm loaded." As she showed me her gun (a bebe gun). Oh my, it was so funny. I think we all died of laughter. I told them they were no fun to scare!! But we had a really good laugh. Glad I could entertain people!! Ha ha! I went back to my trailer and they were wondering what took me so long. When I told them I got stuck, that got us all laughing really hard!! It was a lot of fun!

Monday morning, we woke up and started packing things up. We had decided that we are probably not coming back next year. Since, hopefully, we will be building a house. So we took apart the swing set too. By lunch time we were ready to roll out. We had no food so we decided to stop at a restaurant on the way home. Richard followed behind me and the kids on his motorbike. We had a lot of fun camping at Echo. We camped there for a total of 30 nights. It was some good times!!

More Camping at Echo!

OK, you will probably get tired of me posting about all our camping trips. So I might condense it some. We went a LOT this summer. I counted how many days we stayed in our trailer this summer and it was 38 days. That's a lot!! But we made a lot of fun memories too!

I decided to go down for a few days just with the kids. Richard was going to come down for the weekend. So away we went. We basically just played on the dock and in the lake and the kids had fun running around on the grass too. It was nice this year that the water was low enough that there was a little bit of a rocky beach. That made DJ so much happier. Made a huge difference. He got a lot more comfortable in the water too. He would go in without me, which was wonderful!

We would usually go down around 10am and swim for a bit. Then come back up for lunch and then go down again for a few hours. Sometimes there was nobody else around and it was just us. Other times the dock was busy with the Robinson's. They took us out a few times on the boat. The kids had fun going for tube rides with the other kids. I lost all of those pictures. But they had a blast.

Richard surprised us and came on Thursday. It was a super nice surprise. The kids were all excited to see their dad. That's the hard thing about camping all summer, we all miss Richard so much when he's not with us.

DJ so happy that his dad got here!! This is our cool bungee chairs!!

We had fun relaxing around the trailer. The kids had fun helping Richard wash and buff out his motorbike. They got it looking really shiny! I watched them, while I was reading. I got a lot of books read this summer! Love it! DJ decided that he was going to be a duck one afternoon. He was walking around flapping his arms and walking around some flippers on. He kept quacking like a duck. It was pretty entertaining. He got us all laughing!

DJ made my chair into a bed and got really relaxed!

Here's our cute little duck!!

Richard and all the kids cleaning his bike!

Oh on the same topic as DJ, here's another funny story. I got him a batman book that I was reading to him every night. He loved it. Well he came out of the trailer one day and declared to everyone that he was BATMAN!! He had gotten dressed and then put on a pair of underwear over his shorts. He said that's just like batman. He insisted on wearing them all day. It was so funny! What a funny and very cute boy!

Here's are super cute batman!!

What a funny boy! He cracks me up! He even had his underwear on backwards! Ha ha ha!

We had some really long days at the trailer and sometimes it made for some very tired and grumpy kids at about 5pm. That's when I usually, started making supper. One day I had to laugh because DJ and Cadence were both curled up on the couch just a crying. Neither of them knew what they were crying about. It made me laugh. I had to get a picture of my very sad red heads!! OK so I just realized that the picture must be in my camera. Oops! One of these long days, DJ fell asleep and I couldn't wake him up. I tried and tried. So he slept for a bit and then was up till almost midnight. He was being crazy, and kept poking his head through the curtain to see what we were doing.

He was not tired at all!

My wild boy!

This is DJ trying to be sneaky!!

As I mentioned before we spent a LOT of time down at the dock. DJ loved playing on the beach. My girls have gotten so good at swimming. They always insisted on swimming without their life jackets. So I told them they could as long as I was there with them. They got very good at jumping in and swimming under the water. They became little fish. Even Brianna was jumping in and getting her head wet. This is the first year that she would do that. She even jumped off the diving board. Yeah for Brianna!! She was very brave!!

Abbi and Cadence getting ready to jump in!

Brianna loved swimming under the water too!

Abbi and Brianna. Abbi was my little diver, she would dive down and pick up rocks from the bottom.

DJ and I relaxing on the dock! Proof that I was actually there!!

One day DJ was playing on his boogie board and walking into the water from the beach. I was sitting in my chair on the dock. That way I could see everyone. DJ had his life jacket on and was swimming back and forth. He would go out to the rope that was tied from the dock to the shore. He would play on that. Well, he went and took his life jacket off without me realizing it. I was talking to someone on the dock while I was watching all my kids. I suddenly noticed that DJ had a look of panic on his face. I said, "Does he have his....." then I jumped into the water and grabbed him. He didn't say and word. But he was kicking his feet so hard that he was able to keep his face barely out of water. It scared him so bad. After that he never took off his life jacket again.

There's a picture out by the rope, but he has his life jacket on!

On the August Long weekend we had some rainy weather. So we decided to go into Kalispel on Friday, since it was pouring. Well, I think EVERYONE had the same idea as us. The traffic was insane. We thought there was an accident, but no, everyone had just come into town. But we got some shopping done. Then we decided to take the kids to a movie. So we took them to Turbo. It was about a racing snail. DJ loved the movie. Everywhere we went he would say, "White shadow", while he moves to the side. I guess you have to see the movie to understand that. But he was doing it everywhere. It was funny. After the movie we stopped at a pizza restaurant on our way home. Richard ordered root beer and it came in a bottle. It actually looked like a beer bottle. DJ thought it was great. He kept calling it his piston cup. We couldn't understand him at first. Then he said it loud and slow, "MY PISTON TUP (he can't pronounce his c's) MOM!" Oh!! Crazy boy wouldn't let go of the bottle. Sheesh! On the way out of the restaurant the kids wanted a picture of the moose!

DJ proudly holding his "piston cup"!!

My kids under the crazy nuts and bolt moose!

On Saturday the kids were all trying out the new water slide that the Robinson's made. It was pretty big. But the kids had a blast going on it. Richard and I even tried it. DJ just liked to watch us. I got pulled up on my slalom ski. I popped right up, just with the one ski. I skied all the way around the island and back. My legs were like jello. Then that same night they took us for a tube ride. The kids went first, then 2 adults were going on. They needed someone else and talked me into it. I don't know what I was thinking. It was CRAZY!! I was hanging on so tight that when I did fall off, someone took a picture of me where I was facing behind the tube, but my arm was still hanging onto the handle. So, by the next day I couldn't even move my arm. I could hardly lift it up or down, it was painful. I just pulled some muscles really good!! It was a fun ride though and yes I finally fell off.

Cadence getting out and DJ swimming in the water!! My kids are fish!

Super cute picture of Brianna!

DJ was comfortable enough to swim around everywhere with his life jacket on!

DJ trying to spray Cadence with this air gun thing!

Now he's coming to get us!! Crazy kid!

Richard and DJ! DJ got this air pump and he loved to use it as a water gun. He could shoot it far!

Cadence swam over to the neighbours dock to get my air bed. It was floating away!

 

There's the huge homemade water slide. It was a big hit! Funny to watch the kids go down. Cadence has the best facial expressions ever!

 

I think I'm getting all the days mixed up! But anyways on Sunday we met up with my family at Famous Dave's. My mom, dad, Megan, Cody and his family and Stacey and her family were all there. It was a big group and we had a lot of fun! After we ate I invited Steve and Stacey and Mom and Megan out to our trailer for the evening. Dad was headed back home for work and Cody and Em were headed home too. So the others came to the trailer. We had a lot of fun visiting and laughing. Megan and Stacey's kids all went for a swim. It was a fun evening.

I woke up Monday morning with my eyes really hurting me. I was actually feeling pretty miserable. DJ was too. We ran into Kalispel to see if we could get some good eye drops. But no, we couldn't. We came back and I kept telling Richard that we should go home. He wanted to wait till Tuesday. He was afraid the line up at the border would be huge. Well after supper I packed things up and said we were going home. I was absolutely miserable. So away we went. We left at 7:30pm. We got to the Carway border just before 10pm. We only waited for about 5mins. So that wasn't bad at all. By this time my eyes were almost glued shut. I had so much goop coming out, it was disgusting. I am glad we came home that night.

On Tuesday I got in with the doctor right away. DJ's eyes were infected too, just not as bad. As soon as I got the eye drops in my eyes they started feeling so much better. Then 2 days later I got a major sinus infection that I had to get medicine for too. So I am glad we came home for a few days. We did head back down again on Thursday. So we weren't home for too long.

Another highlight of the summer was we decided one day to drive to Missuloa for the day. We have never been and we had heard that the shopping is so good. So away we went. We stopped half way at a Café. We were the only family in there with small kids. We got a lot of looks, but our kids were really good. We had to wait awhile too. As we were getting our food a older lady came up and said we have a very nice family. She said that our kids were very well behaved and very cute. It was such a nice thing to hear.

We continued on and made it to Missuloa around 2pm. We went straight to the mall and did some shopping. It was a huge mall and had some really good stores. My goal was to finish all the kids school shopping. The kids had fun throwing in some pennies at a wishing fountain. It was super hot outside, so it was nice that we were in buildings with a/c. We went to a lot more stores. Then we stopped and had supper at Wendy's. I talked everyone into one more stop. I really wanted to go to Old Navy. So glad we did, I totally finished up all our shopping. There were some amazing deals going on. The kids had fun coloring and playing in the kids corner.

Throwing their pennies in!

Cadence doing her pose at Old Navy!!

Then we were on our way. It was just under 2hrs to get back to the trailer.  By the time we got there it was pretty late. We had grumpy kids and everyone was ready for bed. Yeah!! It was a fun day though! Glad we went.

Richard went home the next day, on Sunday. We stayed for the rest of the week. He came back again on Thursday. Lisa and Brian came on Friday night. They came to camp with us for the weekend. It was our last weekend to camp there. We were planning on pulling the trailer home on Monday. I will do another post on camping with Lisa and Brian.

Calaway Park!!

The week after YW's camp, Mikah and Shaylee went up to Calgary the next Wednesday. Before they went we went over to my mom's so the kids could play. My kids loved playing with their older cousins. One day the kids all got a ride on Ron's horse. He keeps his horses out at the farm sometimes. Anyways, my girls were super excited to have a ride. DJ was happy to watch them from the back of the truck. It was a fun afternoon!

Brianna loved riding the horse, not afraid at all!

DJ and Keira had fun playing in the back of the truck.

Grandpa leading Brianna around!

Abbi had fun riding as well!

Cute Keira wasn't too sure about the horse!

My brothers had planned on going on a boys quad camp out. All the brother in laws were invited too. So it was Richard, Cam, Cody, Brent, and David that all went. So I had decided that the kids and I were heading up to Calgary. Mikah and Shaylee were there helping Emily out. So I called and we planned on going to Calaway Park. I thought it would be perfect since we had the older girls to help us out. My kids were super excited.

So we went up Thursday afternoon and stayed over night. Friday we decided to eat lunch before we took off. We thought it would be easier that way. So by the time we got to Calaway park it was just before 2pm. The kids were SO EXCITED to be there. We were quite the group walking up to the gate!

There`s Emily pushing Evan, then all the girls walking together!

My kids have never been to anything like this before. We've deprived them, I know!! Oh well! I wanted them to be old enough to walk everywhere and not be too whiny! So our first ride was the bumper cars. DJ was super excited to go drive and crash into people. I wasn't sure how everyone was going to do. But they all loved it. Cadence would crash into everyone!! DJ was just laughing and going everywhere! So funny to watch!

There`s DJ and Cadence, but if you look closely you can see all our kids in their cars!

Then we did the spinny eggs. It was a very calm kid ride. There were 3 to an egg and it would slowly spin and go up and down. Abbi was with Mikah and someone else, and I could tell that she was crying. After the ride I gave her a hug and asked what was wrong. It surprised her that it went up and made her cry. I thought for sure that meant she wasn't going to go on any crazy ride. But no, she was fine after that!! Funny Abbi. We did a bunch of kid rides so all the kids could do it.

DJ and Cadence in the boat ride.

We went and did the little swing ride so DJ and Mary could try it out!

The one ride that they wanted to go on was the swings. As we were walking over to the swings the skies got dark and it started to rain. Evan had just fallen asleep so Emily took all the kids except Evan, DJ and Mary. So the 4 of us ran and found an umbrella to stand under. Everyone was soaked by the time they got off the ride. But it was a huge hit and they all loved it!

Mary and DJ hiding under the big umbrella!! What cuties!

Then we went on the little truck ride. The trucks had a canapy so it kept us dry too! By the time we were finished that ride the rain had stopped. But it had cleared out the park pretty quickly. It made it super nice. We hardly had to wait at any rides. We did almost all the rides. I was trying hard to talk Mikah and Shaylee to go on the roller coaster with me. But nobody would. Then Abbi spoke up and said she would. So away we went!! I was a tiny bit worried, but she kept telling me she really wanted to go. So we got strapped in and started off. It's a short ride, so we do it twice. Well I was screaming and we came in and stopped and Abbi screams, "I LOVE IT, I WANT TO DO IT AGAIN!" And we were off again. She couldn't stop about how much she loved it! So cute!!

Ali, Cadence and Shaylee on the carousel.

Brianna driving the truck!

We did a few more rides. The kids really wanted to go on the hot balloon ride, which is like a ferris wheel. So that was fun. We were in there for awhile. The girls were getting a little bit silly!! Mary and DJ were dying to go in the Strawberry ride. I did not want to go, because I was starting to feel a little dizzy and nauseous. Too much spinny, turny rides!! But there had to be a adult.....dang it!! So I went, they loved it!!

Here comes DJ on the train. He`s right in the front, you can see his orange hat!

Silly girls on the balloon ride!

We decided to leave the log ride for last. That was the only ride with the long lines. So away we went. Emily stayed back with Evan, Mary and Brianna. Everyone else came in line with us. We waited probably for about 1hr. It was a little crazy, kids were getting hot, tired and very grumpy. DJ was bugging his sisters, and then would start crying if they did anything to him. I was ready to leave the line, but we stayed. It was finally our turn. They would only let 5 go in a log, so DJ and I ended up going by ourselves. I was sitting in the back and DJ was right in front. I wasn`t worried at all. Then we came to the first drop and it surprised me cause we ended up sliding all the way to the front of the log. It kind of scared me and it really scared DJ. So I told him that we both needed to hang onto the bars, and I would have one arm around him. We did the huge drop and the looks on our faces were hilarious. I didn`t feel like spending over $20, so I took a picture with my phone as we were walking by. The lady tried to jump up to block the picture, but I was too tall. I just wanted a quick picture to show our faces. Too funny!

It`s fuzzy, but there`s the 5 girls on the left and then DJ and I!! Too funny!

After the log ride the park was just starting to close down. It was 7pm. We were there all afternoon. Ali was soaking wet from the log ride. So we decided it was time to go. The kids did awesome. They were all starving by this time, so we decided to go to the nearest McDonald`s. Luckily it wasn`t very far, so we went and ate. Everyone ate so good! It was a really fun day. Then we drove back to Emily and Cody`s. I put my kids right to bed. They all fell asleep quickly. So glad we decided to go to Calgary. It was a fun couple of days!!