Summer camps on steroids!

Les garçons ont terminés leur première semaine de camp d'été à l'université du Québec à Chicoutimi!! 275 enfants, 20 moniteurs, musique forte, danses, concours, lumières discos, mur d'escalade, piscine, tennis, piste de course, etc etc! Quelle organisation! Ils avaient choisis un camp sports et sciences. Ils se sont bien amusés et leur fluidité en français s'ameliore beaucoup. Tous les petits mots anglais qui se glissent naturellement dans leurs phrases ne sont pas compris par leurs amis! Ils ont même commence à prendre l'accent des ´bleuets Saguenéens' en ajoutant ´la' à la fin de chaque phrase: ´Check ça la' ou encore 'écoute ça la' et même 'j'arrive la, la'.
Ah la la la, c'est fantastique!
Voici le groupe de Henri avec sa monitrice 'Boussole':


et celui de Charlie avec son moniteur Everest:

Gareth a aussi terminé sa première semaine au collège Merici dans le vieux Québec à apprendre ´intensivement' le français. Je le laisse vous en parler quand il aura une minute. En attendant, voici quelques photos pour vous donnez une idee d'ou il se trouve:



Vous vous demandez ce que moi je fais?

Je relaxe, bois de l'eau, fais mon jogging quotidien (photo du parc de la riviere du moulin plus bas), je bois de l'eau, je fais des competitions de mots croises contre ma mere qui gagne tout le temps, j'attends avec grande trepidation de passer une autre pierre, je bois de l'eau (pour passer une autre pierre), je lis et j'apprecie mon temps en famille!

So some of my posts might be in French. I will always do a bit of a translation afterwards: Basically, the boys finished their first week of camp at the local university. The camps are full on!  When I drop them off in the morning, I feel like I am entering some kind of a rave! Bright disco lights, blaring music, the young adults in charge are jumping up and down all the time, hoola hoop competitions,Twister competitions, climbing wall, swimming pool, tennis courts, (forced) dancing and singing- if not you have to do a 'solo' - yikes! etc etc. The boys love it and have a blast and their french  continues to become more and more fluid as absolutely none of the kids there understand the little English words they tend to use here and there! They  are even working on improving  their Quebecois accents. Gareth is also learning French on his own at college Merici in Quebec City. I will let him write a post to tell you about his experience but in the mean time check out the photos of the lovely setting he is in!!

I am relaxing, drinking water, jogging every day, drinking water, waiting for stones to pass, doing cross words puzzle competitions with my mom (she always wins- isn't a parent supposed to let their child win? she didn't get that memo i guess), drinking water, reading, blogging, enjoying time with my family. heaven!

This is where i jog:

Back track: forgot about 1000 islands national park in Ontario!

okay, we did have a short but fun outdoor activity: kayak camping in the 1000 islands national park! Finally we could use our free national park pass!
Close to Kingston is 1000 islands nat. Park or as Gareth likes to call it 1000 motor boats national park! It was very busy with boats and tons of islands with cottages on them. Beautiful but busy. Nonetheless we were pretty excited to travel by other means than driving the truck!

 
 


We slept on the island called Beau Rivage which was lovely and filled with gigantic snakes everywhere, on the rocks, in the trees, in the water ( I did not swim) but not in our tent thank god!



Probably looking at a flying snake somewhere close
 



 
Gareth loved using a little stove called pocket rocket the most out of this trip! Here he is happy to use it:


Fun times! Thanks and aurevoir Ontario!

Then we went to Trois-Rivieres to stay and hang out with my big sister Suzanne. As per usual she made us feel like home and it was nice to spend time with her. She is kindly letting us park our Little Bigfoot trailer in her garage for a few weeks. We will go and stay with her later on in August before we take off to les Iles de la Madeleine.

L

La belle province! Nous sommes au Quebec!

We are now in Quebec and this is day 20!
Ontario was long to cross!
We saw moose, bear, wolf, turtles, deers, rabbits, snakes, and lots of birds!

Many beautiful lakes and provincial parks.
We stopped at Neys Provincial Park and Pancake Bay close to Sault Ste Marie.


Passed another stone in sault ste marie, went to emerg again there. Nicer hospital than the one in Brandon Manitoba. There was even a parade in front and so the boys loved it they cotton candy and free sun glasses. I'm going to start rating hospital visits instead of national parks!
 Sault Ste Marie 5 🌟due to the parade but Brandon Manitoba, 2 🌟. They were over worked, no their fault.

This stone was not as painful, i took some kind of drug that could put down an elephant in minutes but did it ever leave me groggy and nauseus all day. Tramacet: it sure works for pain but leaves you. drooling and woozy! Not for the faint of heart!
Here is a video of a stand up comedian on kidney stones  (in French):

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8OW05gFag2wk6c0Bl0En4vDQbXcBmw6Y
I laughed so hard I was crying!

Next stop: Bradford, Ontario.
This was an oasis amongst hospitals and walmart camping!
My longest standing friend Jennifer lives there with her husband Dan and their three kids Jacob, Ian and Mira. They welcomed us with open arms.
Two days there felt like booking into some spa somewhere nice.






 



Visited toronto, waited an outrageous two hours to go up CN tower! The aquarium was very fun!



 


We also got initiated and did our first Escape Room!
Dan and Jen run the Bradford Escape Academy. We had a blast!
We didn't escape however, needed 3 exra minutes ( and lots of hints thanks Jen)

http://www.bradfordescapeacademy.com


That's it for now, next post soon!
Julie