Just Keep Swimming, Just Keep Swimming

It was a wonderful feeling to wake up to the sounds of the birds calling and the woodpeckers knocking on the trees. The campground was so peaceful. But I was about to change all that. In about an hour I would be on my way in to town to pick up 3 kids all under the age of seven. My campsite was about to get a whole lot noisier. (sorry neighbours!)

The chipmunk from yesterday was there to greet me when I got out of my tent. I had a quick breakfast and then headed off to go pick up the kids. 

I arrived back at the camp with kids in tow just in time for lunch. So we had a quick bite to eat. After lunch I asked them what they wanted to do first. They said "Too bad the sky looks like rain, so we can't go swimming". I replied "Who says we can't? We can go swimming in the rain if we want to". They all cheered and rushed to get their bathing suits on. I decided not to go in and instead I grabbed myself a folding chair and an umbrella just in case it did decide to rain. When they were ready we all walked down to the smallest beach in the park. It was the closest. 
  We were there for about 2 hours and it never did rain. At one point Mila came out of the water and asked if she could play with the umbrella in the water. It was an old umbrella that was on the verge of breaking anyways, so I said "sure!". She gleefully took it into the lake and had a grand ole time playing with it. 

​The smallest beach had more people on it today than yesterday. The kids managed to find and make friends with a girl named Anna and her brothers who were camping only a few sites away from us.They all played together in the water until they eventually got too cold and wanted to go back. 

When we got back we had a snack and the kids played in the sand for a bit. Naturally, they did not want to sit still for long so I suggested that we take a walk to go check out the dog beach that was not too far away. They loved that idea, so we put on some shoes and away we went. 

To the left of the dog beach is a dock and boat launch. The kids made a bee line for the dock to see if they could see any fish or frogs in the water. 

And they weren't disappointed. There were bunches and bunches of minnows swimming around by the dock. We had some buckets with us so the kids tried their hand at trying to catch some. But the minnows were too fast so they didn't catch any. 

It wasn't long before they were bored of not catching any fish and were looking for something else to do. The thing about young kids is that they love to swim. Although we had just come from the beach not that long ago, they wanted to go swimming again. The lack of buoy lines at this beach really appealed to them. ​There were plenty of other kids and adults swimming here so I figured there was no problem.

​Of course I hadn't expected them to go swimming here so they didn't have their swim suits with them. Did that stop us? Not at all. I told them they could go in their clothes on. They said "Really?!?" in excitement. And I said "Sure, why not?" 

The kids loved it and had a great time. They thought it was the best thing to be swimming in their clothes and come out dripping wet. After about an hour they were ready to go back to camp and have a snack. But they wanted to come back to the dog park with their bathing suits on later. All that I could think of was that little ditty from the Finding Nemo movie "Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming."  It was definitely turning into a "just keep swimming" kind of day. 

After a snack, they got their swim suits on again. But instead of going back to the dog park I convinced them to try out the big (main) beach instead. I told them that we should check out all the beaches so that we can decide which one we liked the best. So, off we went for a swim for the third time that day. 

I really didn't mind in the least. I enjoyed sitting in my chair by the beach watching the kids and watching the seagulls and dragonflies. It was so nice to be able to just relax for the first time this year. 

When we took a vote on which beach is the best to swim at, the dog park beach won hands down. The big beach is just too shallow for their liking and the kids kept pushing the buoy lines out farther so that they could go deeper. Kids aren't that tall so it is not surprising that adults were crossing over the buoy lines all together. I heard one adult say that it does get deep very quickly on the other side though. 

It was getting close to supper time and I knew that their parents would be arriving soon, so we headed back. Sure enough, we met their parents on the road as they were driving to the campsite.

​The kids played in the woods while their parents set up their tent and got dinner ready. 

We got a campfire going and sat around enjoying the flickering of the flames for awhile. When it got dark enough, Dylan (the girl's dad) brought out some nets and flashlights and took the kids down to the first (smaller) beach to hunt for frogs. I stayed behind to sit and watch the fire. 

When they got back, they regaled me with stories of how big the frogs were and how much fun they had. They would catch a frog in a net and each would hold it for a minute before letting it go again. Then they would go off and find the next frog. 

As Dylan got the kids ready for bed, I saw a huge bug flying around the lantern. I recognized this bug from a previous camping trip to Arrowhead Park in 2018 with my brother and my sister-in-law. It was a Summer Fish Fly. This was only the second one I had seen in my life. 

Once the kids were in their pajamas, we gave them glo-sticks and filled the kids up with hot chocolate and marshmallows.  Then we threw packets of colour changing chemicals (3 packets work best) onto the fire and watched as a rainbow of colours emerged. 
After brushing their teeth, they went off to sleep in the tent. They fell asleep quickly because they were exhausted from all the swimming and fun they had that day. The adults sat around and talked until the fire burnt down.

​ It was a lovely ending to a lovely day.