Good Things Gro–o-o-w . . . in Ontario

Well, I finally got my fresh Ontario strawberries!

They followed this mouth watering Prime Rib . . .

Grilled to perfection by The Cowboy along with garlic baked potatoes & onions – another of The Cowboy’s specialties. I was too busy eating to take photos but the sides of fresh asparagus and tomato/cucumber salad with Italian dressing and feta cheese were scrumptious as well!

Joining us for this summer-time meal was Nancy and her daughter, Suzanne.

Remember what I said about the camera? It’s like everybody froze – mid air!

The other pretty lady at the table is our niece Natalie.

Lots of good food, visiting and chatting with lots of laughs . . . that is until the camera comes out!

And that busy little girl in the background is Natalie’s daughter – our great niece Kiera.

As soon as dinner is over – what else is there to do in a campground?

Well it must be time to roast marshmallows.

Sounds easy right?

Well first off we need to be very patient and wait for the fire to be started:

then the perfect giant roasting stick had to be found for the giant marshmallows:

Ahhhh . . . the anticipation . . . VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

 

Finally the tasting!

and the Sharing . . .

Now that’s what summer is all about!

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Now for a little photography fun

My everyday ‘go-to’ camera is a Lumix Panasonic that has taken literally, thousands of pictures.

 

 

It’s a mid sized camera with a 12X zoom that’s easy to grab and just point and shoot.

 

Then every once in a while I put on my big girl panties and reach for this one:

 

My Nikon D-80 DSLR with a wide angle lens as well as a zoom lens.

I haven’t taken the time to experiment much with it and the settings are still on ‘Auto’.

 

A friend of mine even gave me a couple of filters for it – I have no idea what the filters will do!

It’s a much larger camera and not as easy to carry around – especially for the type of photos that I take. I prefer candid as opposed to posed shots preferring behind the scenes rather than shooting the main event. I think you can capture the more natural side of people.

Admittedly, it’s hard to be inconspicuous when you’re lugging around a 10 pound piece of equipment

Yesterday I shot a few flowers - next to kids, my favourite subject . . .

That one is SOOC – Straight out of the camera.

Then with a little editing in Picasa, the next 3 are the same photo.

Now a simple Tiger Lily – same thing – the first one is SOOC:

Just a few more random shots:

Hope everyone is having a wonderful day out there and doing exactly what your heart desires.

Thanks to all of you who follow our blog and encouraging us to continue blogging by leaving your beautiful comments.

We Love You All!

With a little help from our friends . . .

That should actually read ‘with a WHOLE LOTTA help from our friends’ but I don’t think that’s a song title.

Ron & Carla and their two little boys were the previous residents of our current site. They purchased a large mobile home next door and are making that their summer cottage. They had this gazebo set up on this lot but have no use for it in their new space so we bought it from them.

 

The frame was already erected and here’s Ron helping us attach the netting and canvas walls.

 

 

A bit intimidating but this is what our next project looked like.

Kennedy and Elizabeth, here in the park replaced these patio stones with a nice large wooden deck on their park model. Fitting in with The Cowboy’s future plans for our site and always on the look out for a bargain we made a deal and bought all 174 of them!

 

At the very least we saved the delivery charge since the stones were already here in the park.

 

 

 

 

Well, they were here in the park but not exactly on our site so we loaded up our trusty little red pick up truck (several times) and with the help of our neighbours managed to get a few of them in place and the rest of them stacked up for future projects.

Our ‘Eveready’ friends Jim & Linda are always here to lend a helping hand.

Then there’s Nurse Nancy who is obviously no stranger to the runway. Proudly making her debut here with the very latest and trendiest style of work wear. Notice how the work gloves complement the socks and shoes? She is the epitome of Trailer Park fashion!

 

We wouldn’t normally put this much time and effort into just any site but we are really feeling that this is perhaps our permanent summer place.

If and when . . . and I’m sure a lot of our RV’er friends go through the same thought process . . . what’s next? When we are no longer able to drive the motorhome (notice I said ‘we’? – more on that later) we do have a Plan B.

 

Ideally, we would like to be set up with a place somewhere in the southern states with warmer climates where we can spend our winter months. The other 6 or 7 months would find us here in southern Ontario in our summer place.

We not only love our new site but we also think the location of this park is one of the best areas for our needs and wants at this time. (We know Shy and Dave feel it’s quite a drive from London but we also know that they feel the hour and a half drive is ‘soooo’ worth it.)

Among other things we are only about 10 minutes away from the greatest fishing and boating spots on Lake Erie. There will be more on the ‘great fishing’ in a later post as Bass Season opens here on Saturday.

I just hope my camera has a large enough lens to capture all the shots of The Cowboy’s catch. He’s already told me they won’t be gone long. It should only take them an hour or so to catch their limit.

Early Dad’s Day

Blue skies with lots of sunshine surrounded our day on Saturday as we celebrated an early Father’s Day.

Son-In-Law Dave did an excellent job at grilling up some burgers to go along with our baked beans and potato salad. The kids even supplied the burgers and buns.

Since Shy & Dave have been together we try and double up on the family events when we can so Dave’s Dad – Dave Senior and Lynn also joined us for the day. Puzzled as to how to refer to our son-in-law’s Dad?!? When we first met we discovered that we have a great deal in common and have become very good friends – so we just call him ‘Friend’ and he is a good one at that!  We always have a great time when we are together.

The Cowboy has plans to build a big shed on our lot so Shy crafted up a sign that seems very appropriate.

She also gave her Dad this hint . . . She has given us so many wedding decorations and Cowboy themed gifts for our upcoming nuptials – What is it with kids these days that seem to think their parents should be married? Sheesh!

And no we have not set a date yet – but when we do – trust me! I will let everyone know.

After dinner had settled a bit we enjoyed some dessert around the campfire – fresh strawberry shortcake – oh wait a minute . . . no we didn’t. My (favourite?) son-in-law Dave didn’t bring the strawberries so we had angel food cake with lemon & dream whip frosting with slivered almonds topping it off. Delicious – but would have been much better with fresh strawberries.

Why does everyone completely ignore me when I have the camera in my hand?

Well, before the end of the day I was able to find some subjects that weren’t quite so camera shy.

We were treated to some cute little tricksters. It was Halloween for the little people at Trillium Court.

I wasn’t able to get pictures of all of them but I did snag a few.

We had about 30 little visitors . . .  some a bit scary . . .

while some were just darn cute!

This little guy was dressed up as his favourite animal – a beaver. (I didn’t really notice until I inserted this photo his little beaver mouth – too cute!)

And isn’t it amazing what lengths some people will go to for a candy apple?

 

Sure makes ya wonder what else she’s got in that loot bag!

Ah well – the trailer park life

 

What happens in Trillium Court – Stays in Trillium Court!

 

 

 

As the day came to a close we did manage to sneak in a few more photos for our memory albums.

Dave Senior and Dave Junior:

The Cowboy and Shy:

The wonderful loving bond of father and daughter.

A belated wish to all of the men out there . . . whether you are a Dad, Grandfather, a wanna-be Father or play the role of a Dad . . .we hope you had a great day and spent it doing the things you wanted to do with the ones you Love!