Historically, we have begun our new school years on the first Monday after Stewart’s August 19th birthday. This year, however, is different. Because Stewart is not starting FLCC until after Labor Day, and with because we have nothing exciting on our calendar for early May that we want to hurry up to finish school by, we opted to start school September 5th.
That left us with a few days of late summer we normally do not have.
And the weather is just sort of crummy and the pool is green.
Not everyone waited to start school. Marie started on August 21st. And after seeing her begin, Tabitha decided to start on August 22nd.
One of the nicest things about homeschool is finding what works best. Marie likes to rise at 6:30 and get some work done before breakfast. She likes to do work in the evening, after dinner, as well. Tabitha is also embracing the after dinner hours.
Once upon a time “summer” equaled “Seabreeze” for these disciples. How is it, then, that our family hasn’t been there in a few YEARS and the littlest Butler has no memory of it?
I think it’s a combination of having a pool, having bigger kids getting busier, having the prices more than double from the first year we bought them, and having the big kids get a little TOO familiar with the place.
My work made tickets available for $13 pp for up to six people. A co-worker helped me secure three additional tickets. I got the tickets back in June and we proceeded to sit on them foReVEr!
FLCC classes and Toronto weekend made June a poor time to visit. Costa Rica and VBS and Prince Edward Island wiped out most usable dates in July. August found work schedules and camping ruling out most days.
So in the waning week of summer we found a day we could visit. And it was chilly! To be fair, summer never showed up this year. Oh. It phoned it in a few days, but it never stopped in to stay. Overnight temps were cool for most of August, and the water at Seabreeze reflected this.
BRRRRRRR.
We didn’t spend long in the waterpark. We had some lunch around 12:30 and headed for dry rides. While once upon a time my big kids would have front row seats for the acrobat shows (we’d watch more than one a day), we only paused on our way through to watch them today.
The big four visited a lot of rides on their own, although I did skulk around admiring them from afar time to time.
Hanny got her first ride on the Jack Rabbit.
I can’t know if it was the cool weather or the lateness in the season that made the crowds small. In either case, it benefitted us tremendously as we owned the park.
Nan snapped some photos of the big kids.
And one of the rest of us.
My how we’ve all changed.
We were surprised when at 4:30 P.M. we were pretty much done with all the rides! They’d done each one multiple times and it didn’t make sense just to stay to order a pizza. As John had met us there, he took one van to BJs for some frozen pizza and honey BBQ wings, and I took the other van to Walmart to pick out a bunch of ice creams.
Home for dinner and dessert and the official last day of Butler-summerness-fun.
Johanna was invited to a birthday party with the theme, “Drive-In Movie.”
She had a car, complete with the snack tray that attached to her window sill.
She also was given tickets that she could trade for little dishes of snacks.
This last piece was pretty good because she didn’t have dinner before she went. Why not? Well, Mama was at work, and Daddy had forgotten about the party. So did Johanna. So, as Daddy was getting a dinner of leftovers prepared around 5:45 P.M., it popped in Marie’s mind that Hanny was supposed to go to a party at 6.
Hanny jumped into gear. She grabbed one grape tomato, one slice of cucumber and one tepid fish stick and ran for her shoes. In the car she told Daddy those things do NOT go together!!!
The watched the movie, “Storks,” and had a lot of fun.
After church, John and Stewart scooted out for their day out to celebrate Stewart’s birthday. They headed down to Letchworth State Park. None of us have been there before and Stewart has grown to enjoy exploring a bit, so it seemed like a nice outing for the two of them.
They saw tremendous gorges and waterfalls in the Grand Canyon of the East.
But what photos to I have to share?
Lunch!
They dined at Glen Iris.
And Stewart marveled at his (safe!) lunch, calling it the best meal of his life.
He has since amended this statement to proclaiming it the best sandwich of his life.
Stewart has been the first kid to do a lot of things around here. Once again, he can claim to be the first one to wake up on a campsite on his birthday.
We arrived home, unpacked, and proceeded to invest in his celebration. The guys had stopped at Walmart and Tab helped me make a lemon cake (and filling. and frosting.).
Nan and Nene joined us for a most excellent dinner not prepared in the great outdoors or on my knees in front of a campfire.
He was blessed with some gifts. (And blessed us with this smile.)
He not only liked this, he all but placed an order for it while he was shopping with me one day at Walmart.
Sisters shared homemade cards. (Hanny asked if she could have hers back if he thought he’d just throw it out.)
We all slept eight straight hours. I don’t remember the last time I slept so well. I don’t know if it was all the walking around the day before, the two nights prior being poor sleep nights, the fresh air, or some combination of these things, but I’m not complaining. I woke as rested as I’ve been in a long time.
Breakfast was eggs and sausage. Again we didn’t get to eat together, but it was okay.
We broke camp down easily. The fact that Nigel and Marie were more than ready to head home made them both super-charged to get ‘er all packed up. That and the fact my kids are awesome helpers.
This just so happened to be Stewart’s 17th birthday. He thanked me twice for making camping happen. I’m so glad he enjoyed it.
Once both cars were packed and we were ready to pull out we went for a walk to try to get to the lakeshore.
Can you make out the skyline of Toronto? Seems fitting to look back to where our summer-fun started. Hard to believe camping was more fun than Canada’s Wonderland!
We found access. The waves were stronger here than any ocean I’ve visited save the Pacific (hmmm – there is irony in that sentence, no?).
Nigel helped his little sisters down, because he’s that kind of guy.
Nigel helped his little sisters up, because he’s that kind of guy.
We headed home by 10 A.M. and were home before noon. Everyone pitched in to get 100% unpacked and we shifted into gear to make Stewart’s birthday evening.
I have to give a Shout-Out to Marie and Nigel. Neither of them wanted to go camping. They just weren’t into it. But we were going. And for the full 48 hours we were gone they were all-in, and died to self, and just put up and shut up, and I really respect them both for that. There was no sulking. There was no reluctance. There was playing and joking and joyfulness and I hope I will remember that as much, if not more, than the campfires, the Redcoats, and the checkers.
Philippians 2:4 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
We are the kind of people who arrive at WDW parks an hour before they open. It should have surprised me, then, when we arrived at Old Fort Niagara moments before it opened. (Why don’t we mobilize more quickly on a regular basis???)
I found the campsite at Four Mile Creek to tie in to a visit at Old Fort Niagara. It didn’t register high on any of the kids’ interest scales when mentioned by name, but I showed them a quick peek online the day before we went and it piqued their interests a little. Once we arrived – the gloves were off and we were engaged.
We timed it perfectly to catch the first introductory film of the day.
Unless you know a lot about the history of this fort, I encourage you to take in the short film. (Even if you do know a lot, the film was excellent!)
No sooner had the credits rolled when a gentleman came in and invited anyone who was interested to join him for a free guided tour. For the next 40-50 minutes he narrated and we absorbed. It was outstanding. (He did act a little horrified when we didn’t have great recall on somewhat lesser known American History details: names of ships; the names of the five tribes of Native people in the region, etc. If he chided us more deeply, or suggest I question my children’s teachers, etc., I was prepared to assure him that we knew the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 Judges of Israel.)
The fort was awesome, in the fullest sense of that word. I have lived my whole life in Rochester and I have somehow failed to ever visit Old Fort Niagara. We were absolutely BLOWN AWAY by this national treasure.
After we were in the fort itself he said goodbye and we started visiting the interior areas, most with live reenactors. Almost without exception these reenactors were fabulously engaging.
We got to go up into both the Redoubts.
Here’s what really blew us away… while nearby Genesee Country Village and Museum is another wonderful living history museum that we highly recommend, this place? is REAL. REAL battles took place. Real training. A real siege. And we are not only allowed to visit, we are allowed inside building. We could touch things. Sit on things. The overwhelming majority of accessible areas invited investigation. How cool is that?
This building – the Castle – is what the fort originally started with. It was set up with the plan of trading (the lower right hand door and windows were the trading post).
We got to move throughout and so much of it was accessible.
Back outside we visited the greens and met washer women, and soliders, and a black smith (photo above) and a Native American with a handmade canoe.
They taught us about the life of soldiers, and the method of fighting, and for a little while, anyway, it was “ok” to like the Redcoats.
We learned so much. And I can’t do justice to the history of this place. I’m so glad I finally saw it and think it might be the best kept secret in Western NY.
Ecclesiastes 3:8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace
We woke slightly before seven. Well – there was also that 2 A.M. bathroom run…
I had my electric griddle and had the dry ingredients for pancakes prepped in a ziploc along with a recipe for assembling the wet ingredients. I have no idea what went wrong but they were runny. Very runny. So they ended up flat and spread out. So we had non-circles that we rolled up and dipped into syrup.
Or sprinkled on powdered sugar. They were crepe like, come to think of it.
That turned out to be the one thing about big-family camping I didn’t love. I wanted people to eat when it was hot, so we didn’t all eat together. It was a bit of a production, although it was fun to do it in a way. I just didn’t like not eating together.
After breakfast we headed a few miles west to Old Fort Niagara. I am going to do a separate post about that.
I did a pretty nice job with lunch, didn’t I?
Ok. I admit it. We ate at the Silo in Lewiston. It was delicious AND they went about and beyond with food safety for Stewart. Big thumbs up.
Katriel and Johanna got ice cream with their kids’ meals.
As John and the kids piled into the big van I wandered over to this statue. While walking I was thinking of little quips about what they were possibly pointing at in Canada. As I drew closer I got excited –
What a beautiful statue!!! Yeah. There was definitely a time when the sight of Canada meant freedom. Good job, Lewiston.
Back at camp we stared at each other for hours enjoyed one another’s company. Some hacky-sack. Some frisbee. Some football. Some Disney Emoji Blitz. Some checkers.
Dinner was pizza mountain pies and s’mores. There were more games and bedtime around 9:30 P.M. again. We were exhausted.
1 John 4:7:
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
I’ve never been into the idea of camping. It just never screamed “vacation!!!” to me. Normally, when we travel, we look for rental houses. The idea is to stay in a place that is equal to, or nicer than, the house we live in. Alternatively, it’s nice to stay in a lovely hotel that possibly offer breakfast, a hot tub and someone to make your bed for you.
I’m not sure where the idea even took seed. But for whatever reason, there it was, in my head. And one day it dawned on me that while it was perfectly normal for a person to grow up and say, “My parents never took me to the Panama Canal,” or “My parents never took me to the Great Wall of China,” it was NOT at all okay for someone to say, “My parents never took me camping.” Like – who can’t camp? (** please note – it is hideous for a person to grow up saying, “My parents never took me to Disney World.” Just sayin’. **)
So – things started to fall into place ridiculously quickly. We did have to move it from June to August because I only had two weekends off this summer and the first one would have required the kids to miss their last week of baseball and they were enjoying it too much!
So my friend Jamie lent us two tents, three mattresses, and two chairs. My friend Sharon lent us a stove we didn’t end up using but was glad to have. My friend Jackie lent us an easy up.
And it took two cars to get all the people, gear, and food to our destination. Thankfully, we picked somewhere only two hours from home.
We stayed at Four Mile Creek State Park. I chose it with very little research based solely on its proximity to Old Fort Niagara. The Fort is a place I’d always wanted to visit and we knew we needed something to do all day besides stare at each other. (Nigel would tell you we did plenty of staring at each other as it was!)
It took much longer to get there than it should of because it dawned on me 45 minutes in to our trip that we’d forgotten the thing to blow up the mattresses. We had to back track to a Walmart in Greece to purchase one. Then there was construction. ‘Nuff said.
Once we arrived the site took shape VERY quickly. Having lots of young adults helped tremendously.
Imagine our surprise when we opened up Jamie’s tote of mattresses and found – wait for it – TWO air pumps. Can’t write this stuff.
There was a little rain. Then there was a lot of rain. Then there was a little rain again. I think it was fine. It kept the bugs away and we had plenty of dry time for cooking.
Katriel is sad that her corn is hot.
Stewart helped. A lot. He was by far the most eager to give camping a try and he was tremendously helpful.
And goofy.
We played some games and realized just how dark it does get. We were in bed 9:30 P.M. ish, I think. Interestingly, some of us found the sound of the rain pleasant and soothing, while others found it like nails on a chalkboard. God makes us all so differently.
Psalm 121:8 The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore
Dayspring Disciples 