The first week of June Kayla had a ProD day at school giving her a long weekend, and so since we had missed the May Day long weekend together as a family, both mom and dad took off an extra day giving us all a long weekend that we enjoyed at the lake. Glen and his dad spent a full afternoon working together to put laminate flooring down in the girls room at the cabin, and it gives the room a nice finish. Kayla also moved to the top bunk and so the girls are each enjoying a better sleep with each having a double bed to themselves.

The middle weekend in June we headed off and hiked ~10 kilometres from Lynn Headwaters. We did it as a loop doing the higher, tougher portion of the hike on the way in and we did the lower portion closer to the river for the hike back. It took about 5 hours in total (including breaks) to hike the whole loop from the parking lot.

The last "regular" weekend in June the girls got up early and along with mom were picked up by Auntie Shirley to go pick raspberries and strawberries at a picking farm out in Langley. For lunch dad drove out with the truck and all the bikes to have lunch with them. For the afternoon, we all took the ferry and rode our bikes the full distance around Barnston Island which is in the Fraser River. The distance we rode was about 10 kilometres and we rode it in about 2 hours. We are all happy that Melissa has moved up to riding without training wheels as it allows us to all ride together as a family on longer rides.

The next weekend was the July long weekend and we planned to go the lake. Actually Canada Day this year was on the Tuesday, but both mom and dad took Monday off to have a long weekend. We only left on Saturday morning though to give us a bit more time to visit with Susan's cousin Amy and her fiance Brent who had come to town from Calgary to go to a wedding and were staying at our house for the weekend. On our drive to the lake we stopped off at many tourist information centres which allowed the girls to really get a lot of tourism stickers on their tourism BC passports which moved them close to their goal of getting a Tourism BC prize. On Sunday we went to church. On Monday we went for a long boat ride all the way around to Herald Park. We had a wonderful hike up to the falls. On Tuesday we went to Anglemont Centre where we had some fun. The girls played some games and got some Canada tattoos. There was also 3 person team road hockey games, and Susan and grandma and grandpa signed up to play. The one other team ready to play at the same time were 3 "professional" 20 year old hockey players. To make the teams fairer and to make sure there was one female per team, Susan joined two of the young players while grandma and grandpa had one of the young guns join them. Grandma was dressed up and played as the goalie. Even with Susan's goalie only playing with a broom unlike the professionally dressed Grandma, Susan's team still eked out the win 4-3.

That week was a wonderfully short week at work, only starting the week on Wednesday. It was still a memorable one though as Kayla had both front top teeth taken out when she went to the dentist that week.

The following weekend we stayed in town and caught up around the house, putting up the tent trailer and preparing it for the summer's adventures. During the week Melissa was down to her last few weeks in daycare, and Susan was spending her days at Susan's parents. She was also going to pottery classes.

The middle weekend in July we took the Friday off to go to the annual Alice Lake group camping trip arranged by our friends Jennifer and Zack. On the way up on Friday, especially due to Kayla's recent high interest in geology and rocks we stopped at the Britannia Museum of Mining. We started the "tour" by taking a mining train into the mine (the mine at its peak had over 240 kilometres of mine shafts that snaked through the mountain. We learned that the mine was once the biggest producer of copper in all the British Empire, producing about a third of the copper being mined in the whole world each year. We also had great fun gold-panning and collected some interesting little treasures. The time at Alice Lake was just great, with great weather. Dad had a great mountain biking ride, and the girls built a huge sand castle at the beach.

The following week was Susan's birthday and we celebrated with a cake. The following weekend we went to the lake. On Saturday we went and spent time at the Cassel's, and the girls had great fun playing with Sarah and Owen. Mud fun was muddy, so we had some time swimming and fun in the water. We picked up from them some old kids learning water skis, and Kayla and Sarah tried (so far unsuccessfully) water skiing. Later that afternoon Glen's brother's family showed up and so the girls had fun playing with their cousin Jessica. On Sunday we practiced a bit of piano (both girls are in lessons), then went for another boat ride. Kayla tried some more to waterski, and then Jessica tried and successfully got up after two attempts. We left the lake quite late (4:45) and had dinner in Hope on the way back home.