Bug festival

The kids have had a somewhat outdoorsy week, starting with a nature walk on Mika's birthday followed by a bug festival this weekend. They had a great time there with their friends - and were rather happy to hold beetles and worms in their hands. Glad their parents' squeamishness with such things haven't rubbed off on them.

    

   

Family Camp 2013

This year we finally decided to go for Family Camp, our church's annual family get-together. We rushed to book a cabin as soon as registration opened, but ended up getting a camp site. The Ockers graciously offered to be our mentors for the weekend, and let us borrow their rather cool tent as well. We set out with some amount of trepidation on Friday afternoon, but came back on Sunday evening after a thoroughly enjoyable weekend.

(Embedded slideshow and video)

Some more..

Here are a random collection of pics from amama's camera. Awesome memories!

Embedded slideshow

Rainbow Party

Miss Mika turns four in about a week. But we got to celebrate her birthday yesterday with lots of bright colors and fun. Our venue this year was a berry farm a five-minute drive from home. Despite the threat of thunderstorms, God was good in blessing us with PERFECT weather and a beautiful morning.

Missy and her buddies trooped off (or should we say energetically scattered in different directions) to pick berries. They came back with their little pint containers filled and tummies empty. Till they dug into sandwiches, turkey rolls, fruit, samosas and chips. And, of course, cake. Lots of it. Cutting her rainbow cake was her favorite part, said the lady of the day.

The rainbow-shaped pinata was entertaining - especially when 14 kids descended on the candy haul with a pure, unbridled greed! They settled down while making colored cheerio necklaces and took home little sand buckets, crayons and playdoh with a card that read, 'A  rainbow is a promise to all, Of  God's blessings big  and  small!' (Thanks to gama for that one). And Mika is, for sure, our little big blessing.

(embedded slideshow and video)

Banff Vacay

We joined appapa and ammama in Banff for a 2-day trip to take in majestic mountains and pristine lakes. And meet family. And soak in hot springs. And hike to a waterfall. And see friends en route in Seattle. A bit of a tightly packed schedule but a whole lotta WOW.

We drove to Seattle and met the latest additions - 1-month-old David and 3-month-old Avi. Super fun cuddling with the new babies (but we are glad we're over our feeding, burping, pooping phase! Hehe). Mika and Yo reconnected with their little buddies for a few hours before we said our farewells and arrived in Calgary.

Spent night one in Susan aunty's house and headed out the next day to the Athabasca glacier. The Canadian Rockies were beyond majestic in their vastness and beauty. After a ride on a very cool mega ATV-like bus, we walked on ice (300 feet deep packed ice for miles on end). From the glacier, we went to the opposite end of the spectrum to Radium Hot Springs. R did more driving than he ever has and thankfully the munchkins slept most of the drive. At 10 pm,we trooped down to a 104 degree F hot spring pool and did nothing but soak.

Day 2. We drove to Lake Louise which was crammed with tourists like us :) Then it was a beautiful Morraine Lake and Johnston Canyon before driving down to Banff. There we had another spectacular ride - up, up and almost away on our gondola which took us to an elevation of almost 8K feet. A little closer to God. It felt like that :)

Back to Calgary. And then the next morning (post mega breakfast at Madhu aunty's) we retraced our steps to Portland.

(embedded slideshow and video)

Day 1 video

Day 2 video