Keeping up with the Jones or should I say Jensens

Here is our latest purchase for our camping trip. It is exactly the same one my sister bought for our camping trip earlier this month. I was hoping for a red one, but this one will do. I was able to put it up in less than 10 min. all by myself(:

My kids are going to Edmonton

I'm sure they are going to have a blast in Edmonton..especially at West Edmonton Mall! I miss them and can't believe they have been gone for 2 weeks already. So, I thought I would post their smiling faces on my blog. They will be back home in a couple of weeks...just in time for our first camping trip in the new (to us) camper. We are doing a local camping trip to work out all the kinks before we head out for our week long camping trip at the end of August at Golden Ears(:

Camping at Gold Creek was a Blast!

My ankle was not swollen at all, so we took a hike down to the lake. I bribed the boys with chips, so they jumped at the chance to go for a walk. Here's a classic picture of the boys at the beach. Isn't it awesome to see brotherly love?


Here are some pictures of our camping trip. We had a great time and I was able to relax and that really helped keep my ankle from swelling. I spent 4 nights out there with my sister and her family. My friend Robin came out for a visit a couple of times and we all had dinner together. It was an awesome time.
It however did rain a couple of nights and one night there was loud thunder and lightening.
My oldest nephew, Brian loves to make the fire and you would always see him poking at it with a stick. We had huge fires and sometimes they were very smokey...like in the picture below of Paul and I.

Nanaimo Ferry Ride at night

Our Quick Tour through downtown Nanaimo

Sam and Lou's Excellent Adventures to Nanaimo

Our excellent adventure started at 6:30am when we left Maple Ridge and headed to the ferry. When we got to Horshoe Bay, the traffic trying to catch the 8:30am ferry was backed up for miles. I'm thinking those people had a 2 sailing wait. We were parking the car and walking on the ferry. With me having a swollen ankle, we pretty much just sat in our chairs for the entire ferry ride over. It was pretty packed and we didn't want to lose our spot. When we arrived at Departure Bay, we looked for a bus schedule to see if we could head out to the Malls to go shopping. They only display the week day schedule, so we would have had to get a Saturday schedule from the bus driver. That wasn't going to work out for us , so we took a taxi to our cousins' house. They had no idea that we were coming and we just showed up on their doorstep. The Wedding Crashers had arrived! Except we missed the wedding! Our parental unit (to be left un-named) told us the wedding was on Saturday at 4:30pm...when in actual fact it was on Friday. Oops! But our cousins were happy to see us and there were 19 people there and we all sat down for a nice brunch. The newly weds were heading back home at 3:15pm, so we are very lucky we didn't have a bus schedule or we would have missed them all together. Their daughter Isabella, it so cute and we enjoyed spending time with her out on the deck. It was extremely hot out and I'm sure we all sweated off a few pounds. Robb lent us his car and we went to visti our Grandma and Uncle Dave for a couple of hours. Then we returned to the Squire household...with . 2 pies and some ice cream for dessert. After lots of visiting and relaxing we all went to New York Pizza. The food was fabulous, but it was way too hot in there. By the time we were done dinner, it was time to head back for the last ferry back to Vancouver. Darn it...we didn't get any dessert, but I'm sure it will be enjoyed by the cousins..especially Todd! We took some touristy pictures on our drive back to the ferry. We had a bit of time to kill before we could get on the ferry, so we took more touristy pictures at the ferry terminal. It was an excellent day and we arrived back at my sister's house shortly after midnight. My next post (when I get around to it..hopefully) will have the 2 min. tour of Nanaimo via Judy and our ferry photos for you too see.

Mike's Smile

Over the past few years since Mike has had braces, he avoids smiling for photos. Now he's smiling again...well at least until Sept. In the Fall he will be getting new braces top and bottom. Chaching..expensive, but he'll have a really nice smile.
Now if only he would let me get his hair cut short...hmmmm.