The Other London!

We headed to London Ontario on Saturday to visit with a couple of friends which I had not seen in anything from 4.5 years to 13 years. So we packed up the truck in the morn and left for a bit of caching and catching up. With the going good it only took us around an hour and a half to get to London, so we stopped at the dog park. Now this is a great idea a park dedicated to letting your dogs roam free, now we were not brave enough to let Forrest roam but he had fun sniffing around any other dogs who cared to come. At this point Hope declared while standing beside her 120lb pup that she was afraid of dogs ( quite funny). So with the dogs leg stretched and the first cache bagged we had on the short trip across the road to the Kilaly (or something like that) trails for another couple of caches. With a couple of inches of snow on the ground I could not find the first cache but continually found myself breaking through ice and I had no idea what was below it, luckily the water had rescinded. So I headed back onto the path with the rest of the family and continued on round the trail toward the next cache. We got to a flooded piece of the path which was now ice covered and I was urged to go and test the ice, I did so very tentatively and turned back a couple of times as I heard the cracking and groaning beneath my feet. Yet again I was urged on by Tara, so I finally made it over and everyone else followed. As I got close to the next cache I had to go off the path again and cracking through more ice. I got to the cache to find the large container to be a solid block of ICE. Back to the car and off for our first visit with the Weston's, 13 years since I had seen Erin and she probably thought she'd seen the back of me but like a bad penny I turned up again. Good times where had catching up and waiting for Nate to get back from work due to Erin's inability to make coffee (well we all have our faults). The kids all played well together and a good time was had by all until disaster struck. Hope came in from playing outside with a small scrape that turned into a small bump which turned into a HUGE bump (think EMU egg). More of that hard to find resource Ice! was applied to get the swelling down before any photo's could be taken as evidence in the law suit. Luckily no signs of permanent damage have been seen YET! Not long after that Gaby came in crying because she had burned herself, on what you ask? naturally the leaf blower, it was being used in snow removal and the not so savvy Gaby wanted to pick up the wrong end. Again no real damage done. It was at this point I gathered the family close to me and made a hasty retreat stating that we had other 'real' friends to go have dinner with.. All joking aside a good time was had by all and we look forward to meeting up again but perhaps in a soft play area.
Now off to the DeVries for dinner. I had not seen Mark and Kristin for over 4 years, so again it was good to catch up and to see Spuds on the menu. Good time watering the lawn (ice rink) and checking out the marine life here, Kids played well together and NO health issues here, only problem seemed to be at the time the black hole in the house. First Hopes Dummy disappeared into it then the remote for the car but on the next days inspection the dummy was retrieved from the hole and the remote was found in the car, so all accounted for. I took the time to look through the remnants of Kristin's photographs as her scrapbooks where in storage. I still have not seen very much photographic evidence of the first mission trip to Norn Iron in 95.
So we headed home tired and bruised but able to fight another day!



A Little bird nest.
Some hungry Beavers around here.



On Thin Ice.
Ice formation.


She only had to hold herself upright on a handful of occasions (she said she was seeing double but I told her it was a mirror)
You can hardly even tell it was burnt, but her teacher in school today insisted on putting cream and a band-aid on it.


Woody Woodpecker


Time to Leave London for now. We'll be back honestly!