Cottage life

We spent July 4th weekend at Ryan's family cottage. I LOVE it. It's been in the family for many years, like his great grandparents used to go there too. I love that it has history, that it hasn't been knocked down and rebuilt. I love that it tells the stories of what was and what is. I love that we get to share the experience with our kids and make new memories there. I love that there are always people around, Grandma, Great-grandma, great-aunts, great uncle, second cousins, aunts, uncles and cousins. We are making new memories as our little family of five and with our extended family. The kids love it.

This weekend was jammed packed. We raced up after work on Friday, which in reality meant leaving the house around 6pm and stopping for Culvers in route. Saturday we spent hiking at High Cliff park with Grandma Linda, Aunt Cindee, Uncle Stephan, Ricky, Dominic and our family. We swam in the lake, walked to the park, played in the sandbox, played on the swingset, looked for frogs and bugs and made fast friends with the neighbors. Sunday, we walked to the park, had a campfire, played with glowsticks (which Luca decided to bite a hole in!), ate smores and had a potluck. Monday, we spent packing up, swimming in the lake and hanging out before we headed back to reality. Talk about a fun weekend! Luca, who's 3, followed in his sisters footsteps by jumping on the pier.

Monday, during our last swim, we found out one of the neighbor boys had a special hand like Bella. He arrived on Monday and was a little guy, around 15 months. Bella was thrilled!

"Mom, tell him about my camp. Tell him about the Lucky Fin thing."

"You can tell him!"

"No, Mom, you do it! You are good at telling people about it. I'll talk to the baby, you talk to the parents. Let's swim over." So away we went. Bella and I went over and chatted with them all about the resources we know about. They told us how he had surgery to have fused fingers separated. I told the father how Bella was just "born like this".


"Oh do you know about the Lucky Fin Project?" The father asked me.


"You bet we do! They helped us get to Camp No Limits our first year by donating to our camp fund!"

Lucky fins, special hands, missing fingers, fused fingers... whatever the case may be... fast friends :)