Est & Ell's Dinner

Est & Ell made us dinner. They began with cutting up onions and cleaning beans, then lost the idea of making supper and began to decorate the table. 

Our decorated table. We had floating candles in wine glasses,
and you can faintly see the napkins with the forks in them.

Since it was a fancy dinner, we had to dress up!
Our waitresses are in the aprons.

 Miss Moriah getting escorted to her seat,

Miss Cassia being escorted.

Miss Alicia (or me) getting escorted.

Mr Joel getting escorted.

Miss Victoria getting escorted.

Our waitresses getting the food ready! We had rice, sausage and beans!

I just like my name card that was handmade by Est & Ell.

Our waitresses serving our drink (kombucha ... or if you prefer, wine 😋)

For dessert we had cake balls and blondie brownies (the ones that were meant for earlier today).

We had a great dinner ... and great waitresses! 😊

Summer

 My summer has been mostly filled with pickles and more pickles.
V and I have been working in a field picking pickles (well, cucumbers that will become pickles, but everyone calls them pickles, hence me calling them pickles 😊).

Everyone else has been swimming daily and staying home.

A couple days ago Cassia had a few friends over for a party. They had lots of fun. Our house was very noisy.

All nine girls posing for pictures.

While they were having fun since 11am, I was working since 7, got home about 2 and then Moriah & I left for Moriah's (a different Moriah, there are two Moriahs in our church) birthday party. We had a great time. There were only 5 of us, and we chatted ... a lot. During our dinner, we all struggled through many Quiet Contests, with laughing, hiccuping, and, apparently, my choking on food and water allowed! Moriah's dad said that you know you have good friends when you can be quiet for 60 sec without noise. I think we failed, if you count laughing and hiccuping, and choking. If you don't, we succeeded! Our party was somewhat quieter than my sisters'.

We went for a walk to Tecumseh Park and played Sandman on the playground then walked around for a bit. After about 10 minutes of playing and walking, we walked back to Moriah's house.

Some of the girls danced in the kitchen while I played piano, and we chatted. Then chatted some more. Then played a game, and then, well, chatted more!

We have gotten a lot from our garden this year. Tons of beans, kale, and tomatoes. There were some peas growing, but those didn't turn out very well, along with the broccoli and cauliflower and the garden squash plant which all died.. The compost squash plant is huge and is beginning to produce some squash I think.

Our lovely garden!

V and I are almost done working, and then we will be starting our school.
Pake & Beppe are now gone out west, and almost out of Ontario (they left on Sunday). On Tuesday, they were tempted to turn around and come home (I don't mind! 😊), but didn't. They are towing the camper out there. I definitely miss them, but am still living!

In 2 weeks, we will be going camping, then the week after that, we will be going Homeschool Camping, which sounds like it will be grand!

Then our life becomes busy and sorta full of school and random activities!

Summer has been busy for V & I and sorta for the rest of my family, but we are excited for fall and the cooler weather that comes with it. And, especially, camping!!

Walks & Rondeau

Since Rondeau is open (not to camping, but walking and such), we have been occasionally going for walks there. We usually went for a Sunday walk, but lately we have been going for MonTuesWedThursFriSat walks, in English: whenever.

I will start with our few Sunday walks.

As you can see, a sunny day!

Cass, Dad, Mum, V & a bit of Ellia

I've always liked this house.

Conspirators in the background
Mum and Dad talking or something like that! 🤷🏻‍♀️

Joel, Ellia & Cassia walking

Now onto our MonTuesWedThursFriSat walks. I will say, I have no idea what day we took these pictures, so hence the name.

A random picture of the road

A fun endeavor!

Cass & I ran to the water (boat dock) to see the water

Joel & V

Taking pictures

Ellia "mmmm"-ing

One of my favorite pictures

I liked this one too.

The winding road

It is fun to take a picture of one's shadow.

Walks in Rondeau are usually fun!

On Sundays we go for about 5k walks on the Harrison Trail.

During the week, we usually just walk around the campground.

We are definitely enjoying the beautiful weather! Lots of walks and bike rides (more walks than bike rides, though).

Fishing in Rondeau

Since, until the end of May, Rondeau is free. My family has been going fishing, while Mum and I stay home and do nothing (sometimes we do something). Yesterday we all went fishing at the yacht club inside Rondeau.

I totally forgot our camera (something to do) and realized I should not have when there were many opportunities to take pictures! I used Dad's phone, and I took some photos. I like our camera better though.

Joel

A random picture of trees

Cassia & Joel fishing

There were many of these birds flying around,

I don't know what kind they are, but they were pretty.

Dad & V

Mum brought a book

I brought a book and a "list".

Moriah & Victoria fishing

Another random picture

There were many carpenter bees swarming around.

They were quite annoying, but apparently they don't sting, so that was good.

Victoria caught 8 fish.

I didn't fish.

Moriah caught 13 fish.

Cassia caught 14 fish.

Ellia caught 8 fish.

Joel caught 5 fish.

Dad was very busy taking off fish and putting on worms. We girls don't enjoy doing that part, Joel doesn't do it either.

When we got home, it was about 8:30. I joined my friends on Zoom for about half an hour and talked to them, and as far as I know they are all still alive 😊.

Thus ends an evening in the life of the Marentettes. We all woke up early this morning (summer does that to some of us), and we are enjoying the beautiful weather!

Fishing in Rondeau

Now that the provincial parks are open for walking, hiking, biking, etc., we decided to go fishing on both Tuesday and Thursday. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures on Tuesday, so you'll just see the ones from Thursday. The total number of fish caught was 16: Joel caught 6, Ellia 3, Cassia 4, Moriah 2 and myself 1. They ranged from good-sized largemouth bass all the way down to little guppies. I retired from fishing to take pictures early on, but the rest went on to catch some big ones.

Cassia fishing. She caught the first fish and then we all moved to her spot. She moved to the other side and then caught another fish, and so we all moved over there. She moved back to where she was and caught another, so we gave up.:)

Joel & Ellia

It was really shallow there and I think that we all got caught on the rocks at least once. Joel ended up getting stuck on a branch and so Cassia had to go break it since she was the only one in sandals. She came out with cold feet and a leech.

The best fishing is when you can just sit down!

Moriah's fishing pole in the Bay

This was after I stopped fishing.

Joel's first big fish. He looks funny because the sun was in his face. The fish was a good size, about 8 or 9 inches long.

Partial silhouette fishing.

Sunset just before we left. I did use a filter for this one to make the colours brighter.

The nice weather has been wonderful! So glad that it is the end of May and hopefully it will stay nice.

Tulips

We have a lot of tulips growing in our front yard, and when the sun shines on them just right they are beautiful. They are beautiful anyways, but I managed to catch some photos of them on a sunny day.

For this one, I used a special simulator to make it look like a painting.

Spring is finally here! I love the wonderful weather and the longer days too. 😍