Yay Sun!

Today was hot. Very, very hot. Today's heat easily matched whatever our hottest day last summer was. Actually today was muggy (which made it feel incredibly hot), and in a strange twist of fate, there also happened to be no breeze coming off the ocean today to speak of. While we all lost about 2 liters of sweat, there really wasn't much complaining from the staff. A hot summer (or warm summer) would be really nice since it tends to be on the cool (even cold) side here so close to the ocean. Warm days would mean more time spent in the pool and more wet games during canoe sessions.
The staff are all here now (arrived today) and we had a great time in the pool this afternoon since it was, I as I already mentioned, way to hot to continue doing maintenance. This evening we had a session in the basement of our cottage (which doubles as missions and crafts) to beat the heat. It's funny, somewhere else I would probably be complaining about how warm it is, but here it's such a nice change that we celebrated while we fanned ourselves!
Please pray that the weather continues to cooperate throughout the summer as the campers arrive. Last summer it rained only at night - that would be a really nice repeat if it could be arranged!

Buttercups and Lilacs

Tuesday was a beautiful sunny day at Bayside (something we have not seen a whole lot of here at Bayside until this week) so Tim and I decided to take a little walk out to the mailbox to enjoy the nice weather. Along the way, we discussed such important issues as yappy dogs and... really that's about it. Life is quite relaxing right now.
Unfortunately, upon arrival at the mailbox, we realized that we forgot the mailbox key... no wait that was a different day... On this day, we learned that the big brown mailboxes have evolved into a gathering place for the community.
Urgh... This blog post has been suddenly cut short by yet another thunderstorm. Today we have had steady rumbling from 12 o'clock to about 6 o'clock with absolutely no lightening in sight to sit back and enjoy. The fact that the lamp on my desk just rattled with the rolling thunder indicates that I should probably wrap this up post-haste (no pun intended).
PS. I was going to tell you that on the way home, gigantic buttercups line all of Faders Road. It was quite stunning! I picked a large handful and even found some lilacs to create a bouquet of my two favourite colours: purple and yellow.

New Glasses

As you can plainly see my husband has new glasses. While this picture may not fully depict this reality, they look really good on him!

Chess

I (Aneke) learned to play Chess today, AND I won both games! I must admit that winning the first game was likely just beginner's luck since I had no idea what I was doing, but the second I won fair and square.

Well, mostly fair and square. It is probable that doing things like trucking the little tower piece diagonally across the entire board may have made it difficult for Tim to anticipate my next move; trying to remember what each of the pieces is allowed to do can be quite confusing! Luckily, Tim patiently and kindly corrected my mistakes (HEY! What do you think you're doing?!)

I'm sure that the next couple of weeks will be joyously filled with many more Chess games, and if I am indeed on a winning streak, I will be sure to mention it in future posts.

Oasis

I wish I had a photo to visually portray what I am trying to describe but that will have to wait for another time. We have safely arrived at the camp and are already feeling the peace that accompanies being cut off from the world. We've been enveloped by a light cloud of fog for a couple days now which has helped us forget about life's worries; we're cut off from the world literally and figuratively (no television, internet, telephone, etc...). Our pace has slowed down exponentially. We're already beginning to get up and go to bed with the sun after only 2 days! We've also found the time to play board games, read books for fun, and finish fun project that we started long ago. It's hard to believe that in less than a month, the camp will be filled once again with laughing children, splashing water, and boisterous singing!