Wow what a beautiful place Manning Park is, I can not believe that I have never heard of it before. It brought me back to being a child camping with my family, aunts, uncles and grandparents. I am so grateful that my children were able to feel and do something "old normal" like enjoying what it's like not to have TV, internet or a cell phone for 1 weekend. Don't get me wrong we stayed in the lodge and had access to our doctors and such if need be, but it was just nice to be in the wilderness away from our now normal life for 48 hours....ahhhh Okay so what did we do.....

Scott and his Uncle ran an insane 27k trail race up and down a mountain in mostly rain.

I must say that the Smith girls have never been so proud as we were watching Scott running down the last bit of the mountain waving at us like a crazy man. I was thinking in my head "oh no stop waving, watch where your feet go" Brenn ran with Scott the last 300 meters through the bush and on to the finish line while Sam and I took a short cut running over a small stream with logs layed across so that we could hurry to the finish trying to get a picture, I had to stop, zoom my camera in and caught them just after the finish line as they were so "super fast" as Brenn says.

To back track a bit......while the boys ran the race the girls and I went for breakfast in the lodge, hung out in the room for a bit and enjoy the lake and nature while cheering on other racers waiting for Scott and Uncle Allen to come in. The girls loved running free, trying to coax birds to land on to the sticks they had found, and digging new homes for the weeds they had pulled out of the running path.

The rest of the day and evening was spent in a campsite down the road from the race (as this was the only place we could find with a pit). I lit the fire that would ultimately cook our dinner and showed my girls that it's not only a boys job to light camp fires. We enjoyed the evening roasting kobassa on the fire (my mom would be proud), grilling steak, veggies and baking potatoes. We shared our feast with a very brave chipmunk who had an extreme liking to potatoes and enjoyed our time as a family. I of course forgot my camera so I have no pictures to show you what a spectacular evening it was. The girls loved being in forest, watching the wild life...oh yeah I forgot a momma and baby deer walked right through the campsite next to us the girls were soooooooo excited.

Brenn and Sam settled into bed quite easily exhausted from the day. This morning after breakfast Scott took Brenn swimming. It was the first time since Brenn has been sick that she went into a public pool, from what I heard she had a great time just her and dad jumping off the various wall heights and enjoying splashing around. It was a great weekend and a perfect chance for us to make some memories. The girls are now asking if we can buy a camping trailer so that we can go camping next year in the forest......I can't wait :)