A day out at Algonquin Park

 The third Friday of the school year was an in-service day.  Dave had to go to work, but the kids were all home in their sibling glory.  Instead of spending the day refereeing fights, I decided to take them all on a hike at Algonquin Park.  The Park is a 35 minute drive and is perhaps most glorious in the fall.  Your eyes might grow wide at the thought of one woman taking her six children to a provincial park.  Trust me, the wilds of Ontario are sometimes much easier to navigate than those of the familial home.

 We packed a picnic lunch and started our day at the Visitor's Centre.  The Centre has a wonderful, but small, wildlife museum inside and an incredible lookout at the rear of the building.  It also has a small movie theatre which shows the same movie about the history of the park over and over again.  The boys never grow tired of it.

 The Visitor's Centre also has a large and overly-priced cafeteria which has never proven unattractive to Joe.  Along the same line, the super-expensive stuffed animals in the gift shop also become a constant source of nagging.  Now remember that I was one mom with six children (among whom is a very persistent and determined child who will stop at nothing to get a stuffed animal or an ice cream cone); so, when I tell you that I shut the whining down with a promise of a used stuffed animal from a local thrift store, please don't judge me.  One has to survive, after all.

 See!  There I am surviving.  And in sunglasses, always in sunglasses.

 Sarah in her autumn glory.

 A little blurry, but you get the idea.  The last time we took this picture was when a visiting friend/priest from Texas came with us to the Park when Sarah was still a newborn.

 Ben spent the entire 3 km hike trying to convince us that he had heard a bear.  Every crack of a stick or rustling of a leaf served as evidence of ursine presence.  At times, he would run ahead and collapse on the trail in a mock-up of a death scene.  We would gently step over him and wait for him to catch up.

 Sarah walked for about 250m until she insisted that she be carried.  For the next 2.5km.  It was a good workout.

 At one point she grew quite fussy, so I sang her a bedtime song and she fell asleep!  I had expected that the song might quiet her, but apparently "I'll love you forever" is as soporific as a darkened room and a welcoming crib.

She stayed like this for around 20 minutes after the walk.  I found her so adorable that I took around 20 photos, to which Dave asked when scrolling through the photos on the iPhone, "Aren't these all the same?"  Only slightly.