Hallowe'en 2006

The much anticipated night of the year came and went. Here are some photos of that fateful evening.

The Mummy's Curse

The above picture shows Emma and Sarah Ford knocking on the door of our favourite house in the neighbourhood. This lady is a stage set designer and her house decorations are the solid favourite with all the kids in the neighbourhood. If you look closely at the hideous Mummy you will see a snake coming out of the Mummy's belly with treats nestled in the snakes Jaw. This of course sends chills up and down the spines of many a trick or treater.

The Haunted Farquhar Mansion

As always, the Farquhar women were not to be out done by the Mummy lady and decorated their own haunted mansion. You can see the absolutely horrifying grave yard illuminated by the luminescent bones.

3 Amigos

Lauren (was a dryer), Laura (CowGirl) and Katie (washer) had a great time. Katie however was quite sore by the end of the evening after walking around as a washing machine for most of the evening. You can't really see if too well but if you look closely her the door to the washing machine was where her candy bag was stashed. The top panel of the washing machine is decorated with life like knobs including details about the settings for each knob. I think we have a future stage set designer. Look out Mummy Lady!!

Exterior View of the Mummy Lady's House

Mr. Mime

Here you see Alan in his mime costume. He went to work dressed as a mime and accompanied Sarah on their neighbourhood jaunt.

Alyssa Ford Ghoulish Delight

You In Da Club

Instilling fear in the hearts of young trick or treaters, Fordicas, Todd and Farquhar were in their element dressed as Rappers. Sarah Farky is sporting a Bling around her neck and each Rapper has a painted on Goatee. Miss Todd looks the part as an emasciated Rapper with the skeletal cheek bones. Instead of shouting "Trick or Treat" when they got to the door they would chant a rap tune.

Would You Look At This Pumpkin!!

Take a look at the intricate carving of this pumpkin. This is a Harry Potter character known as Hagrid, hunched over and holding a candle. I was so amazed at this piece of artwork that I asked the owner how he managed to achieve such a feat. He indicated that the carving was done with a power scroll saw.

6th Annual Father-Daughter Camping Trip - Pinery Provincial Park

This event is one of the most anticipated events of the year as the famous father-daughter camping trip took place at Pinery Provincial Park. Every year we hold this event on the 2nd weekend in September and it has become a really fun tradition for all the families. This was the second time we'd been to the Pinery and the girls were looking forward to exploring the dunes and getting in some swimming.

The Trek to the Beach

Dunescape

Climbing the Dunes is Tough on the Calves

On Saturday we played a rousing game of Jailbreak. In this game the fathers were the jailers and the girlies were the jailbirds. We also went on a
bike and hike to the Riverside Trail. Here we were intrigued to find the park rangers doing bird banding in order to understand the migratory patterns of some of the birds at the Pinery. The rangers had set up nets near the shore of the Ausable River which runs through the Pinery. The nets were light nylon nets. Once the birds flew in they would drop into a safe nylon pouch. We met 2 volunteers who were extricating the birds from the nets and taking them to be banded and measured.

This kept the girls very intrigued for the better part of an hour as the bird experts measured their wings, body fat and identified their type. There were Thrashers, Warblers and a little bird called a Wilson which when held on its back would remain stationary. Sarah Farquhar tested this out when the little Wilson was ready to be released, the ranger put the bird into Sarah's hand on its back. It stayed there resting for 1/2 a minute. What a thrill for Sarah to hold this little yellow bird for that long before letting it go.

Caroline Practices Kayaking

Daddy This Water Is Cold!

Brianna Enjoys Playing In The Waves

Girls On Film

Sarah Fee Relaxing On the Beach

Mary Tries Body Surfing

Beach Beauties

Pablo Doing Yoga

Ghost Stories

One of the annual traditions at the father daughter is for each family to come up with a blood-curdling ghost story. Although this year was the best yet as each family had to research and come up with the best ghost story they could think of. Jim Kerr had us all on the edge of our seats with a thrilling rendition of Stephen King's "The Shining".
 

Preparing for Ghost Stories with Healthy snackfood

 
Sarah Acts One Out
Sheppys


We Went For Dip N Dots @ Bests





Sarah, what are you doing opening a milk carton, this is a Coke Commercial


Open Your Eyes John

  
Monster Group Shot

If you're looking for all the father daughter shots, CLICK HERE

Emily's 16th birthday video

August Long Weekend In Algonquinn

Here are the details of our August long weekend spent in Algonquinn park back country camping on Penn Lake. The weekend started in hectic fashion. Upon arriving home from work on Friday, I proceeded to pack and then headed for Toronto to stay with Jackie at Sue-Sue's place. We spent Friday night in Sue's wonderful pad. The next morning Jackie and I awoke bright and early. We had to make it up to Honey Harbour to pick up Sarah and Alison from Camp Queen E. We set off at around 7 am after packing the car up with the canoe on the roof rack and most of the gear carefully tucked under the canoe.

We made it to the 401 in good time happy to be beating the holiday weekend traffic. Sue had informed us that unless you make it to hwy 400 by 7:30 am even on a Saturday, you could run into traffic. After driving a while on the 401 we realized that we had missed the 400. This was not a good sign since we needed to make sure we weren't late to pick up the girls in Honey Harbour at 10:30. We got ourselves turned around and managed to find the 400. The problem was we began running into the traffic that we thought we'd missed. After a few heartstopping traffic jams we managed to get up to Barrie in good time. From there it was smooth sailing up to Honey Harbour where we met our independent little girls Ali and Sarah.

Meanwhile Katie, Lauren, Brad and Nick were driving up from Waterloo. We ended up meeting at the Algonquinn Outfitters at Oxtongue Lake just on the perimeter of Algonquinn park. We put our canoes in at a beautiful little creek that runs into Rock Lake. Rock Lake is known for its high rock cliffs that adorn the shores of the lake.

Rock Lake Cliffs

The canoes were fully loaded with gear and kids. The Baechler canoe had Lauren in the bow, Nick in the middle and Brad in the stern. Jackie took both Katie and Alison as she had a light canoe and needed the extra weight. I took Sarah.

Baechler's Canoe

Jackie in the Stern

Don't Stand in the Canoe Sarah!

We canoed through Rock Lake for about 1 1/2 hours until we got to the Penn Lake portage. The portage wasn't too bad but it was getting late in the day and the kids were getting hungry. The adults were hoping we'd find an early campsite on Penn Lake but it was not to be. We canoed for about another 1 hour checking campsites as we went. All were full. Finally we came to our campsite of last year. Thankfully it was tucked away and probably was missed by the canoeists ahead of us. We settled at this familiar site.

Brad Nick and Jackie resting at the campsite

Sunrise at 6 am


Beached canoes

Kids playing by the tents

Nick was up for the Algonquinn Challenge - A true camper

We awoke the next morning and were planning to take a day trip to Clydesgale lake. This was a lake we had been to last year when we had come on our Algonquinn trip and the lake was very beautiful. Unfortunately we faced a strong headwind and were unable to make any headway towards our destination. It took all our effort just to make it safely across the lake. We spontaneously changed our plans to suit the wind patterns and settled on an interesting island on the other side of the lake from our campsite. This island was fantastic for swimming as it had nice large granite rocks to dive off of into the water. It also had some amphibian inhabitants as identified below.

The Algonquinn Frog

Vanna White poses with the Wind Breaker

Swimsuit Model

Lauren Testing the Water

Sarah and Nick Like Island Living

Cousins!

After spending about 2 hours exploring the island we decided to head back to camp for an early dinner. This would allow us to have a trip after dinner if the wind died down. The weather cooperated and after dinner we headed out for the portage to Welcome Lake. The interesting thing about this portage is the entrance is a challenging little creek that snakes its way through a swamp. The creek is deep enough for a canoe to get through but it is challenging for the person who is steering to make it through without beaching the canoe. We crossed a rock bed to the portage area. We left our canoes at the entrance to the portage spot and hiked the portage route to get to the waterfall. The kids spent some time playing in the
rushing water of the water fall.

Sarah at the Falls

It started to get dark so we decided to begin canoeing back to the campsite so as not to get stuck in the dark on Penn Lake.

Sarah Canoeing Back to the Campsite

We awoke the next morning at about 6 am. We were greeted by a brilliant sunrise. We had breakfast of porridge and bacon and then packed up camp. We managed to make it out on the water by about 8 am. Which was amazing timing given that we had the kids but they were very helpful with the packing up camp activities. However, many other campers had the same idea as us and we met a lot of people at the Penn to Rock Lake portage. Canoeists however are much more patient than drivers in a traffic jam. They are a helpful group and it was nice to see one man portage an older couples canoe. We had a bit of difficulty making it back to the cars as the wind picked up on Rock Lake. Jackie in her Featherweight canoe had to use all her canoeing skill and strength to get back to the cars. We reached the cars around 12:00 noon.

It was a another memorable canoe trip of 2006!

Group Shot at the Penn-Rock Lake Portage Route

Camp Queen Elizabeth

Sarah and Ali spent the week from July 31 to Aug 4 at Camp Queen Elizabeth. They had a great time except that they lost power for Wednesday and Thursday due to inclement weather. First few nights were tough for little Fee but then she overcame her fear and made great friends with the girls in her cabin. Katie was at camp Ki-Wa-Y but we don't have pictures of this for the blog.

Girls at Camp

CQE Friends on the Dock

Off to Algonquin