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Last week Brian, Hadley and I joined our friends Patti, Andy and Alicia to go camping at Awenda.  It is a provincial park just north of Midland.
We left on June 21st and celebrated Father's Day, the date that Brian and I had our first date, and the first day of summer at Saint Marie Among the Hurons.  http://www.saintemarieamongthehurons.on.ca/english/index.htm
We walked through some of the buildings from the earliest Canadian pioneer life seeing iron being molded, food being cooked, as well as singing and dancing.  We were even invited to join in with some of the dancing.  
From here we headed to our campsite in Awenda.
http://www.out-there.com/awenda.htm
After setting up camp we had a wonderful steak dinner toasting the day with wine.  
The next few days consisted of hikes where the girls did a good deal of walking, swimming at the beach where the girls played by the waters edge jumping into Brian and Andy's arms, and collecting sand to put on Patti and my feet.  We also had some very relaxing campfires but we can't forget to mention the mass of mosquitos.  There were so many mosquitos!
Alicia and Hadley got a long really well.  Patti and Andy were great to camp with also!  

Alicia's wagon was a huge hit as getting a ride was so much fun for Hadley even if it was just to the washroom.  :)
(Note that the park is right beside the washroom).  

On Tuesday night Hadley starting limping for no reason.  
I took off her shoe and found a mosquito bite on her toe.  While it seemed odd that this would make her limp, I left her shoe off and took her into the tent to play mosquito free for about an hour and a half.  When I asked her to stand she would say knee knee and would appear in great pain.  When we tried to touch her knee she would cry in pain.  
I carried her to dinner and she was her regular self but after dinner when she attempted to stand she was clearly hurt.
We brought her back into the tent and she fell asleep while we tried to call telehealth on our cell but with bad connections we decided it was worth the trip to Midland to get it checked out.
After 3 hours in the ER, Hadley was seen, gifted with a bear, and her swelled knee was ex-rayed.  Hadley did not like the ex-ray process.
There was a positive outcome though.  The doctor saw nothing wrong in the ex-ray and said just to watch her.   To note: I thought it was cool that the ex-ray was just a file sent from one computer to another internally from the technicians to the doctor. YAY technology.  
Hadley fell asleep on the car ride back.  It was very late and she needed sleep.  The next day she was running with no appearance that anything was wrong from the previous day.  YAY!
On Wednesday we headed into Penetanguishene to take the girls for ice-cream and some mosquito free park time.
We continued our camping adventure until Thursday when we headed back to Penetanguishene for lunch on the harbour and then home.  
On the way home we stopped just north of Uxbridge where we took Hadley strawberry picking.  OUR GIRL LOVES STRAWBERRIES!  This was so much fun to take her and allow her to pick and eat the berries.  She totally understood that the green stems needed to be taken off before eating and wanted to offer Brian and I berries every time she ate one.  (So giving).  
What a great vacation!

- Leanne Verkley

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I have been trying to convince Hadley for a while now that a horse is a horse and not a neigh and a sheep is a sheep, not a baa.

Nope, she likes to call them neigh and baa.

I guess this is the type of update you get on a rainy day.  

- Leanne Verkley

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While Hadley now has many two word connections, three word connections are coming fast and furious now.
Most popular are:
I see you, I found you, dare it is (there it is). W'are you? (Where are you).
I did it.
I you, (I love you).  It's a three word sentence in my books.  :)

- Leanne Verkley

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On Friday we were fortunate enough to have my sister come down to watch Hadley while Brian and I took some time out for ourselves to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary.
We spent the afternoon golfing at Carruthers Creek.  This was my first time golfing since being pregnant with Hadley.  It was so much fun but I didn't do that well.  But it didn't matter.  The day was beautiful.  
We also enjoyed a dinner out at Montana's.  Mmmm.  Steak!  
The evening was complete after we watched the Penguins win the Stanley Cup.

Saturday we went over to Patti and Andy's house to celebrate Alicia's 2nd Birthday.  Alicia opened each guests gifts upon their arrival.  She knew they were for her and she knew what she needed to do to unwrap them.  It was really cute.  
The girls played in the pool, the sandbox, in the swing, and around the yard with the other kids.  Bubbles were also a big hit.  
We stayed until we felt the girls really needed to go to bed.
Good times.

- Leanne Verkley