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Where did the summer go?

Yikes, it’s October! How did that happen?

I remember going to the Bahamas, and then coming back to cold and slush and wet, and then there was some more wet, and now suddenly it’s Fall. Don’t remember much actual summer happening. Ah well, let me try to recap….

It’s sort of a family tradition that you build a boat if you’re a Mitchell. Dad built Pure Gold in Long Island, Jimmy built Arawak (out of concrete no less!) out west, Uncle Hubert built a boat of some description, and my grandfather built one. So I built Peenywally. She’s a 12′ skiff meant for fishing in the small local inland lakes. Takes 3 people, 4 in a pinch, but is best suited to 1 or 2.

Alex and Isabel both played soccer this year. For Isabel it was her first time, and she did quite well at it, better in fact than she expected. Alex didn’t play last year, so he was a bit rusty at first, but he improved as the season went on. We got to watch him score his first goal in the last game of the season — awesome!

Did a bit of camping in the early part of the summer… the usual Pinery excursions, but also went to Falls Reserve near Goderich which was a lot of fun. The river provided the kids and me with hours of amusement, and we provided Sylvia with hours of amusement. Or something like that. I managed to catch my quota of smallmouth bass on the opening day of the season, so I had something to tell my father-in-law the next time we saw each other.

Canada Day weekend means the annual CaribbeanCricket.com Curry Goat Challenge at Toronto Cricket Club. The less said about that the better. At least Sylvia and the kids had a successful day — they had the good sense to go to the zoo while I pretended to bat.

Mid July we did our family camping trip. This year we went to Restoule Provincial Park, just a little south of North Bay. Overall the weather wasn’t too bad, but we did have one day of nothing but rain. Thank Headley for tent trailers. I tried to fish, but it wasn’t until the second to last day that one of the locals told me that you don’t catch much up there with artificials. We all had a great time catching crayfish in the river that connects Restoule Lake to Stormy Lake, and then Alex and I finally had some success catching real fish. The best part was canoeing down the river and shooting the “rapids”… a 20 foot long section of arguably turbulent water.

Not much else really happened. Alex successfully turned 10, and we managed to do it all one day, instead of the usual 3 days of birthdays. I took the day off and took Alex out for a real sushi lunch, then picked up his friend James and spent the afternoon at East Park, followed by a party at home.

The last weekend of summer was spent visiting Granny in Morrisburg. We drove up and stayed at some cottages that had somehow eluded my notice during the years I lived and visited the area. Spent some time with Granny, visited Upper Canada Village, and paddled about on the river in a canoe.

And that pretty much covers our summer.