The 2nd Annual Pike Lake Camping Trip

Pike Lake Provincial Park is located 40 kilometres south of Saskatoon.  Pete and I first discovered it back in 2005 after getting royally lost on a cross-Canada camping adventure with our then-ten-month-old, Ethan.  Little did we know it would become a regular stomping ground for us!  While some may scoff that heading a mere 40 kilometres down the road hardly constitutes camping, we actually love the campground's proximity to the city.  It's close enough that Pete can commute and not have to take any holidays, yet we still get to enjoy the relaxing family time that camping uniquely provides.  Pete actually looks forward to our annual 2 weeks most of all, because he doesn't commute by car - he commutes by bike!!  He logged a total of 720 kilometres this year!!

Pete looks forward to biking and Ethan looks forward to... MINIGOLF (surprise surprise).  The owners of the course remembered him from last year and gave us a phenomenal deal that had all the kids golfing for next to nothing during our stay.  Josh won a free round on his last game and the owners postdated his free pass for him - as he passed it to him, he gave him a wink and said, "something tells me you guys will be back again next year!"

Zia booked a last-minute flight and joined us for a couple of days.  I'm not sure how much she enjoyed sleeping in Leah's bunk, but we had lots of fun showing her around and having her camp with us.

We took her on a hike through poison ivy (fortunately we all managed to escape the rash!) and introduced her to geocaching.

We were able to persuade our friends, the Malins, to camp with us for the 2 weeks.  They were able to borrow a friend's trailer and we had a blast camping together. 

There were daily activities led by a park leader.  The kids enjoyed the soccer and dodgeball games the most!

We took a couple of day trips - one to Crickle Creek and one to the Corn Maze. 

We made good use of the swimming pool.

The kids and I rented a paddle boat one day to try and find a geocache that was only accessible by boat.  Unfortunately we learned the hard way that 1 km by paddle boat is a long way!!  We also learned that paddle boats don't fare well in lily pad infested water!  We had to give up in order to get the darn boat back within the hour (the km back felt a heck of a lot longer!) but still had fun.  Next year we'll rent a canoe!