Canatara Park and the Ontario Visitor's Center

Canatara Park in Sarnia is a beautiful area on the lake that offers so many adventures!  It has huge open grassy areas, lots of shady spots, multiple playgrounds, long stretches of sandy beach, and even an animal farm petting zoo!  We've made several trips to Canatara Park this summer, sometimes to just enjoy a few minutes on the playground and other times for a full day of fun at the beach.  Our church even had service there on the beach one Sunday followed by baptism in Lake Huron.

One weekend this summer they held the first annual Bluewater Beach Fest at Canatara Park.  It was a collection of vender booths, jumpy houses, and local bands on the beach.  They had professional sand sculptors come in and create a large display of the Bluewater Bridge.  There was also a amateur sand castle building competition.  The festival was fun and after viewing the sand castles, Brenna spent the rest of her time jumping in the collection of bouncy houses.  It was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

Sarnia Football Club

That's right!  We played football all summer!  Ok, well not the football that we think of, but soccer!  Through the summer!  This was a new and pleasant sporting experience for us!

Soccer usually ends the first week on May in Texas.  By the end of the season we're dragging buckets of ice water, cold cloths to wrap around the kids, and shade tents to the soccer field early every Saturday morning and praying we don't have the 11:00 AM game!  Why?  Because it's hot!  Brutally hot and humid!  And the kids are panting like run down dogs after just one quarter of play.

Here, things were completely different.  We kicked off the season at the end of May for a 14 week run that carried us all the way through the summer.  Instead of morning games, we had afternoon games starting at 6 pm.  The weather was pleasant and mild.  They didn't have to take water breaks every 5 minutes and we never packed a cold cloth.  Some afternoons I even wore a jacket and enjoyed hot chocolate during the games!

Brenna was the only girl on her team.  Out of 8 team, she was one of only six girls in the entire league!  Not that she cared or even noticed for that matter.  And honestly (putting all mom-pride aside), out of the other 9 boys on her team she was better than at least 7 of them.  So she held her own and may have even taught a few of those boys a thing or two!

The season was fun!  The approach they use is a little different than we're accustomed to, but Brenna enjoyed it all the same.  After 13 games (1 rainout) our team played for the championship in the final game.  Unfortunately, we lost…...but hey, you can't win 'em all!  Second place ain't bad!  Here's some of my favorite shots from the season.