Though Millie and I have been spending quite a lot of time with each other this summer so far (no one's complaining), it's been a while since our entire families have gotten together to catch up. So our mothers organized a kayak/picnic day last Sunday! We had reserved three tandem kayaks and one single kayak at the Belcarra Picnic Area in Coquitlam.

My younger brother got into the single kayak, and was the first to set off. Next, it was Millie and I, and we got into the smaller one of the three tandem kayaks. (This was ultimately a horrendous choice, because we later found out that it was much harder to slice through the water on a smaller, wider kayak.) After we were in the water, my parents got in, then Millie's. Earlier, Millie jokingly said that we would be that one kayak that was always left behind, and we discovered that she was indeed right. But believe me when we say that it was our boat's fault, and not our lack of upper body strength!

It was amazingly sunny with a slight breeze, the perfect weather for kayaking. We kayaked north for a good hour before heading back. Early in the trip we discovered that there were many jellyfish, and we picked up a few (dead ones) as we paddled along. At one point we spotted a seal, too!



As aforementioned, Millie and I were constantly left behind. No matter how "ham" we paddled to the beat of a chorus of one of Taylor Swift's songs blasting through my bluetooth speaker, it was extremely difficult for us to catch up. I couldn't feel my arms by the end of it. However, as optimistic as she is, Millie always commented, "Well, you wanted a workout, right?"



When we got back, we set up for the picnic. Millie's family brought the most amazing ribs, while my family provided the hotdogs. It was nice hearing everyone catch up. When we finished eating, we kind of just sat in the shade and relaxed. The boys of course all fell asleep, while the women kept conversing. Everyone was having a great time until...


This thing showed up.

WHAT THE HECK WAS IT?

I saw the exact same bug on my dad's door at my house, and I murdered it with his slipper. But this time it took us about 15 minutes to actually get rid of it, and it was scary as hell.


It started to crawl up my chair, until it was sitting on the top corner of the back portion. I grabbed someone's shoe and was about to go all ninja on it, but then I chickened out. Awoken by our screams, Millie's dad ended up flicking it off the chair and onto my dad's sandals, which were sitting right next to his sleeping body.

Frick, I hate large insects.

I finally managed to get it off my dad's sandals and onto the grass, then, against Millie's pleas to just leave it, I went all savage and squished the damn thing into the ground. I wouldn't be at ease until I knew that little monster was gone.


After that, Millie and I went to check on our jellyfish, which we had left on one side of the picnic table bench. They seemed to have "melted" or let some of its inner liquid out. They looked like regular puddles, but they definitely didn't feel like it!

We had six jellyfish; Sally, Alvin, Simon, and three unnamed ones. Millie and I honestly had no idea what we wanted to do with them, so I gave the suggestion of chopping them up. It was really weird but surprisingly satisfying.


We spared Sally though, the smallest one, and played around with it for a while before throwing it into the grass.

I would like to thank the manager of the kayaking place for putting up with our disorganization, as well as apologize to any of the random strangers that we took stalker pictures of while admiring the 40x zoom on our new point-and-shoot camera.

And that concludes my blog post! I promise I'll post more. Seeya, lovelies (: