Weeks 4 through 10 of summer vacation

Well, it has flown by....

The drive to N.B was great. We left at 4am, and arrived at the Masons by 5pm. So a 12 hour drive was certainly a record for us, in the past 7 years anyways. The girls were excited to play with Christine and Nicholas. We stayed 2 nights with the Masons (thank you!) a visit with Grammie Eula, and a visit to Grampie's farm, we spent 3 nights at Fundy National Park with Grant's family. We had a nice time swimming, going for a hike, walking in the mud at Hopewell Rocks, roasting marshmallow's in the campfire and the girls loved playing with their cousins.

We arrived back in Ottawa, just after midnight on Thursday morning, and re-packed, as the girls and I, along with my mom, left for North Carolina on Friday morning. It was a LONG drive, the girls, again, were great. We had a really nice LONG stop at Chocolate World, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, followed by horrible traffic for 2 hours. All in all the girls were great, in took 20 hours to get there, but we made it in one piece and in one day!

The following 10 days were absolutely fabulous. The girls swam twice a day, on most days, were showered with attention from my cousins and uncle and aunt, while I got to lay in bed and relax, and get dressed in peace most mornings.

Grant joined us towards the end of of our vacation. The girls were happy to have Daddy around, to play with. We had a few outings, most memorable was Wrightsville beach. Maya is a water lover, she jumped waves, and floated in the ocean for hours. We had to pretty much drag her out of the water when it was time to leave.

We decided to do the drive back over 2 days, stayed in a hotel with a pool, and took it easy. Good decision. We got home on the night of Wed August 4th.

Once again, after unpacking a little, we were off again, Saturday August 7th, to ride in the annual MS RONA bike tour. Once again, it was a great ride. The girls had a great time. I'll try and write another post about that soon.

The month of August flew by. With the excitement of July, it was hard to keep that level of entertainment going. Once again, we reverted to daily swims at the parks, meeting up with friends, the girls and I even started a little running together. It was fun.

I found the last 2 weeks a little more challenging, BUT thanks to a trip to Toronto, we managed to end the holidays with a big ROAR...! We visited with our friends Ange and JJ, and just basically hung out and stayed up way to late. It was SO nice AND relaxing. We did manage to squeeze in a Stem Whistle Brewery Tour. On the way home we decided to spend the day at the Toronto ZOO...fabulous!! We spent the entire day there, ended by cooling off in the Splash Pad there.

With, Perth Kilt Run, Farewell Parties, Niagara Falls, Fredericton, Bay of Fundy, North Carolina, ZOO #1, MS RONA bike tour, Upper Canada Village, Tasha's yoga class, parks, pools and splash pads, bike rides, runs, Toronto, ZOO #2 and birthday parties. Made for a fun and busy summer.

I learned a lot this summer, but one thing in particular I am happy to have been a part of. I watched as the girls finished school not knowing how to spend their time playing together, figuring out what to do. Arguing over EVERYTHING... to watching them get to know each other, and learning to work together, compromising, playing really well together and most importantly, watching out for one another. It was at times infuriating, stressful, exhausting most days, BUT to watch them grow and love each other was absolutely worth it... I hope the girls had a great summer too!