Summer in Canada

This is my third post about our holiday to Canada that we took in June/July this year. I wrote about our days at Canada's Wonderland here, and Great Wolf Lodge here. This post is an overview of the rest of our time visiting with family and friends.

This trip back to Mississauga, where I'm from and where my parents live, was first opportunity we've had to travel to Canada since we moved back to Melbourne in December 2020. Andy didn't join us - he had an opportunity to go on a school golf trip to Scotland, so it was just Ella, Ollie and me this time.

Our holiday was meant to start on the Saturday after the last day of Term 2. On the Friday morning before, just as I was about to walk out the door with the kids to school/work, I got a text from Qantas saying our Melbourne - LA flight had been cancelled. Cancelled! Oh no! Cue major panic! I called Qantas straight away and they gave me a choice of either leaving Sunday night or that day at 12pm. I made the split second decision to go that day, giving us just over an hour to finish packing and leave for the airport. 

For the next hour our house was like a scene from Home Alone, with everyone throwing items into the suitcases at random. Ella and Ollie were crying, upset at the sudden change of plans and sad they wouldn't get to say goodbye to their friends, and I was conscious of a list of tasks I had intended to finish up at work that day. Needless to say, it was a pretty stressful way to start our holiday!

Thankfully once we got to the airport all our flights ran smoothly. Our flight connections were in Sydney and Dallas, and both were only about 2.5 hours long. The kids were really well behaved on the flights - thanks in large part to the movies and games available on the seat back entertainment.

Also the ice cream bars that Qantas served didn't hurt... all in all I was pretty impressed with the food on the long haul flight from Sydney to Dallas.

My parents picked us up at the airport a cool 28 hours later, and as always it was wonderful to have the kids and grandparents reunited once again!

Apart from the two events listed above, here are the rest of the highlights from our holiday.

Ella's Birthday

We celebrated Ella's 9th birthday while on holiday, which also happens to be Canada Day. My dad's cousin Joanne generously offered to host a party at her house that day. A few years ago Joanne made the move from city living to a more rural area (though still only about an hour from Toronto and half an hour from Niagara Falls, so not completely "rural".) She has a huge property with a newly installed pool and campfire pit, so the perfect place to have a family gathering! Throughout my childhood there was always an annual family pool party with my dad's side of the family in the summer, which is a big happy memory for me. 

We started the day opening presents at home. Ella's now of the age where I'm cautiously hopeful that she'll like the gifts we've picked out for her. But thankfully she was very pleased with both the presents from Andy and me, and my parents, so all went smoothly that morning. 

After the present opening we headed to Joanne's to help set up for the party. We had beautiful weather that day - which was lucky as the previous day had been very cool and rainy! The party was a huge success with many of our extended family coming and celebrating with us. The kids had a blast and were in the pool all day. This is the kind of day where I get sad about what we are missing out on by living on the other side of the world from our family.

In the early evening Joanne's partner Dale got the campfire going, and we had a great time sitting around having a chat with a few family members that stayed a bit later. Ella even managed to get everyone up for a dance off.

When it was finally time to go the sun was setting, and on the drive home we spotted many fireworks going off in honour of Canada Day. All in all this was a great birthday for Ella, and a wonderful time catching up with family, and was a definite highlight of our visit home.

Cousins!

On my family's side Ella and Ollie have one first cousin, Cam (though there is one more on the way - due in November!) They haven't seen each other since we all met in Spain in 2022. It was so sweet how well they all got along. Cam, in particular, was besotted with Ella and would do anything she said. Despite the age differences they played together a lot, often with Ella directing the two little boys around. (This was fine with Cam, but as expected Ollie was not always so compliant!)

We also saw lots of other cousins from my dad's family... second cousins, third cousins, it's hard to keep track. We saw my favourite cousin Joanne three times, which was very nice (I'm still wondering when she will visit Australia though...)

We got to see many of these extended family members at Ella's pool party, and it was nice to have the kids meet some of the younger generations. Here is Ella with her cousin Callie, and Callie's friend. Ella was SO excited to have teenagers pay attention to her, and she even got them doing some gymnastics with her. 

I also got to see my cousin's Aaron and Brittney, who are about 10 years younger than me. Aaron is Joanne's son, and I spent a lot of time with him when he was very little - though he likely doesn't remember! Brittany lived in Melbourne for a few years so we have an Aussie/travel bug connection and it's always great to catch up with her. Someone took a photo of the four of us (Brittney, Aaron, my brother and me) but I have only seen it on Facebook.

Cottage in Gravenhurst

My friend Kristin invited us to her cottage in Gravenhurst for a few days. Kristin has two girls, and Ella was friends with her oldest daughter when we lived in Canada - although neither of them remembered each other! We didn't need to worry though, as they became fast friends again for the few days we stayed with them.

The cottage is right on a lake and the scenery was breathtaking! Cottages are the Canadian equivalent of "beach houses" in Australia. We were there during the week so it was actually pretty quiet in the area - I get the impression that weekends throughout the summer can get quite busy. We spent our days swimming in the lake, going for kayak and boat rides. 

On the drive home we stopped for an ice cream at Kawartha Dairy in Barrie. This was the "baby" size cone, which even Ella thought was a bit too big! I do love their s'mores flavoured ice cream though!

Pasta and S'mores night

We were able to catch up with my good friend Nikki and her fiancée Sarah. They are getting married in Mexico in November, which due to myriad of reasons including finances and school holidays, I cannot attend. They came over one night to drink wine on our back patio, bringing with them some delicious Italian takeaway. We had a great night catching up over pasta, wine and s'mores.

Visits to our favourite places

I took the kids to some of the places we used to visit frequently when we were living in Canada. This was more for my sake then theirs, as I don't think they remembered much of these places! 

We went down to the lakeshore in Oakville one afternoon - a place we came to often especially in the covid lockdown days. The kids liked playing at the park and then we headed down to the lake where Ollie used to spend hours throwing rocks. True to form, as soon as we were near the water, he immediately picked up some rocks and started throwing them in. 

Splash pads were another staple for us in the Canadian summers. I don't know why we don't have more splash pads in Melbourne, they are so much fun. The one at Celebration Square in Mississauga was a favourite and proved to still be a fun place for the kids.

We went for a few walks around the marsh close to my parents house. I don't know how many laps of this place we all did during the very early covid days, when you were supposed to stay local and all there was to do for entertainment outside your house was go for a walk. There is a playground halfway around that we wouldn't be able to let the kids play at... it seems crazy now to look back and remember that we spent months not letting kids play at playgrounds!

Firefox Yoga

When living in Mississauga in 2019/20 my mom and I discovered the most wonderful yoga studio, owned by Yogi Dan. We even ended up convincing my dad to join, and now my mom and dad are regular yogis, attending practices 4-5 times per week (when they are not in California or Melbourne, or course!) Dan is just the best yoga teacher I have ever come across, and since Covid his little studio has really grown! I attended a few classes while I was back and it was great to get back into full length yoga classes, even if only for a few weeks.

Reunited with Sadie

One of Ella's besties while we were in Canada was Sadie, the granddaughter of one of my mom's besties! We had a lovely afternoon at Janet's where I caught up with Jenn (Sadie's mom), my mom caught up with Janet, and Ella and Sadie reunited. I think they remembered "of" each other, but nothing specific, however as soon as they saw each other again they were off, swimming, doing gymnastics, and making multiple trips down the street to buy lemonade from an entrepreneurial pre-teen who'd set up a lemonade stand. Ollie and Jaxon, Sadie's younger brother, also bonded. It was a very fun afternoon for everyone!

And that's a wrap on our Canada 2024 holiday. We hope to be back in two years... Andy has grand plans about somehow, magically, getting tickets to the World Cup which will be held in North America that year. We can dream...