I had an amazing weekend with all my best friends!

He said

Well, as I type this I am sitting at the picnic table at the trailer at the precipice of a week off work and five straight days off at the trailer with Danielle. Emelia being ever the teenager and one with a job will be piecemealing some time up here with us. She works tonight and had Cheer practice Tuesday. So once, that is done, the plan is to bring her back up to the trailer so we can all spend time together for the rest of the week. While we would normally spend every last second of our week off at the trailer, after we had both booked our first week of summer vacation, we found out that Emelia’s Choreography Camp was booked for the end of this week off. So, we’ll all make our way back to London on Friday. It’s not ideal but we can make it work. And, we’ll make the most out of our time here. And truthfully, the longest we have stayed here to this point this year has been two nights, three days, so five nights, six days is going to be amazing!

This week was a bit of a strange one as last weekend, Emelia was at her friend’s cottage. They all got home Monday, and she had Softball Monday night. Tuesday, she had Cheer, and Wednesday she had work, and by Thursday she was off to the Carter’s cottage for the weekend. When you add in my work schedule, the only real time I saw her this week, was watching her play Softball Monday night. She spent from Thursday to yesterday at the Carter’s Cottage  and was off to work today before I got home from work. The good news is she is super keen on getting up here to trailer to spend time with us, so maybe she misses us too?

The upside to Emelia’s Choreography Camp this upcoming weekend is that it meant I was able to do a bike event that has been on my radar for a couple of years in the Reggie Ramble. Given that it fell on the exact same weekend as the Choreography Camp and that we wouldn’t be able to do much else, Danielle gave me the green light to give Reggie Ramble a try. I am super excited as it looks like a really fun event that lives up to the spirit of gravel cycling and the people who like riding on a little more challenging terrain. And the best news is my friend Andrew who I met through cycling events and YouTube will be riding this one too! Friday I will head down to Warkworth, On, to be there in time to get settled the night before the race. And I will be able to test out our new (to us) truck bed tent as they have on site camping.

The good news for this week off we’ve arrived at is that thankfully I am not feeling like I so need this—though Danielle may feel differently with her work load lately. But I, I come into this week just ready to receive it and make the most of it! The plan is to spend as much time relaxing as we can stand (Spoiler Alert: I can stand a lot!). Danielle and I will get out biking on the G2G Rail Trail every single day too. I am gonna get lots of pool time. Fire pit time. Time to look up at the stars. Time to laugh. Time to be with camping friends. Time to just be and do all the things we love to do.

She said

Another jammed packed week for Emelia and her constant go-go-go life. She barely got home from her weekend away with her best friends from school and we were off to softball. We had missed a few weeks due to scheduling conflicts so her friends at softball were so happy to see her again. The girls had a fun game even with the loss. Emelia got two hits and two RBIs. Even though she tells us she likes the social side of softball way more than the actual game she is getting better every single game. Will she play next summer? Not likely but she has made some incredible friends and once again pushed herself of out her comfort zone.

Tuesday was back to cheer, she is loving her new team, and we are blown away at all the new skills she is learning so early in the season. The back tuck she finally got clean on the floor you would never know was a skill she only recently remastered. Her tucks are high and clean and she and one of her friends from gymnastics are being matched up so far on their timing and it is looking great. The girls are excited because they are only a week away from their weekend long Choreography Camp. Emelia is a mix of excited and nervous. She is really hoping to be with the flyer she has been practicing with for about 80% of the season so far, the girls are clicking and their stunts are clean together. But until Choreography Camp they won’t really know where they will land. So she is so excited to finally be working on the routine and taking on more complicated stunting but she is nervous where she will land in the routine. Guess by this time next week we will know for sure one way or the other.

Once Cheer was done and Emelia worked Wednesday night she was fully in packing mode for her trip up for her annual girls weekend at the Carter’s cottage. They are on their 10th summer doing this trip, at first it was just Emelia and the twins but as the years have moved on they have added in more into their best friend group. For the last 6 months or so the solid group is Emelia, Anna, Grace, Neeka, Carys and Sienna. At school there are more added into the fold but outside school these girls are attached at the hip. With a lot of work and texting with all the moms we had a plan in place. The girls all kept making plans forgetting that none of them have a full licence, a car and that the cottage is an hour from London. The girls were finally all together Thursday afternoon for 3 days of summer memories. They wrapped up the weekend with a beach and shopping trip into Grand Bend. The weather wasn’t cooperating so I drove out a bit earlier than planned and brought 4 of the girls home. Emelia came home happy but exhausted.

Today we shifted gears, it was all about Abi our niece who turned 3 this week. Abi was born in the middle of the pandemic so for her first year of life we only got to see her over a screen and social distanced visits. It hasn’t been until the last year mainly that we have been able to spend real time with her. She has grown into the sweetest, adventurous little bean and we could not love her more. Today we had a perfect family picnic at a local park that had a wading pool for the kids to play in. Emelia was able to join us until I had to leave with her to get to work again. Happy Birthday Abi, we love you with all our hearts!

And now we come to the week that is coming, we are finally on our first week off of the summer. We plan on spending every moment we can outside, around the fire with friends and hit up the trails for some long rides together! So until next week!