I had a great long weekend, got to spend time with my family and lots of time with my friends.
He said
It always seems to creep up on us the end of the camping season and we always try to squeeze in the last few hurrahs that we can before we button up the trailer for winter. There were a couple of weekends where we skipped heading up at the end of September because the weather was just not that inspiring—cold and rainy all weekend. So we settled on taking some days this past week leading up to Thanksgiving weekend to get in the last bit of trailer, camping and campfire time before getting the trailer winterized and winter ready. And it couldn’t have come at a better time as the last few months have really been busy what with all that has been going on at both our jobs and Emelia starting up her last year of high school—Danielle & I really relished the time together at a slower pace.
But, what that last trailer time reminds us is that it does get colder & wetter a lot quicker an hour north of London than it does back home. The heater needs to be on more in the trailer and anywhere two feet away from the fire pit gets pretty frigid fast. Don’t get me wrong, we really enjoyed our time there this week, but it was a good reminder while it seems too soon to be ending the season, it actually is the time to be ending the season. That said three straight days of no alarms and waking when our bodies decided to, was an absolute gift. That coupled with the only goal of enjoying our time there, getting in some rides on the G2G, and making the most of our time their and by Friday we felt like we had capped off another great camping season—our first one of many up on Snob Hill!
Friday the task was after we got up, got breakfast and got our ride in, we started the job of getting the trailer winter ready. And this is where it really dawned on us the new location up on the hill that we can leave the trailer for all winter how much easier it was going to make the closing up. There wasn’t any need to unhook the plumbing, we didn’t have put everything away (for towing) inside the trailer. And we didn’t have to hitch up and tow out the trailer at the end of it all. It used to be anywhere from six to eight hours total in previous years where this year it was easily half of that. But, all I could think about was how much easier opening will be next Spring as there will be no landing, re-landing and hooking up the trailer to start our season. We’re on our home by 4:30pm on Friday not nearly as exhausted as we had been in years past.
The other big thing on this week was obviously Thanksgiving. Mom is all set up and settled in to her new digs at Glendale Crossing and offered to host whatever family could make it to a dinner with her in one of the community rooms they have there. Today was the day that worked best for whole family so that is where we landed on. With all the loss in our family over the last year, we’ve all been a lot more focused on using as my brother David says every chance we can to get together. So aside from the bug that has been working its way through Testza and Abi, everybody that could make it, did. And we had a great time. It was David’s family’s first time at actually getting to see Mom’s new digs and they were blown away with all that she had at her disposal. There was a ton of laughter, smiles and at the heart of it all a quiet, subconscious knowledge that we were better for having spent the time just being together. Being thankful in a big way!
I am sure there is a lot that happened with Emelia (and will happen this week) that I am missing but that is where there are two of us here, every week telling our story. I will leave that stuff for Danielle to share!
She said
It was another busy week for all of us. Emelia is deep into grade 12, she is keeping on top and thriving in school, her friend group is ever expanding and her social life is booming. Emelia really wanted to make sure this weekend she was spending as much time with her friends as possible since next weekend she will be out of commission, I will get to that soon. Emelia was pretty well solo balancing things at home as John and I were up at the trailer and she had school to take care of, along with work and cheer training. It was a full week for her.
A few weeks ago John had asked if I could manage to take some time leading into Thanksgiving off as he had some vacation time booked. I was able to work a bit remotely do wrap up some work but for the most part I was able to disconect and relax at the trailer for what is our last trip of the season. In the past we had tried to squeeze time right to the every end of the season, including Thanksgiving weekend. The weather is often hit or miss but more importantly this year we wanted to be with our family. This was our first Thanksgiving without Greg and Doug so we knew that our first priority was to be home for the holiday. And as the week moved along and the weather on the weekend was turning cold and rainy we knew that getting back to family for Thanksgiving was the best idea. As John has already talked about the whole process this year was so much simpler. We had a fraction of the close up work than we had to do in the past. Big part is keeping our trailer in the park but a big other part is our location, we are out of the flood zone so prep is much less. All-in-all it was a smooth process and we are already counting down until next season.
This week will be another busy one. Emelia is back at school next week but only for 2 days. Why? Well Thursday the lucky girl is getting all 4 of her wisdom teeth pulled, they are all impacted so she is being put under anesthesia but lucky enough it seems pretty straight forward enough to have the procedure done in the dentist office by the dental surgeon. With the dental surgery on Thursday we fully expect her to be very sore and out of commission for a few days. The hope is that she is healed enough to at least go for a walk through at cheer by Sunday but we are watching her and seeing how it goes. She is upset she’s missing so much school and well be honest she is missing out time with her friends. But as always she’s taking this all in stride and just wants it done and over with. And we do too.