I just had the best week, not only did I go to two Canada Day parties with my friends I just got home from a 4 day cottage trip with all my friends from high school in Wasaga Beach!

He said

Well, here we are at the back end of a wonderful week off almost entirely spent at the trailer. There were a couple trips needed back to London – one of them a surprise – but more on that later. The week at the trailer was as we said last weekend, exactly what we needed. We enjoyed not having any alarm clocks in the morning, getting up and going for a bike ride on the G2G Rail Trail every single day, and most every day ended with watching the sunset over the fire pit as we had a fire going. We had a lot of time at a much slower pace and a lot of time for Danielle & I to connect which was especially great after the last couple of months we’ve had where we’ve felt on-the-go literally nonstop.

Thursday we knew we needed to be back in London as we were the taxi service to get Emelia and two of her besties up to Wasaga Beach for their year-end high school grad gathering with a group of sixty kids. So, we opted to come back Wednesday evening as we needed to be on the road relatively early on Thursday for the three-hour drive. It was nice to get back to the house – to see Emelia and be able to offload some laundry and things we didn’t need at the trailer mid week. We got Belle, Bri, and Emelia dropped off and situated at their cottage and then Danielle & I had the most scenic drive from Wasaga back to the trailer through the Grey Highlands and Beaver Valley. It was a beautiful drive and we were back to the trailer in time for dinner and the fire pit.

But more on that special trip back to London… the last few weeks I have gotten numerous emails from the dealership we’ve bought our last two trucks at, asking if we were yet again interested in trading in as their is healthy market still for used trucks. Knowing that we have a few more expensive things to fix on the horizon (new tires, new brakes and repairing my parking garage mishaps with cement pillars) I was at least open to the idea. Add in the with trailer now being fully seasonal and it stays at Auburn year-round, we no longer needed a truck to tow! What I didn’t know was that Danielle and Emelia were as much fans of Jeeps as I am. So Monday, being a big sale day at the dealership and the last day of their month, they were motivated to make something work. And given that I found a beautiful Jeep Rubicon in a colour I have always loved, a little over a year newer than our truck and still with warranty, we were motivated too. And like that, Monday we became Jeep owners and said goodbye to truck life.

Like always while we had a deal on Monday, the earliest we could get the truck was Thursday, but knowing that we needed to take the girls to Wasaga we opted to do the official trade for the Jeep on Saturday when we were coming back from the trailer anyway as I was in a bike race today in Thedford. We got the Jeep yesterday and Danielle & I took the roof off (the part above the driver) and got out for a long drive together out in the country and all around the city and have both decided, we really love it. And the other good news was I was able to fit my bike in the back in order to get it to the bike race today. We’ll have to get a better bike rack that will accommodate Danielle’s eBike along with mine, as the one we have now won’t work with the Jeep. But that is a problem we had been meaning to solve for the truck anyway as currently the solution was put her bike in the back seat which takes away the ability to bring any passengers.

At any rate, we’re happy to be Jeep people—we’re just not the kind that wave back at you. As for Emelia, she’s not sure if she believes it’s really ours. And as for her week, I will let Danielle tell you about that.

She said

What an incredible week! As John said this was a week we really needed. We were able to balance out getting a few things done at the trailer, some long rides every day and a few necessary trips back into London. Emelia had a jammed packed week her first week of the summer. After a pretty crappy last summer we wanted this one would be one that Emelia would love and remember. And if the first week of the summer is any indication Emelia is making up for last summer. On Sunday a huge group of her friends went to her friend Roman’s house for a big end of the school year party. Emelia had the best time, there were most of her friends from Lucas and friends from other schools there as well, mainly MTS. A few days later she was off again but this time to her friend Ella’s house for another huge party. She said she had a blast and was shifting her focus on to the big event of the week. This is something Emelia and her friends have been looking forward to since October when the plans started. The post grad trip to Wasaga Beach.

For months Emelia and her friends have been planning and waiting for this weekend. There were 60+ of her closest friends in Wasaga in cottages and cabins for 4 days, all by themselves, just their friends of the last 4 years celebrating the end of high school and the start of their next adventures. John and I drove the 3 girls up to the cottages, got them all settled before saying good-bye, be safe and have the best time. And by all accounts that is exactly what they did. Emelia got dropped off and said she and her friends had the best week, in spite the insane heat the kids went hard for 4 days and I am sure all came home with life time memories and ready to crash for a few days.

Back to a bit on us. As John has mentioned already for weeks he and eventually I were getting lots of texts, calls and email about potentially trading in our truck, that they would pay top dollar for our truck. But for me I did not want to go back into another big loan, we had already paid off the truck and I did not want to go into a loan. But then John peaked on the website and he saw a jeep that he really liked. And for my budget minded ways loved that it was a used vehicle vs new. So we started to talk a bit more seriously. John and I played around with the numbers and knew that we would not be able to do a direct trade but with the value of the truck and the cost of the jeep we should be pretty close. So we decided to pop back into London on Monday, telling Emelia we had some errands to take care of and then went over to the dealership to have a look. When we got there the jeep we really loved online was at another dealership but this allowed us to do a two in one test drive. We drove over in an older model jeep that had some appealing features and compare with the one that we had seen online. After really driving both and comparing we chose the original jeep, it was a year newer, we could top up the warranty for a good price and we loved the colour more. So just like that we went from talking about maybe, potentially, possibly trading in the truck to signing on the dotted line and agreeing to sell the truck and get the jeep.

Well we kept all that under wraps from everyone, mainly Emelia until today. We wanted to surprise her and man did we. When she pulled in the driveway from her trip she would NOT believe us that it was ours, that we would get rid of the truck. It took a lot of convincing and letting her test drive it for it to really sink in. So needless to say Emelia is loving the new jeep and I am sure so will her friends