I had Pioneer Camp this week at Fanshawe Pioneer Village. I had so much fun with my friend Kathleen!

He said

With today’s post on a Monday as we always give ourselves the extra day on holiday weekends, we are officially three sleeps from another week out camping in Wolfie Too. While I worked all weekend to make up for having the next two off, I did manage to have today – Civic Monday – off work, even though we were open for business. Three days of work and then, as soon as we finish up our work days on Thursday we are headed out off to Kingston for a Walmart parking lot for the night.

Originally we planned on heading out first thing Friday morning, but we wanted to avoid both rush hour and cottage traffic in Toronto and give ourselves the opportunity to be over to Wolfe Island so we could be ready for our volunteer shifts to help the Wolfe Island Music Festival gets setup. So, for our first time ever, we’re going to try boondocking in the Walmart parking lot. We’ll get to Kingston pretty late and just need somewhere to park the truck and trailer over night so that we can rest our eyes and get on the first ferry over to the island Friday morning.

This past week Emelia had her week of Pioneer Camp at the Village. It was bittersweet as it might end up being her last year going as she may or may not be more involved with gymnastics next year which would be her last year for sure. Originally, she thought she might try to juggle both gymnastics and camp this week, but then knowing it might be her last year, she called an audible and decided to just do the Pioneer Camp. I got to drive her quite a few of the days which was great as she talks most with me when I am the chauffeur to and from her activities.

The rest of the week has really been all about getting ready for the camping trip. This one is the big one we look forward to every year for so many reasons. For starters, Bon Echo was a park that was recommended to us by our friend Gabi who passed away from cancer and will always remind us of her and how she glowed when she talked about its beauty. Then there is the Wolfe Island Music Festival and Wolfe Island which has also been a part of our summers for the past seven. We have volunteered for as many and just love both the people who run it and the times that we’ve had there. One of my all time favourite photos of Emelia is her dancing at the Merch table we were working while the band Stars played under a beautiful sky filled with their namesake.

So with only three more sleeps until all this happens again, you can understand just how excited and happy we are. We will be focused on getting packed and ready all this week, and then in three sleeps we will be on the cusp of another week of building even more memories. And recording it all so we can eventually add it all to our story that we’ve started now sharing in movie form too. And something we can relive over and over again.

She said

This last week was one of those it takes a village weeks. There are many advantages to me working from home, it means Emelia can be home with me during the summer, I can get things ready for her on her gymnastics training afternoons. But it also means that I am at home with the little ones so I am not able to help out with the driving to get Emelia to her activities.

This summer has been a true test of the village. We have been so fortunate to have amazing team mates for gymnastics to help but the biggest help as always is Poppa. John’s dad is the reason we are able to make this camp possible. This week Pioneer Camp is one of the highlights for Emelia in the summer. She has been attending the camp since she was 5 and this year was even more of a highlight because this year she went with her gymnastics friend Kathleen. Every night Emelia came home full of new stories and adventures of her day. I know it was hard for her to decide to skip training for camp but her summer is all about balance. We love that we had the support of her coach to take this week off. She is so excited to get back to training tomorrow.

This week will be all about getting ready for our camping trip. This is our longest trip of the year and the most to balance because we are off gird on the island. This week will likely go by in a flash with everything going on but it will be worth it to be on Wolfe Island by Friday morning for our favourite music weekend of the year.