I am all done school for the summer!

He said

The week was a whirlwind of getting ready to camp this upcoming week. There was a lot of running around, and every spare moment before and after work for Danielle & I was cordoned off for something camping related. As much as it felt like there wasn’t much time to just sit, it was all fuelled by the notion that by dinner time Saturday we’d be sitting at the trailer at our first location of the week, enjoying the start of a week’s relaxation punctuated by camp fires and coffee in the morning listening to CBC radio. And taking the day at a snail’s pace.

When we went to book this trip six months ago, being a popular week to camp shoehorned between two big reasons to get away – the first week of summer break for kids, and Canada Day – we could not get the full week at Arrowhead Provincial Park. We were able to get from today (Monday, and Canada Day) on, but it meant we needed to find a Plan B for Saturday and Sunday. Usually that plan is staying in Charlie & Todd’s driveway in Bracebridge, but with adding Wolfie III to our family we added length and width to our rig.

We decided we would find somewhere close that would shorten the trip on from here to Arrowhead but also would shorten the distance we needed to make Saturday after I got done work. That place ended up being Heidi’s Campground just outside of Orillia, ON (and as we’d find out, 10 minutes from a Rolling Stones concert Saturday night when we arrived). It is a private campground that featured full hookups and an indoor pool with hot tub! And the best part was the campground was Bavarian themed complete with water wheel and ‘Swiss Bridge’.

Luckily my work day got shortened to a half day and just after noon on Saturday, we were making our way out to hitch up Wolfie III and we made really good time getting down to the campground even with making a pit stop for gas in Barrie, and getting hung up in the traffic for the Rolling Stones concert at Burl’s Creek just 10 minutes from Heidi’s. By 5:30pm were unhitched, set up and ready to start our weeklong vacation. We had dinner and then got out and walked around to explore the park before sitting down and enjoying our first campfire of the trip. It was the perfect end of a day that started with work at a job I love, and ended with sitting with the people I love doing the thing we love: camping.

At some point today we’re loading & hitching up and moving an hour down the road to Arrowhead where we will spend the rest of our week. While we won’t have full hookups there, we will have a lot less noise, more nature and more space. Before we move down the road, Emelia & I are gonna try and squeeze in one last swim in in the pool. As I write this, I am sitting at the picnic table on our patio, this beautifully sunny Canada Day morning, listening CBC Radio enjoying a coffee. Life could not be much better.

She said

This week was quieter in some aspects but busier in others. This week was a full break from Emelia’s sports but on the flip side filled quickly with school year wrap up and vacation prep. Our new trailer is finally now to a point we have a groove, we have a minimal amount of things that need to be moved from the house to the trailer. Coming into our 7th season of camping we have built a second home and we set Wolfie III to be a second home ready to go. But it was still busy to get to this point.

This week Emelia wrapped up grade 6, there was a lot of emotions to this last day as a number of her friends are leaving Ryerson so there were tears shed and big emotions. Emelia and her besties watched the grade 8 grad from the porch and saw some of their friends all dolled up and saying their final good-bye to grade school and see the big emotions of moving on to different high schools. Lots of changes for sure.

Emelia did well this year in school, we had incredible support from her teachers, in fact her math/science teacher gave Emelia a love for science and confidence in math. Math was one of the big struggle areas for Emelia in the past this year she had As in both subjects. Writing is her biggest struggle still but are trying to find fun ways to build on that over the summer.

With the school year passing it meant that summer has officially arrived. Emelia and her closest friends had a pool party at her friend Evelyn’s house. It was an incredible afternoon to set the summer off right.

Now that summer has arrived it is time for our annual camping trip to start the season off. With the new trailer we have already been out 4x this season, one in our old trailer and this is our 3rd trip out in our new trailer. The trailer is working out amazing. We love everything about it, the size is just right. We have enough indoor space to give everyone some of their own space, some glamping luxuries and the trailer is small enough that we can still camp in all our favourite places.

As I type this up I am watching other campers pack up their trailers, John and Emelia are off having a swim and I keep thinking how amazing our little simple life is. I am so excited for our upcoming week, we get to camp in one of our favourite campgrounds and we get to spend a ton of time with my sister and her family. We started coming to Arrowhead every year to be close to Charlie, Todd and Marshall in the summer and it has quickly become one our favourite campgrounds filled with lots of nature, big sites and close to lots of fun activities in the Mukokas.

Bring on the week of relaxation and family time.