Summer vacation part 2

So after a couple of days of rest we hit the road again to go visit Nan and Gramps at their place in Port Lambton. The new addition to the house makes visiting even better because Cooper has his own space and he loves it.

It was great to be home - we hung out, went for a ride on the sea-doo, and had a great visit. Cooper loves visiting his Nan and Gramp's place! Unfortunately Cooper ended up getting sick when we were there. He had a pretty high fever and he was really out of sorts. We kept him medicated for a couple of days and eventually his fever subsided. I worry so much about fevers! When his fever passed he became congested and basically suffered (not really ) with a head cold for a couple of days.

Luckily he wasn't too sickto head out on our next part of vacation. After a party at Mom and Dad's with all of our Primeau relatives, we hit the road and spent the night in our own beds before heading to the cottage in Wiarton. This is our 4th visit to the Denomme's cottage and it's really a special place for us now. I really reflect on how much Cooper has grown in a year when we visit the cottage because I always remember what he was like the year before. Each visit with Cooper has been fun but I have to say this year was the best yet!

We spent our days at the beach - Peter found a wonderful beach about 30 minutes from the cottage. It was sandy and shallow and not too crowded and we loved being there. The rest of our time we spent hanging out around the cottage. Peter and Cooper went on several frog hunts (I wasn't so keen for this activity!) and overall we had a really awesome and relaxing time!

It was a busy but awesome vacation. Cooper is so much fun and such a great traveller. We're really lucky that he goes with the flow on our adventures!

Where has the summer gone???

The mornings are definitely more fall-like than summery. I had to put Cooper in jeans this morning and have begun to sort through his fall clothing and even put away some of his summer stuff. This is always a bit of a sad task because I know that he's not likely to fit into most of these things next summer and each year the shirts get less itsy and the shorts get less bitsy...sad!

What a summer we had though! I had almost 3 weeks of holidays and we made the most of them. I think we also lucked out with the weather and had maybe the warmest days of the summer for our vacation.

Our first stop was Grand Bend to the Oakwood in to hang out with Nan and Gramps and get in some beach-time. We were booked into one of the cabins at the resort and it was interesting sharing a room with Cooper. I was so worried about how this would work logistically that I totally flaked out on packing the most essential item for a good night's sleep - Kitty! Yes our fears became a reality when we unpacked (we had everything else including the kitchen sink!) only to find that Kitty was not amongst our stuff. Luckily we did have "fat kitty" which is the back-up kitty...as well as some other key nighttime buddies. I decided to be upfront with Coop and tell him that we made a mistake and that Kitty was a home having "her own vacation" each night before bed we called her to say good night. It was super cute. He also called her during the day - I just let him call whenever he missed her and overall we made it through ok. Our time in Grand Bend was awesome and a great way to kick off the vacation!

Next stop - Burlington. Peter was invited to his 10-year reunion for teacher's college. We all headed to his friend Shelley's place (after a kick pit-stop in Waterloo to unpack, re-pack and grab Kitty!) The party was nice but Cooper was tired so we headed to our hotel early and he and I kicked back and enjoyed hotel life for the evening. We rode the elevator, scoped out the lobby, bought supplies in the gift shop, and then spent the better part of the night running up and down our hallway playing hide and seek. Fun! In the morning we hit the pool while daddy slept and then we all piled in the van for our next destination - The Twin Valley Zoo in Brantford.

I had scoped out the Zoo online and had talked to a co-worker about it. I think we were the first in the parking lot and we ended up having a great time. It's a super little zoo - the perfect size for a toddler. We saw lemurs, lions, tigers, bears, camels, reptiles...admission included a pony ride for Cooper. The critter show at noon was also a hit and overall we had such a great time there.

Phew - after all that driving it was nice to get home to Waterloo for a couple of days of rest and laundry. Then we re-packed for the next part of our 2009 summer holidays.