Vacation Report

Ah vacation..... we had a lovely week. :)

We camped at Glen Rouge park in Toronto. It is literally right between Scarborough and Pickering (at least I think I have that right). Situated in a valley. There is NO street noise. Across the river is a lovely path to walk. Sites aren't real private but it appeared the most people did what we did....used it as a place to park the trailer and do day-tripping in Toronto. EXCELLENT location for doing such a vacation.

Monday: we arrived around 4 pm. We got settled in. Did some reading once Justin was asleep.

Tuesday: a trip to the zoo. We were tempted to bike to the zoo, but thought...what do we do for a stroller? Didn't stop to think that perhaps we could have rented one at the zoo, ah well, lessoned learned for next time. Parking was $8 so not that unreasonable.

Boy...is seeing the zoo different when you have a little boy with you. We listened to drum players. They taught us different rhythms for drumming and then did some "dance" instruction. It was actually kinda fun, but got too noisy for me after a while so we left a bit early.

Justin LOVED the seals. Watching them swim under water caused his eyes to go big and he banged on the windows. Not long and not hard, just a bit. He was amazed everytime they came past. Jim captured it on the camera video....If I can figured out how to add it to the blog, I'll do that. Jim figured out how to do it! Go here.

Justin also loved the water park. It's a series of splash pads with different animals and palm trees that spray water out. He would stand and watch the other children play and then would find stuff to "clean up". The other children were quite considerate of him too which was fun to see, you don't always see that at splash pads. Even when he was shivering from cold he didn't want to leave. It was funny, in the change room he kept escaping from me and trying to run outside to the water again. :)

I enjoyed seeing the chimps with their new baby. And also the huge tank of cichlids...I just find it so beautiful all those fish...the size of that aquarium just amazes me. I also liked the praire dog displayed. We initially only saw one doggie and then it barked and suddenly there were three other doggies to be seen, watching us all VERY closely.

Jim had a butterfly on his finger. It was so neat! He took lots of pictures of various animals. I'm not sure which display he liked the best, but he did enjoy the polar bears.

Wednesday: Hung around the campsite in the morning and early afternoon. Did some reading while Justin napped. Slipped up to Whitby to see if friends were home, they weren't so left a message. Then out to Tiger Direct to see if Jim could return an item and save himself the shipping charges...he couldn't so we did the post office thing.

Thursday: In the morning we did some reading while Justin napped. We attended the CNE in the afternoon and early evening. We had advance tickets which was really nice to have. Saved us $4 each on admission. Parking was $10 so not too bad either. It was fun.

Justin enjoyed the farm exhibits. He had a blast running back and forth along the turkey pens, saying "ah" to the calves and cows, and just being there. :) He also had a lot of fun at the petting zoo. He had no fear of any of the animals and went right up to them. The sheep were cool BUT the goats were better in his mind....they had faces he could grab and look at! He watched the other children feeding the animals. It was funny...he couldn't figure out what they were feeding the animals so he picked up sawdust and offered that. When I did get him some feed he thought he should eat it himself! I nixed that notion.

He played a game (had to pick up a circling duck) and got a whale! He played that one because the first one we tried....the dino got stolen from us. That was a real bummer.

The vendor area was huge! It was organized into countries. Some of the booths were quite interesting. Egyptian candy tastes neat....never would have thought about putting chick peas into a candy treat but it works well!

I liked the horiticultural display. Some of those plants I just wanted to take home with me they were so interesting. Like this aloe vera plant that just looked like a prickly cactus type, small leaves growing on a larger stem...not this long leafed succulent that most people have. I was unable to locate a picture of it, but it was neat. Jim's response to it was...I could have this in our house!

Friday: In the morning did some reading while Justin napped. We visited Don and Deb to do our laundry which we were running out of clean dry clothes for Justin. They sweetly took us out for a quick lunch. We had a nice visit. We visited a scrapbooking store... LARGEST one I had ever been in. I picked up a couple of items.

Saturday: We had supper with Mark and Jen and their family. It had been four years since I last saw these fine folks. It was a lot of fun visiting them. Their daugther is moving to London this week to go to U of Western Ontario so that will be fun. I hope to have her up to supper once or twice during the school year.

Sunday: We went to church in Whitby. Lunched with Don and Deb. Went back to the campsite and ended up (since it was raining) going to a local mall to keep dry.

Monday: We packed up and left Toronto. On the way home we met up with "someone" (that's his handle on line) who gave Jim a catalytic converter for the Sunrunner....Jim now has to replace it! We dined at Applebees. We arrived home to find the dogs! Jim's mom surprised us by bringing the dogs home for us. Saved us a trip to London for them. Made us laugh though... Mom's car is fairly new yet and the dogs have been BANNED from her car. So I asked how she got them home.... "I put every blanket I had in the car and covered things up really well and then I washed the blankets when I got home."

Funny mom....but she was a complete dear to care for the dogs for us.

In summation: It was great week away. Lots of discussion as Jim read a book that touched his heart. I read it as well, but I'll discuss it more another time.