moose on the loose

We look forward to it for nearly a year... Cedar Lake, Jerrie and Ellie's, Canada. No matter how you slice it, it is a little piece of heaven.

It has taken many different forms over the years... from big groups of us to just a few.. from loud roucous dice and pinnacle games to quiet evenings reading by the lake... and now we've started bringing our kids here. Seems so crazy that not too long ago, we were scrounging for beers from a nearby town because we'd already maxed out on our limit (a case per person to bring across the border duty free). Tomorrow we will go home with 10 beers in our cooler...

Things change when you have kids. Vacations definately change. But I wouldn't change it for the world. I loved every minute of all the time I had this week to spend with my babies, who are not such babies anymore... and my niece Zoe who is so grown up... and my parents who are great sports about being cabinmates with a little girl who wakes up crying all night...and my husband, who is an amazing dad...........

Here are a few photos from our adventures at Jerrie and Ellie's, Cedar Lake Camp in Ontario (just a little plug for J&E).

Packing it in... we made use of nearly every space in our truck. And we had to send several things with my parents... but we managed to fit it all in! Even the kids!

Jaxon, checking out the rocks. He was pretty thrilled to finally be at 'the canada where grandma and grandpa and zoe were'.  Not the other Canada. There were lots of 'ideas of Canada' floating around the car on the way up. After a night stay at our 'other house' in Fort Francis (the Super 8), we rolled into camp right at check-in time. Whew!

And about an hour later, Scott and Jaxon were off to do the fishing. This is the cleanest those boys were all week.

Kiley, saying, take me! Take me!

Couple hours later... Jaxon is on the leaderboard with a 19 1/2 inch walleye caught on his Buzz lightyear rod, later renamed- the Magic Rod. Everywhere he went he caught fish on that thing.

Here are some that made it into our bellies for dinner. Yummy! Sorry fishies!

Jaxon and Zoe were quite the pair. They went on treasure hunts, made up songs about moose (which I will not sing here or it will be stuck in my head all day). Doh! Too late. Moose on the Loose, Moose on the Loose. His name is Deuce. He drinks a lot of juice. He's Craaaazy. He's Haaazy. And he's a little bit Lazy.

Jazz hands!!

Finding the treasure!!

At the campfire. Campfire? What campfire? These rocks are awesome!!

Ghost stories! Tales of the 12-eyed green giant monster, Doolittle the garbage eating monster, and the flower snatcher.

Last night of fishing... and time to go home. Till next year, we will cherish the memories made at Cedar Lake.

Never change who you are.

Never change who you are.

I think Scott and I, as we've grown older (and yes, wiser!), have certainly changed in many ways. As we moved from just dating, to being married and living together, to having kids, things change. We evolve. We realize what's important, who's important. We forget about the things and focus on the memories, the good times, the time together.

These are good changes.

When we started talking about having kids, I was a little fearful that we'd change who we were as a couple. That we'd somehow stop everything, hole up in our house and change diapers for the rest of our lives. At the present moment, that doesn't seem far from reality actually...

Not too long ago I was hoping we could just drop everything and go on a quick weekend vacation like we used to do. Where would it be this time? Jamaica? London? Paris? Why not, we'd used to say?

We still say why not. Call us crazy (most did). We decided to say why not with a toddler and newborn. But this time, even though we went out of the country, we stayed a little closer to home. Cedar Lake, Ontario! It was a nice reminder to me of who we are as a couple and now as a family. Living spontaneously and soaking in life as much as we can is who we are. My hope is that we'll never change who we are.

Here's a snippet of our spontaneous vacation and some favorite photos from the trip:

July 2009- booked our trip to Cedar Lake

Late Summer 2009- found out I was due in July 2010

January 2010- Cancelled trip to Cedar Lake thinking it was too close to due date. Bummed.

June 23- Kiley Joyce was born! June 24- Kiley is such a good baby, let's take her to Cedar Lake

June 25- E-mailed and booked trip to Cedar Lake

July 16- What were we thinking??

Car ride there:

2:30 pm Left Maple Grove

2:30-3:00, Kiley cried all the way to our first stop at

3:02 pm: stopped the car, made a bottle. Kiley stopped crying as soon as we stopped the car.

3:30 pm. Second stop- Jaxon says, 'My butt hurts. I went poo poo. I need medicine for my butt'

6 ish- stop at Arby's in Virginia for dinner.

6:48- On the road again

7:02pm- Jaxon says, 'Mommy, why you don't buckle me?' Scott looks at Brenna. (Holy Sh*t). Brenna looks at Scott (F*Dge!). Pull over. Buckle Jaxon.

7:24 pm- Jaxon learns a new word. 'Sh*t. Sh*t. Why you say that?'

The week got significantly better from there. Here are some of our favorite snapshots ;-)

Scott, bless him, took Jaxon fishing almost every day. Jaxon loved it. He got to go on boat rides, hang out with his daddy, and net some big fishies while mommy got to stay back with Kiley and grandma and make jewelry!

Later he sorted through all the minnows and threw out the dead ones. And some that were not dead. We went through a lot of bait this week.

Half-way through the week, grandma suggested Jaxon 'wash dishes' in the sink as an activity. This kept him busy for a good hour. It's now become a staple 'activity' at home when mommy needs to make phone calls and get some stuff done. Thanks grandma!

Kiley, checkin' things out.

Kiley, saying hello to the world! She was smiling and trying to coo. She did not smile or coo so much at 3:30 in the morning...

Jaxon hanging out with mom at the shore lunch.

Daddy and Jaxon, saying "Gobby Gobby!! on the boat ride". Gobby Gobby was Jaxon's new friend (?). We're not really sure. He just kept saying it all week. If anyone knows who Gobby Gobby is, please clue us in.

Checking out the smores for the first time.Turns out he is not a big fan and would rather eat chocolate straight up. He so takes after his mother...

The night after the campfire. I about died laughing as he peeked up over his pack in play.

While we had our ups and downs on this trip, and it we all went slightly wonky at various times, we wouldn't take it back for the world. It was so fun to be together as a family and with great friends and family there too- I didn't even have room to share all the photos. We can't wait for next year!