Ottawa, Ontario to Beresford, New Brunswick

Over the August long weekend my boyfriend and I, as well as his brother, wife and three children, as well as my mother in law took it upon ourselves to go visit family in New Brunswick. We decided to drive, as flying was economically a bad idea with the size of our group.

So the boy and I would drive from Ottawa to Cornwall, Ontario and meet up with the others in our party, and from there drive to Edmonston, New Brunswick; our first stop.

This was the view from our hotel.

We got in at about 1am, and left again around 10am, drove the next 4 hours to get to Bathurst where our next next hotel was. It was a Best Western, and let me tell you it was a phenomenal hotel. It being brand new it was nice to stay in a room that had never been stayed in before. The beds and pillows were AMAZING.

Later that day we were invited to the family cottage for dinner with everyone. The cottage is in Beresford, New Brunswick

Right on the beach, and a little piece of heaven if you ask me!

This is the front of the cottage!

 

This is the back!

For the next few days, we relaxed at the beach, and had fun in the sun and sand. On Sunday we went to visit my boyfriend’s Aunt and Uncle’s house so the kids could go pick raspberries, and so my mother in law could see their beautiful garden. Which, I did not get a picture of, but let me tell you, it was amazing! I wish I had a green thumb instead of a black one, when it comes to gardening.

The Monday was New Brunswick Day, a holiday in the province, and Saturday night, while we had a bonfire on the beach, we got to enjoy the other cottages setting off Chinese Lanterns, and fireworks. I love bonfires, but I have to say having one on a beach was always an experience I wanted to have. Being able to enjoy the ocean air, and a fire all at once was an amazing. Too bad the mosquito’s wanted to join the party too!

The boys fishing, picking raspberries, and just enjoying the sun.

We’ve decided next year, that a 4 day trip is not ideal, and we will most likely stay a week. (7 days) We are going to look into renting a cottage on the beach, which makes me extremely excited for next summer.

So, that was our New Brunswick adventure for 2014, and I leave you with pictures of the beautiful sunset, that I was able to catch on the Saturday night, before the bonfire on the beach.

I hope everyone else is enjoying their vacations in the summer of 2014.

Bonnie

Sarah’s Niagara Falls Adventure

So for the long weekend the family and I (and my in-laws) went to Niagara Falls.  It was fantastic!  When we first got there we just relaxed, we took the walk down to Clifton Hill just to see what we wanted to do over the following few days.  When we got there my son was instantly attracted to the Great Canadian Midway with the bright lights and sounds.  We ended up spending 2 hours there without even realizing that much time had gone by.

Day Two was when we really got in to the sightseeing. We purchased the Fun Pass which gives you access to 5 different attractions for one low price ($25 for adults, and my son was free because he’s under 3).  We spent even more time in the Midway because it was too fun not to, our son loved it and even us adults had a blast trying to win tickets so we could get Clark an awesome prize.  After the Midway we went to the Movieland Wax Museum (which was included in the Fun Pass). It was really neat to see all the different exhibits.  I personally found that there was only maybe a handful that actually looked like the people, but they were all still really neat. Best part of it, my husband didn’t realize there were alarms on all the pieces, so when he asked me to take a picture of him punching Iron Man and he reached across the barrier he set off the alarm, luckily I already had my camera ready so I got his reaction, it was priceless.

After the wax museum my mother-in-law and I went up on the SkyWheel. That was an amazing experience we saw everything. The next time we do the trip I plan on doing that ride at night to see the falls all lite up.

Then it was off to Dinosaur Adventure Golf! We thought our son would love it, because he loves dinosaurs.  For some reason we were wrong. They had “dinosaur” sounds playing over speakers and that seemed to really scare him.  It also didn’t help that we had to wait at least 10 minutes at each hole because it was so busy.  Needless to say….we skipped half the course and left.  All the dinosaur statues were really cool and the volcano was amazing. But it was  just too busy and loud for my son’s liking.  It also didn’t help that he wasn’t feeling 100% that day either.

Day Three we walked a different route down to the falls, which got us closer to them.  It wasn’t the greatest of days weather wise, it had rained the night before and was still really overcast.  We were able to get right close to them, to the point where as we were walking to the big gift shop we got pretty much soaked by the mist rising up.  I didn’t mind it, but everyone else seemed annoyed by it.

After that we hopped on the bus (the WeGo system is actually pretty neat it’s $7 for 24 hour pass and there’s 5 different route that get you around to all the different attractions) back up to Clifton Hill, we had one last round in the Midway and cashed in our over 3500 tickets and got Clark some really cool prizes.  After that it was lunch time. We tried to go to the Rainforest Cafe, thinking once again my son would love it.  He loved waiting in the gift shop and looking in the big fish tank.  However as we were being seated they had one of their simulated thunder storms, where the lights flash, and there’s thunder and the animals all come to life.  It was really cool, but it terrified my son. He actually grabbed my hand and started pulling me to the door asking to leave because it was too scary.  Which in the end, was a good thing because of how ridiculously over priced the food is there.

After that we headed to Louis Tussaud’s Wax Museum. Now that one was amazing. They all looked a lot like the people they were portraying, and even better you were able to get close to them, pose and take pictures with them.  So of course we had to get lots of goofy pictures with all of them.  My favourite part was when we came across the Secretariat figure, my son is addicted to horses, and he was genuinely upset that the horse wasn’t real. He was petting it and kept asking if he could go for a ride.

After a few hours back at the hotel getting some rest in (and my son having a nap) we headed back out at night to watch the fireworks over the falls.  They were fantastic, and a great way to end our vacation.

Overall it was an amazing trip and we can’t wait to go back.  My husband and I would definitely like to do a short weekend there by ourselves so we can do some of the attractions that you can’t really take kids to, like the Journey Behind The Falls, Hornblower Niagara Cruises.  Either way we’re beyond excited to go back.

 

On the Road Again…..

Packing for a road trip without kids Bonnie’s rule of thumb: Pack for every day you are going to be there, and one extra, as a just in case. Clothes: Shirts, tank tops, and a neutral sweater Pants/shorts Dress, or …

Travel, Vacations, and Following the Yellow Brick Road

It’s that time of year again, when everyone is planning their summer trips away, be it a road trip, a weekend or week at the cottage, even your honeymoon. Everyone can use some tips and tricks when planning.

Both Sarah and I are planning some trips this summer. Sarah’s trips are a bit bigger than mine, in the fact that she is planning a large longer trip. But I have a bunch of weekend getaways to plan, and a weekend at the cottage too. So, we wanted to get on track with what it is that we wanted to organize.

Bonnie’s Trips

Cottage weekend: were going with a bunch of people to the cottage this summer, and when I say Cottage, I mean my in law’s; organizing a large group of people when going on a trip, can be tedious on top of all the other things that you have to plan.

Fan Expo Weekend: Both Sarah and I are planning on meeting up in Toronto this summer for Fan Expo Toronto. I am going to the convention a bit longer than Sarah, but planning a trip to a big city is always an adventure, when planning out your meals, and extra activities that you want to do.

Possible New Brunswick Trip: The boyfriend and I try to make it out to New Brunswick every other summer to see his side of the family each year. As it is a 11 hour drive, it takes quite a bit of planning to do. As this isn’t 100% verified that we are going this year, and in the works, I will take you through our decision process on going or not.

Our anniversary trip: It’s my boyfriend’s and my 8 year anniversary in June, and we want to have weekend trip to celebrate…. But where we are going to go is up in the air.

Sarah’s Trips

Cottage Weekend: My brother-in-law has a beautiful cottage right on Lake Simcoe. Last year we went for a couple of days and it certainly wasn’t a long enough visit, so this year we plan on picking a long weekend to. The 4 cousins love being together, and we love being able to just relax and spend time on the water.

Fan Expo Weekend: We’re only planning on doing the convention for one day, but that won’t stop us from spending the entire weekend in Toronto. We’re going to take Clark to do all the sightseeing we can, the zoo, the new aquarium, maybe take him to his first Blue Jays game, and do a bunch of shopping.

Honeymoon: We weren’t able to afford a honeymoon right after the wedding so we’re taking it this year. It’s going to be tough because neither of us really want to be away from Clark but since we have certain plans for this year it might be our only chance to get away just the two of us. Our plan….Broadway! It’s a dream trip that I can’t wait for. I love Broadway almost as much as I love my family. We’ll do all the sightseeing around town, a bit of shopping, but most importantly for me…we’ll be seeing Les Misèrables. This trip is not coming soon enough.

Anniversary Trip: It’s our 1st wedding anniversary this year (as well as our 5 year anniversary). We’ll be taking a small trip to Toronto. The tour of Wicked makes it stop in Toronto this fall from September to November.  Closing night happens to land on our anniversary so we’ll be going to see the very final show (it’s a bucket list point for me to see a closing performance). I’ve seen the show before, but I can’t wait to see it again, and for the hubby to see it for the first time.

Weekend Trips: We’ll more than likely be making one or two trips back to Ottawa to visit with friends and family over the summer as well. One will be coming up shortly hopefully, once my friends little girl decides to make her grand entrance to the world we’ll be going down to meet her.

The hubby gets 4 weeks of holidays from work this year and we plan on putting every single one of them to good use. With having to plan 2 weddings over the past 2 years we never got much time to hang out as a family, our holidays got wasted on other things. But this year we vowed to make this summer count.