This year’s big summer trip was a whirlwind visit to Sandy Lake and Toronto to see our family. In Manitoba, we hung out with my family, including both my sisters and their kids (minus our speedster nephew who was racing at the track nationals). We saw Emily’s family in Toronto and were lucky to be there for our niece’s birthday party.
Sandy Lake, Manitoba
Highlights from Manitoba include:
The annual Western Days celebration, featuring a parade, bingo, duck races, borscht, perogies, and Ukrainian dancing. It was a fun mashup of farming life, Ukrainian heritage, and small town charm.
An evening of singing was my dad’s one request and he loved that everyone got into karaoke night. The kids favourite songs were The Duck Song and Coincidance.
The wipeout course in Minnedosa was bruising but luckily no one got hurt too bad. Jacob loved the giant blob and flipped Nora backwards once. Astrid had fun doing the monkey bars. The adults tried hard not to dislocate any joints.
My goal for the week was to go through our old photo albums. The plan is to digitize all the good photos before they’re lost to a flood or fire. It’s a big job but I hope to be done by early next year.
Toronto, Ontario
Highlights from Toronto include:
Our niece’s 6th birthday. We don’t get to see her very often so it was special to be there for her big day. They had a new trampoline in the backyard and the kids jumped around with water balloons. Coincidently, Astrid and Layla had matching bathing suits.
Canada’s Wonderland was a big hit. Astrid is officially a fan of roller coasters. She loved all the twists, turns, and loops. Emily and I felt battered and sick after most of them. Our highlights were Vortex, Dragon Fyre, the waterpark, and the Cirque show.
We had a dinner party with Emily’s childhood friends and their kids. She does a better job staying in touch than I do. Astrid had a lot of fun playing with her new friends and was sad to say goodbye to them.
We visited Milton to reenact this photo from 5 years ago and spent a lovely day with some university friends.
Emily took us on a tour of where she grew up, with a visit to her elementary school and childhood home.
We had a fancy night at the Royal York Hotel. We walked around in bathrobes and ordered service for breakfast.
Canadian Veggie 