Our family vacation {summer 2012}

Last weekend we went camping at Grundy Lake Provincial Park in northern(-ish) Ontario for 4 days. The weather was perfect, we all had a blast, and it was the highlight of the summer for us. Kale absolutely loved all the outdoor time and was an all-around awesome camper.

Friday: We left Friday around 4pm, with every square inch of our packed with gear. I know that I'm a chronic over-packer, but I really do just try to bring the minimum with us and it still ends up being so much! The drive was 4.5 hours, but we stopped for a quick bite to eat and ended up arriving around 9:30pm. Kale was so great in the car (thank you iPad!!!) and fell asleep about half an hour before we got to our campsite. Kris was able to set up the tent on his own in the dark and we transferred Kale in without a peep!

Saturday: Kale woke up at 6am and yelled "I'M IN A TENT!!" It totally blew his mind. We shuffled around for a bit, doing our best to keep Kale quiet so he didn't wake up our neighbours. At some point I pulled my camera out and realized that the battery was dead and I'd left my charger at home. I pretended I could live without the camera for about an hour before we drove an hour to buy one.

Kale slept for about 10 minutes in the car and that was it for the rest of the day. He was too busy swimming and exploring to even think about a nap.

These pictures kill me - I can't believe how brave Kale is! Kris had his eye on this dock all afternoon, just waiting for a pack of kids to leave. As soon as they were gone, he headed straight for it and Kale jumped on his back to catch a ride. Kale thought long and hard about jumping and then finally took the plunge.

Sunday: We were up early again and decided to hike to an area called 'The Lookout' to capture some family photo's. You might have seen the disastrous results that I posted last week, but we did manage to get a couple decent ones.

The rest of the day was spent taking a short hike, swimming, napping away the afternoon, and visiting a little place called the Trading Post to get ice cream and stock up on ice and wood.

Monday: The hardest part about the trip was keeping Kale quiet in the morning. He woke every day around 6am and the rest of the campers didn't start to stir until closer to 8am. The site was reasonably quiet at night too, so there was no "I'm going to let my kid make noise this morning because you kept me up with your partying all night." Instead, we would take Kale away from the main campsites in the morning and enjoy some time together.

With the last day upon us, we were feeling the pressure to make the most of it. We went on a big hike (about 2.5km) and Kale walked about half of it on his own, eager to search out the yellow dots that guided the path. The other half he caught a ride in Kris's backpack, often requesting that I hold his hand.

We also ended up renting a canoe for 24 hours, which Kale thought was pretty great. We had talked about doing this before our trip, but I was convinced that Kale would try and jump ship or tip us overboard. However, when we got there we figured it was worth a shot and were both surprised and how well he did. We weren't out there canoeing for hours or anything, but we got a few quick trips in.

Tuesday: We spent the morning taking another quick trip out in the canoe, swimming, and packing up. I don't think any of us were quite ready to go home, but were happy with the time we'd had.