Our Family Muskoka Trip Aug.23-27 2010

We are on an adventure! We are spending the week up in northern Ontario, muskoka area. Beautiful landscapes, great weather and visits with some friends. On Sun we took our dog Oscar to my friend's Jen and Doug so we didn't have to worry about him while we were gone.

Monday morning: We started out by having a great breakfast at the Sherwood restaurant in Brantford, Then headed on our way to Sundridge. We arrived in Sundridge around 1pm and checked into our cabin at Siesta Cabins. It was a cute little 2 bedroom. They were all painted bright yellow and the view of the lake was beautiful. We got a hold of our friends Mark and Mary and their son Cole and went to *the blue Roof* restaurant for a light lunch. We made our way to their house about 10 km out of town, where the kids got re-acquainted and played the afternoon away. Bob, Mary and Cole took brad and Cam out on their 4 wheelers through their property, they have 100 acres of bush to play in. lol They all decided that I should go for a ride too.... so Mary lead Bob and I back out through the bush. ACK I'm not an outdoorsy type of person, and I'm not a huge fan of 4 wheeling! We stopped at their hunting lookout and Mary picked up the memory card from the camera to see what animals they *caught* on camera.
When we got back to the house we plugged it in and saw a doe with twin babies and a black bear!! That was cool.
We were treated to Moose bbq for dinner, Mary cooked moose burgers and a couple of moose steaks....mmmmm that was sooo good!!!!! After dinner we lit a campfire so the kids could roast marshmallows and the adults could chat. We even heard some coyotes or wolves howling... it was eerie... We had such a great visit with our buddies, I'm glad we took an extra day of our vacation to visit them.

Tues Aug 24

We got up early and had breakfast at the blue roof again, it was good. We then drove on to Huntsville to visit the Muskoka Heritage Museum and train museum. I stopped at the grocery store and bought lunch supplies, buns, meat, cheese and pop. Bob saw a music store and HAD to check out the instruments in there.LOL. We then made our way to the Muskoka Heritage Museum.
When we went on the train ride, we were upset because the steam engine was in repairs. Bob was really looking forward to seeing the steam engine. Cameron got to be assistant conductor, which was really cool. His *duties* were to call *ALL ABOARD*, punch the passengers' tickets,and wave the flag for the engineer to start the train. He loved it! We also learned a lot about pioneer life and the history of northern Ontario... They even got to be a blacksmith apprentice and bend some iron.
One of the ladies from the museum recommended a fabulous fish and chip restaurant in Bracebridge, and that is where we had our dinner.
We checked into our hotel in Bracebridge and spent a quiet night.

Wed Aug 25th

Today was our Lady Muskoka Cruise! It
was lovely! When we got there and were waiting to board, we ran into a friend of Bob's from when he worked at Ford. We had a nice chat with Lee and Eleanor. We had steak dinner, and the boys had chicken nuggets and fries. It did start to rain a bit burt it didn't hamper our trip at all... although Brad had a little fall on the deck, but was all good.
We then had dinner at Harvey's and picked up some groceries from the store for tomorrow's adventure. Wouldn't you know, Bob spotted a lady broken down in the parking lot, and came to her aid... (and made 45 bucks to boot)

Thurs Aug 26th

We checked out of our hotel in Bracebridge and headed over to Santa's Village. It turned out to be a very lovely day, weather wise, it was not too hot. The boys felt that they were a little too old for Santa's Village, but secretly I think they had a blast, they just won't admit it LOL. I took lots of pics, reminiscent of the last time we were there so I could make a comparison on how big my boys are getting!
We then proceeded to our last destination of our adventure, Barrie, where we are used our coupon for the free hotel room at the Comfort Inn. We had supper at a Chinese buffet and then played glow-in-the-dark mini golf, which was fun, fun, fun!!!!
We are about to head down to get some breakfast in the lobby and then start our trek home. (we'll pick up Oscar from our friend's place first.)

Fri. Aug 27th
Well It's my oldest son's birthday today. He is 26 yrs old WOW time flies It is hard to believe 26 years have passed already! I gave him a call after we got home from our trip. His girlfriend Julia was making him lasagna for supper and he was having some friend's over to visit for the evening. I really miss him on these days. :(
Anyway we left Barrie around 10:30 am and headed west of London to pick Oscar up from my friend's place. She is a wonderful friend to take on having little Oscar all week! She posted pics and video of all his antics each day we were away. We didn't stay to visit as it was their anniversary and we wanted to let them celebrate. On our way home, we got a call from one of our friends, Phil Hovinga, and he was sitting outside our place waiting for us to get home. He is a building contractor and will be working close to us for a couple of months, so we offered him a place to stay while he worked here.
Also Bob got a call to fix a person's lawnmower(since it's his business that is nothing new lol) but this call was from Walter Gretzky, yup Wayne Gretzky's dad and somewhat of a local celebrity himself here in Brantford! I thought that was exciting news and had to write it down!

We are now home from our trip and getting settled back into the routine... laundry, cooking and the boys playing video games lol
All in all we had a WONDERFUL vacation!!!