summer vacation

Nana in Nova Scotia

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We returned from Keji on Thursday, happy but tired, to a house that hadn’t been lived in in weeks and was full of laundry. Thank god for wonderful neighbours who notice you’re away and take out your garbage, otherwise we’d have been in really bad shape. Matt was back to work the following Monday, so we were busy getting back to base before that. 

I got to experience what August would be like from Monday-Wednesday, while Matt resumed work after a joyously long paternity leave, and my mom arrived to help fill the gap on Wednesday. It was a bit rough as everyone adjusted to our “new normal”. 

Thankfully, Nana arrived to save the day, and helped us transition to life back home and one parent back to work. 

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Camping in Kejimkujik

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Don’t ask me how to pronounce it. I don’t know. I just say Keji but even that I pronounce differently each time. I may not know how to say it, but we went there, and it was beautiful!

Now let’s go back. Back to FEBRUARY, which is when we had to line up (virtually) to get these reservations for the middle of the week in July. Wow, how camping has certainly changed in the last few years. The days of rocking up day of, and getting a site, are long gone.

View from the deck of the oTENTik at Kejimkujik National Park in Nova Scotia, Canada
The view from our porch

My friends and I agreed that renting the oTENTik’s there would be a good camping compromise (we aren’t all campers, and we all have young kids) but they are quite popular, so the second the website opened for bookings we were all in que to reserve our spot. Despite refreshing the page the second the bookings opened up, we were all still 3,000-something in line. But we managed! And 5 months later, and only a few days after our Cape Breton Summer, we were off…

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Cape Breton Summer

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Hello dear blog that I have neglected for over a month. Oh the things that I wanted to share here, but haven’t found the time. Even if I can find the time to sit down to write, my mind is instantly blank – amazing what four years of no sleep will do, isn’t it? But alas, here I am now, in my prime parenting capabilities (ie one child watching Paw Patrol on the iPad while one kid watches the new Spongebob movie on the TV and bless the baby for still being asleep). So, let’s start at the beginning shall we – back to the end of June and beginning of July. Where we start our “summer vacation” – as we live by the eldest’s school schedule – and begin our summer in Cape Breton.

a baby sleeps on an ourdoor swing as a family prepares for dinner in the background while camping in the summer on cape breton island

(I must note here, in the spirit of *realness*, that I made a classic mom mistake – acknowledged that the baby was in fact asleep. Veteran moms know this is an absolute faux pas that will immediately cause the baby to awaken. I will return later today… hopefully.)

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