Finale

We came home yesterday from our last hurrah for this summer and our last vacation as a family of 4.

My family has a cottage that's a couple hours' drive away. It's hands-down our very favourite place to rest, relax and rejuvenate. Ironically, Craig cut down 2 trees while we were there and I washed the kitchen floor. Strange how we continue doing household chores while on vacation. I think it's partly because we don't have to do them, we do them because we want to. My Dad calls it Virtuous Work and I'm beginning to see it that way, too.

Enjoying a walk to the boat launch after dinner one night.

The boys had so much fun on the swing set. Shaun's old enough to be completely independent on it and was able to push Ian and himself on this little baby swing. I could hear them giggling from inside the cottage.

Shaun was so funny to watch when it came time to tidy up our beach toys and head back to the cottage. He would wash out the bucket in the foreground and then drop it in the sand before grabbing the other one to wash. Then when he'd return to pick up the first bucket he would realize it was covered in sand and throw the second bucket down then head back to the water to wash the first bucket again. He did this a couple times before I heard him getting frustrated that his buckets weren't staying clean. We talked about a solution (which included me holding the clean bucket with strict instructions to not place it in the sand) and he was much happier to see that it worked.

Fishing off the dock. They had worms as bait and Shaun's worm was even nibbled off but, alas, no fish for breakfast. Thankfully! I only had beer and pancake mix for batter. Not what I'd call ideal.

Anyway, we're home now and while I love that we've been able to spend so much time together as a family this summer enjoying many, many different things, I'm happy to be home. All the laundry aside, it's a lot of work to pack up our whole life essentially for only a few days. And being pregnant and having 2 little men to keep busy during the day, it's been difficult to keep up with other things. Things like regular grocery lists, weeding the garden, and answering emails. We have about a week and a half before school starts and I can't be more relieved that we have nothing planned until October!