A week at the cottage

Our week’s vacation this year was spent at a quiet little cottage on a lake in Sundridge – about 45 minutes north of Huntsville.

We spent most of the week doing absolutely nothing by adult standards, but having a heck of a lot of fun exploring in by Austin’s terms. Every afternoon was spent swimming – something that Austin absolutely loved. On the Sunday, he tried to get climb into the lake, shoes and all, and by the Tuesday he was jumping off the dock into daddy’s arms.

Although the weather was beautiful every day but one – and even on that day, it was still only cloudy and 20C – every morning it was too cool to swim, so we found something else to do. One day, we went for a drive around the lake; a couple of days we took Austin for a walk a few kilometres up the road and back.

Another day we drove into town and found a park – which happened to be on the water and proved to be just as much as a draw for Austin as the playground.

And on another day we went to the nearby petting farm. The goats and donkeys were really friendly – especially when you were holding food – and Austin really enjoyed feeding them.

The only activity we planned was a hike on the Tuesday. We left the cottage around 10:30 and drove until we found the Forgotten Trails. We heard about them from a pamphlet left behind at the cottage – and forgotten they were because only my keen eyesight found the tiny little sign pointing in the right direction. But, once we found the trail we wanted, we found it was well maintained, and apparently seldom used. In the two-to-three hours we were gone from the car, we saw no one, and our car remained the only one on the side of the road.

It was a two-kilometre hike up to a lookout (and then two kilometres back) – a pretty decent hike with an extra 30 pounds on your back (which thankfully, Ryan was carrying!).

But the view was really nice, and we even managed to figure out how to use the timer on our camera and snap a couple of family pictures.

That about sums it up. Ryan and I spent the rest of the time relaxing and reading when Austin napped and making our way through the James Bond collection in the evenings. Austin, on the other hand, when he wasn’t playing in the water or running around the property, was learning how to climb out of his playpen when he didn’t want to sleep and discovering that ice cream sandwiches are the best snack in the world.