A week at the cottage

On Aug. 7, we left town for a week at the cottage in Sundridge. We rented the same cottage as last year (which is on the same property as the year before).

The weather for the week was almost perfect, which means we were out on the beach and swimming in the lake every day. We had only a little rain, on Sunday afternoon, but we still managed a quick swim that morning.

Both kids are now tall enough to walk all the way to the dock unassisted -- which is about 100 ft out. We would always go out there with them, but it gave them a lot of confidence in the water to know they could do it themselves.
And of course, once we got to the dock, they'd both want to jump off anyway! By the end of the week, Austin was jumping off on the deep side (with a lifejacket) and swimming back around the dock unassisted. Alex too would jump off the dock into your arms, but she'd quickly tire of the game and prefered to jump and play in the shallower water.

Austin has also been very excited by the idea of going fishing, so we bought him a little fishing rod and he and Ryan went fishing off the dock one afternoon. They caught absolutely nothing -- not even weeds -- but the boys seemed to enjoy sitting out there for over an hour. Another day, they went out in the canoe with the fishing rod -- but still, no fish.

On the Tuesday, we packed the kids up and drove to Bracebridge (about an hour away) to go to Santa's Village. It's a cute little amusement park geared at the under 10 crowd and it was a lot of fun. We visited Santa and his reindeer and went on lots of rides. They're pretty lenient with their height restrictions there and as such, Alex was able to go on everything -- even the little mini roller coaster (something she'd never get away with at Wonderland). She LOVED it!

We stayed all day (and it was really hot that day) and by the time we got back to the cottage at 8 p.m., we had two very tired kids.

Other than that, we stuck pretty close to the cottage this year. The property we stay at is fantastic and the kids just run around (and run themselves out) all day long. And since the weather was beautiful all week, we spent most of the time on the beach.

A note about the ducks this year -- only one duck came around to be fed early on the week. We were eating lunch at the time, so we tossed pieces of an uneaten hot dog bun to it. When it returned a day later, it decided Alex's toes would be lunch and took a nip at her! Austin chased the duck away for hurting his sister and it never returned.

Oh, and one last note. When we left on Saturday morning, we went to Orillia to visit Great Nana and Austin and Ryan fished off the dock for a little while that afternoon. They got 4 fish! They threw them all back, but they were pretty excited.