
I absolutely love summer and the sunshine. I’d be perfectly happy in a warm climate all year round, but alas I live in Canada a country with four distinct seasons. When mid to late August rolls around every year I get anxious and antsy knowing that if there are things I wanted to do or accomplish in the warmer months it’ll now have to wait until next year.
Some things I really wanted to accomplish this summer that will now have to wait:
1. Teaching Mr. L. how to ride his bike without training wheels.
- The odds were really stacked against us with this. Firstly Liam’s bike (that was given to us by a kind CPO’er) was stolen in broad daylight right from our driveway. Fortunately we did have a replacement bike but he found it really hard to pedal. In the spring I had envisioned us hanging out at Harbour Passage taking family bike rides all summer, but this was also thwarted by overhead construction on the City’s Harbour Bridge closing down the Cranberry Trail for the entire summer and next summer too. Boo!
2. Getting to PEI for Camping
-Although we did get to do two weekends of camping I would have really liked to camp over on PEI again. The last time we were over was the summer of 2008 for just 2 nights, it would have been great to spend an entire week at Twin Shores Campground, but vacation time did not permit this summer. Instead we were able to take a few long weekends camping in Sussex and at my mothers summer place in Wickham on the St John River. (see photo at the top of this post)
3. Magic Mountain in Moncton
-Magic Mountain is Atlantic Canada’s largest waterpark and since the kids really enjoyed Calypso Park outside of Ottawa I thought it would be great to finally be able to take them to Moncton’s smaller scale version. I’m still a little optimistic that we may still be able to fit it in, as I just received some free passes from a friend and they expire on Aug 31. I won’t completely rule it out yet.
4. Having friends and their families over
-Each summer I say we’re going to have more get-togethers with friends, but we never seem to make it a priority. Although this year these efforts may have been discouraged by number 5 and not wanting to have to crisis clean everytime we wanted to have anyone over.
5. Getting the house organized and decluttered
-Last summer you may remember I hired a professional organizer to help me with some hotspots in the house, specifically the basement/family room area. I’m happy to say that this area, is still “relatively” decluttered. I can’t say the same for the rest of the house, especially the kitchen and my new pantry. As well since Costco opened in town, my fridge and deep-freeze could use a good once over.
6. Teaching the boys to swim independently
-I had high hopes that the two bigger boys would be swimming independently this summer, but we just didn’t get out to my dad’s pool enough. Sadly we only got one swim day in at dad’s all summer and Ciaran missed it as he had pneumonia. I had thought about enrolling the boys in outdoor lessons, but was worried that the weather may not cooperate and with my skinny little microboys they’d be freezing and not want to go on foggy or overcast days. This turned out to be a mistake as this has to have been the best summer we have had in 20 years in the city!
I know there’s lots of other things that I’m missing, but these are the things that have been weighing on me the most as summer winds down. I know we’ve been extremely fortunate this summer to be able to do a fair amount of travelling. We’ve been able to take advantage of some great travel deals and even got to take my mother-in-law on one trip with us to Sebago Lake in Maine while Kenz was away at summer camp. I just can’t get that nagging feeling that I didn’t get everything accomplished and it makes me just a wee bit sad.

-So long Summer Twenty Ten, you will be missed!
Your friend,
Cara