Sandbanks Camping 2021

Welcome to Sandbanks Provincial Park camping extravaganza 2021!

This story really begins 5 months ago when we had 3 families trying to book 2 campsites at 7am before the sites all filled up. Two days and we were unsuccessful. The third day Chris and I, working on separate computers, were able to snag 2 sites! Phew! When Chris went to book his time off, however, the first week had already been booked by his colleague. So the rest of the Toronto Taylors travelled to Sandbanks while Chris enjoyed being in a house all by himself for the first time since March 2020. He then travelled by train to Belleville on Friday evening to join us for the last 4 days.

We were welcomed to the park on Sunday August 22 with a heat warning that would remain in effect for the next 5 or 6 days. We did a moonlight walk on the beach under a full moon. Two of our crew did their own full moon by skinny dipping in the lake.

The full moon rising above, and the full moon setting below.

Luckily, the lake always had a breeze so we spent most of our days at the beach swimming, playing cards, reading, and relaxing

Almost every night consisted of a campfire sing-a-long. Michael had the job of strumming while Maryke was in charge of the chords AND the harmonica for piano man. We did not have a piano... We did have back-up guitar players. Lucas's Whiskey in the Jar was a favourite and Thierry added some Arkells to the mix.

Time at the campsites were spent eating, singing, chatting, playing games (Secret Hitler was a favourite again), teenagers charging phones, and reading or napping in the ever popular hammock. Our beloved hammock did not survive this last trip and is now retired from service. 

A second annual wine tour was a huge success. We started with sparkling wines at Hinterland Winery and purchased a bottle there.

Next stop was the charming Grange of Prince Edward Vineyards and Estate Winery where Chris and I both sampled the tasting box and all 4 of us had some gourmet sausages. Yum!

Our last winery of the day was Closson Chase Vineyards which had a very professional feel to it. A talented pianist moonlighting at the winery wowed us with her wine glass dexterity, easily handling 10 of our 12 glasses in one hand.

 We finished off with some delicious coffee at an Italian café the Piccolina in nearby Wellington.

The next day, on advice from a good friend, the adults had dinner out at Harry's Charbroiled food truck. Delicious burgers outside of the Waupoos Pub where we purchased some locally made Cressy Mustard. We also take a pretty awesome photo there. I think we look like a tourism brochure!

While we were eating, the kids rustled up their own food and spent the sunset playing games at the beach.

Our final tradition was ice cream scoops on our way out of the park and back to Toronto. Another fantastic year! Love all these people so much!

Happy Hallowe'en

David was super excited about his costume this year. He started making it in August, took a 2 month break in order to keep the tradition of finishing the night before needing it! Our family has been big fans of the Nickelodeon show Avatar the Last Airbender. David is a 10 tonne air bison named Appa (that for some reason has a platypus tail).

One of the family favourite games is Guillotine, a card game about the French Revolution. Michael went out as a French noble, post-guillotine.

Our jack-o-lantern was from a pumpkin grown in my first vegetable garden this year. I was very pleased with this fruit of our backyard!

Michael had the honours of carving the pumpkin.

Our house was in one of the neighbourhood scavenger hunts for the "bush with a scary face". Not sure who designed the hunt, but I saw several dozen groups of parents and costumed kids stopping by!

Since trick-or-treating was discouraged, I divided up some of the candy I had already purchased amongst the family for snacking during our first family scary movie.

Michael and David participated in a neighbourhood street parade. All the families contributed some candy so that the kids could get a variety of loot at the end without having to go door to door. It was a nice way to still get some of the flavour of Hallowe'en (pun intended).

Speaking of flavour, we still had our traditional hotdog mummies for dinner. We also had our annual porch wine and candy with friends Sandy and Molly virtually through Zoom. Not as good as the real thing, but it was important to still be able to see them!

And then we watched The Sixth Sense! It was so great to watch the kids faces at the end! 

So that was our Hallowe'en. A mixture of old traditions and some new. David was a little morose about his lack of a pillowcase full of sugar, but I think he enjoyed the holiday in spite of that loss. I will enjoy not having quite so many candy wrappers floating around the house!

Happy Thanksgiving

I am very blessed with a delightful family even if we can't see each other as often as we would like, wonderful friends who bring me joy, the fortunate position that our jobs are relatively secure, that we live in a country that is doing pretty well with respect to keeping our people safe, and that we have become more aware of those segments of society that are NOT kept safe and we are trying to rectify that. I am hopeful that the awakening that has accelerated during these times of forced introspection continues and is a lasting legacy to the younger generation. 

We had a great Covid-Thanksgiving. Although we were unable to visit with our family, we had a delicious outdoor Thanksgiving dinner with our Toronto bubble on Saturday afternoon. Lots of food, conversation, and music. 

David was super excited for outdoor Thanksgiving. No pants or shoes but he did have his mask!

On Sunday we enjoyed a socially distant visit in the backyard. We opted to order in dinner from a local restaurant as a show of support for small businesses that must shut down with very little notice and full freezers! Cumin Kitchen provided a feast that the whole family enjoyed.

On the holiday Monday we arrived just before 9am at Rouge National Park for an 8.5km family hike.

 

Chris was dressed for adventure!

I was very thankful that we got to the park before 9am. By the time we left, the trails were crowded enough that masks were a good idea and there was a traffic jam looking for parking!