This Week at the Brennans’

Oh what fun we had this week on vacation in Canada!

Here’s what happened this past week:

Since my last family update, our week could basically split into life before vacation and life on vacation. Life is much better ON vacation! Haha!

So before we left last Thursday morning, my time was mostly spent with my boys, doing laundry, packing and ordering more stuff from Amazon. Ha! Story of my life. Once Gordon and I put the boys to bed on Wednesday night, we were working like crazy with the last few things to do like dishes, sweeping, finding the passports and the last of the laundry. We got to bed by 1:30, were up at 6:30 and on the road by 9. Since we don’t own a car, we got a rental car for the drive which was lovely. It’s always so nice to feel like we are part of suburbia, even if just for a hot minute.

We got in to my parents place around 4:30p and it was basically a party from sun up to sun down the entire time we were there! Outlet shopping, strawberry picking, hiking, lake swimming, family dinners, game nights, cousin movie nights, soccer baseball, trampoline dodge ball, tie dying shirts, stranger things (for everyone but me), all dressed chips (😍😍😍) and many late nights.

I took several more photos than what is pictured here, but didn’t want to post them ALLLLLL because it was a lot. These are some of my favorites.

A few things to note:

I’ve never seen or tasted better strawberries than the ones we picked this year in Ontario. Huge, juicy and sweet sweet sweet. So glad we didn’t miss the season. This is the pie we make with fresh strawberries and it is THE BEST. (If pie isn’t your thing, try this strawberries and cream cake. HEAVEN.)

My brother in law created a new card game that we got to play and ‘test’ while we were there and it was so so fun once we got the hang of it. Can’t wait to give you more details when it becomes available.

I ate so many All Dressed chips. I used to love bringing ketchup chips back to the states, but now that those are easier to find here, All Dressed are the bomb! We should have brought more than 2 bags home.

There was a Lindt outlet store 10 minutes from my parents house and holy.moly. there are some amazing flavors that exist that I never knew existed. Namely the pistachio, the salted caramel, the mint and the almond. Hubba hubba. I need to find those here immediately.

Also went to the Gap outlet and picked up a few newborn outfits on clearance for our sweet little boy! Baby clothes are the best.

We went for a lovely hike around Pink Lake in Gatineau Park and I only made it a third of the way before feeling faint and dizzy. So I turned around and walked back to the car for more water and snacks while everyone else finished. I should have eaten lunch before the hike, but I thought I could power through. Turns out being in your third trimester can be a buzz kill sometimes. All is well though, and we were all able to cool off swimming in a nearby lake. Gatineau Park is BEAUTIFUL incase you are in the neighborhood or traveling through Ottawa.

Eddie and Blake LOVED spending time with their older cousins and strangely enough when they were all sitting together on the couch playing Nintendo, they looked like brothers. It was so fun to see. We don’t get to see my sister from Arizona (with 5 kids) very frequently, but when we do, all our kids get along so well! I’m rethinking ALL vacations because going to Arizona just sounds much more fun.

Brooke was inseparable from her cousin Olivia, also 10, the entire trip. They did swimming lessons (and basically everything else) together and rocked it all.

My parents have both lost 25+ pounds and looked incredible and were full of energy. They hadn’t mentioned anything about it, but it was obvious when they were literally running around with the kids and tackling kids in the lake. I’ve never seen them so happy or energetic. They looked great! Gives me hope for my fifties and sixties!!

Overall, living far away from my family is fine and we are happy to Facetime them all, but seeing them all in person makes me realize just how much I really like them. Guess we’ll just have to visit a lot more often.

Here’s what is coming up this next week:

Our nanny has next week off for a trip she is taking, so she is working three days this week and gets to meet Brooke!

I have a doctors appointment tomorrow for the little nugget. Everything seems to be going smoothly 🙂 Two more months and I’ll have a baby in my arms! Eek!

I’m going to be hopefully getting the baby furniture for the nursery. Still have to figure out whether or not to get a mini crib, a bassinet or a full size crib. I don’t want a full size crib because the room for the baby is so itty bitty, but feel like that might be the best option?! UGH. Finding small yet practical baby furniture is hard.

I’m hopefully going to get to the gym at least twice this week. Seems doable as I type it out buuuuuttttt we’ll see how things go. Ha!

Have a great week, friends!