Toronto 2013

I got SO MUCH great response from my last post, so I thought I'd be ambitious and go back to the very beginning of July to continue blogging.  Our family (minus Josh and Sheila) drove to Toronto, Canada for a little vacation.  On the way we stopped at the Warren Dunes in Michigan.  The beach was pretty much deserted, so we threw off our clothes (well, the girls did!) and jumped on in.  It was a fantastic break on the long, ten hour drive.

At the border we were able to experience our very first Tim Horton's.  The girls were in awe.  I mean, look at all of those donuts!

And Nate and I were in awe of the delicious coffees and teas, all at a fraction of Starbucks' cost!

On Sunday we went to St. James Cathedral (an Anglican church, just like the church we attended in Germany.  yay!) for their annual 'jazz mass'.  They had a jazz ensemble playing along with a jazz choir.  It was truly amazing.  Even the sermon tied in jazz and spirituality.  I loved it.

We visited the Torono zoo, and Nate was excited to try out the gorilla ropes.  He was one of the bigger gorillas on the ropes, not surprisingly!

I think the girls' favorite part of the zoo was the merry-go-round.  They still just don't quite appreciate the animals.

A highlight for the little ones was our trip to a modern-day princess castle.  We walked to the highest tower and visited most of the rooms.  I think Elena was imagining herself as ruler the whole time.  I don't blame her.  So was I!  (ha!)

We brought our own lunch and ate in the castle garden.  It was beautiful and peaceful.

Of course, the main reason was visited Toronto was to attend Tim's barbershop competition.  We visited the Barbershop history area and got to take our family 'barbershop' photo!

I got sick midweek, so Nate took the girls to the Science/History museum all by his lonesome.  

We stayed in a townhouse with Dad and Mom, Katy, Greg & Mary, and all four of their kiddos!  It was crowded, and I think we all were a bit claustrophobic, but we saved quite a bit of money.  The kids loved every minute of it!

For weeks after we returned, Annika would ask me if we could take the streetcar instead of drive.  Sadly, I had to tell her that Groveland wasn't equipped with streetcars.  I'm still sad about that... as is she.

We ate a lunch at the St. Lawrence Market.  The market is this giant old building converted to... well... an indoor market.  

We got food from several of the vendors and shared.  It was delicious!

On one of our last days in Toronto we took the ferry to the Toronto Islands.  It was a large hassle getting there.  The lines were huge, so Nate had the great idea for us to hop onto a ferry that had no line.  That should have been a warning, but there's no saying no to my scheming hubby!  So, we took the ferry over, only to realize that we had ferried to the nude-beach section of the Islands!  It would have taken too long to ferry back, so we ended up walking several miles back to the 'normal' part of the Islands in the heat!!!  You might imagine how thrilled the girls and I were!  But we did have to laugh!  This is just the sort of predicament you might imagine my husband getting us into!

At the first strip of unoccupied beach we could find, we ate lunch and stopped to swim and play in the sand.  The conditions weren't perfect, the beach was rocky, but we had fun.

The girls were covered with sand from head to toe!  We finally packed up and hoofed it even farther to the main part of the island.  There we found pools, playground equipment, an amusement park, and clean bathhouses to wash up in.  We also found the crowds.  In the end, I think we enjoyed our quiet beach and meandering hike a bit more than we would have enjoyed the madhouse on the main island.

The girls really loved taking the subway.  We would make sure that we caught the front train and then watch the lights race through the tunnel.  Excitement!

Our beautiful townhouse!  The inside was newly renovated, large and spacious!  I would highly recommend it for anyone with a large family.  Just maybe not three highly independent families crammed into one space!

It was with great joy that I got to watch my little brother sing his heart out, and his quartet earn 8th place at the International competition.  I was so very proud of him.

What a fun vacation we had.  I love my family very, very much, and always enjoy spending time with them.  Maybe next time we'll all get side-by-side townhouses, and then we could call it a 'perfect' vacation!