August Long Weekend Travels
After two weeks of Brian travelling for work, he arrived home Friday evening only to get into our van and travel with us for the weekend.
We started by venturing up to Sudbury. It was nice to have a hotel already booked and ready for us as we arrived very late.
The next day we got up and fully used our day. We started at The Big Nickel. It really is BIG! We took the kids to Dynamic Earth and explored the mine. This was a first for all of us. We got to wear hard hats, and saw pick axes and shovels and other machinery from time gone by. Easton got to put the dynamite in the wall for our explosion. Hadley was a little nervous about this.
Both kids connected with mining a lot from the game MInecraft. We saw the huge smoke stacks and even took pictures holding nickels in front of the big nickel.
From there we went to Science North. I always feel like we could spend way more time there but I was happy again with our visit.
Brian held a tarantula in hopes of inspiring the kids curiosity, which later led to Hadley almost kissing a snake.
There is a water play area that is mixed with quarts and obsidian, I think this was a highlight for everyone. Again, another link to Minecraft as the kids mine both quarts and obsidian in the game.
Hadley tried out a robotic astronaut arm, and while both kids built a car for racing out of K'nex, Easton LOVED this!
There were things to jack up, and gears to play with, magnets and iron filings. There was a giant operation game, chess, and phones, and so much more. SO MUCH FUN!
From here we went to camp at Fairbank Provincial Park. We had the most amazing fun playing monkey in the middle football in the water. I don't know why it was so fun, but it was quality.
Of course there were sand castles and such too but playing together in the water was the most fun.
Later while driving at Goat Island we were first in line at the stop light to see the Little current swing bridge let some boats pass through.
We enjoyed some lovely ice-cream at Farquars and then took part in the Haweaters festival (apparently there is a Haw Berry, and haw eaters are people born on the island) on Manatoulin Island. There were egg on a spoon races, beach ball kick races, tug o'war, balloon tosses and hula hooping. Plus jumpy castles.
From there we went to Bridal Veil Falls. The kids loved playing here.
Soon it was time to take the Chi Chee Maun off the island. We tried for the start tour but the sky was far too cloudy.
We should have pre-booked this but we didn't have exact plans for when we would be going through so, we got on the standby and it worked out.
That night we had a campsite booked but when we arrived it was MORE than raining. So with our new van, we put the sto-n-go seats down for a place to put the kids sleeping bags and we made the best of it in the van.
The next day we drove by both Brian's childhood cottage and my childhood cottage. That was cool.
This was followed by a visit at my sisters. I loved seeing the cousins play together. We enjoyed dinner together and then there was a VERY late drive home. (THANK YOU BRIAN)!
What a great weekend!