Camping
Well, since Brian started his global role at work in April, I think he has travelled pretty much every week since. So, we decided that we would take the kids out of school (the second week of school), to go camping.
We drove the first night to Old Quebec City and stayed at the Marriott (on free travel points). Then spent the next morning walking about the old city. The kids really enjoyed seeing the canons, the horse carriages, and park areas. From there we drove again to Gaspesie National Park where we had pre-booked a Hutopia. Basically it is a tent inside a tent, it comes with a BBQ, four resin chairs for around the campfire, four above the ground beds (just mattresses, so we were still in sleeping bags), a table and a small kitchen (no sink but a lot of other things like a kettle, silverware, plates and bowls, wash basin, soap, cloths, and tea towels, a mini fridge (which was a super luxury), a cheese grater, pots and pans, glasses, and a toaster). They also had a table with four chairs in the outer tent.
Oh, and a mini heater. SUPER LUXURY! Not to mention a light!
We had super windy nights, hot nights, and really cold nights.
We took the kids to Mine d'agates du Mont Lyall, to go mining. We were looking for geodes (Sphere rocks) and found amethyst and smokey Quartz. Both rare. We also found beautiful other geodes.
The next day we went hiking up Mont Jaques Cartier, at 1,268 m (4,160 ft), it is the tallest mountain in southern Quebec.
We saw two black bears off in the distance on the way up but the real treat was seeing three caribou at the top. This was quite a difficult hike and I was super proud of the kids for this accomplishment. It was very windy at the top!
We did other smaller hikes throughout the trip which were very nice as well, but the leaves were still all green.
One hike was to Lake Paul where we were off roading it. Our GPS thought we were crazy but it did have some nice views. However, no moose sightings that we had been hopeful for.
There were only a few times where screen time was missed, and we did check in at the information centre and then the only restaurant mid week with our email/facebook and to let the kids play on the IPad (Prime Defenders was the game of choice, which was new to them).
We cooked a hobo meal right on our campfire (ground beef, small potatoes and sliced carrots with butter, salt and pepper). It was so yummy!
We drove back a day early to attend Easton's hockey evaluation skate. He had two days of drills (one hour each) where the kids were being reviewed for team placement.
Saturday was at 3pm, so that was a decent hour, but Sunday was 6:15am ice time. That was early! I got up at 4:40am to make it on time!
And just like that, we are a hockey family.
It was a great week. Now to get back into routine with school tomorrow.