First Family Vacation

We’re home. We had a blast. I want to be on vacation with my family forever. Except, in that forever, I’d like my baby to sleep at night while we are away. Because, honestly, aside from the fact that she did NOT sleep at night while we were away, it was perfect. We walked miles and miles, seeing sights, shopping, picnicking in the parks – and just all together having a good time. A good, good time. Just the three of us.

Now that we’re home, I feel like Evalyn and I are going through a Daddy withdrawal. We got so used to having him with us all day for 5 days straight that life is kind of boring now that it’s just the two of us again.

I’m normally not a huge fan of vacation recap posts but for the sake of memories, I’m about to do just that. As I mentioned last week, we made a quick change of plans – very last minute – and headed to our capital city, Ottawa, instead of going camping. And lemmetellyou, we are glad that we did. Thanks to Jen, we found an amazing deal on travel zoo for a suite with a full kitchen and living/dining area. This meant that we could still keep our vacation relatively cheap by eating most of our food at the hotel and also, we could sleep more comfortably by putting up the playpen in the corner of the living room area instead of right beside our bed. Although, in the end, that part of the arrangement was kind of pointless since she ended up in our bed a good portion of the time anyway.

We left around 9 on Wednesday morning, stopping for a quick McD’s breakfast and iced coffee on the way out of town. We stopped for about an hour for lunch and to stretch our legs (okay, and to buy some new shirts at Old Navy for Evan) and then continued on. The trip took much less time than I expected and we were pulling into the hotel parking lot just before 3.

We settled in, had a quick snack and then headed out for the evening. We wandered around the By-ward market for a few hours. I stopped at Lush to pick up a few bath fizzies (yum) and we stopped at a nice little Pub to have some dinner.  After dinner, we walked a little more and then headed back to the hotel around 7. Eva went to bed and Evan and I ate junk food and watched a movie in the room.

Let me tell you, traveling sure is different with a baby in tow. Normally, when seeing a new city, I would leave my hotel at 8 am and not return until well after dark, in an attempt to see every single thing there was to see in two days. That’s just not possible anymore. But, that’s okay. We just decided to relax. Take in a few things and not over do it. We stuck to places we could go that were within walking distance from the hotel and quite honestly, those were the most important places to see anyway. Neither Evan or I had been to Ottawa since middle school so it was all new to us again.

On Friday morning, we all slept in until past 8 (although, sleeping in takes on a different meaning when you were up all.freaking.night) and woke up to find that tooth #7 had decided to join us for our vacation. We made a big breakfast in the room and then headed to the pool for a swim. I put the babe down, and we got ready for the day, packed a picnic lunch and relaxed a bit.

Once she was up, we were off to Parliament Hill. We wandered around there, seeing all the statues and buildings and had a picnic lunch with Sir John A MacDonald. In the collage below, my very favourite picture is the one of Eva and I in front of the “Women are Persons” monument. This monument honours the famous 5 – five women who worked hard (and were successful) in securing a place for women in the senate. Many freedoms my daughter will enjoy are a result of the work of these ladies.

After seeing Parliament, we walked through the mall a bit and headed back for nap #2. After the nap, we decided to stay inside for a while since it was balls hot so we went swimming again and cooked an early dinner in the room. The evening was spent wandering more of the market and eating ice cream. Eva was more than happy to share her first ice cream cone with her Daddy. We also walked along the river and Eva had a chance to dip her toes in the canal.

On Friday morning, we got up early, made breakfast and went for a walk in Major’s Hill Park. It was a beautiful, cool morning – just perfect.

We packed up while Eva napped, checked out and were ready to go. Except we had one more stop to make. Because they only took cash and we didn’t have any the night before, I hadn’t had a chance to get my beloved Beaver Tail yet. So, yes, I had to stop for one on the way out of the city (you can see me stuffing my face in one of the photos above). I also stopped at one of the shops I’d been in earlier to grab a few souvenirs and off we went. We went to Dow’s Lake for a picnic lunch and a walk and then headed off to Cornwall for the next step on our journey.

Evan’s sister, Amy, got married on Saturday so the last portion of our trip was full of wedding fun. We got to the hotel in Cornwall in time for a swim and a nap before the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. And on Saturday, we enjoyed celebrating as Amy and Stuart committed their lives to each other in an extremely beautiful wedding ceremony. Unfortunately, I don’t have very many photos from the wedding. With a husband in the wedding party and a crazy 10 month old scooting around, I didn’t have an extra hand to snap photos. But here are a few of my wee family from throughout the day.

The wedding reception was so much fun and thanks to Auntie Marcia and Auntie Linda, I was able to put the baby to bed and enjoy some time partying it up on the dance floor sans baby.

Sunday came quickly and after enjoying a delicious brunch (waffles, yum), we packed up and hit the road. Again, we stopped for lunch and a leg stretch and made it home just before 3.

We were all amazingly tired when we got home. Five busy days with not a lot of sleep will do that to you. Evalyn went to bed around 6:40 and, to be honest, we followed shortly after. Ev fell asleep on the couch at 7 and finally managed to make his way to bed to go to sleep for good at 8:30 and I crashed then, too. And at last, we slept for longer than 2 hours at a time.

Although this vacation was short – it was so special. We’ll always look back and remember it as our first family vacation. My heart is so full.