The Cottage

The cottage.  Our family's first real vacation.  We didn't really know what to expect.  That's kind of the danger with renting something online.  Pictures can be deceiving.  Just look at a listing for a house in your town on a real estate website, then go to an open house.  It can be a big difference.  We lucked out in that the cottage itself was pretty nice for a cottage.  Being first-timers in cottage rental we thought we did okay.

Then we looked at the state of the beach on this "beachfront" cottage.  Now I don't have a whole lot of experience with Lake Erie, but the few times I've seen it, it was decent.  This beach, however, was frigging disgusting.  There is a full 20 feet of black sludge covered in a green icing .  And it stunk.  Not exactly the kind of place you want your kids playing in all week.

That's the "beach".  If you tossed a rock in, it splashed up black sludge pudding.

So we had to find other arrangements.  We were told about this provincial park by one of the neighbours.  We took a wrong turn in the deserted park though by following the "This way to swimming" sign.  What we found was a barren rock beach littered with the carcasses of dead fish.  

Mmmmm.

We ended up finding the good part later in the week, so all was good.

In the meantime though, we also found the neighbouring towns had free pools.  It was here that I showed my boneheadedness in its full glory.  As I was in the pool a full 10 minutes before I noticed my cell phone in my pocket.  

Crap.

Three days in rice and I was able to turn it on and save all the pictures.  Thank goodness for that life hack meme.

(Disclaimer: The next part is gross if you've never had kids.  If you have then, you'll see the humour.)

So the final evening we decide to go out for dinner.  A few minutes in, we noticed Miss Thang Two (formerly Thing Two) stunk.  It was my turn.  Of course there's no change table or counter in the men's washroom, but we make due.  It was a minor deuce, a two wiper.  No more than five minutes later, she reeked again.  Mama's turn.  Thang Two comes back to the table in a diaper only.  The diaper did not hold in all the contents.  Shorts in trash. Happy girl.

Here's the gross part. A woman walks by the table and slips.  Looks down and sees some "food" on the floor and tells the maître d' about it.  We look over and to our horror/hilarity, the "food" had squirted right out the diaper.  Gnarly.  I managed to clean it up with a bunch of wipes and dispose of it in the loo before they showed up with  a broom.  Ah, parenting.

Should we have told them about the biohazard? Probably.  Did we?  Heck no.  We paid the bill and high-tailed it out of there.

But alas, the vacation, like all good things,  came to an end.  Both kids learned to doggie-paddle in the pool and we had some laughs.  All in all, a successful first family vacation.

The Minivan of Awesomeness

There's quite a divide between those that minivan and those who swear they never would, even it was given to them.  When I started telling people how we were getting a van after our second car went for a shit, the divide was pretty impressive.  Pretty much anyone who has never owned a van is anti-van.   Quite simply, they're uncool and unsexy.  Kinda like me.  Vans are the cargo pants of the vehicle world.  They're boxy, unflattering, and you can put all kinds of shit in them.

Case in point: First trip to the cottage. Two adults, two kids, two 70 lbs. dogs, two coolers, two giant totes, 3 suitcases, a laptop bag and toys.  Plus random bags of groceries we couldn't fit in the coolers.  All in one unsexy minivan.  That trumps any shred of anti-van you can fire at me.

Vans are awesome.  They're the best thing to come along since sliced bread (the wheat kind, not the gluten-free kind.  That bread is crap).    

My uncle-in-law bestowed the magical purple wonder on us despite the fact that he has four grown boys, all of which appear to be anti-vanners.  We've known about it for awhile now, but we only came desperate for it when the old Sebring gave up the ghost a month ago.  Three weeks between vehicles when you're home all day with two kids pretty much sucks.  Luckily the weather was good enough to tow the kids around in the bicycle trailer most places we needed to go. 

We only had to use public transportation twice.  Do you know why no one likes to use public transportation?  Because it takes for-freaking-ever to get anywhere.  Thing 1 had a doctor's appointment  the day after the car died. A whole 25 kilometres away.   I thought it would be an adventure for the kiddos to ride the bus, so I planned out the trip.  Three buses and over two hours to come within 15 minutes walking distance of the doc's office.  I also grossly underestimated how much snacks would be required for a two hour bus voyage.  They pretty much ate everything in the first 10 minutes.  Big fail on that one.

Bring on the van, I say! And maybe some cargo pants.