Jellystone Toronto for Sierra's 10th Birthday

We have a reservation at Craigleith Carefree for the month of June but we took a few days away to celebrate Sierras 10th birthday. We loved our time at Madison Jellystone in Florida this winter, so we thought we would give our local Toronto Jellystone a try.

Our friends camped beside us in a companion site for the weekend (see our old trailer in the background above) and Sierras cousin joined us as well. Nana came for a couple days too.

When we first arrived the girls could barely wait to get the trailer set up. They wanted to jump straight in the pool.

After swimming we played some Mini Golf.

My favourite part of the whole birthday camping experience was our first morning at Jellystone. Yogi Bear must have just risen from hibernation as he was so energetic, fun and mischievous.

After Yogi posed for a couple pictures he spotted the scooter and that is when the shenanigans began.

 He tried to jump in the jeep but just as he was about too Ian opened the trailer door and it must have scared Yogi as he jumped out very quickly.

And he ran right over to Ian and hugged him as if to say sorry.

Then it was time to Hula Hoop!

 After all that running around he was tired so he stole Nanas chair for a rest.

 Bye Yogi! Thanks for making our first morning here super fun!

 Saturday was birthday party day.

Birthday nails

 We made Tie Dye T-Shirts and picture frames.

 Yogi came for a visit but he must have stolen too many "pic-a-nik" baskets earlier in the day as he was moving kind of slow. After the fun we had the other morning it was a let down that he came, took a picture and went. Sierra asked me why he didn't do any pranks so I just said he was sleepy. The shenanigans at the party would have been amazing!

 Then it was off to the pool time...

And Slip n slide fun time for those who didn't want to swim long...

 And presents...

And cake...

 And out door games...

For some evening fun I found these glow in the dark balloons which were a big hit!

We are Yogi Club members so they sent Sierra a birthday card in the mail and it entitles her to a gift from the treat box.

 Making her pillow after the party was done.

 I think she had a pretty fun time. Ian also rented some pedal cars for them but by the time I finished the dishes they gave up on pedalling them and took them back so no pictures!

The website stated that they had new jump pads coming for 2016 but all their extra activities and movie night, only run in July and Aug. No other activities were available which was a bit disappointing since we had so much fun at the Madison Florida location in April but we made due.

Happy Double Digits Sierra! We LoVe you!

Welcome 2012!

This year brings lots of changes for us! We take on living another Year of Choice and are making lots of big choices and changes!

First though we hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We had an amazing 2011 with our 4 1/2 month trip touring the US and Canada. We made many memories and are looking forward to making many more in 2012.

We started off the new year with a yummy dinner inspired by Gordon Ramsey. We enjoyed a wonderful roast turkey dinner with lemon, parsley and garlic, roasted potatoes with chili and tumeric, and brussel sprouts. For desert we had Strawberry Margarita shots. I found the recipe HERE and they were sooo good! You can't taste the Tequila however they were quite potent as I put the left over jello mix in a container and when you ate it alone it was strong! The sweetness from the strawberry made them so yummy and you couldn't taste the Tequila at all. We will definitely make these again in the future!

With 2012 here now we are all set to live another year of choice! We look forward to it. We haven't set resolutions as usually they get broken. Instead we have decided to live our choices. We are embracing 2012 with all of it's possibilities! We are open to change and to all the hard work to get there.

January 1st means we have less then 4 months to clean up this chapter of our lives so we can move onto the next chapter. For some the changing of the years means cleaning and organizing...for us it means thinning out and getting rid of the majority of our belonging so we can hit the road in our RV again for a few years. During this time we will look for land and then take a few years to build our Earthship ourselves (so excited to be one step closer to our Earthship dream)!

Each day we will have to decide what is important enough to keep and what can we live without. We will chose to keep those things around us that mean the most, and let go of all those things we collect throughout our lives that we really don't need... you know all that "stuff" that piles up here and there and before you know it you have a room full of "stuff". We'll purge, we'll sell, we'll give away, we'll donate...we'll chose the life we want to live and go for it! It's amazing how powerful making choices can be!

Why 4 months? We have friends in Toronto who are getting married in April and we are choosing to sell off everything to be at their wedding and not have to come back here to tie up loose ends. So we have 2 weeks to get the house ready to sell and listed and then hopefully sold in time to allow us to be ready to leave and make it to the wedding on time and not look back! Celebrating a wedding seems like a grand way to embrace our choices and begin our next journey in life as well.

So with that...we wish you a year of choice, we wish you love when you least expect it and we wish you much happiness in the year to come! Happy New Year!!! with LOVE from all of us :)

We'd like to give big welcome wishes to Michael and Dee of gonerving and to Heinzrvjourney who are just beginning their choice of life in an RV as well. Welcome and thanks for joining us even though we are parked at the moment :) Glad to have you along as we start this next chapter in our lives.

I'd like to thank you all for following us this past year and hope you enjoy reading about our coming choices this year as well. Things have been sporadic around here since we have been "home" but there are many more journey's to come and we'd love you all to join us!

Christmas is coming...

I LOVE the Christmas holidays! I love the sights and sounds and smells of Christmas. I love the magic of Christmas. I love just sitting by the Christmas tree in the evenings, all lit up and the fire a glow. I love all the time we spend together as a family. I don't like the cold white stuff much but the Christmas season I love! We don't have a lot of family traditions but the ones we have are important to us.

Every year daddy makes sausage rolls from scratch just like he and his dad used to do. Below Sierra helps daddy for the first time in 2008.

We love decorating our tree together. Here's some of our past trees full of many homemade and store bought ornaments but all of them have a special meaning.

Aayla helping in 2009

2009 tree all decorated

2010 tree all decorated

Everyone helping to decorate our 2010 tree

Me adding one of my favourite store bought
ornaments...I just LOVE this fairy dog :)
 I have a large one in my craft room too!
2011

Our 2011 Tree...some branches are heavy
with multiple ornaments as the girls love
to add numerous ornaments to each branch

We always make gingerbread houses. Sierra and Aayla are so excited about our house from 2010

We buy or make at least one new tree decoration every year (in all honesty we usually end up with 3 or 4 every year). Here are some of my favourite ornaments from past years. I love unwrapping each ornament as we get ready to hang them.

Notice a theme? A lot of red, a lot of Santas, and mainly handmade ornaments.

This year we started a new tradition called "the Elf on the Shelf" and we LOVE our Elfie :)

To learn about the Elf on the Shelf click HERE


Here are a couple pictures of the mischief our Elfie has been getting into

Swinging on the chandelier

Caught watching a movie

Built a pop mountain/tree and gave the
girls invitations to the north pole BC

We are having fun with this new tradition! I love his vintage feel and the book he came with is really a sweet story. It is so magical to watch the girls search for Elfie every morning and to see them talking to him throughout the day, telling him stories :)

What traditions do you have each Christmas? Are you in an RV this Christmas? How will you celebrate? decorate? I'm curious as this is our last Christmas in a typical "house" and next year we will be on the road and I would love to hear about some of your RV Christmas plans.