Civic Holiday Long Weekend

I just had one of the most amazing weekends of my life. You know? I feel almost bad saying that, because what about all those other amazing weekends I just had? I said almost, because I know, they're going to keep coming :D I have a lot of amazing weekends!

This one was worth writing about though. My 10 year old niece Kailin came for a visit to the cottage with her mom Lynn, Aunt Lorna and Uncle Lonny. We all arrived on the Friday evening and spent the night settling in. The Aunt & Uncle brought a pop up trailer tent with them and Corey set them up right on the water - they had a great view. Kailin and mom slept inside with us on the comfy couch. The first night wasn't too late but we got very luck the next morning - the kids slept in until TEN AM!!! Longest my girls have ever slept! We all felt amazing, well rested and excited to be together. We decided to go to Lakeside Zoo in Peterborough - what an amazing attraction and mostly FREE (the train costs $2/person). We all had such a nice time seeing the animals, riding the train, playing at the park and the girls even spent some time at the Splash Pad. That evening we played our new favourite board game (it's great for kids & adults!) Bejewelled! We played a few games with the kids and then Lynn and I stayed up until 3:30am playing probably 10 games of Bejewelled and finishing off a 1.5L bottle of wine :D I'll admit, we were nervous about the next morning, how could we get lucky two days in a row? The girls slept in until TEN THIRTY AM!!!!

Sunday was another nice day, we stayed close to home, Lynn and I only went out to the local shops so I could show her the good stuff we have access to on the reserve. We went for a swim in Rick's pool and visited with Blue Blue (the peacock). Rick is so nice, he gave us all some of Blue Blue's feathers :) We watched Despicable Me 2 and had a decent lasagna (I didn't add water to the pan!) for dinner then busted out the Bejewelled again. What a great family game! That night lasted just as long as the previous one thanks to some young neighbour friends who wanted to hang out with Corey and I :) They had a 40oz of Jagger with them and I thought I'd be sick the next morning for sure but I was fine! We couldn't sleep much past 9am because Lynn and family had to leave but we survived :)

Lonny caught a lot of fish and was so nice, he gave us most of the meat! They had their little dog Sasha with them and Maggie was in heaven. Another friend came by on Sat with his Pitbull puppy so Maggie is pretty much dead tired today LOL. Even she had an awesome weekend!

Before this weekend my head was spinning in negative family land....I was frustrated and sad about a relationship I've been struggling with. Ironically, this specific relationship was brought up by Lynn because of things said openly on Facebook and her perspective was that this person openly tries to bring me down with her comments. The tone, the words....this talk reinforced my recent thoughts that I need to LET GO. All I got this weekend was love and encouragement - and these people are new family. This weekend was my dream family weekend full of laughter, love and hugs. Open dialog, different opinions, different religious beliefs...all able to exchange information openly, all able to support and love each other. I have found emotionally intelligent people to share my life with - and they're now in the majority in my life. THIS is winning. THIS is success in my opinion.

I feel like I've done it. I've achieved my dreams and I have so much love and support. Feeling this way is helping me see the choices I have and need to make. For me, for my kids.

This upcoming weekend I'm heading off to Ottawa with my Grampa's new Tablet :) I've downloaded Euchre, Cribbage, Words with Friends and I've signed him up with an e-mail account. I've also downloaded his mobile banking app. I'm going to enjoy all the moments and memories with my Grampa and at least teach him how to open the Euchre game lol. As far as I'm concerned, the time with him is worth everything and the tablet is a bonus.

Spreading the love,
Sarah