The Lovely East Coast -Visiting Family

We spent a few days in Vermont visiting my sister at her new summer lake home. It was a fabulous place to chill and catch up on the much needed sleep. Mark even slept in until 10:30 in the morning which is something I have never seen before. The weather was also incredible and we all managed to create tan lines in only a couple of days. My sister and her husband have just completed this summer building their mansion. Its stunning, colourful, has a gorgeous lake view, what more can I say.
After a day of waterskiing and frolicking on the lake, Sunday August 13, we packed up from Vermont, to drive to Sutten, Quebec, Mark’s mothers (Gissa and Steves) place.

About an hour or so out of town from the lake mansion “Where are all the passports?” came to mind. We had managed to take everything, done a check and double check of every room in the house and still we managed to leave the children’s passports behind. I immediately called my sister to have them couriered to couriered. Big realization about the absolute necessity of organization and creating a list of everything in each of our bags and then checking that list everytime we leave a location. We are going to be travelling with a small back pack with few items, most of them important. Once we get the backpacks, and the final packing is complete, the list will be a priority for each one of us to create. So far the kids have been in New Jersey - Caleb left his sandals and Vermont- we left their passports.

Gissa and Steve just completed having a pond dug in their backyard. They live on 25 acres of land in the Eastern Townships of Quebec so plenty of space to have a pond. And what a POND! It is like a small lake. Just gorgeous. Fresh springs coming out from the ground, pristine trees all around, at least 100 m of length. And to top it off, there are lots of frogs jumping around everywhere. We even spotted a blue one the other day while we were in the middle of a massive croquet game (a tradition when we are visiting).

The kids have spent the past summers at Gissas and Steves for at least 2 weeks and they were not about to give that up just because we were going travelling for a year. They also insisted that Mark and I were not to interfere in their visit and traditions. So Mark and I packed out bags and left for a quick trip to Ottawa. Time to get Visas, airline tickets and to do some real shopping.


Lianna