Thursday morning we left the Port Dover area and headed back towards Toronto. I can remember going to the African Lion Safari out by Hamilton when I was younger and it has been a place that I have been wanting to take the kids too whenever we are out in Ontario. This year, we purposely put it into our plans. It has greatly changed since I was there last and we did not at all budget enough time there. One either needs a complete full day or else two partial days to be able to take everything in adequately. When we left we had two sad boys, but we promised that we would come back again and stay longer next time. We all had a great time as a family! If you have never been through the Safari, I encourage you too...and to truly get the full effect be sure to drive through it yourself (don't take the tour bus).
Lion Area
Baboon Area.
This was a huge disappointment compared to last time for me but to no fault of anyone except for the monkeys. I can remember driving through it with mom and dad and stopping and the vehicle being covered with monkeys looking in the windows, sitting on the mirrors, etc. We did not have a single monkey on our vehicle. NOT ONE. We were there just before noon our time so I'm not sure if it was due to the time of day or what - but I was giddy like a school girl excited for monkeys on the vehicle and nada. Hopefully they all get the memo next time ;)
Rhino up close and personal
Once we were done the drive through portion area of the safari, we headed into the other area. The boys really wanted to see the elephants and we were able to catch the last few minutes of the show. The baby elephant is 6 years old (not much a baby in our minds!). And we were in the perfect spot to be able to touch the elephants afterwards. Pretty cool!
Once we were done at the Safari, we headed to friends of ours - Brad & Trish Carr. It was a real treat to see their brand new home and have a visit with them.
Friday morning, Brad took us to his dad's trout pond. I am not one to get excited about fishing. In fact, I literally would rather watch water boil. LITERALLY. But this was fun and exciting. The water was so clear that you could see the fish swimming up or around your bait. All three kids each caught a trout (with adult help of course). The best treat of all was heading back to Brad & Trish's where he grilled them up on the bbq. SO YUMMY!!!!
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| It was also this pretty girl's birthday! |
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| This is about all close that Mckenzie would get to her fish! |
Friday afternoon we headed back into Toronto and checked into our hotel close to the hotel. After a little bit of a downtime/rest we headed downtown Toronto to a yummy Italian Restaurant for Mckenzie's birthday supper.
Finishing the evening off in perfect style - family bedtime story!
Our flight Saturday didn't depart until 6:30, so Saturday am we gave the kids an option:
a) zoo
b) splash park.
Zoo won!
We didn't arrive until 11:30am (we were slow moving) and Steve thought that we needed to be leaving by 2:30 (which was 1.5 hours than I thought was necessary)....so tensions were a bit high because I seriously couldn't figure out why we even gave the zoo as an option since we wouldn't have any time and what a waste of money it would be. Steve and I both have RED personalities (if you've never had a colour personality test done - do it...you learn lots about each other)...so when tensions rise it usually never ends pretty :). We parked at the zoo both in a foul mood, to have a nice young man ask us if we had bought our tickets yet....we hadn't.....and he gave us 4 free passes to the zoo that he wasn't able to use (and he wanted no money for them!). HA! Thank you Jesus! Foul mood and tension evaporated right away (Mckenzie was free since she was under 3) and we had an enjoyable afternoon.
The Toronto Zoo has a new splash park inside of it so we got the best of both worlds. The boys loved it! It really was a fabulous one! Mckenzie didn't think too much of getting wet but she continued to follow the boys around anyhow!
Once again, the majority of the flight back home was a breeze. Thank you WEST JET! Due to some weather issues we were delayed landing by about 1/2 hour - but that truly was the only hiccup. Oh and Mckenzie puking all over Steve shortly after the plane landed on the runway. It was pretty epic awesome :)
I was going through my phone and found these pictures - selfless of two of my favourite people :)
We were all exhausted and didn't feel like driving home that evening. As our luck would have it there was not a SINGLE hotel room in Saskatoon available! So we started on the drive home and got the last hotel room in North Battleford (and as our luck would have it, it was the family suite - AWESOME). We had a great night sleep, breakfast in the am and then went to the swimming pool in the hotel for over an hour.
It was a great trip away. We enjoyed catching up with family, visiting with friends, and spending time together as a family. What a blessing it is to be able to spend holidays as a family together. I am thankful that our children are awesome travellers, great kids in restaurants, sleep well in hotels, and are well behaved (most of the time) when we are at other people's homes.
