Summer Recap

As we usually seem to be saying around this time, "wow that summer flew by!!".  The kids started back to school yesterday so now is the perfect time to look back at what we got up to.

We kicked off the summer to head to Killbear Provincial Park for a weekend of camping.

We hosted some friends and hit up a Blue Jays game.

Met some friends for mid-week dinners.

Dave and I golfed.

Then we picked up the kids from two weeks at Muskoka Woods.

Q played house league and on the rep team.  We loved the rep tournaments!

Dave and E got a lot of golf in.

We swam at High Park once.

We spent a weekend in Collingwood at a friends' cottage. 

Wasaga Go-Karts

We spent a week in Nova Scotia and got to see family and friends.

We enjoyed our city.

I went to Timmins for a work party.

We went to a cottage in Muskoka with friends.

Dave's parents were here for the last week and we got out for dinner one night downtown. 

We finished up our summer with a bike ride and stop for arcade games and pizza.

In addition to Muskoka Woods, E did some golf camps at the Club.  Q did one baseball camp, two sailing camps, and two weeks at Pine Project.  We had lots of sunny days, and lots of rainstorms.  We did lots of biking and really appreciated the Bloor bike lanes (they are a controversial topic around here!). 

I'm always sad to see summer go, but we have busy months ahead with lots to look forward to as we roll into the end of the year. 

Long Weekend Recap

I'm starting this recap a bit earlier than the weekend because I never got around to doing a Friday Favourites post last week. 

Dave's parents were visiting and did a few things with the boys. 

On Thursday, they all went downtown to see Graffiti Alley and then met me for supper at the Amsterdam Brewhouse.

I made this yummy salad on Friday night to go with our supper - peaches, blueberries, candied pecans, goat cheese and a maple balsamic dressing. 

We got our fire pit out the night and a couple of neighbours came over too.

We celebrated Dave's mom's birthday.

On Saturday morning Dave was golfing but when he got back we needed to get the rest of us outside.  We decided to bike to on of our favourites places - The Greater Good - for pizza and arcade games.  However once we got there we realized it didn't open until 5:00, and were 1.5 hours too early for that!  So to tide us over, we decided to look for geocaches. 

One route took us to these stairs.  We could have circled around to a road, but decided to just hike up the stairs with our bikes.  There was a little ramp on the side so that sort of helped, but it was a long way!

After finding the three geocaches in the area, we popped into Blood Brothers Brewing for one drink and some shuffleboard.

And then we finally reached our original destination.  We were disappointed to see they had moved out a few of their arcade games, including my favourite, skee-ball, but we were still entertained.

And enjoyed our pizza before biking back home.

On Sunday Dave and I actually went golfing and left the boys home by themselves for the afternoon.  That meant they were playing video games and watching movies instead of being outside, but with school starting this week we thought it would be okay.  They have been so busy all summer, they haven't really spent long periods of time in front of a screen. 

It was a beautiful day on the golf course.

This coyote (middle of the photo) came trotting across the 15th green while we were playing.  Then later it and another one were frolicking on the 18th fairway while we watched from the patio.

I hit a few good shots, but couldn't really put together a good score. 

Monday was spent tidying up, getting stuff ready for school, going for a walk, and relaxing.  The weather definitely changes when the calendar turns to September! But even with the cooler breezes, the warm sun is lovely. 

August Books

Two great books this month to finish up my summer reads:

First was This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune.

I think this was the book of the summer, it seemed like everyone was talking about, which prompted me to read her first two books last month.  This time we meet Lucy who lives in Toronto. Five years ago she went to Prince Edward Island to meet up with her best friend, Bridget, who is from there.  But Bridget's flight is delayed and Lucy has to go to the house by herself, she stops in at a restaurant and ends up hooking up with a guy she meets there.  We follow the story back and forth between present day and each of her visits to the Island. 

I have been to PEI several times but it has been a few years, this book really made me want to visit again soon and luckily I have a friend that lives there. (Cindy, pencil me in for next summer!) It really is a charming island and the author really captures it, the lobster, the oysters, the red sands, the Anne of Green Gables references.  She even mentions Hurricane Fiona, which was a pretty devastating event for the Island a couple of years ago.  Her references to Toronto landmarks is also something that I enjoy. 

This trio of books, along with the one coming out next year, should be part of your summer reads!

The second book I read was None of This is True by Lisa Jewell.

This had a different tone from the other book I read this month.  Here we meet Josie, a 45 year old woman in London.  She is out for dinner with her husband and at the same restaurant is Alix, also celebrating her 45th birthday.  Josie is fascinated by Alix and introduces herself as her "birthday twin". They run into each other again and although Alix feels like Josie is a little weird, they strike up an acquaintance and Alix gets the idea to make a podcast about Josie's life. (Alix is already a podcaster but looking for her next project.) Interspersed with the story we get excerpts from a Netflix doc indicating there is more to this story than we think.

This was a book that definitely caught my attention and I wanted to keep reading.  It was also very creepy and reminded me of Baby Reindeer, which we did stop watching because it was so creepy.  Because of the Netflix doc transcript throughout, we knew that there was something "off" but were never quite sure what.  It was definitely a different type of thriller mystery book, and I would recommend it.