Thanksgiving Roadtrip!

It took me a while to assemble all the pictures, but here is a recap of our Thanksgiving Roadtrip!

My sister lives outside Toronto, which is a good 500km from Montreal. The halfway point for that trip is roughly Kingston. Before having a kid and when he was small, we would do the drive in 6-7 hours. We found that as he gets older, we need to stop more and for longer and I don't think it's fair to keep a 5 year old in a car for that long. So instead we booked a hotel in Kingston and spent the night each way.

I left work a bit early on Thursday and, as planned, were on the road to Kingston by 8pm. We were checked into our room and in bed by 11:30 that night, which makes me feel like Wonder Woman for accomplishing that. We gave the Little Man a bath before we left and dressed him in his pajamas before sticking him in the car with a pillow and a blanket. Of course, he didn't fall asleep in the car until close to our arrival, but he was ready to sleep once he got into the hotel bed, which is pretty impressive.

Angry Birds help him sleep

The next morning, we had breakfast and the guys took advantage of the hotel salt water pool. I couldn't go in because of my new ink.

My New Ink!

Guys in the pool

Then we got on the road to his Auntie's place, but of course, we had to make a stop at The Big Apple. The Big Apple is really just that: a giant red apple with a smiling face, just off the highway in Colborne, Ontario. Not only do they make amazing giant apple pies, which you can watch them make, but they have free activities for kids.

First we checked out the petting zoo and fed a chicken and a goat. A llama also looked at us intently, but that was it.

Auntie left a key for us (she was still at work Friday afternoon) and we let ourselves in.

When Auntie came in from work, all the excitement led to a minor meltdown for the Little Man. He had contained all that energy and was so good with all these new experiences on the way over that is just had to burst out.

The next night we had our Thanksgiving Dinner and the Little Man was restless, so he slept half on top of me on the futon, while Dada got stuck on the air mattress.

We left Sunday afternoon and of course had to stop at The Big Apple again on the way back. This time we rode the train and then the guys climbed all the way to the top of the apple. (I had to use the toilet, so I missed out on that.)

Family selfie on the train

Then we checked back in at First Canada Inns and settled in for the night. 

And drove the rest of the way home on Monday! 

The End!

The Wiggles Final Tour

It's hard to say who wanted to see this show more - us or zee Child. Once my employment situation was settled and we got a new car, I felt safe enough to take a day off work and drive to Toronto to see them for their last tour. I had wanted to go see them in Ottawa last year, but the Little Man came down with strep throat. This would be our only chance, so I bought the tickets! 

We started driving at 8:30 Thursday night, destination Toronto. Had it just been us adults, we probably would have gotten further, but that wasn't the case. We stopped at Brockville, a little less than 2.5 hours away. It was a bit of a crazy experiment because I opted to keep the Little Man awake, thinking he would crash out by the time we arrived at the hotel. This plan did not work. He went into insane over-stimulation mode. After about an hour of wrestling upsidedown, we managed to get him to sleep. It helped that we pushed the two double beds together and had one big bed. He squished next to me all night. 

We had breakfast at the hotel and were off again by about 10am, Friday. And after one of those annoying "drive all through a middle of nowhere town to find a gas station" mistakes, we made a point of only stopping at the fancy new ONRoutes. My Mazda has a tiny tank and is not great on highway fuel efficiency, so it means we have to stop a lot more than with the Sunfire. That and having a three year old. We also had to endure hours of "go see Wiggles!" echolalia. 

Then we stopped at the Big Apple to let him feed some goats and we got to our hotel in Toronto by 3pm. The boys went swimming and I went shopping in search of child (and us)-friendly food. Us adults got sushi and in total, Hubby and I went out about three different times trying to find some option zee child would eat. He was becoming increasingly picky - which is to be expected with the excitement of travel. 

That night he had his own bed and slept just fine. He's been sleeping on Westin/Sheraton "Heavenly Sleep" beds since he was three months old! He woke up with a runny nose and sneezing, however, the poor bug. We had a lovely brunch at the hotel and then headed off to see The Wiggles. 

 They opened with Big Red Car

Anthony about to do a hand stand! Far out!

Hubby and I got a huge kick out of The Wiggles. The Little Man was over-stimulated and congested, however. These guys are amazing. They're like 50 years old and doing hand stands and flips. It's like freakin' Cirque du Soleil, they have ropes and poles to swing on. It was nuts. They are funny as all hell, cracking jokes about "happy endings" and stuff like that. They were cracking up on stage, making fun of each other. They have mics on the whole time, so you hear *everything*, including their out of breath huffing and puffing. But they sing, they dance, they play their own instruments and they seemed to be having a really good time. 

About 45 minutes in, the Little Man started getting weird and I had to pee anyway, so we took him out to walk around and see how he was doing. We got out and he put his hands over his ears and said, "too loud." We asked him if he wanted to go back in and he said no. This made me very sad because this was the reason we came to Toronto and I *really* wanted to see The Wiggles. I mean, dude, I know all the words to all their songs, plus the hand movements! *sigh* But I had to put on my big girl panties and leave for the sake of my child. 

So we got back in the car and he was like, "go see Wiggles!" I said, "we just saw The Wiggles and you wanted to leave."

"Oh," he said. Oh indeed, my child. 

My son's fave song, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, performed by The Wiggles

Tie Me Kangaroo Down by The Wiggles