Share Our Lives: Best Vacation Memory (Or Six!)

This month for "Share Our Lives" we are talking about "our best vacation memory." As you may have guessed, picking just one "best memory" was too hard for me so I decided to pick six of the more memorable ones. I originally had ten but tried to cut some. We are so fortunate to have taken some really amazing vacations, and have made some really incredible memories. Also, I have put these in chronological order as I really can't rank them!

Thanks to the Share Our Lives bloggers who are Sarah, Dara, Joanne, Adrienne, and Jen. (Click on each name to go their blogs.) for hosting. And thank you to all of you for indulging me in sharing more than one memory :)

1) Giraffes in Kenya, June-July 2017

In 2017, we went to visit friends of ours who had moved to Kenya. Rachel was six and Sam was eight and there were so many amazing moments during this trip. However, two of my favourites involved giraffes. We went to the Crescent Island Game Preserve on Lake Naivasha and, as we sat down to eat a snack, a curious giraffe came to join us. We got so many amazing pictures with it, and at one point, we were following it down a path. It was like he had something to show us. It turned out, he was joining his friends and we enjoyed watching about five giraffes just hanging out. All in all, we probably spent around half an hour just with this one giraffe!

 Later in that vacation we visited the Giraffe Centre in Nairobi, and I was able to feed a giraffe by putting a pellet in my mouth. That was also a very fun, and memorable, experience! Who knew I would be so excited about giraffes?!?!?!?

 

2) Seljalandsfoss, Iceland, July 2018

In July 2018, Dave and I went to Iceland for five days to celebrate our 10th anniversary. We had a rental car for two days and, on the second day, we drove the Golden Circle. We had extra time so we decided to drive out to Seljalandsfoss, which is a famous waterfall. Dave had this as his computer desktop background for a number of years. It was so incredible to be approaching this scenic waterfall in real life. We got to hike behind the waterfall, which was amazing. And then we had about a three hour drive back to the airport to return our rental car. We drove along this empty road ) through incredible scenery), it stayed light forever (until after we'd returned the rental car at 10pm), and it was just so amazing.

3) First visit to Saskatchewan during Covid, August 2020

 

There were many times during the first part of Covid where I wondered if we'd ever get to travel again. It just seemed like so much of the world was shut down and out of reach. I vividly remember trying to figure out how to visit my parents that first summer and how to keep them safe from our germs. Dad picked us up from the airport but we decided not to hug them until we'd showered off all the airport/airplane germs. The kids fought over who got to shower first, and thus hug Oma & Opa first. After being so locked down for four and a half months, I was so thankful to be able to hug my parents again!

 

4) Leaving Canada for the first time post-Covid, March 2022

 

For March Break in 2022, we decided to make a slightly last-minute trip to New York City to visit Dave's family and see some sights. It was the first time we'd left the country since January of 2020. As I said above, during Covid, not being able to travel was absolutely something our family missed and it felt unreal to be able to do it again! The picture on the left is not super-exciting but it was my first glimpse of a country that wasn't my own in over two years. We were soooooo excited to be going somewhere again! Our travel was through upstate New York this day.

 

5) Cruising again, July 2022

 

Again, the years of Covid were filled with some of of my favourite vacation memories as the world slowly opened up again. In the summer of 2022, we flew to Europe. The kids, who have both been in French Immersion since Grade 1, were very excited to visit France and then we went on a Disney Cruise. I will always remember Rachel's laughing glee upon seeing the Eiffel Tower and the way Sam navigated through Paris, in French. And I will always remember crying with happiness as we boarded the ship on our cruise, the kids running up the stairs laughing, and Dave straggling behind with our carry ons!

 

6) Lobster Boat Tour, Portland, Maine July 2024

 

If you've been reading the blog for awhile, you've definitely heard me talk about this trip before. However, it was such an amazing memory. We were on a working lobster boat and we got to bait the traps, band the lobsters, push traps overboard, and pick out our own lobster to eat for dinner. This was so interactive, so memorable, and so much fun!!! After the tour, we took the lobster to a restaurant on the wharf which cooked it for us. Yum!!!

So those are some of my best vacation memories. Like I said, it was so hard for me to pick because we've really had so many amazing ones! I'm going to read the rest of the blogs in the link up to discover some of yours :) Again, thank you to the bloggers below for hosting such a fun link up every month.

Friday Favourite Moments 2025 #28

Summer break really is the best thing ever, and not just because I have time to blog :) Also, clearly this week was a little busier than I'd anticipated so my Friday post is coming late. This is a bit of a long list of favourites but here we go!

1) Friday afternoon walk

We went out to the small town where my in-laws live on Friday. After lunch we went for a walk at my mother-in-law's favourite spot, The Boardwalk. This is a man made marsh area with a walk and it was so beautiful. We watched ducks, turtles, and frogs and enjoyed the walk through the marshlands.

 

2) Biking for Friday night supper

 

This has now happened three weeks in a row as we biked downtown for Friday night supper again. We went to an Italian pizza place which I discovered on the art walk I did a few weeks ago. The pizza was good and Aperol Spritz's were on special so I enjoyed one of those as well.

 

3) Lake Erie visit

 

We went to a beach on Lake Erie on Saturday. We had so much fun playing in the waves, lying on the beach, and eating a fish and chips lunch. It was just such a lovely day and we finished it off with some delicious ice cream on the way home. 

 

 

4) More lilies blooming!

 

Unfortunately, I don't think all my lilies are going to bloom this year. The ones which have bloomed are all shades of pink and I just love this one with the white centre and pink edges.

 

5) Blogging and bird watching outside

 

Both kids have been volunteering at camps this week and so I've been enjoying sitting outside, blogging, and watching the birds in our backyard. Yes, I'm officially old :) I even have the most fun bird watching app to use! Hahahahaha!!!

 

6) Blue Jays baseball!!!

 

Blue Jays baseball has been so much fun to watch this week!!! I was so excited when the newest edition of the Power Rankings came out I had to text a screenshot to Dave!

 

7) My flower share

 

My flower share was especially pretty this week! We get to choose our own bouquets and I was excited to find one with a calla lily this week as that's what I carried in my wedding bouquet.

So that's been my full week of favourites. Next week both kids are home and we need to get some serious house cleaning/purging done. Thus, I may feel more like a drill sergeant and less like "I'm loving summer break." We shall see...

10 On The 10th: June 2025

While I'm taking ten pictures of my life today for "10 on the 10th" I wanted to share the pictures I took for June. I forgot it was June 10th until halfway through the day so decided to take my pictures the next day. Since I actually took these pictures on June 11th, I'm sharing a bonus picture for an "11th on the 11th" post. I know, I know -- that's not actually a thing but humour me :)

Our family has gotten addicted to homemade iced tea this summer so I was up early, brewing tea for the next batch. Also, since I had book club that night, I was drinking out of the Phillies mug I got last summer when we visited Emily and her family. Emily is in our book club so this my is often my "book club day" mug. Yes, I have different mugs for different days :)

Our two peony bushes bloom about a month apart. This one was in full bloom this day so I had to capture it in all its glory.

Laundry drying on the line, flowers on the table, and coffee-hot chocolate outside -- it's going to be a good day!

I captured the path on my walk to work. I really love this path.

Our city has electric scooters available to rent to use around the city. I will often see a bunch of orange scooters with helmets waiting to be used. One of these days, the kids and I should take some on a trek.

Iced tea in one of my favourite cups. These are souvenir tumblers you get at Jays' games when you buy a specialty drink. We are amassing quite the collection already and I LOVE them!!!

Dave had to go into Toronto to work unexpectedly this day so the kids and I had frozen pizzas before heading out to soccer for Sam.

I think Sam had a practice this day.

Rachel and I headed out for a walk while Sam was at soccer. We ran into one of my co-workers walking with her family and she recommended Rachel and I keep an eye out for deer. And then we saw one! We were soooo excited! (It's the blurry brown thing in the middle of the picture on the right.)

We gave Sam's friend a ride home and stopped for treats at Tim's on the way. I enjoyed a frozen lemonade after all that walking. 

I intended to get a picture of book club but I forgot as our discussion was so engaging.

So that was my June 11th. Hopefully my July "10 on the 10th" post will be a little timelier :)

All My May Reading

This a another big book post but I want to catch up on my reading posts somewhat quickly so the following is everything I read in May.

This book was so good. Abby Jimenez just never lets me down.

While I really loved Olive Kitteridge by this same author, I found this book boring. I had high expectations for it so I was a little disappointed.

I read this book because an Instagram friend was raving about it. While it was interesting, and I enjoyed that it was about languages, it was also too fantastical for me. It was also very long. If you're into fantasy which revolves around languages, than read it, but otherwise, I would skip it. (It just hit me, as I was writing this, that Dave would probably really enjoy this book!).

This was a book which I discovered through Sharon Says So on Instagram. Do you all follow her? I find she often has great book recommendations, however I thought this one was just okay. I was disappointed because I've found some of my favourite historical non-fiction through her so I had high expectations.

I really enjoyed this book. It is written in two timelines -- present-ish day and the 1600s. I enjoyed the story set in the 1600s more but that might have been because it was filled with historical figures of English literature, which is what I studied. Anyways, I thought this was a great story with an interesting premise.

Another Elin Hilderbrand novel -- I wanted to finish this series, even though I read it in reverse order. I'm almost done reading her books now.

I read this book because one of my book club members read it for another book club she's a part of and she really disliked it. I thought it was okay but not great. It's the story of Madeleine Astor who lost her husband on the Titanic. I had heard of her but I don't think I'd realized how great their age difference was (she was 18, he was 47) and, for me, that kept me from fully engaging with the story; there was always a bit of an "ick" factor.

 This was another book that I saw on a couple of "must read" lists so I picked it up. I thought it was okay but I didn't love it. It was fairly long and I think by the time I picked it up, I just needed a less epic novel.

This was our book club book for May. I thought it raised some interesting points, and it made me look at a few things (how I eat, how I talk to my kids about food) differently, but I thought it was a little too depressing in that it clearly explained the issues but, I felt, it didn't offer a lot of hopeful solutions.

I clearly needed a little light reading and JD Robb rarely fails to entertain me :)

I was expecting this book to be really good as I've enjoyed Jenoff's novels in the past. However, it left me feeling a little flat. I just couldn't get into the story or care about any of the characters.

I am doing a re-read of some of Jimenez' books and the first time I read this book, I cried so much I gave myself a headache. This time, while I enjoyed it, it didn't affect me in the same way, although I did shed a few tears.

I loved this book. This is one of those books where I envy anyone who hasn't yet read it because you're in for a treat. It was just a really good book and I want to read more from this author -- in fact, I hope she writes a sequel. I just want more!

I was re-reading this series and this was the last one in my re-read. I can't even remember what this particular story was about but I know these are a fun series of regency romances :)

Yes, I gave Laurie Gilmore another chance. Yes, it was just okay.

I don't remember where I found out abut this book (maybe I should start keeping track of where my recommendations come from!), but I really enjoyed it. I just really liked the story of Marilyn and Ada and I didn't want it to end.

So this is what I read in the month of May -- there were some really good books and some that I was just "ho hum" about. Have you read any of these? Which did you enjoy? 

May total: 16

2025 total: 85