To finish off the Christmas vacations, we packed all our stuff and headed to the cold, COLD east to spend a weekend up north (ok – 7.5 hours north east of us) with our good friends.

When I say “packed”, I mean PACKED. Seven pairs of skis, ski boots, poles, helmets, skates… plus all the snow gear, and of course, we needed a few clothes. Well, we sort of skimped on the clothes, but Rob managed to use every square inch of our truck and got us all squeezed in, but when you opened a door or window, everything busted out. We were literally bursting at the seams.

It’s a long trip to drive 7 hours for a short weekend (2 nights and 1 full day), but we packed it all in! And Robbie is a hero for doing all the driving. Again.

This is how we spent the time driving:

Don’t ask what Zandra was doing. We just don’t know! But it was pretty funny!

We stopped off in Montreal and went to our favorite pizza place and filled our tummies with yummy Gigi’s pizza. We drove around a bit, and went for a quick visit at my Dad’s grave. The snow was too deep to go see the grave but we could see the head stone plain and clear. Right where we last left it:)

I then took the kids down a quick trip to memory lane to visit the church chapel  I went to while growing up. The parking lot was empty, and covered with snow, perfect for doing some donuts (which I remember doing as teenagers —- shhhh —- I told my kids they’d be in big trouble if they ever did that…) , so Rob did some, and made most of us sick with dizziness!

We then headed up north, made our way through a bit of a storm and arrived at the cozy cottage. Ok. Gorgeous home. With indoor hot tub.

The kids went straight out to play while we unpacked. We then had a great chili dinner before heading out to the gorgeous skating rink in the woods where we skated around under the stars. Beautiful!

On Saturday, we loaded ourselves back into the truck and headed to the ski hill. We got our ski legs back and enjoyed the amazing scenery (gorgeous!!) while we skied the day away, stopping of course for some poutine.

After skiing,  the kids played a bit more outside, while the adults rested our sore muscles in the hot tub. We went out for dinner at at a Chinese place in the village. Poor Sam and Josh:( We ate a little late, and the service was SOOOOO slow that these little bunnies were falling asleep at the table.

Sunday was a day to drive home. Robbie squeezed all the gear back in the truck again and the kids watched a marathon of “Switched at Birth”. We stopped for some real poutine and steamies (the ski hill didn’t give me my poutine fix). So good going down, but ya feel it later:)

We pulled in to our street a mere 7.5 hours later. Ugh. So tired. The kids were awesome at unpacking with us and within an hour we were all unpacked, laundry on, sitting down to some homemade mac and cheese.

It was a pretty sweet weekend!! Good times and good friends. Nothing better.