What a summer – and still a week until school goes back. Ten weeks is an amazing amount of time to have off and it is also about 3 weeks longer than anyone should ever spend non stop with their own children!!!

Today happens to be the first day since June 25th that I have spent more than 2 hours without my beautiful, wonderful, loud, exceptionally talkative, inquisitive, messy and mischievous children.

They have finally been reunited with their campus friends – I now take my hat off to Jack, Tom, Charlie, Seb, Isaac, Harrison and Ethan who listen endlessly and patiently to the never ending dialogue of one John Charles Dibdin Fitzgerald. His thirst for discussion about all things movies and questions about world is never ending!

The other thing I have learnt is that one should not wait until the end of 9 weeks travel to write a blog about it. While I have diligently sat with the children periodically over the trip and made them write reflections before they forget things, I have not been so disciplined.  So what did we get up to you ask – well here goes.

Summer Odyssey Part One 

National Lampoon’s Vacation – Fitzgerald Style!

(Only kidding - but we got a kick out of seeing this car in Toronto!)

John and Andrée joined us on Vancouver Island in the last week of school to see where we have been hanging out and what the kids have been up to and school and around campus. It was so nice to see them and the kids even wagged a day to visit Butchart Gardens with them!

We flew to meet up with the Poulter family in Los Angeles the day after Shem finished up the year and began our whirlwind 10 day family tour of California and surrounds.

As the kids have blogged extensively about this I will let a few pictures to most of the talking.

Overall it was a magnificent trip which allowed the whole family to really spend some time together – something that has never happened before despite (or maybe because) we live so close. The Cousins had a sensational time together – Dibs absolutely loved having Paddy and Hamish to do all the brotherly stuff he misses out on and the girls very much enjoyed showing the boys what it was like to have sisters – with their often publicly loud and somewhat embarrassing nonsense!

There were many times when the girls behaviour was simply beyond them and questions such as – “but why is Jemima wearing glasses?” being answered with “Why Not” and others such as “why has Jemima got a bandage around her leg?” being answered with “not sure, but aren’t you glad the glasses are gone!”

Los Angeles – Adjustment time – big city, big roads, big billboards, lots of people

Disneyland – Simply magical – better than expected and children had a ball individually, with their cousins, with their parents and best of all with their grandparents (note photo of John on Space Mountain ride!

Las Vegas – Overwhelming hot, crazy, busy and larger than life. Most of all it had the statue of liberty (the one stolen in ‘Despicable Me’ movie!!!)

Grand Canyon – Shem and Freya got Hoover Dam – the rest of us got the HELICOPTER!!!! What a way to see the canyon. It was about 45 degrees the day we went, but nothing could take away from taking in this incredible natural wonder by air. Although Jemima might say the horse ride along the Canyon edge that she, Chloe and I did was better, and Dibs may say his ride on a mechanical bull was the highlight of the day!

Death Valley – Going to Death Valley during a heat wave ensured we received the true Death Valley experience with the temperature topping out on our car temperature gauge at 121 degrees Fahrenheit (49.4 Celsius). The photos say it all really about the kids reaction – (Jemima’s absence is because she is pretending to vomit behind a bush to get out of walking to the lookout) Paddy wishes he had thought of that!

Yosemite and Sequoia Valley– Amazing and two very different but equally enjoyable accommodation.

Also the site of the official family dinner where everyone scrubbed up well for one night.

San Francisco and Highway One – we said our tearful farewells to the Grandparents and Cousins and took a trip up Highway One to San Fransisco – the road was stunning – better than the great ocean road we thought and a stop over at Pismo Beach reminded us how much we love and miss waves – with a family body surf being a real highlight.

A baseball game was an unexpected highlight after securing scalped tickets to see the San Francisco Giants  the evening before on “Free Hat Day” no less so we are now 5 Giants Hats better off!

Summer Odyssey – Part 2

Ontario

A flight across the continent put us into the Provence of Ontario where we would spend 3.5 weeks. The main aim of this leg of our trip was some relaxation time in between Part 1 and 3 of our Odyssey. We spent 4 days in Toronto taking advantage of a little two bedroom apartment (yay separate rooms!) in the up and coming inner city suburb of Parksville. It had great coffee, lots of fresh produce stores and a free 50m outdoor pool in walking distance – Fitzgerald heaven. We walked, swam and walked some more. We were lucky enough to be there at the same time as the PanAm games and took advantage of the free events that were on as a result.

We headed on a day trip to check out Niagra Falls and were lucky enough to catch up with the Beattys (friends from campus) who gave us a tour of Ridley College where they used to work – it reminded us a great deal of Geelong Grammar.

Weeks two and three saw us situate ourselves in lakeside cabins in the lakes district of Muskoka – the first was in a cross between a trailor park and a resort just outside Gravenhurst- sporting prefab cabins and facilities like tennis court, pool, kids club etc.

We took advantage of the facilities and enjoyed our lake front cottage. The kids were able to fish, paddle, swim to their hearts desire and Shem and I took advantage of the Gym due to the terrible bug problem that made running outside impossible.

The next place was much more our style, a ramshackle cottage on a smallish lake called Walker Lake were motorized craft were not permitted. This allowed us to swim and paddle etc free from worry about being taken out by a jet ski or boat. It was unbelievably relaxing and we decided if and when we win the Lotto we will buy a place just like it and come to Canada for the three week break in July each year. (I must start buying tickets!)

With 3 days up our sleeves before heading to Alberta we decided to swing by the Nations Capital – step into Quebec for a taste of French and meet our exchange partner Ulrika’s family. It was well worth the drive – staying on the Quebec side of the city blew the kids and our minds as quite literally everything suddenly becomes french and there is not a word of English to be seen – since the children have never been to a country that does not speak English they found this all very different.

Ulrika’s family had us for dinner one evening and made us feel incredibly welcome. Her mum Colleen and dad Peter had rallied the troops and put on a lovely dinner. Two of Ulrika’s 5 siblings came over and were instant hits with the kids and we were over the moon to have had a chance to meet them and better get to know our exchange family.

Summer Odyssey – Part 3

Canadian Rockies

Five weeks in and going strong. We headed to the Provence of Alberta where we met up with our great friends – Team Marshall-Hume. It was so great to see them and we were looking forward to some company after three weeks on our own. With much trepidation at the thought of 5 of us spending two weeks living in a camper van  we headed off to pick up our vehicle.

As it turned out – we loved the camper van. The concept of having your house with you where ever you go was great. No planning food and clothing for the day its great. The camping grounds were fantastic with lots of trees and fireplaces at most.

The Rockies and in particular the Ice Fields parkway was one of the most spectacular things we have ever seen. With Naant and Sam spurring us on we ran, rode and swam our way around Jasper, Banff and Kootney national parks.

A few views during runs:

Hiking action:

Swimming was a highlight with the water being crystal clear, ice blue and very chilly! We managed to tough it out and even get some training in.

We also did some great hikes including a difficult 9km hike to a glacial lake that surprised us it its unexpected beauty, made even more spectacular by the fact that no one else was there (unlike Lake Louise)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Colombian Ice fields were spectacular and it was a bit of a buzz heading out onto the Athabasca Glacier.

The girls loved having Jazzie to play with

Dibs and Zoe developed a pretty cool little friendship with Zoe digging Dib’s muscle top and Dibs digging Zoe’s passionate commitment to potato chips!!!

At each campsite the kids spent hours building Cafes and Cabins in the woods and eating their body wight in Marshmallows

 

Summer Odyssey Part 4

Vancouver Island

Well it was so nice to be back even if it was just for two weeks before we headed off again. The weather on the island was simply stunning and I was so unbelievably happy to be back sleeping in a good bed with a good pillow.

We took the opportunity to embrace the local surrounds – doing lots of paddle boarding and swimming at the local lake and also an old Quarry. The quarry is absolutely magnificent – it was abandoned after they struck an aquifer and it is now a kind of ‘lawless’ swimming hole. You have to walk in to in about a km from the road on what is still the logging company’s land, but it is a bit of a local institution and well worth the effort.

We enjoyed showing this place to Naant and Sam – however Jasmine was not as impressed by the hike in!

Mum and Dad arrived the day after and after two days showing them the local highlights we headed up to the north of the island to Strathcona Provincial Park and then on to the tip of the Island and Port Hardy.

Mum and Dad could not believe the beauty and the shear scale of the natural environment of the island – Dad being surprised that so much of it is forested.

We did several fantastic hikes including attempting to reach the summit of Crest Mountian – a seemingly nice 5km hike with potential views of many of the other peaks in the park from the top.

What we found however was a fairly insane series of switch backs enabling us to rise up 1200m in 3 km, we slogged away at this for over an hour with Nanna and Pa putting in an amazing performance.

We stopped for lunch and Nanna, Pa and the Girls decided to abandon the attempt and the trail just continued to get steeper. Dibs, Shem and I decided to continue on at an increased pace (set by Dibs with us hardly keeping up!) and slogged on for another 40 minutes. We were rewarded with this amazing view of …… fog!!!!!

And also we were rewarded with stiffness in our legs similar to that of post marathon soreness – with our legs actually giving way from under us at unexpected times for the next week.

We loved seeing Nanna and Pa, and Dibs, who has become a keen photographer was so excited to have Pa passing on some of skills to him.

Port Hardy was amazingly beautiful and very rugged and remote. It was a quick visit to drop Mum and Dad at the ferry to continue their journey north on the ferry to Prince Rupert. We are now home and on the count down to school returning. What an amazing amazing ten weeks – we are indeed feeling like the most fortunate teachers in  the world right now.