A fun family weekend

Just thought I'd share some photos from our family getaway in Quebec over the family long weekend in February.

This trip was a bit of a random decision. (sort of).  With my stamping job I have had amazing opportunities to travel all over the place.  Everytime I go somewhere new, I always come back wishing I could take my family back to where I had just been so they can experience the fun as well.
For example when I went to Nashville I came home and told Kevin I must take him there to stay in that amazing hotel with the river running through it.
Then when I went to San Antonio I told Kevin I must take him there so we could romantically walk along the streets and eat as much Mexican food as we wanted.
Sadly I have yet to take my husband to either of those places.

When I went to Quebec city with the Canadian strategy team, I had such a good time so of course I wanted to bring the family back.

I kept looking at flight options but when you are a family of 5, flying is not really the cheapest mode of transportation.

Back in November, I looked at my aeroplan points and noticed I had quite a lot so I got online and tried to get tickets to Disneyworld (what else is new.)  Of course I couldn't get tickets based on my points.  It's not as easy to use those points as you think!!!
So, what I did manage to get was 5 tickets to Quebec City.
(never mind that I still had to pay $800 in taxes and fees!!!)

I actually had no idea what we were going to do.  The only thing I knew I wanted to do was take everyone to the sugar shack that Carrie took us to when we went with the Canadian Strategy Team.  It was such a cute little rustic place with traditional Quebecois food.

Kevin didn't understand my obsession with wanting to go to this place called Relais des Pins.  He figured it would be like the Bruce's Mill conservation park here in York region.  A place with wagon rides and a tour about how maple sugar is farmed. I tried to explain that it was not like Bruce's Mill.  All I could manage to explain was that it was a place to eat.  Nonetheless, Kevin kept imagining in his mind that it was a big conservation park with lots of tourists and wagon rides and the such.

Because Relais des Pins is nowhere near downtown Quebec, we had to rent a car.  (aeroplan points to the rescue again!)
When we arrived, Kevin was dismayed to find one little wooden house and a lovely sign.  He couldn't understand why I had made a big deal of the place.

There were no other cars in sight and it was very quiet and empty. Kevin could not stop commenting that he really expected something bigger and couldn't understand why I insisted driving out to this place.  I was laughing hysterically at his confused face.  I couldn't explain that I just loved the rustic charm of the building and the tasty home cooked food.  How could I convey that I loved hearing the traditional quebecois music played by a live accordian musician and basically listening to the French language spoken around me?

The whole family (except for me) was perplexed by the outing but they trudged inside the building.  We were given a private information session about maple sugar making and got to taste maple butter and maple syrup.  Then we were treated to the delicious food: meat pie, beans, pork rinds, pea soup. The only other people there was a school group (probably if the school group hadn't booked lunch, the establishment would have been closed for the winter so we were really lucky!)

I showed the kids the menu and the history of the building and encouraged them to come on the dance floor and dance with me (no luck) but the best part came after the meal when we got to go outside and have taffy on snow. It's a thickened maple syrup that is poured on the snow and you can wind it up on a stick and enjoy it!

By the end of the outing, the whole family agreed that it was worth the drive and definitely a fun outing!

We had other adventures over the weekend.  Since we had a car we were able to drive to Valcartier which was huge tubing park.  Our whole family (even the teenager) enjoyed careening down steep slopes in an air filled tube.  We spent the whole day into the evening there and we also got to tour the ice hotel. 

We visited Montmorency Falls which were quite frozen but this means we were able to walk almost right up to the falls.  It was a beautiful day!

Over the weekend I also learned how to solve a 2X2 rubiks cube (taught to me by my 9 year old)

All in all it was a great and full family long weekend!