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We took a spur-of-the-moment trip down to Niagara Falls and Niagara on the Lake, just before our weekend stay in Toronto. It was pouring the entire way down and made for a longer and crazier drive than usual (we could barely see the cars in front of us through the rain). Thankfully, the kids were troopers that day and were pretty agreeable for our almost 3 hour drive down. We stopped in Niagara on the Lake before heading down to the Falls itself. It was still spitting rain when we arrived so we ducked into the The Sunset Grill for an no-fuss, satisfying brunch. By the time we were done, the rain had started to clear, so we took a walk along the downtown strip - there are so many cute specialty stores, bakeries and souvenir shops to meander through....
While we were in vacationing in Ontario, we took a drive down to Santa's Village, a theme park in Bracebridge. Steve's parents used to take the kids to Santa's Village when they were little and it turns out it is a bit of an institution in cottage country. When I first read up on it, I was kind of incredulous. Santa in the SUMMER?! Well, you'd better believe it! ....
While we were visiting Steve's parents in Ontario, we took a day trip to Wye Marsh Wildlife Centre, in Midland. It was a short, 40 min drive from where we were and we arrived at around 10 in the morning. It was pretty quiet that day, given that it was fairly overcast and we had the boardwalk pretty much all to ourselves. Wye Marsh Wildlife Centre is located on 3,000 acres of wetlands and forests. It is home to many species of birds, amphibians and reptiles and there are activities all year long (kayaking, hiking, snowshoeing, skiing and more). There is also a birds of prey exhibit, where Oscar loved looking at the hawks and owls, a bee house and a swan treatment centre you can visit (sadly, we didn't spot any trumpeter swans on our trip because it was mating season!)....
While we were up in Langkawi, we decided to visit the Seven Wells Waterfall (Telaga Tujuh). It gets its name from the seven natural pools that the waterfall flows through. We arrived in the afternoon and started our walk up to the waterfall. We didn't know what to expect in terms of a crowd and were pleasantly surprised to find it pretty quiet, probably because it was the first weekend of Ramadan....
For my 32nd birthday, Steve surprised me with a trip to Langkawi, Malaysia. We had never been, despite living so close, and had always wanted to check it out as an option for a weekend beach getaway. We stayed at The Andaman which was lovely and so kid-friendly. The resort is on Datai Bay and surrounded by a 10-million-year-old rainforest.....
On our last trip to Hong Kong, we thought we'd take a day to explore one of the other islands. We wanted a hike that was easy enough for Oscar to walk for the most part and Oscar wanted to go to the beach, so Lamma Island and its family trail seemed like a great fit! The Lamma Island Family Trail is an easy 5km (or so) walk between the two main towns, Yung Shue Wan and Sok Kwu Wan. It took us around 1.5 hours to walk the trail (with both kids walking at some point) and a stop at Lo So Shing beach for some play...