This past summer in August, my family went to Manitoba for 2 weeks to visit our cousins, Aunts and Uncles and to go to our family cottage on Brereton Lake. This is a yearly family tradition to go for 1 to 2 weeks and just spend time by the lakeside. I was especially excited for this year’s trip as during the second week one of my friends and one of my brother’s friends came to spend a week with us!
The first few days of our trip we spent in Winnipeg visiting my dad’s side of the family. During this time, we just relaxed and spent time together. One of the things I was really excited to do was to watch my cousin Ali try on wedding dresses. She specifically made an appointment while we were there at a bridal boutique so we could go through the experience and see her try on all the beautiful dresses. As we don’t see our cousins that often with living so far away, I was so glad I got to be there with her when she was trying on all the dresses. She looked absolutely gorgeous in every single dress!!
After spending a couple days in the city, we went down to Brereton Late which is about an hour and a half drive from the city. Driving in the prairies has such a different feel compared to back home, the roads are straight and you can see mile upon miles of land instead of the mountains back home. Although the prairies are beautiful, it really makes me have a deeper appreciation for where I live.
Immediately after getting to the cottage, we went swimming in the beautiful calm water. Following this swim, we probably went in the water at least two times per day! It’s so nice to go on a vacation where we could just relax, go swimming, take a break then go swimming some more. On top of swimming, we also had a lot of campfires to roast marshmallows and hot dogs, we even made these campfire desserts called banana boats which are bananas filled with chocolate and marshmallow melted from the fire.
sunset
Roasting Marshmallows
Our friends from Vancouver came down a couple days after we arrived. We had an absolute blast with them, sharing the experiences and joy of the cottage. We did all our typical cottage activities with them including tubing, water skiing, biking, and of course going to the jumping rock. The jumping rock is an island in Brereton Lake which has a couple of rock ledges that you can go cliff jumping off of. We went there numerous times throughout the week, jumping off the highest rock ledge which definitely looked a lot higher when standing on top looking down. At first I was pretty scared to jump as one of my biggest fears in heights however my friend Imogen who was with us wanted to jump off the tall one so I decided to as well. We had a blast going to the jumping rock, taking pictures and videos with our Go Pro to commemorate our jumps in action.
jumping rock
Hiking
Boating
Boating
One of our many annual traditions is to get the massive delicious ice cream at the convenience store near our cottage. They always have the most delicious flavours and have seriously massive portions. The kiddie size alone is 4 huge scoops of ice cream, almost as big as our heads (I’m not kidding). During our time there, we went a couple times to get the ice cream, I got flavours like birthday cake, strawberry and chocolate peanut butter!!
Another activity we do every year is a scavenger hunt my Auntie Lesa puts on for us. This year because we had our friends there, it made it more fun and a heck of a lot more competitive! We formed two teams, boys vs girls and competed to see who could get the scavenger hunt done in the least amount of time. Imogen and I ended up beating my brothers and their friend by one second. So of course, that gave us bragging rights for the rest of the trip.
As we don’t go online a lot during the time we spend at the cottage, our evenings are filled with card games and boards games. When there are 8 people playing, it makes the games very competitive. One of our go to games is called Ups and Down, its pretty hard to explain but lets just say it’s a great one to play with loads of people and it never gets boring!! On top of playing Ups and Downs, we also played some board games including Spyfall and Code Names. Both of these games can get really intense when playing.
I really enjoyed taking a break from constantly being on electronics, it was really nice to primary jut use my phone for a camera and just enjoy being in the moment. One of the most amazing times of day was to go out on the boat and watch the beautiful sunsets over the lake. Every night the entire sky filled with magnificent shades of pink, red and orange as the sun set over the horizon of trees.
After spending almost 2 weeks in Manitoba, with 1 week with our friends there, it was time to go home. This was such a great two weeks of summer and definitely one of my favourite parts especially due to the fact that my friend was able to come as well!