When I think of Christmas traditions one of the first things I think of is baking with my Nan. She always included me in her baking and would effortlessly float around her kitchen making the most delicious things and make it look so easy. Every time I went to her house there would be something freshly baked, or popped out of the freezer that was baked last week, and it was always yummy and so nurturing. Baking was something I always enjoyed and I knew if I had a family of my own one day I wanted to bake for them too, especially at Christmas. Christmas baking is the time of year you make things that you wouldn’t normally bake, it’s not just banana muffins and zucchini bread (which are equally amazing) but it’s time for tarts and shortbreads and ginger snaps!

So every Christmas I would look up recipes on Pinterest, and try out new baking and it was always fun, but it was never just like my Nan’s. About 6 years ago my Mom and I wanted to take our Christmas baking to the next level, and we also wanted a way to let our Nan and Great Aunt’s special treats live on, so we decided to dig out their recipes and start trying to re-create them every year. The first year we started with my Nan’s delicious raspberry shortbread tarts (traditionally called ‘Maids of Honor’) and after much trial and error we started to be able to make them almost just like her. And thus Christmas baking day became one of our special traditions that we have continued every December. We get the kids involved, and many years they have been a big help as we bake big batches and need lot’s of little hands for help. We ended up making so much every year that it then became a tradition to start giving the baking away. I packaged up an assortment of the treats we made on cute plates with little cards and the kids and I would walk down the street a few days before Christmas and give them our to our neighbours and friends.

Besides the famous tarts some of our favourites we have made are shortbreads, icebox cookies, ginger crinkles, jam filled cookies, chocolate peanut butter balls, and this year we ventured to try an old family recipe for homemade cinnamon sugar donuts. After nearly burning my house down (kidding but not really!) we finally got them just right, and each bite of one we could just taste the memories flooding back! I love having this special tradition with my Mom and kids, and I also love how our dear family member’s recipes are living on and blessing others with hospitality and love. As we continue to do this every year, my hope is that one day my kids will carry on the tradition too and we can keep spreading cheer and making family memories together. Even though she isn’t able to do it anymore, I can still always picture my Nan in the kitchen with her sing song voice, perfectly styled hair and fancy apron, and it brings me so much joy. What special Christmas traditions do you have with your family? No matter how big or small they are all so special in their own way. Merry Christmas every one, I hope you have a beautiful holiday with your family and friends, and I’ll see you next Friday, until then…

stay cozy,

Shelley

As 2018 is quickly coming to an end, I’ve found myself thinking of different goals and things that I wanted to accomplish and stick to this coming year. Among the ‘old faithful’s’ like eating healthy, and getting into a good workout routine, I have really had the desire to put new life into my blog, and continue on this blogging journey…

I started my first blog when Ben (our firstborn who is now 12) was a baby, we had moved to New York and I wanted a way to log our memories and share them with family and friends back home. I’ve kept up with blogging in different capacities since then, but have usually posted quite sporadically, and never really thrown myself full tilt into it. Blogging combines two of my favourite things, which are writing, and photography, and it’s been such a great creative outlet for me a homeschooling mom of 3, so in the new year ahead I want to pour more into this little blog of mine! I want to use it to share and encourage others, and I want to post once a week (yup, hold me to it!) I want people to enjoy reading it just as I have enjoyed reading others blogs over the years, and I want to continue to log our memories and moments as the kids are growing more every day. So….welcome to ‘Our Cozy Lake House’ where I hope to share all things homebody, DIY projects, favourite recipes, outdoor exploring, homeschooling encouragement, parenting, faith, devotions, family, basically everything that happens under the roof of our little home, and the outside too of course ;) I would love for you all to follow along, and I hope to see you in the comments too!

stay cozy,

Shelley

This past August we were able to take our travel trailer on it’s maiden voyage and make the trek all the way to Prince Edward Island on the East Coast of Canada. The decision to get a trailer is a whole separate post I plan to share, but the main reason we chose this way of travel was so we could explore the outdoors and see new places as a family on a budget, and tow our own little ‘home’ with us, with the ability to cook our own meals and have a cozy place to rest our heads at night. Our first trip with the trailer was so much fun, and we learned a lot along the way, we fell into a good little ‘trailer life’ routine and it is something we really hope to do lots more of in the future! But first….PEI…

We wanted to take our time getting out to PEI so we broke up the drive by first going to Kouchibouguac National Park in New Brunswick for a few days. It took us three days of driving to get there (you could definitely do it in two, but we were taking our time), the first night we stayed at a trailer park in Bainsville, Ontario, we got there just before dark and did our first round of ‘set up’ by parking the trailer, getting it hooked up and we were all excited to sleep in the trailer for the first night. It was a lovely camp ground with a HUGE pirate ship park that the kids got to enjoy as the next day we only did around 4 hours of driving, so we left a bit later giving a bit more play time. It also gave us time to learn how to pack up the trailer and get back on the road, and gauge how long that would take us for the rest of the trip.

The second night we stayed at a trailer park in Quebec, and we were all feeling very french and enjoyed seeing all the signs, and sights as Quebec has a truly beautiful landscape, with rolling hills, small mountains and lakes. We arrived at our Quebec campsite in enough time for the kids to ride bikes, and get out some energy which was absolutely essential after driving all day. We found the best tactic for keeping kids happy on a long road trip is first and foremost SNACKS (like, more then you ever thought could possibly be consumed…and then some) and taking time every day to still be active and play and get fresh air. We didn’t use any i pad’s or movies at all the entire trip because two of our three kids get carsick watching them, and ain’t nobody got time for that! LOL

The next day we had a long drive as we planned to go all the way to Kouchibouguac, and unfortunately our GPS lead us a bit astray that day. We ended up taking a VERY sketchy, VERY long, VERY hilly and winding dirt road for over 3 hours which really delayed us. It was pretty grim for a while, there was literally no signs of life on this road for hours, we wondered if we would ever make it out alive and back to civilization lol thankfully we had lots of snacks for the kids and we were towing a bathroom ;) so that was definitely helpful! (Did you know you can use your trailer bathroom while on the road, so that REALLY cuts down on the amount of icky public restrooms at trucks stops you have to use, which is fairly amazing) We had also just filled up with gas before we turned onto that road so that was a huge blessing, as I am not sure what we would have done if we had run out of gas on that road with no service stations for hours. Needless to say we got to that campsite after dark and backing in the trailer was fun, but we did it, and we were all so happy that the following day included no driving, as we had made it to our first destination!

Kouchibouguac National Park was so beautiful and clean. We spent our time there hiking, biking and lazing at the pristine beach. It was a great park to stay at as the campsites weren’t too close together, so we had a bit of space, and there were endless trails for the kids to bike around on. The beach was long with very light blonde coloured sand and some fun waves. The walk to get out to the beach is an epic boardwalk, so just make sure you can comfortably carry everything you bring out with you, as it’s a good walk. The kids loved playing and rolling around in the sand, and jumping and running around in the waves, while we just enjoyed watching them have fun. They even have a separate dog friendly beach there, which was a plus for us as we brought our big golden doodle puppy that needed to run! The only thing we didn’t like about this park was the BUGS! Where we are in Ontario in August we are already well past bug season, so we really weren’t expecting such an influx of bugs again, but it was mosquito crazy the few days we were at Kouchibouguac, so unfortunately we couldn’t have any bon fires or sit out at night or we’d get eaten alive! One of our other favourite things at this park was the Bog trail which we walked one morning, it was such neat scenery to look at and we were told that early mornings you can often see moose there! We joked that by the time we left, we could finally actually pronounce the name of the park. (kow-chee-boo-guac) It was a great place to stay and we’d definitely go back!

(sunset at Kouchibouguac)

The next day was exciting because we would be getting to our final destination of Cavendish PEI, and it was only a 2.5 hour drive to get there! Spirits were high as we drove over the bridge to PEI and we couldn’t wait to see that famous red dirt start showing on the ground. We stayed at Cavendish Campground right in PEI National Park during our time there, and it was a really nice campground also, smaller sites with less trees, but so close to the ocean that you could hear the waves, and no bugs! I will always remember this day because while we were setting up camp I got a call from my sister totally surprising me and telling me she was PREGNANT with her third babe! Right after we set up we went straight to the beach and I let myself feel like a true Anne of Green Gables with the wind blowing my hair as I ran towards the red cliffs edge and looked out to the ocean :) well…it wasn’t that dramatic and picturesque, but it was still fun!

We like to keep it fairly simple on any family trips we take, so we don’t typically do too many touristy things, if any at all. Our time in PEI was spent taking walks around on the trails the national park had to offer, a lot of biking, which is one of the kids favourite things. Afternoons were mostly spent at the beach right on the campground, because we found it was the nicest and quietest one in the area, and the kids would just play in the pink sand for hours while we read books, or just chatted, listened to music and relaxed. We went to ‘Cows’ ice cream one afternoon and the kids all got an ice cream treat, and we walked around some of the little gift shops (think, everything Anne of Green Gables). My favourite treat on the island, since I can’t have ice cream (#dairyfree) were the AMAZING PEI potato fries! I think I could eat those every day and never get tired of them. My boys especially loved the poutine, how Canadian ;) We had a couple bon fires in the evenings, and roasted marshmallows and scouted out a lighthouse to go take pictures of. It was a really nice, low-key time, and we all enjoyed it so much.

There isn’t a good grocery store in Cavendish, only a gift shop/tiny food section with little produce which is about a 2 minute drive from the camp site, so we needed to drive a bit further to get some groceries one morning. We went to a little town about 25 minutes away called Kensington, and they had an actual grocery store with more then everything we needed at much better prices then the tourist shop. Cavendish has no shortage of touristy things to do, that just wasn’t on our agenda this trip, and we were more there to enjoy the landscape and all the beauty the trails, nature and beaches had to offer.

After 5 days in Cavendish we packed up and headed home, first day driving all the way to Quebec, and the second day driving from Quebec to our home in Parry Sound, Ontario. It was definitely a long two days of driving (12 hours both days, as pulling a trailer you end up going a bit slower and you can’t really rush) but we had a wedding to shoot that weekend, so we wanted to get back in two days instead of dragging it out longer. In retrospect I wish we had three or four more days where we could have gotten out to Nova Scotia as well, since we were SO close to it, but it just wasn’t in the timeline for this trip. We can’t wait to go back out East again soon, and do Nova Scotia AND Newfoundland, that is really something to look forward to! Canada is so beautiful and I am grateful to be able to show our kids little bits of it and to call it our home.

Have you ever been to PEI? What was your favourite part of being on the island? Mine was hands down the red sand Cavendish cliffs, watching the sunset from standing on them will always be such a beautiful memory and so glad we have some pics to remember it!

Thanks for reading about our little journey out east, we can’t wait to go on more trips and to keep logging and sharing the memories along the way. Click below to watch an EPIC video recap that my husband filmed and edited of our trip!

-Shelley