Canada, Abby, and Niagra Falls

On Friday, just 2 days after we arrived in Blacksburg to our new home, we left in the early morning for Gordon Bay in Ontario, Canada. We were so blessed to take a very relaxing vacation with Emily, Tim and our niece Abby. Tim’s family has a nice little cottage nestled in a woodsy area right on Muskoka Lake. It is about 2 hours northwest of Toronto, and about a 13 hour drive from Blacksburg. We got up there on Friday night at 10pm and were wiped out from a busy week. It rained the first couple days, but the last few days it was great weather. During the day in the sun, it was pretty warm, and in the evening it got cool. We rode around on the jet ski, took the boat out for dinner and ice cream, sat on the dock and read, slept in a little, and played a lot with sweet Abby! She is growing up SO fast! She would wake up in the morning and walk down the hall near our room saying “Kiki Byce Kiki Byce Kiki Byce” waiting for us to wake up. She talks so much, and repeats almost anything people say. We found out she likes dancing to Bob Marley too :)







She is so funny with Dora the Explorer, too. Whenever one of us would get on our laptop to check email, she was sweetly walk up to you and say “bibeo” over and over again (her word for “video” which meant she wanted you to show her a video), and then when you gave in, she would immediately start repeating “D-D-D-Dora” until you showed her a video of Dora the Explorer off of You Tube.

She doesn’t speak full sentences, but she communicates pretty clearly what she wants or what she likes. She has learned to say “Nope” and “Yep”, which she loves saying, but I don’t know if she always understands what she’s saying no to.



When we were down at the dock, we got her to wear a life jacket, which we all called her “boat jacket.” We were afraid she wouldn’t like it, but she didn’t mind it. When we first set her on the jet ski with Emily, she liked it until Emily drove it away from the dock, when she would begin screaming and crying. But by the end of the week, she LOVED the jet ski and the boat. She got so comfortable that she wanted to walk around on the boat while we were driving like 30 mph.





Oh and she can eat with a fork all by herself!!

Even the little things are so exciting.