Travel | Lessons from my daughter

I love reading about tiny houses and minimalist living… Sometimes I wish we could do it but than we turn around and buy something else we probably (most certainly) could do without.

A couple of weeks ago, my little brother was visiting with his family. We looked into kayaking which reminded me that we have a waterproof digital camera. I located the camera fairly easily and to our surprise, we found pictures…

This prompted us to locate other cameras and find more treasures and many selfies of Emily and even more pictures of Bratz dolls, American girl dolls and Chipmunks.

Some pictures go as far back as 2008…

Leave it to us, the consumers of too many things and always the newest gadget, we almost lost some precious pictures.

Here are some of my favorites:

Meeting my godson. I loved him instantly and he is now 5!

Our godson’s christening! My girl looking super lovely for the occasion!

Tiny Maple… not so tiny anymore. She’s a big 15lbs and the vet says she should lost 5 of those pounds…

Christmas morning

Bermuda! We stayed at both the Fairmont Hamilton and Fairmont Southampton Princess.

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First time putting her toes in the sand. The video is quite funny…!

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We even got Emily to play in the water! The custom guy didn’t believe we would be in the water in November. We are Canadians, this was summer weather for us and the water was fabulous.

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A trip to Dallas. The girls were so little. We miss our traveling buddies! Bestie, we need to do this again! Well… maybe not Dallas but I am sure we can find somewhere to go with our girls!

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Those crazy “Canadians” again, in the outdoor pool at the Fairmont Dallas in winter… Let’s be honest, winter in Dallas is slightly colder than our summer so this was actually lovely!

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Discovering Krispy Kreme donuts. To this day, this is still the only time I have had those donuts and they were delicious!

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Attending a NHL game. Dallas-Chicago

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My nephews are growing up. That’s our godson standing on the trampoline!

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And holding a drill 🙂

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Road trip to Chicoutimi for one of my dear friend’s wedding. Small stop at Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu on the way there 🙂

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All dolled-up for the wedding

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There was hundreds of pictures, some I had been wondering where they were, others, I had forgotten…

We are such consumers of the new gadget on the market that we almost lost those priceless pictures.

Sometimes I wonder, if we could just eliminate some of our stuff… not enough to move in a tiny house but enough to know what we have…

I am worried my words can’t do justice to the day we spent at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.

After 2 years and 8 months working on this, on Monday May 5th, I woke-up and took this picture. My girl slept like a rock the night before. I thought the excitement would keep her awake but I guess the flight and shopping tired her.

I got us all dress in matching outfits. That’s a sight you will not see that often!

We rented a car and started driving from Orlando to Clearwater.

We saw this!

Eventually, this!

And finally these!

It was a gorgeous day in Clearwater.

We were VIP’s 🙂

This is Emily looking at Winter. She had tears in her eyes.

Emily relates to Winter in a way that none of us can see or feel.

None of us!

Which is why I’m worried my words can’t express the magic we witnessed that day.

Since the very first movie preview…

Emily wanted to know more about Winter the dolphin that never gave up.

Winter who, against all odds, survived and now thrives.

Winter, the dolphin who inspires thousands to move forward.

We took a behind the scene tour… We learned about the history of the place, we saw the turtle intensive care unit, Emily asked questions and contributed to the tour.

When Emily heard Winter whistled, it was as if the whole world made sense. She was so happy. She had stars in her eyes.

I probably have a couple of hundreds of pictures of our day. Picking the ones included in this post was challenging.