Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Lesson Learned

 I had a pretty tough holiday weekend as you can see...
 My nephew and his partner invited us to their cottage for Thanksgiving.  The sun was shining, the temperature in the mid 20's (celcius!) Lake Erie was calm and soothing...
 The martinis flowed...
 So did the wine...
 After a wonderful dinner of roast turkey, stuffing, carrots, mashed potatoes and gravy, pumpkin pie and whipped cream we sat outside and listened to the waves...they have a chiminea so we sat outside late into the evening...
 We played Taboo (my nephew and I won); it was hilarious. Here I'm peering over Dave's shoulder to make sure he doesn't use any words that are "taboo" in his bid to have his partner (Michael) guess the  correct word. More martinis...
 Monday morning, sitting on the beach...
Monday afternoon, hiking through the conservation area...
A picture of Michael taking a picture of the glorious fall colours...
 What a gift to be able to capture fall's glory on a warm October day...
 We ended up here! What are those you might be wondering?! Well, this is the latest trend in camping...or should I say "glamping"!! Putting the "glamour" in camping! YUP! What's next I wonder? There are a series of tents under those awnings complete with outdoor shower at the back. Each tent is on a hardwood platform and comes equipped with a king-size bed, running water, toilet etc. There is a large central tent for dining and group activities! 


How civilized!!
Seeing this helped me figure out what I am going to do for Michael's birthday in January - we're going WINTER CAMPING!! YESIREE BUB!


At the Pinery, a popular camping destination on Lake Huron, they now have YURTS for winter camping. When I suggested it to Michael he said YES!! He said it just like that - a really BIG YES!! He's been wanting to try it for a while now. I'm pretty excited about it!  


Oh yeah, today's post title reads "Lesson Learned." I don't have the numbers for you tonight as it's almost my bedtime (not even kidding!) so suffice it to say that the lesson I learned is that when there is a major feast day in the month I need to have a larger food and beverage budget than usual. I thought I had everything under control but no...several impulsive purchases put me over the top by around $150 (this is a rough estimate). 


So tomorrow I will input my data to www.spendingdiary.com so I can see the bad news in black and white. 


Nighty night!! 

7 comments:

  1. sounds awesome! heck even the winter camping sounds like fun!
    Susanna

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  2. Yes a yurt! How fun.

    As always you are having a wonderful time. Glad you had a great holiday. Thanks for sharing the beautiful photos.

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  3. It is so easy to under estimate food costs especially in today's market. We have friends who live in a yurt. I would not want to live in one, but I would love to have one that I could have on a piece of land and camp in. Although we have a fairly large tent and cots that are very comfortable. The tent holds two chairs and a table. We have a clothes pole rigged up and all of our gear fits under the cots. It is really quite nice and cozy. We put a lantern on the table and we can read at night. Almost like home. Sounds like a lovely Thanksgiving.

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  4. Yep, that sure looked like one rough weekend alright. I don't know how you do it.
    And I once went glamping. It was at a Holiday Inn in Jersey. That's roughing it enough for me.
    m.

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  5. You and Michael are so adventuresome! Your weekend looked wonderful! (And, by the way, you look so thin in the picture!)

    I don't even want to try and figure out how I went over on my food budget for October and it's only the 12th. Sigh.

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  6. hey where did you find those awesome hammocks?! the ones we had when I was a kid had big gaps and I hates those. the ones you have look comfy!
    Susanna

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  7. Hey, winter camping sounds like a blast! Break out the snowshoes! I wonder how warm those yurts are inside ...

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