Well, after leaving Chicago near the end of July my blog-writing went straight down the toilet! I'm not sure what happened, but I do know that the rest of our trip was a blast and I regret not having documented it at the time.

We went to Michigan for 3 days where we visited with our good friends that we met when we lived in Iowa in the late 90s. It was really fun hanging out with them and their family, and a good time was had by all! We spent a night on Mackinac Island which is a quaint (yet touristy) place that doesn't allow motorized vehicles. After parking our vehicle on the 'mainland', we took a ferry to the island where we encountered a lot of horses, bikes, and fudge shops. We stayed at an old, historic hotel where the kids had a blast swimming the afternoon away while the adults chatted and enjoyed some adult beverages.  It was very civilized.  :)  The following day we all rented bikes and rode the 8.3 mile loop around the island. It was a hot day, but the ride was fairly flat and the scenery was fantastic.

We left Michigan and went straight to Toronto where Chloe had a pointe shoe fitting at the National Ballet School of Canada. She was beyond excited to go there as one day she strives to be a prima ballerina. We took the opportunity to explore Toronto a little bit and had dinner at the top of the CN Tower in their rotating restaurant.  It was a gorgeous, clear day and we could see until we couldn't see any more due to the earth's curvature!  In Toronto we returned the rental car that we had used for the past nine days, and we were amazed to see that we had put on over 3500 km! I will admit that we had a small panic before digging out the rental papers to ensure that we had signed up for unlimited mileage! Phew.

We said goodbye to that part of the continent and headed back to Vancouver where we were to spend the final 3 nights of our crazy cross-country journey. Vancouver was, as usual, beautiful.  We had a beach day, did a 25 km bike ride one day, and spent a very important evening with Taylor Swift for her concert at BC Place. What a full and fun trip we had, but I will admit that it was not as relaxing as we are used to with a summer vacation.  We saw a lot of cool things, but we were happy to get back home and spend a well deserved rest for a few days at my parent's cabin doing nothing more than rolling over now and then to ensure even tanning.

**Side note - We were beyond pleased to find out that Jeff passed his Diplomate exams and is officially part of the inaugural class of DCCJPs. Lots of letters for lots of brain power.  :)