Canada, eh? Mom and Alyssa trip to Fort Erie, Canada

Alyssa and I went to Canada for a few days to visit my sister Katy, her husband Scott and daughters Ceci and Sophie. While we went at the insistence of Alyssa, I offered no resistance to her idea/ command that we travel to Canada :).

There was a four day stretch of the summer wherein: 1) Katy and girls were home and 2) Alyssa and I had nowhere we had to be. We took advantage of those days and hightailed it up to Canada for a quick visit.

We drove up to Canada on Wednesday and arrived the last day of a two and a half week overnight camp that Sophie and Ceci were enrolled in. As in, the girls were still in camp when we arrived. The camp was super close to Katy's house and so Katy, Alyssa and I  all went to the camp to eat dinner with the campers. We originally thought that dinner was going to be the grand finale of the camp and Ceci and Sophie would be coming home right after dinner. However, it turned out they had a couple of more activities so Katy, Alyssa and I went back to Katy's house after the dinner and then waited for the girls to call and let Katy know they were ready to be picked up. I don't think that Alyssa had hanging out with her mom and aunt on the agenda for her first evening in Canada, but that's what happened until about 9:30 pm when Ceci and Sophie came home. Alyssa slept on a blow up mattress in Sophie's room and I if I heard them giggle once, I heard them giggle 150 times in Sophie's room.

The next day we talked about doing a number of activities. By late morning, though, Sophie and Alyssa asked if it was OK if we stayed home most of the day. They were having so much fun playing and didn't want to go anywhere. Katy and I were fine with hanging out at home. We had a lot of catching up to do; staying home was perfect for us. In the late afternoon, we met Scott at the marina. He had their boat out. We took a boat ride and the girls went tubing.

The next day, we went to one of the Lake Erie beaches to swim. We waited until later in the afternoon to go to the beach- the day did not start out warm but by late afternoon it was pretty warm, if not hot out. The girls loved playing in the lake and in the sand.

The following day, Saturday, we went out on the boat again. This time, we went on a much longer boat ride the girls tubed a lot longer, too. Scott drove the boat to the nearby town of Chippewa and docked it while we ordered food at a restaurant. We ordered at the Boathouse Restaurant (pizza, onion rings, poutine, coconut shrimp- you know, healthy stuff :)) and took it to the dock to eat.

The next day, Sunday, we left Canada for home. It was on our way home, at the border crossing that I realized how close we were (or could have been) to not being allowed into Canada on Wednesday on our way up to Canada. We could have been denied entrance into Canada. Do you know how awful that would have been? The drive to my sister's house is 7 1/2 hours and 7 1/4 hours of those hours occur in America. To have been turned away at the border would have meant no visit to my sister's house and a long 7 1/4 hour drive back to Ohio. I'm sure that Alyssa and I would have been bawling most of the way home.

Here's what happened on Sunday, at the border to the US: I handed the border agent my passport and answered his questions about our stay in Canada. At one point, I answered "we" to describe our time in Canada. "We?" he quickly and tersely asked, "Who else is with you?" Alyssa was in the backseat so he couldn't see her when I had approached the window. He asked for her passport and I replied that she was not 16 years old so she didn't need a passport. He then asked for her birth certificate. Oopsies! I didn't have her birth certificate with me. I had brought no ID for her. Yes, it should have occurred to me to do, but it literally didn't. When Katy and Scott first moved to Canada, anyone entering Canada had to have a passport, including kids. So we got everyone in our family passports (we actually had them already but had we not, we would have gotten them for visits to Canada). A few years ago, Canada changed that policy and kids under 16 no longer were required to have passports to enter Canada. I've been taking the kids to Canada for the past nine years- when both policies were in place. This year, I knew I didn't need a passport for Alyssa and it just didn't occur to me to bring her birth certificate.

Upon hearing that I didn't have a birth certificate for Alyssa, the US border agent treated me like I'd broken a law (well, I guess I had...). He let us through, tersely, expressing his ire at me. I was thankful we made it through and mad at myself for neglecting that important piece of documentation for Alyssa. If the Canadian border agent on Wednesday had noted Alyssa's lack of documentation, we likely would not have been allowed into Canada. On Wednesday, at the Canadian border, I handed the border agent my passport and answered his questions. I wasn't trying to conceal Alyssa (obviously); she was in the backseat and the border agent didn't ask anything about her. Had he realized I had her with me and asked for her birth certificate (which was 7 1/4 hours away in Ohio, not with me), he likely would have denied us entry

While I definitely #momfailed with regard to international border crossings, I didn't fail with regard to photo documenting our stay in Canada. The girls had a fantastic time together, Alyssa's (inadvertent smuggled) illegal entry to Canada notwithstanding, and I captured a lot of that with photos.

Here are Sophie and Alyssa on Wednesday at Sophie's camp

Sophie- dual citizen of the US and Canada
Alyssa- citizen of the US and undocumented minor in Canada

Alyssa was sad to leave Sophie and Ceci's camp without her cousins on Wednesday but we made the most of it and had fun on the girls' trampoline.

Trampoling with cousins the following day was much more fun for Alyssa

I brought the ingredients to make Oreo truffles so we made some truffles during a trampoline jumping break

Getting excited to tube on the Niagara River

But first- a jump in the river...

...and a friendly game of push your cousin/ sister off of the tube

Time to tube...

Taking a rest...

Back at it...

The other side of the river that we were on was New York, specifically an island called Grand Island, New York

After boating, we went home briefly and then walked to dinner at the Lighthouse Restaurant. The pizza that Alyssa and I ate was not the one with arugula and fig preserve on top of it :).

The following day, Friday, before we went to Crystal Beach, Katy and Scott had to attend a funeral. They didn't know the deceased well but felt like they should attend his funeral as the deceased was a community leader. Katy felt bad for leaving me but I told her it was no problem. The sales tax free holiday had begun in Ohio so I did a bit of online shopping while they were gone. Paying no sales tax on the clothing items that I bought while eating a chocolate hazelnut candy bar in the process was a pleasant way to spend some time.

Crystal Beach... so for some history- the houses that are visible in the picture below are part of a housing development that has access to a private portion of Crystal Beach. You can barely see it in the picture but one portion of the beach isn't crowded; that's the private beach area for people who own homes in the development. When Katy and Scott first moved to Canada, they rented a home that was part of this development. So, they had access to the private beach portion of Crystal Beach. The first year that I took all three kids to Canada by myself was in 2010 (I had documentation for all of them!!). The day we arrived was a warm one and we headed to Crystal Beach shortly after we arrived. 

Here are a few pics from the kids at Crystal Beach in 2010:

Alyssa- yes, she had floaties on despite the water being very shallow. I brought passports and floaties with us to Canada- I was killing it in 2010!!

 Sophie and Jacob

Sophie and Alyssa

 Abby and Ceci

Abby and Alyssa

Back to Crystal Beach in 2018-  down three kids from 2010 and in the public beach portion of Crystal Beach. Oh well, Alyssa and Sophie had a great time together!!

More tubing on Saturday- this was the sunniest and warmest day that we were in Canada. I love how the water looks with the sun shining on it.

I took this picture from the boat. The mist that's visible is the mist from Niagara Falls. That's how close we were to the Falls. I mean, I zoomed in as much as I could with my camera, but we were still pretty close.

 Scott and Katy's boat docked while we fetched food

 The girls in the Boathouse Restaurant

Back on the boat and heading for home

We had a great time in Canada. The teens and Donnie fared well in Ohio while we were gone. Abby had papers to write for her Honors English class that she wanted to complete (they're due before the school year starts) so she worked on those. Jacob worked at his two jobs and Donnie worked, per usual, to pay for all of our shenanigans :). We missed everyone but were so thankful we were able to make the trip.