Summer Adventures, part one

It’s been 4 years since our last family trip to Calgary, and what a difference 4 years can make. This visit turned out to be as “on brand” as I had hoped, but it also highlighted our changing family dynamics. The kids are growing up, which means the way in which we all relate and interact with one another is evolving too. The thing that makes me incredibly happy is that we all still love spending time together; I hope that never changes. I say that because it hit me recently that, as the kids get older and become adults, they won’t be legally required to hang out with us. It will be entirely their choice. It’s a surprisingly hard mindset to adjust to after years of feeling like the kids were, in many ways, just an extension of myself (everywhere I was, so were they).

We approached this trip very much as a team and with a “say yes to everything” motto. That means that anything we saw and wanted to do/try/eat/buy, we did. I wouldn’t say that we are super strict parents at home, but this was definitely a change for our kids, and they enjoyed it to the max. And it was precisely this attitude that shaped our trip from beginning to end … including the (unanimous) decision to come home a day early. It wasn’t because we didn’t have fun; in fact, the opposite. We had a jam-packed 2 days of Doing All the Fun Things and had checked off most of the items on our must-do lists. Our remaining plans were up in the air thanks to the heat warning in effect for the rest of the weekend (which meant that our outdoor time would be limited). Everyone agreed that being home a day early was preferable to being cooped up in the hotel, so rather than force ourselves to stick to the original itinerary, we said “yes” to what we really wanted to do — go back home.

Luckily, we were able to visit the Zoo before temperatures became intolerable and a good thing too, because both the kids swore up and down that they didn’t remember their last visit at all.

We also celebrated my son’s birthday by taking him to eat at all his favourite places. If my son has a love language, it’s definitely food. Although, to be fair, we are a family that enjoys eating, haha! The “yes to everything” motto meant extra stops for desserts and trying new things like bubble tea. They were able to burn off some of the sugar high at the hotel pool, one of the most popular “destinations” on our trip.

We also had a lovely time in Inglewood. As planned, we stopped in at Fair’s Fair Books and went on a little book shopping spree. And by “little”, I mean that everyone shopped to their heart’s content.

My other must-see store, Cody & Sioux, was more of a disappointment; I didn’t find any of the pieces on my shopping list so, alas, it’s back to thrifting and Poshmark as far as that goes. Can you believe that none of these cowboy boots spoke to me?

After that, we stumbled on a few more fun places, including an arcade bar open to kids (much to my kids’ delight), a mid-century modern furniture store (much to my husband’s delight), and another bookstore (much to my delight).

Yeah, I bought more books. In fact, I bought nothing but books on this trip (and one random pair of jeans). I even persuaded the whole family to join me for quick stops at a couple of Value Villages, and all we came out with was … more books. I’m not mad about it. My To Be Read pile is about to get LIT!

We did go to the CrossIron Mills premium outlet mall outside Calgary as well, which was a big hit with the kids — we almost never go to malls at home, so there is a novelty factor. I think the prices were a bit of a shock to them, used as they are to mom’s thrift shopping, but they did enjoy a taste of shopping autonomy, not to mention the food court. For me, the mall was a bit of a disappointment, which is not unusual. I’m so used to thrifting that I find myself bored by the limited selection in regular stores; the only one I tend to enjoy is Winners/HomeSense because it has that same chaotic energy as thrift stores. The Polo outlet store was the biggest disappointment of all. There were only a few pieces that looked interesting and really had that Papa Ralph energy for me, and even those weren’t sufficiently “wow” to justify the retail price. The rest of the store looked very generic; I blame it on the fact that this was a “factory” store not a regular retail establishment. What I did find interesting is that they were selling both the Polo AND the Lauren Ralph Lauren brands; I thought that the latter was owned by a different company these days, and not under the same umbrella as Polo. I guess I was wrong.

All in all, it was a nice mini getaway, and it has us all hyped for our next summer adventure.