The Best of July Vacation Days: African Lion Safari Weekend

Logan and I kept it simple for the Thursday the 20th, since the next day started a weekend of tons of fun planned: African Lion safari, hoteling, an Nikki and a Jon Jons visit!

And Friday July 21st we left for our weekend adventures as soon as we were packed and ready to go in the morning!
Packing is a little more involved than ever before, so we ended up getting there around 10am. But even at that time, we were way earlier than everyone else, the parking lot was empty and so many things were closed. We booked our safari tour first then went to check out some of the animals. You can actually go in with the goats!

Our safari was booked at 11:15am and we decided that we wouldn't take the car in since its kind of a pretty car and the monkeys are known to tear apart the cars! Family selfie on the bus ride!

We were on the bus for about an hour and Logan was hardly fussy since there were periodic distractions.. you know... lions, giraffes, bison, baboons, zebra...

When the bus tour was all finished, we headed over to see the elephant swim at 12:30 (and got a awesome spot to watch them!). We got to see them walking down toward the lake then head straight into the water for a swim!

And after watching the elephants, we headed to a picnic table to have our lunch. We prepared everything in advance so we didn't have to buy lunch there (to save money and also because we don't want to eat the usual unhealthy options!)

The best lunch picture!

We saved the amazing splash pad for after lunch because this is usually the time that Logan naps, but he will stay up forever for a splash park!

He loved it... but refused to go down the toddler waterslide. 3 feet of pure scaryness.

My camera got a little sun screened up as you can see. We wrapped our baby and things up around 2pm and headed to Burlington where Logan fell asleep pretty much before we even left the parking lot. Big day, little boy.

As perfect timing had it, Goobster woke up right as we pulled into our hotel in Burlington and the Waterfront hotel! Our room for the evening:

After we got our room and unpacked our stuff, we headed out for some pre supper ice cream because we're the best parents ever. We tried for the gelato place that we tried a few years ago but it is still (somehow) cash only so we opted for the diner right across from the hotel. Birthday cake ice cream for me but Logan only likes vanilla.

We went for a little walk along the Burlington lakeshore.

Our hotel had the best location!

There was a park a bit further down the waterfront that was amazing for Logan too. Logan's waterfront swinging here.

We also scoped out the food trucks that were setting up for the food truck festival on the way back to the hotel since we knew we were going there the next day with Nikki and Jon Jon! We knew the mac and cheese/grilled cheese truck had Logan written all over it.

And the rest of the evening we spent in our hotel room with some Swiss Chalet delivery. Logan loved the swiss chalet sauce with the fries and chicken. That's my child for sure.

Logan went to bed a bit earlier because of the long day he had around 7:30pm. What do you do when you have to be super quiet because the child is sleeping in the bed right beside you? Split a bottle of red and play words with friends quietly of course!

This guy had the whole bed to himself, but it was apparently a little stressful. At 12:30am he woke up and couldn't get back to sleep for about an hour and a half until I crawled in with him (then he slept like a baby!). Guess the big bed was too cold for him and i wasn't complaining about his Mommy need!

It wasn't the earliest day ever for Logan - he got up around 7am, then we went down for our breakfast. And we even got to sit outside and look over the lake!

This is what Logan does when you try to take a family selfie
<--------------- Funniest kid.

After breakfast, we hit up the hotel pool. It wasn't so busy - 8:30am swims apparently aren't all that popular! Our room was actually on the lowest level which was the same floor as the pool, so it was just a little walk down the hall to swim.

Logan loved it! He had such a good time and special requests were for repeated supported jumps in from the edge.

After our swim we prepared to head over to Nikki and Jon Jons for a sleepover!

We headed over a bit early to Nikki and Jon Jons hoping that Logan would nap in his playpen at their house. But Logan was way too excited and unfamiliar with the environment that he refused.
Nikki forgot that she had a retirement party for her Dad, so we joined along and went to Nikkis family get together to crash the party. There were lots of family that were from far away so some even questioned how we were related...

Logan fell asleep in the car for all of 5 minutes then slept on Aleksys shoulder for the first half hour of arrival - and nap done!

Logan had some new toys to play with too... But his very favourite is toilet tag. And its my new favourite too.

After the impromptu family get together, we headed down to the Waterfront again to the food truck festival.

And we got the scoped out mac and cheese and grilled cheese for the goober!!

We had some awesome seafood rice from the Latin truck, a shawarma, and Nikki got a falafel burger and Jon Jon a good ol greek wrap.
So hard to choose, and we got food from 5 trucks.. no one chose the same!

Walking along the board walk after eating. Logan's at can be spotted but he's a bit short here - pushing the stroller!

After food trucks, we went back to the same ice cream store as the day before and I got the brownie ice cream I was eyeing up.

The ground got Aleksys choice of ice cream.

And after Logan went to bed around 8, we stayed up for a few drinks, more food and to catch up and stayed up past 1am... latest night in forever!

Logan didn't seem to get the memo that we were up late and decided we would all start the day at 5:45am. How fun! 3 hours of sleep is plenty. Because no one else n the house was up, we did a sneaky run to Tim's for some XL coffees and some donuts for this guy and had a Peppa morning until Jon Jon came downstairs and made us eggs.

And Goober had enough from a long weekend of fun and slept the entire way back home from Burlington - always a relief for a road trip!