My love for abandoned buildings and ghost towns always brings me to the most beautiful places to explore. There is just something about the history, the feeling of adventure and exploration, and the photo ops (see the photo gallery below for what I`m talking about!)

 Val-Jalbert had been on my urbex radar for years. Located about 249km/155 miles north of Quebec City, I had seen it online on a few urbex databases for being a really cool place to explore. 

To my delight, in 2010, they turned it into a historical park. They preserved some buildings, refurbished others, and added a 4D movie experience in the mill, a cable car up the mountain side. To complete the atmosphere, they have actors in period garb walking around and acting just like the real civilians that did back in the 1920s. One of my favorite parts, of course, was the railroad still visible in the camp grounds - at one point with a giant tree growing right in the middle of it! 

While some houses are not structurally sound, there are others that have been preserved for tourists to wander through with some antique and vintage relics still on site to see. 

We traveled there when our little ones were 6 and 22 months. The trails were well maintained with some boardwalk so it was so easy to get around by foot and with a wagon that we were able to rent at the main entrance. There is also a trolley car that travels from one end of the park to the other - from the main entrance to the mill at the back of the town.

Since this ghost town is pretty much in the sticks in the middle of nowhere, there are various quaint locations to stay the night on site.

Being campers, we made it a family affair and camped out in Val-Jalpert's park with Grandma and Grandpa in their trailer. Tent sites are also available here, as well as mini cottages to rent if you don't have camping gear.

Val-Jalbert has renovated period houses and the general store with modern amenities for guests to rent.

I was invited to guest post on the Life Well Cruised blog about our trip to Blue Lagoon Island in the Bahamas. It was a lot of fun reminiscing about our day here, I was inspired to start looking at excursions for our next family cruise!

Have you been on a cruise with your family before? If not, I highly recommend it! Check out my post about being a first time cruiser - I'm sure it will change your mind if you don't think you'd like a cruise!

My disappointing quality family time vacation (as described in this post) was saved by this place right here. 

Every summer we try to go camping at least once, and we try to book at a camp ground that we haven't been to yet.

We have a love affair with provincial parks. So when we heard about the new railway exhibit in Brockville, Ontario, I immediately searched for the surrounding Ontario Provincial Parks. That led me to Charleston Lake.

As we were camping in a tent in the middle of a heat wave, this beach was a lovely solace. It was perfect: the water temperature was just enough to keep us cool in the heat and the surrounding trees offered a lot of shade for people to park themselves in the sand. And would you just look at the view!?

The campgoers were very friendly, and the kids made several friends as we spent the most part of the days on the beach.

The day use beach has a lot more sand, and allows for swimmers to wade out almost halfway across to the other side before stepping into any seaweed. The sand at the campground beach is a bit muddier.

Northern Watersnakes are common in the area and there were several sightings at both beaches, and some of the islands when we were there, including one sighting by our daughter who followed behind it and pointed it out to all the swimmers on the beach. Other wildlife sightings included minnows, sunfish, and someone caught a large mouth bass when we were there.

The only hike we made time to do was on the Hemlock Ridge Trail and I`m so happy that's the one we chose - it was beautiful and offered a lot of shade. We made sure to go first thing in the morning as it was cooler. This trail offered a guide to read about various species of trees along the path, passes by a beaver pond, and a section of it weaves through rock crevices. Along the way we spotted a great blue heron and lots of frogs in the water.

It was easy enough for our toddler to climb up the rocks, and the whole trail took us about an hour and a half.

Our daughter came across a poster of activities hosted by the park's Discovery Centre when we went to one of the park's washrooms the first day. She excitedly pointed out a beaver information centre and so we took the kids to the park's amphitheater. That was our first encounter with Shania, one of the park's Naturalists. Shania hosted the whole beaver information session (complete with videos and slide shows) without flash cards or notes or anything! She wasn't even phased when her microphone kept cutting out. This girl knows her stuff! You can tell she loves her job and is genuinely interested in what she does. I watched some of the children at the end of her presentation ask her random questions for their booklets and she knew the answer to every thing, and you could tell it wasn't just memorization - it was just knowledge she has soaked up by working at the park.

That's where we learned about the Discovery Guide and Photo Challenge. (I guess we were too concerned with cooling off at the beach to find out about these activities!) I loved the complimentary Discovery Guide concept which really seemed to have the older children engaged with what they saw in the park. So if you're headed to Charleston Lake, don't forget to pick some up for your kids right when you get there so they can start right away! If you get 12 or more of the photos or achievements in the guide, you get to be an official explorer and receive a button and your name on the Wall of Fame in the Discovery Center!

The following day, we visited the Discovery Center and stayed for a few hours! (And no it wasn't just because it is the only building with air conditioning in the park!)

Inside the discovery center there are many hands on activities for the kiddos, and for adults too!

This is also where the resident Black Rat Snake, Pi, hangs out. He was rescued a few years ago and has lived at the Discovery Centre ever since. He’s super friendly and followed the kids around the glass of his enclosure.

One of my favorite parts was the Wildlife Sightings interactive map - we added the Great Blue Heron to it.

Behind the Discovery Centre, Shania hosted an "Animal Babies" workshop, and again, her nature knowledge didn't cease to amaze. Our seven year old was captivated with the presentation and both of the kids had a lot of fun making the baby bird nest craft at the end.

The park's campsites were really nice, and offered a lot of privacy and shade. Beware of the many sites that have an abundance of poison ivy surrounding them. Our site was okay, but there was an abundance of poison ivy patches along the road on the way to the washrooms from our site. We are also very lucky that our kids don't wander into the brush and mostly stay to roads and paths.

Another bummer was that at the end of the day, we had to keep a fire going (yes, even in the heat wave) to keep the maniacal bugs away. The mosquitoes weren't the worst we had ever seen, but as soon as we walked out of our campsite, we were literally swarmed by deer flies. If you're headed here, bring a good bug repellent and keep a small fire going with the wood sold by the park - the smoke will keep the deer flies away.

​As I mentioned above, I have always worried about the price of a cruise, especially for our family of four. The luxurious pictures and videos I always saw just made everything seem really, really expensive. The ornate rooms and restaurants, the beaches on private islands, the FOOD.

When Ilana approached me with Norwegian's "Friends and Family Sail Free" promotion, I knew we could manage this and not break our budget. We booked an interior cabin - the cheapest cabins on the ship. With the interior, we got one "perk" of our choice as a promotion; the third and fourth passengers sail for free! That meant that all we had to pay for our two kids was the taxes. Also on promotion when we booked was their "Canada At Par" deal. This meant that what we were quoted in USD, we paid that amount in CND, which was a huge saving because the American Dollar was quite high at the time. The best part was that we we were able to drive the 6 or so hours from Montreal to the port in New York City and the itinerary was round trip (With stops in Port Canaveral, Florida, at Great Stirrup Cay (Norwegian Cruise Line's private island in the Bahamas), and in Nassau, Bahamas.) Which meant... we didn't have to spend money on airfare!

In the end, we justified the budget by acknowledging that we were investing in some quality time as a family and memories we will have forever.

​I'm probably not the only one who pictured the movie "Titanic" when I thought of a cruise. I mean... the ball gowns, the tuxedos, the feathery hats? I've seen professional photographs of acquaintances’ cruise trips where the family dressed in gowns and suits to go to dinner. I just couldn't picture this for our family. As an early childhood educator, with a husband who works in the transport industry, and a 6 year old and a toddler, we're a pretty laid back, casual family, whose main vacation experiences were tent camping. I pretty much have to bribe my family into wearing something other than sweats and leggings.

One of the reasons Ilana strongly suggested Norwegian Cruise Line for our family was because of their "Freestyle Cruising" mentality. The dress-code is resort casual: by all means wear that gown if you want to, but we were comfortable the entire trip wearing sundresses and polo shirts to dinner, and our pyjama pants or bathing suits to the buffet.

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​I was so lucky growing up. My mom worked from home, so my summer vacations as a kid were really relaxing. I would spend hours on our deck reading the books I chose at our local library, biking to and from our friends houses, and swimming in the lake.

​Do you remember the excitement you felt at the end of the summer and you were excited to buy your new supplies and see your friends that you haven’t seen in a while? That’s when you knew that your vacation actually did you good - you looked forward to going back to routine.

​Now-a-days, because most families have both parents that are at work, daycare, day camp and sleepaway camp is more the norm. But it’s not only the summer months that can be of concern. Because I work with preschool aged children and volunteer at the school-aged level, I often see parents use their entire vacation time away or simply staying at home while children continuously follow their routine of being at daycare.