Skiing & Lac Millette

We also spent a lot of our winter months skiing. My daughter had gone on a ski trip with her school, and she was hooked. She was in winter diving and figure skating at the time. We didn't have the time, money, or energy to add skiing, so she had to drop one sport. She stopped the diving team, and we all got equipped to start skiing. We were lucky because David's parents owned a country house in Lac Millette,  Quebec.

He built it in 1942 and sold it in 2000.  It was about a 1 ½ drive, and we would stay the weekends and any vacation time there. It was great because we could leave early to go skiing, and if the ski hill was close enough, my youngest and I would go prepare lunch and then bring it back to the hill. It gave us a little break since we were beginners. We had many adventures at the cottage.

We celebrated birthdays there and even enjoyed one Christmas with our Charley Brown tree. David went outside one night, knee-high in snow, and cut down a little 4-foot tree. He then put it in the snow, and we went out the next day to look for a tree. He asked the kids if this little tree was a good one, and they said "YES," so he just pulled it out of the snow and they were in awe. Too funny! We then strung some popcorn, clay, and paper ornaments and hung them on our little tree.

It was probably one of the most pleasant Christmas mornings we ever had. The kids had one or two gifts, along with their Xmas stockings, and they were just happy to get what they did until it was time to go to Nana & Papa's. They didn't want to leave the cottage, so I used the fact that maybe Santa had left something for them at their house. The worst thing I could have told them! After we went to Nana & Papa's, they wanted to return to our house because maybe Santa had left them gifts there, too. I always say, "Live and learn!"      

We had many other fun times at the cottage. It was a lot of work for me because packing up every weekend and having to do dusting once we got there, but the joy it brought David and the kids made it worthwhile. As the kids got older and we started camping, we spent much less time there.