Like half of the kids born in the 80s and 90s, my parents are divorced. Its no real shock or surprise, lets be honest, its a pretty common for our day and age. I am not going to go into any real detail of my childhood and how things between my parents went down, honestly its not my business to share, but what I will tell you is that they separated when I was four and I have spent very little time with my parents together. Please don’t confuse that with a lack of parenting from either of my parents because that is certainly not the case. Their parenting style was absolutely 50/50, its just that, like any child of divorce, I celebrated Christmas with mom and then with dad, birthdays with mom and then with dad, vacationed with mom and then with dad, and so on. They were both at the major events like, award ceremonies, dance competitions, graduations, and of course my wedding, but how often do these events roll around?  Honestly, I didn’t mind it much at all, its all I really knew.

Fast forward to December 2014 and for the first time my parents wanted to visit Rusty the kids and I at the same time. Both wanted to spend time with Carter on her birthday (December 30th) and then stay though New Years Day. I was so torn, I didn’t want to tell either parents “no” and it didn’t even cross my mind that they would visit together. What was I supposed to do? Well, I just told them what was going on, I told them that both of them wanted to visit, they were both welcome to visit, but I wasn’t going to pick who could and could not come to Toronto. Then, to my surprise, they decided they would both visit.

Like I said before, I didn’t know any different so I had no idea how much it would mean to me to spend a holiday with both sides of my family. We had a blast all together. I had no idea what there was to do in Toronto, we had only lived here 2 months, but all together we ventured out and found some things to do and good places to eat. We spent time at our home playing card games and eating home made Mexican food, and we celebrated Carter turning 3. We made memories that I thought would have to last me a lifetime, but I was actually wrong.

This year, it happened again! It turns out, everyone had such a fun time last year that we decided to do it all again, and that is when the tradition began.

This time around, I was much more knowledgeable about Toronto and winter activities, plus, I was much more prepared to host such a large group. It went even better and was even more fun then last year. We went to Legoland for Carter’s birthday, we went ice skating on New Years Eve, enjoyed great food out and at home, and of course, we played more card games. The best part of the visit? Hearing everyone make plans for next year.

2014

2015

Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.

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