Day 8: Beach Day and a Recipe for a Day Off

*Read to the end to find a free recipe!

We woke up to the smell of bacon and the sound of a blender mixing crepe batter. Simple luxuries we do not take for granted!

Breakfast was prepared and beautifully presented by Amelia’s friends. Katelyn and Daniel recently moved into a house just south of Gimli and generously stepped away from their work renovating, to host us last night. This morning we enjoyed a delicious breakfast, and then went for a canoe ride on the windy waters of Lake Winnipeg in a tippy canoe. Gerald insisted on steering, so he was left to do much of the work while Amelia took frequent breaks to documente the experience.

Daniel and Katelyn live busy lives and we are incredibly grateful for their hospitality. We left these new home owners anticipating a return when their Airbnb is ready and we can properly compensate them for a stay. 

5 km later we were at the beach. Winnipeg beach—a blend of sand, sun, and (thankfully) shade. We populated a secluded picnic table for much of the afternoon, abandoning it only briefly to grab food from the grocery store.

Amelia pretended she was sweating back in Indonesia in order to fully submerge herself in the water. Once her body was semi-numb, she enjoyed using different muscles while people watching from the buoys (and eventually swimming around). 

Gerald caught up on the news for the first time since we left last week, thanks to a newspaper given to him by Katelyn. Napping was his main pursuit of the afternoon, though it was made difficult because his arm didn’t want to stay on the narrow bench.

Gerald would have settled for a burger and fries for dinner, but Amelia was tired of greasy food. Amelia’s ability to find a current menus online proved inferior to her choice of a place booked solid for the next month. Her expensive palette (and guilt about spending money) were both satisfied due to a few cancellations (and the fact that Gerald just walked up and asked if he could sit down on the patio). Soothing “feel good” music serenaded us under the lush vines as we sat at a granite table and wrangled these words. 

That is where we sit still.

Respectfully relaxed,

Gerald and Amelia

Recipe for a Day Off:

Ingredients:

• Cycle as little as possible
• Relax as much as possible 
• Eat what you want
• Go where you want 
• Do what you want
• Have many meaningful conversations with a person near and dear to you

Instructions:

Mix all ingredients together in whatever amounts work best for you on that day. Enjoy.