Friday Favourites – 5 Reasons Why House-Sitting for Your Parents Can be Awesome

Happy Friday! This past week we’ve been house-sitting for my parents while they’ve been out of the country. They couldn’t take the family dog, Shadow, with them so we came and stayed with her. Whiskey was quite happy to have a friend to hang out with for the week while Garrett and I were happy to have more space to spread out in.

We’ve both been feeling a little cramped in our small apartment this summer and having a week where we could stretch out, open the windows and enjoy the great outdoors was awesome. For this week’s Friday Favourites, I’m sharing some of the reasons why it was so great and how it was almost a mini-vacation (even though we had to work during the daytime).

1. Raiding the Pantry

One of the best things about visiting your parents’ houses is finding all the different foods that they have. Different drinks, salad dressings, crackers, veggies and of course…junk food. I’m pretty sure that the first thing Garrett did was check to see what flavour of chips my mom had in the cupboard.

One afternoon, I came home from work and started riffling through the cupboards and lo and behold, I found all the makings of microwave s’mores – one of my favourite after-school treats when I was growing up (it was a close second to my mom’s homemade chocolate chip cookies). All you do it put some milk chocolate chips on a graham cracker, a marshmallow on the other graham cracker and pop it in the microwave for 20 seconds.

A perfectly melted smore for an after-school work snack.

My super sweet mother picked up one of my favourite peanut-free treats for us to enjoy when we had some friends over for dinner this week. It was so thoughtful that she bought them and I’m sorry to tell my dad that there are none left for when you get home. We ate them all.

We got into full vacation mode one night and made some cocktails to enjoy in the hot tub, using this Midnight Moon Blackberry Moonshine that my brother and sister picked up on their way back from the Florida house this spring. This berry infused booze is awesome, but man is it ever potent. The fact that it comes in a mason jar is just the icing on the cake.

Just so you don’t think that we ate sweets all week and drank moonshine, we also made healthy meals on the grill every night – chicken caesar salad, homemade burgers, sausages and grilled vegetables from our favourite local butcher shop. We ate on the back deck ever night that there wasn’t a storm/mosquitoes.

2. Enjoying Different Recreation

When we’re at home, we tend to do the same things – walks, going to the gym, yoga, watching movies, etc. Being at my parents’ house left us with many more options on how to spend our free time after work.

We played pool in the basement on the evenings when it rained.

We kayaked before we had to bring them up onto higher ground for fear that the flooding across Southern Ontario would rise the river (Everything was fine – phew!)

At the end of a long workday, there is nothing better than sinking into a nice hot tub (maybe with a glass of that awesome moonshine with ginger ale).

3. A Change of Scenery

Our apartment is on a busy street, where you can hear the traffic outside, but my parents are farther back from the road on a river, where all you can hear is the sound of birds chirping and wind rustling through the leaves. It is so calm and quiet there.

Rather than sitting inside to read like I normally do, I found myself spending more time on the back deck…especially with some furry companions who just wanted to lounge around as much as I did.

Whiskey was stoked to have a change of scenery too. He spent his days barking at squirrels with Shadow, and his evenings exploring the back garden looking for bugs. His favourite night was when our friends came over for dinner with their daughter, who just wanted to give the dogs treats and chase them around in the backyard. I’m sure that Shadow loved to have his company during the day too.

4. Going Through your Childhood Memories

While I was there, I decided to go through a couple of old boxes in the closet and clear out some things that I’ve been storing at my parents’ place. I came across some great memories of my childhood like my old Jenny’s Dollhouse (which is now going for $70 on eBay as a “vintage toy” – ha!) and I dug up some photos too.

A visit to the zoo at some point in the 90’s.

My first day I was ever on a set, doing some extra work on the set of Traders at the historic Eaton Estate. It was after this day that I realized I wanted to work behind the camera, not in front of it.

A birthday celebrated on one of our many RV roadtrips across the US – completed with a scratched up cheek (and probably skinned knees too).

Another birthday at home, with wet hair from one of our many summertime dips in the pool.

5. Luxuries You Don’t Have at Home

For the past 10 years, I’ve lived in dorms, houses and apartments that were pretty bare in the appliance department, so I always get geeky and excited when I realized that I’m going to have a dishwasher (seriously amazing…especially when I’m making lots of recipes for the blog) and a washer/dryer in the house. No more schlepping my stuff outside and then downstairs into the creepy apartment basement to do laundry.

I even started throwing a load in during the mornings before work – I felt so productive!

We had a great week there, but of course we’re happy to go home too. I’m looking forward to putting everything away, tidying up the apartment this weekend and then starting fresh on Monday. It was a nice break from our usual routine.

And on a final note, I’ll share this picture of Shadow enjoying water straight from the tap. It’s her favourite way to cool off in the summer.