2025 In Review - Summer

Summer 2025 was fairly busy.

For Lucas’ birthday we decided to go to Toronto to celebrate in style. We usually jet off to Disneyland whenever we want to go to a theme park, but for reasons we decided to stay within Canada and try out Canada’s Wonderland for the first time.

The theme park was… interesting. There were a lot of thriller rides/large rollercoasters, but I actually only like two or three of them. I’m not sure if it’s because the rides are older if Disneyland just puts in more care to make the rides feel smoother, but the ones at Canada’s Wonderland were incredibly jerky.

As someone with a lot of back pain and chronic headaches, there was one ride in particular, Wilde Beast, that legitimately had me fearing for my life. I was in extreme pain from the way the ride threw me around, and I was begging that an attendant notice me crying so they would stop the ride. Alas, they didn’t so I had to suffer through the whole thing. I know there’s signs that warn people with chronic back pain to stay off rides like this, but I have never experienced anything like that before, and I’ve been to multiple Disney parks, Universal Studios, Six Flags and Vancouver’s local amusement park. There was just something about that one that my body couldn’t take.

I enjoyed walking around the park, though! It was a nice sunny day, and the slushy drinks were super refreshing! But yeah. I don’t think it is a place I’d go back to.

The rest of the trip to Toronto was great! We got to have Cheesecake Factory and Jersey Mike’s, our two favourite American restaurants, which only have locations in the Toronto area throughout the entirety of Canada. And to be honest, this is a big reason why Lucas and I wanted to go to Toronto haha We love Jersey Mike’s so much!

We got to explore Casa Loma, which actually has a pretty sad history. Sir Henry Pelatt used his own money to bring hydro-electric power to the city, but then the government swooped in after it was all completed and took the plant away from him. That was the beginning of his financial troubles.

The construction of Sir Henry’s castle was delayed multiple times, and ultimately was never finished. Sir Henry was able to live there for about 10 years, but because he wasn’t able to pay the property taxes (which increased by nearly 2000% over the years) the bank came and took the castle away from him.. It was truly a shame that the castle was never finished, as what was completed is gorgeous.

Besides the good eats and Casa Loma, we explored areas of Toronto that we had never been to before, despite going many times. Lucas and I also checked out Centreville Amusement Park, which is this neat little island with rides, a gondola and a petting zoo. It is definitely a bit more geared to children/families, but it was a nice way to spend our last day in Toronto. Very chill. Especially the gondola ride, which gave us a nice view of the island and the main city across the water.

Then we went on a neat hike that took us underneath a large bridge that is used by trains. If you haven’t guessed by now, Lucas and I are big fans of all things nature.

With one last Jersey Mike’s, we headed back home.

The next big exciting thing that happened in the summer was a trip out to Winnipeg! Naturally the first thing we did was explore the city. We walked to Saint Boniface Cathedral then took a cool hiking trail that went along the river. I can’t even remember how long we walked, but by the end of it, my feet were aching.

The next day we went to the Human Rights Museum, which was definitely an emotional and important visit. Though, I will say I was a little disappointed by the amount of empty space the museum had. I suppose on a busier day it wouldn’t have been as noticeable, but it would have been nice to see that space a bit more utilized with different exhibits.

After the Human Rights Museum, we went to Assiniboine Park, where we explored pretty much every area, but mainly the English Gardens, which were really beautiful.

Before heading back to the hotel for the night, we stopped by The Leaf, which is a small, but incredibly interesting botanical garden. It’s completely enclosed in glass, and has different biomes to explore. It was cool walking from one area to the next and feeling the obvious change in climate. The coolest area, though, was the top floor: the butterfly garden. There were so many different types of butterfly, and they were everywhere. You had to look down at the ground while walking to make sure you didn’t step on any. For Life is Strange fans, they also had the blue morpho butterfly 🦋

The next day, was supposed to be the convention that Lucas was invited to. I had planned to stay to help him throughout the weekend, but for personal reasons I left after a couple of hours, and ended up exploring the city on my own.

Since I was feeling pretty down, I decided to do a cat cafe. I had a little bit of time to kill so I ended up walking to the Manitoba Legislative Building (part of me was hoping I’d be able to meet Wab Kinew 😂) They were doing a bit of construction, but it was still a beautiful spot.

Next was Cleocatra Cafe, which was exactly what I needed. Though, I definitely fell in love with little miss Taylor Swift and even debated staying an extra five days to complete the adoption process. But she was adopted a little later on so I hope she’s happy with her new family!

Afterwards, I went back to Saint Boniface to see if my relatives were buried at the graveyard there. Unfortunately they were buried at a different cemetery that was a bit too far to walk to, especially since the smoke from the massive fires was finally starting to hit the city. I did find the grave of Louis Riel, though, which was cool to see. I had to head back to the hotel at that point because the smoke was making it really difficult to breathe after walking around in it for a few hours.

On the way back, I ran into the scariest thing I’ve seen. A gaggle of cobra chickens (Canadian Geese). There were so many of them and no way around… only through.

The next morning, the smoke was still pretty bad so I ended up spending the day at the Manitoba Museum, which was tons of fun! Shoutout to Diamond Fish Designs for suggesting it!

The museum is massive, with lots of things to check out and tons of different exhibits. I ended up having to rush through the last exhibition to get to the planetarium show on time. I definitely would love to go back with Lucas if we can return to Winnipeg. I think he’d really love the museum.

And then it was time to return to the hotel and get ready for our flight home.

The rest of summer was pretty busy with writing a few projects for Wolf & Magpie Media: Camp Nekydallon and Ashe & Brimstone, which released in September.

But my buddy, Aaron Moy and I were able to run our voice acting panel at two more conventions.

Anime Revolution:

And Summerfest:

I always love running this panel with Aaron. He’s such an amazing cohost and I hope we will be able to do more panels together in the future!

That’s about it for Summer 2025! Next stop? Paris, France! 🇫🇷

⭐️ Jenna