Home For A Rest

Wow! What a whirlwind the past 2 weeks have been. I decided rather last minute to take a trip home to Saskatchewan so Vaughn could see his Gramma and Grandpa for Christmas.

The trip out was great - I left about 5 so Vaughn would sleep the entire time. He had his new carseat so I was not too concerned about his comfort (meaning, I knew he would be comfortable). However, he was starting to get a cold and wasn't feeling the best. At Suffield, he started screaming and I thought maybe I should get a room in Medicine Hat for the night but by the time we hit the city, he was out cold again and I decided to carry on.

We had a wonderful, but terribly short, visit with my parents. They spoiled all of us, but I was especially fond of the sleigh that they bought for Vaughn. I also loved that Mom got up with Vaughn at 5:30 one morning so I could go back to bed. Grammas are great for that aren't they?

I made it back home for a few days' rest, got the laundry all done and then packed up again to get ready for our trip to the West Coast. In typical Kerry and Tim fashion, we couldn't agree on a place to stay in Vancouver so we decided to split our time between 2 hotels. Got to love a compromise.

We left at 1:30 in the afternoon which turned out to be a lot too late, as driving in the mountains in the dark when the roads are wet is no fun at all. We made it as far as Salmon Arm and hunkered down for the night.

Just outside of Chilliwack, I thought maybe we should see if Uncle Tom and Auntie Carol were home and they were, so we stopped in to see their beautiful new apartment, have a cup of coffee and use their restroom. It was a quick visit, but lots of fun. Always nice to catch up with family...

Tim got to fulfill one of his wishes for this trip - to get to our hotel downtown (my pick), we had to drive down East Hasting street in Vancouver. It just so happened at that point in time, I had just finished pumping in the car and couldn't do my bra back up, so there we were, driving down the street, me with no shirt on putting my bra back on. Very fitting.

I loved our hotel downtown. Totally my style - boutique, all suite, very nicely decorated and right in the heart of the action. We had a lovely sushi dinner just off Robson Street and I was able to get my favourite coffee in the world the next day (Blenz Belgian Milk Chocolate Mocha).

It was on that little side trip to get my coffee that made me realize why I left Vancouver.

I've always been a friendly person. I make eye contact with people and quite often will smile. In Calgary, people look back and smile back. In Vancouver, people look down, look past you, around you, beside you, anywhere but AT you. The only person that smiled and said good morning to me was a homeless guy with his whole life's belongings in a sack on his back. I was only too happy to smile and say good morning back.

Then, when I was so obviously excited to be at Blenz, the barista couldn't care less how much I loved their coffee. I was thinking that with the Olympics pending that maybe, just maybe, somebody would have told people in the service industry that people will be coming from all over the world to Vancouver and maybe they should be nicer. Wishful thinking. But seriously Vancouver, lose the attitude, you're not THAT special.

We just got nicely situated and it was time to change hotels. So, we packed up our suitcases, Vaughn's clothes, his bumbo seat, his stroller, his playpen/bed, all his food stuff, his toys, blankets, etc. Great idea changing hotels so much hey Tim? He told me he would do all the lifting, which he did, but man what a lot of work.

Next stop, River Rock Casino & Resort in Richmond. Gorgeous hotel, big room, king size bed. Fab. U. Lous. What was the best was that Laura could come over and spend the day with me and Vaughn while Tim played poker and tried to watch the hockey game.

We had a fantastic day of shopping, cupcakes and topped it all off with the buffet at the River Rock. Yummers.

I was so happy we could stop at the Cole office the next morning on our way to the ferry to Victoria. I was sad a few people I wanted to see weren't around, but we got to see most everyone and Vaughn was his usual charming self.

Off to the ferry, where I had made a reservation ($15.00 each way) to find out that it was not the $45.00 I thought it was going to be, but we also had to pay $13.50 for both Tim and me so it was $72.00 one way plus the $15.00 reservation fee. There better be gold toilet seats on that ferry. Nope. We got some great shots of Vaughn's first ferry ride though.

It was so great to see Peahead and Brad and get to know their little girl Bianca. She's a few months younger than Vaughn but already weighs almost as much as him. She was a very hospitable young lady and didn't mind sharing her toys.

The only thing bad about that part of the trip was that the spare bed Cherie and Brad have wasn't really suited for people of our stature. So, after one night of sleeping with one eye open in case the springs popped and the bed folded in on us, I slept on the fold out couch in the living and Tim stayed in the room with Vaughn. Somehow though, I still ended up being the one who heard him in the middle of the night and got up to feed him.

Peahead wanted to give us a nice turkey dinner but had never cooked one before. So, with a little guidance from me and a little basting assistance from Tim, she produced a fantastic meal. It ended with a perfect blackberry pie, made from her own blackberries. YUM.

The next morning, Tim and I decided we wanted to get a bit of a head start on our long drive home, so we got up at 7 to catch the 9:00 ferry. It felt like we were making a mad dash, but we did have to hurry to make sure we'd make it on time. To help me out, Tim dressed Vaughn.

And this is where the trip gets funny.

We were on the ferry, had some breakfast and Tim went down to get the crib board. I knew we were getting close to the shore and wanted to speed things up a bit so I gathered up all the cards. 4 of the cards happened to be Tim's crib which he hadn't counted yet. After much accusing of cheating, we decided to call it a draw, get our stuff together and head to the car.

Tim went to the men's room, and I picked up Vaughn out of his chair and he was soaking wet from his tummy down to his knees. At this point, I regretted asking Tim to change his diaper and wondered what he had done. I decided to go wait outside the men's room for Tim because he had the car keys and I didn't have a change of clothes. But I thought I could at least change the diaper in the meantime.

So, I found a spot and when I took off Vaughn's pants, I discovered why he was so wet. There was no diaper. And there was poop.

By now, the 15 minute warning had gone off, and there were people milling around, heading down to their vehicles, and many stopped to stare at a chick stripping down her baby in the middle of all this. Tim was able to get down to the car and back up again in record time, we got new clothes on our baby and everything settled with 5 minutes to spare. Now that's teamwork!

And hopefully Tim will remember that changing a diaper means that a new one replaces the old one.

Since we got an early start back home, we were able to make it as far as Salmon Arm again so Tim could watch Canada play the U.S. and I could have a good night's sleep.

It snowed all night in Salmon Arm and I heard the roads were not good so we got going early again. Tim did a great job driving - the roads were icy in spots, definitely wet and the blowing snow from other vehicles really interfered with visibility. By the time we hit Banff, I was ready for a coffee, Tim a break and Vaughn a new diaper. We got all that taken care of and had clear sailing back into the city.

While we didn't have a restful trip, we got to see a lot, found that our baby has an extraordinarily happy disposition and really bonded as a family. I think, however, our next vacation will be one destination for many nights. At least, that's my hope.

For now, I'm home for a rest. Happy New Year everybody!