Straggling Home

We got back home last night, and after the usual scramble to unpack and do a billion loads of laundry (alright, only five, but still) I've finally got the time to sit down and type away to my hearts content. In brief, this was the worst trip I've ever been on. Ever. Don't get alarmed, Dad and Carol's wedding proceeded as planned and everyone here is fine. That being said, here's a not-very-brief but hopefully amusing rundown of how the trip went (and no, I'm not joking about any of it, it really happened):

Sunday
Mom and I and the kids leave for Edmonton. Connor starts teething again. Fussiness is the order of the day. We arrive successfully at the hotel, check in, wander about a little and get ready for bed. Connor is up many times in the night, waking Adara and I up regularly.

Monday
Shopping Day. We hit Ikea, where Adara manages to get green ice cream stains all over her clothes (happy St Paddy's day) and Connor falls while pushing a baby-size cart and hits his head on some metal bars getting a giant red welt across his forehead. He later also manages to fall asleep in the van, resulting in a very tiny nap and subsequent increased fussiness. Monday night is similar to Sunday night.

Tuesday
We go to the Royal Alberta Museum with the kids. We find five school buses in the parking lot, but because we're stubborn we go in anyway. There are school groups everywhere and the kids don't really get a chance to see anything up close. Later we go to the big dollar store downtown, where we normally find great deals, but this time there's zip. Trevor arrives on the bus very late that night and collapses on the hide-a-bed in the hotel room.

Wednesday
Mom heads up to Fort Mac and Trev and I meet up with old friends from Red Deer. They spent Tuesday night at the same hotel so that we could spend the whole day together. Their little guy (just a wee bit older than Con) slept poorly as did they, so we are all rather groggy. Both the little guys have their first crack at Galaxyland, after our waiting in line for nearly an hour to get in (we've never waited more than five minutes before). They were mostly freaked out by it all, but are over-excited enough to miss their naps almost entirely. We try to catch up on news while entertaining Adara and trying to pacify overtired toddlers.

Thursday
We travel to Saskatoon. Everything that can go wrong goes wrong. We are delayed over and over again, and arrive almost three hours later than expected. The culmination of the day occurs at just after midnight when Connor starts throwing up all over me. He does this several times in the night.

Friday
We decide that it was something Connor ate (he has a very sensitive stomach) so we proceed down to Moosejaw for the wedding rehearsal. We meet all of Carol's family (very nice people) but don't have time to talk to any of them in between trying to control our over-excited flower girl and trying to soothe our little sickie who is running a fever and wails whenever he's not being held by Mama. We have to skip the rehearsal dinner entirely because of the wailing. Sickie throws up again that night, and we begin to suspect perhaps it's more then a touchy stomach.

Saturday
The pictures are before the wedding and are in a greenhouse. We arrive late because my navigating gets us lost. The light is very bright, so every picture has the back of Connor's head showing, since his eyes are sensitive. The wedding goes well, although Adara scuttles away to sit with her Auntie instead of staying at the front, and I spend the entirety of the service in the coatroom because Con wants to 'talk' along with the minister and 'sing' along with the soloist. I change Adara into a less formal dress for the reception, and send Trev and Adara to the 'meet and greet' part of the reception while I try to put Con down for a nap. They return shortly thereafter, looking a little different as Adara has managed to throw up on both of their nice outfits. Looks like it's a stomach flu. I stay at the room with the two sickies while Trev returns to the reception (in clean clothes) to do his job as best man and make speeches and such. I start throwing up about 9pm that evening and it hits Trev about 3am.

Sunday
We extend our stay in Moosejaw by a day because we simply can't get up and leave. Con has recovered enough to be bored silly and wails about that regularly, while the rest of us slouch about eating dry bread and trying not to be sick again. When we phone Saskatoon to report this, we find out Joel was hit by the stomach bug about the same time Trev was, except they headed back Saturday night so he's sick in a different city.

Monday
We slowly and painfully pack and return to Saskatoon. Joel is feeling a tiny bit better, but is still recuperating. We take the kids to Costco to run around and end up spending money on all kinds of things including an ice-cream maker. We start hoping that maybe things will take a turn for the better. Con even has a decent night.

Tuesday
Trevor's uncle (also staying with Joel & Jeannette) reports feeling sick to his stomach. We take the kids to the Western Development Museum, and find out that as far as Adara is concerned we could have skipped it all but the one old car you get to actually sit in and an old-fashioned mechanical horse ride that costs a loonie. We return to find Trevor's uncle much worse. In desperation, we decide to leave the next morning very early and drive all the way home. We spend the rest of the afternoon packing. Connor's teething resumes. The night is interrupted by wailing often.

Wednesday
We get up at 3am and are on the road by 4am. The kids are troopers. We stop in Edmonton just after 9am for a few hours, have breakfast and run around in a big mall. We stop again at Grasslands at 1pm for lunch, and are home just after 4pm. 980 km in 12 hours. Craziness. But so glad to be home.

Summary
I'm tired just typing about it. But we did get to see our friends from RD, and the wedding did go well, and Trev's Dad and Carol didn't catch the stomach flu (thank heavens), so there were a few bright spots. On the whole, though, it felt like there were so many bad things happening that it was almost funny, and I'm glad it's over. I think I'm going to go and sleep now.