A Rough Start
Well, we got away perfectly and as planned on Saturday morning. By the time we wanted to stop for a bite, I realized I forgot all the sandwich meat in the crisper of the fridge. I also began to recall several other items I had forgotten to bring but that we could live without. Our first stop was at Oak Bluff on the Perimeter Highway outside of Winnipeg. We gassed up and I bought some lunchmeat to go with the buns that I actually did remember.
We carried on our travels and made several stops. I took a few notes and started making notes about our gas mileage and amounts. We made it to Regina by dinner time, which impressed us greatly. We are very thankful to have the GPS Mom and Dad lent us; it has really helped and is at times quite handy as well as entertaining. Since we arrived in Regina far earlier than we expected to, we decided to continue driving. We made Swift Current our next target, arriving before nine o'clock. We couldn't find the Days Inn (it didn't show up on the GPS) so we just stopped at a Best Western. The kind ladies at the desk warned us that all of the hotels in town that they would recommend were full. They did have smoking rooms available but even the hoarse, smoker's voice lady said they were awful and even she, a smoker wouldn't stay in them.
We were starting to get a little concerned (and punchy) about the time and our fatigue from traveling all day. We pressed on for a town called Gull Lake, which was a hole in the wall town and we didn't even bother taking the exit. Next was Maple Creek which was somewhat similar. It was getting dark out and the clouds of bugs we were driving through were horrendous! Again we pressed on and actually made it to Medicine Hat. We headed for the Days Inn and the nice ladies there told us they were FULL. Another customer was there and said she had already checked a handful of nearby hotels that were also full. I was just about ready to go nap in a Wal-Mart parking lot when the ladies called the Imperial Hotel for us. It was nearby and we found it easily and they had room.
Luckily the boys were asleep (we only had a couple meltdowns during that whole ordeal of traveling for so long). We checked in and went to the room and crashed, planning to let the kids have a dip in the pool in the morning since we had already covered so much ground the first day.
Morning came and we had to kill some time before the pool opened. I shaved and showered and did all my requisite hair drying and ironing while Chris did a Tim Horton's run with Carter across the street. It was finally pool time and Chris and I decided instead of having wet life jackets all over our stuff in the Jeep we would just let the kids dip in the hot tub. That was fine and dandy until Cooper went off the ledge in the hot tub. He couldn't reach bottom and the time he bobbed the second time, Chris had leapt into the pool and grabbed him. Cooper was fine Thank God and once I determined so, he just wanted to go back in again. Chris and his cell phone, Jeep remote, cigarettes etc. (who cares about those) were soaked. I did let Cooper back in the water but I held his hand and it was soooooooo not fun after that. Much to the kids' chagrin we tore them away from the pool since we were so stressed out. We threw Chris's clothes in the hotel laundromat and while I was using my hairdryer to try to dry out the cell phone, Chris used the hotel hairdryer on the wall to start drying the contents of his wallet that I forgot to previously mention in his possessions. Next thing we knew the power was out; we had blown a breaker with both hairdryers going. ::sigh:: I called down to the front desk and they had us back up and running in a few minutes.
The tone of the day was definitely set. We were however happy to have a shorter trip to reach our destination. We were approaching Calgary when the boys had another meltdown. I was trying to ignore them but they started to fight physically so Carter whacked Cooper and Cooper started to bite Carter. Chris pulled over to the side of the highway but there was a lot of traffic so he pulled onto a side road. I hauled Cooper up front with me to remove him from the fisticuffs. Chris took Carter outside. Once we restored peace we all got settled back in the Jeep with a snack and continued out our way. When we pulled out onto the highway there was another vehicle pulling onto it from the other side. As we got up to highway speed, the other vehicle pulled back and away from us but then came after us. The lady was motioning to the back passenger door window of their truck, which was smashed completely and they were motioning for us to pull over. They didn't know if they got hit by a rock or if we threw something at them or even shot at them, with the explosion of the window. We had just gotten our own stone chip just a couple hours before, but this just sucked. They wanted our insurance information and I didn't know if they could do that but I called 911 and said it wasn't an emergency but I had a police question. The lady told me it's not a reportable incident but if we figured we would get any kind of a hard time from the people we should exchange information and advise our insurance agent. Sheeeeeeesh! Fortunately for them they were locals. So far the day wasn't going well!
We finally reached Roberta & Derek's house. All four kids were excited to get together and play. I just wanted to curl up in the fetal position and suck my thumb by this point but was so relieved to be at our destination where we could settle down for a couple days and breathe!!! Kevin was here too. He took me to Future Shop to buy my iPod!!! However, I couldn't use it right away since it wanted to synch with my computer that much to my dismay now I didn't bring with me.
Kevin, knowing my disappointment, went home to get his laptop so I could get my iPod started. Yay! I didn't know if that would work out but I got it all registered and ready to rock. Fun stuff. Cool toy. Then I went to buy my first app at the app. store and it asked me for Kevin's password. CRAP. This evening he took me to the Apple store to see if they could help or tell me what to do. Apparently my iPod is now associated with Kevin's computer. When you have an iPod, one iPod can be connected to one computer. Crap again. Oh well. It is still useable though I can't synch it until I get home. In the meantime I can still play with it and go online. When I get home I can use my laptop to fix 'er up. Yay again :)
Roberta made us a delectable dinner last night with chicken kebabs and grilled vegetables. The kids didn't eat great but played pretty nicely. We had a lovely evening visiting and I cuddled up with the four kids to watch a movie. My guys fell asleep and we tucked them in for the night. I wasn't able to get this mini-laptop of Mom and Dad's working until just tonight, hence this lengthy post.
Today we had a lunch date with Chris's Auntie Wendy in Cochrane. We navigated over there just fine and had a wonderful visit with her and her daughter Crystal and baby Houston and Crystal's niece Aubrey. Lunch was divine and Wendy's sweetness just brings out the best in everyone, including our boys who didn't need to be reminded to use their manners :) After Chris's Mom passed away just over five years ago, Chris's Dad sent her dog, Sasha, to live with Wendy. When we arrived and I saw Sasha, I was overcome with emotion and memories and started to cry. I thought there would be some impact with seeing her but I didn't expect to be overwhelmed. Sweet moment. Sasha, now 13 is a bit of a senior citizen but she is still the same little lady we remembered!
After lunch and a great visit, we ventured back to Roberta's place as we had a date with Kevin to go to the oh-so-seriously-massive Bass Pro Shop. Seriously? It's oh-so-massive. It was amazing. The boys were quite entertained by all the animal mounts and merchandise. The decor alone was incredible and sheer volume and size of the place was astounding. We spent a bit of time there then headed back to Roberta's again for supper. Tonight we had scrumptious tacos and spicy rice. Delish. After supper was when Kevin took me to the Apple store, which is a nice, clean pretty store with all their neat displays and stuff. It was pretty busy in there but I got my questions answered.
We zipped around the mall, barely stopping to look at anything until we got to Old Navy where I picked up a few t-shirts for Chris, knowing how much he would love to have something new. He did. We got back to Roberta & Derek's and visited out on the deck until the boys fell asleep watching a movie after a warm bath. Tomorrow we are venturing to Drumheller to see the dinosaurs with the boys, another big highlight of our trip. We can't wait to check it out. I'm going to try to post some pictures using this mini-laptop but I can't make any guarantees. However pictures will follow at some point!
We carried on our travels and made several stops. I took a few notes and started making notes about our gas mileage and amounts. We made it to Regina by dinner time, which impressed us greatly. We are very thankful to have the GPS Mom and Dad lent us; it has really helped and is at times quite handy as well as entertaining. Since we arrived in Regina far earlier than we expected to, we decided to continue driving. We made Swift Current our next target, arriving before nine o'clock. We couldn't find the Days Inn (it didn't show up on the GPS) so we just stopped at a Best Western. The kind ladies at the desk warned us that all of the hotels in town that they would recommend were full. They did have smoking rooms available but even the hoarse, smoker's voice lady said they were awful and even she, a smoker wouldn't stay in them.
We were starting to get a little concerned (and punchy) about the time and our fatigue from traveling all day. We pressed on for a town called Gull Lake, which was a hole in the wall town and we didn't even bother taking the exit. Next was Maple Creek which was somewhat similar. It was getting dark out and the clouds of bugs we were driving through were horrendous! Again we pressed on and actually made it to Medicine Hat. We headed for the Days Inn and the nice ladies there told us they were FULL. Another customer was there and said she had already checked a handful of nearby hotels that were also full. I was just about ready to go nap in a Wal-Mart parking lot when the ladies called the Imperial Hotel for us. It was nearby and we found it easily and they had room.
Luckily the boys were asleep (we only had a couple meltdowns during that whole ordeal of traveling for so long). We checked in and went to the room and crashed, planning to let the kids have a dip in the pool in the morning since we had already covered so much ground the first day.
Morning came and we had to kill some time before the pool opened. I shaved and showered and did all my requisite hair drying and ironing while Chris did a Tim Horton's run with Carter across the street. It was finally pool time and Chris and I decided instead of having wet life jackets all over our stuff in the Jeep we would just let the kids dip in the hot tub. That was fine and dandy until Cooper went off the ledge in the hot tub. He couldn't reach bottom and the time he bobbed the second time, Chris had leapt into the pool and grabbed him. Cooper was fine Thank God and once I determined so, he just wanted to go back in again. Chris and his cell phone, Jeep remote, cigarettes etc. (who cares about those) were soaked. I did let Cooper back in the water but I held his hand and it was soooooooo not fun after that. Much to the kids' chagrin we tore them away from the pool since we were so stressed out. We threw Chris's clothes in the hotel laundromat and while I was using my hairdryer to try to dry out the cell phone, Chris used the hotel hairdryer on the wall to start drying the contents of his wallet that I forgot to previously mention in his possessions. Next thing we knew the power was out; we had blown a breaker with both hairdryers going. ::sigh:: I called down to the front desk and they had us back up and running in a few minutes.
The tone of the day was definitely set. We were however happy to have a shorter trip to reach our destination. We were approaching Calgary when the boys had another meltdown. I was trying to ignore them but they started to fight physically so Carter whacked Cooper and Cooper started to bite Carter. Chris pulled over to the side of the highway but there was a lot of traffic so he pulled onto a side road. I hauled Cooper up front with me to remove him from the fisticuffs. Chris took Carter outside. Once we restored peace we all got settled back in the Jeep with a snack and continued out our way. When we pulled out onto the highway there was another vehicle pulling onto it from the other side. As we got up to highway speed, the other vehicle pulled back and away from us but then came after us. The lady was motioning to the back passenger door window of their truck, which was smashed completely and they were motioning for us to pull over. They didn't know if they got hit by a rock or if we threw something at them or even shot at them, with the explosion of the window. We had just gotten our own stone chip just a couple hours before, but this just sucked. They wanted our insurance information and I didn't know if they could do that but I called 911 and said it wasn't an emergency but I had a police question. The lady told me it's not a reportable incident but if we figured we would get any kind of a hard time from the people we should exchange information and advise our insurance agent. Sheeeeeeesh! Fortunately for them they were locals. So far the day wasn't going well!
We finally reached Roberta & Derek's house. All four kids were excited to get together and play. I just wanted to curl up in the fetal position and suck my thumb by this point but was so relieved to be at our destination where we could settle down for a couple days and breathe!!! Kevin was here too. He took me to Future Shop to buy my iPod!!! However, I couldn't use it right away since it wanted to synch with my computer that much to my dismay now I didn't bring with me.
Kevin, knowing my disappointment, went home to get his laptop so I could get my iPod started. Yay! I didn't know if that would work out but I got it all registered and ready to rock. Fun stuff. Cool toy. Then I went to buy my first app at the app. store and it asked me for Kevin's password. CRAP. This evening he took me to the Apple store to see if they could help or tell me what to do. Apparently my iPod is now associated with Kevin's computer. When you have an iPod, one iPod can be connected to one computer. Crap again. Oh well. It is still useable though I can't synch it until I get home. In the meantime I can still play with it and go online. When I get home I can use my laptop to fix 'er up. Yay again :)
Roberta made us a delectable dinner last night with chicken kebabs and grilled vegetables. The kids didn't eat great but played pretty nicely. We had a lovely evening visiting and I cuddled up with the four kids to watch a movie. My guys fell asleep and we tucked them in for the night. I wasn't able to get this mini-laptop of Mom and Dad's working until just tonight, hence this lengthy post.
Today we had a lunch date with Chris's Auntie Wendy in Cochrane. We navigated over there just fine and had a wonderful visit with her and her daughter Crystal and baby Houston and Crystal's niece Aubrey. Lunch was divine and Wendy's sweetness just brings out the best in everyone, including our boys who didn't need to be reminded to use their manners :) After Chris's Mom passed away just over five years ago, Chris's Dad sent her dog, Sasha, to live with Wendy. When we arrived and I saw Sasha, I was overcome with emotion and memories and started to cry. I thought there would be some impact with seeing her but I didn't expect to be overwhelmed. Sweet moment. Sasha, now 13 is a bit of a senior citizen but she is still the same little lady we remembered!
After lunch and a great visit, we ventured back to Roberta's place as we had a date with Kevin to go to the oh-so-seriously-massive Bass Pro Shop. Seriously? It's oh-so-massive. It was amazing. The boys were quite entertained by all the animal mounts and merchandise. The decor alone was incredible and sheer volume and size of the place was astounding. We spent a bit of time there then headed back to Roberta's again for supper. Tonight we had scrumptious tacos and spicy rice. Delish. After supper was when Kevin took me to the Apple store, which is a nice, clean pretty store with all their neat displays and stuff. It was pretty busy in there but I got my questions answered.
We zipped around the mall, barely stopping to look at anything until we got to Old Navy where I picked up a few t-shirts for Chris, knowing how much he would love to have something new. He did. We got back to Roberta & Derek's and visited out on the deck until the boys fell asleep watching a movie after a warm bath. Tomorrow we are venturing to Drumheller to see the dinosaurs with the boys, another big highlight of our trip. We can't wait to check it out. I'm going to try to post some pictures using this mini-laptop but I can't make any guarantees. However pictures will follow at some point!
posted by Mellykat at 12:10 a.m.
3 Comments:
Thanks for updating us !! I miss you :(
ya ya I know, 'suck it up buttercup'
It sounds like you guys are making some excellent memories and having a blast, dispite the rough start. Vacations are more fun when a few things go wrong.
I'll await your next update. Have a great time you guys !!
Kelly
Wow! Somebody ought to make a movie out of that, oh wait they already have!! lol
Sounds like good times though. Drumheller is pretty cool, you will like it! Have fun!
Excellent update Mel. Have fun in Drumheller. Cheers. :~)
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