Since we were in the area, I was offered to take a jaunt to IKEA. Reluctantly I accepted. Start the car! Start the car! Actually we started at the café – another run for the Swedish meatballs. You can’t match the excitement of the lingonberry sauce and its matching juice; however Chuck Woolery was nowhere to be found. At the end of it, what did I buy? Canned lingonberry sauce.
On the way home we stopped at Lush in the mall to get some Christmas gifts. They were very efficient for which I was happy, because by the time that I made it home I just felt absolutely wretched and pretty much wanted to just curl up and fall off something. After a long nap I had recovered, but it wasn’t pretty for awhile.
Day 111 was a SUPERWALK day. Walk to Emily’s parents’ house, drop off the phone and adapter and have a nice chat. Walk to CAA to get maps and find out that they’re not open. Walk to Chapters to use my 25% off coupon. Walk to the mall as I forgot to get one other thing at Lush. Walk to the bus station to catch the number 57 to get home to find out its left 10 minutes before I got there and there won’t be another one for 45 minutes. Walk home. Sit for 30 minutes, then walk over to Caleb’s house.
I hadn’t had the time yet to catch up with them and it was nice so to do. As it is, it was a Sunday, which was my usual night over at the house, as I’ve been watching Amazing Race with them since 2003. I ended up staying for dinner and then getting in some good rounds of ping-pong. It is always nice to spend time with la familia Sturrup. I ended up my SUPERWALK day by getting a ride home.
Day 112 and I was off like a herd of turtles after some super ultimate final shopping and then I caught the bus up to Barrie. I was staying the night and went out with a couple of the boys from the club for some beverages and wings. Nice always to just shoot the breeze.
Day 113 was the bus ride up to North Bay. Getting the bus to North Bay is an art; you really have to time it just right. If you get it on the weekend or too close to Christmas you risk not getting a seat. Thankfully this time my thinking was correct – I got a seat, and didn’t have anyone sitting beside me past Bracebridge (the last 90 minutes or so).
It was nice to see the whole family again – I had missed them while travelling! My sister and I decided to have a sibling night – she was kind enough to make dinner and then we headed out to the movies. We saw New Moon. On the suggestion of one my drama students I read all four books last year, however this one was my least favourite and the movie had its challenges. But it was fun to go out for the evening nevertheless and I saw some good trailers for other movies coming up.
Day 114, and Christmas was approaching. I finalized my final Christmas gifts that I needed to get and then started on “the project”.
At this point it had been about two weeks since I got home from Europe and as such I now feel ready to plan the next jaunt! I holed myself up in the spare room where I was staying at my folks’ house and tried to sketch out a rough idea of where I wanted to be and when I wanted to be there; this was then followed by a call to the travel agent my family uses to set up an appointment.
Rhiannon came over for dinner and we then continued the family tradition of Euchre. We like to play this all the time when the four of us are together; surprisingly, not once did Dad state his famous line If I order up my partner do I have to go alone? for which I was slightly disappointed! I think Mom and I won the best two out of three however it was due to euchring Dad and Rhiannon five times in one game!
Day 115 was Christmas Eve and thankfully I went nowhere near a mall. I did head to downtown North Bay to pick up some money at the bank (and missed being in the bank when it got robbed not an hour later), a final Christmas gift and an appointment with the travel agent. Surprisingly my elaborate route (that hits three continents!) is not a common one and as a result he is working on it but it will be a bit!
We went over to church around 5 pm for the Christmas Eve service. Funniest moment was the exchange between our minister Marie and one of the children when they were listening to her up front of the hall:
Marie: What would you do right now if an angel appeared?
Kid: I’d freak out!
It was our own proper version of Kids Say The Darndest Things.
Following Church we went back to Rhiannon’s with our friend Bev to enjoy our Christmas Eve dinner. It was very tasty and the company was great.
Day 116 and I felt lucky to be around my wonderful family. We opened gifts in the morning and among others Santa knows that it gets cold here and brought us some Olympic mittens! We enjoyed our traditional Christmas dinner in the evening that involved great foods, another Euchre game, and an impromptu cranberry food fight. RED EYE REDUCTION! is now destined to become a catchphrase within the family, if things go right.
Next entry will bring the start of my second decade of this blog… I tell you, this is EXCITING!
Cheers,
Vick.
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