Old Fogies in the City

Well, the big trip was here gone. But the good memories linger. Do you want me to share them with you? If not, then don't read on, I guess. Otherwise, you're in for a play-by-play...

We arrived in the city shortly before 6:00 on Thursday evening. We didn't make great time on account of construction, getting behind a funeral procession, my, um pregnant bladder situation, etc. But we made it. We stopped at one store quickly, then went to Olive Garden where we were meeting the others at 6:30. We thought maybe we could get our names in early and not have to wait so long. But, they had the same idea and were there and waiting. They only waited about 15 minutes and we got in soon after we got there. They, of course, felt a need to make a big deal of my age, etc. There was a balloon bouquet and a goofy pin that said I am 40 and "old, old, old" which they expected me to wear during dinner. We had a great dinner and good time starting to get caught up. We wondered if we might get kicked out for being so loud. :-)

During dinner, Sheldon brought us all up to speed on our plans for eating the next day. It was a revelation to me that a recent interest of his is finding little one-of-a-kind and ethnic restaurants rather than big, "boring" chains. Well, there went my hopes of eating at Perkins. Which really was fine because we had way more fun this way. Anyway, at Olive Garden they were telling us how he had pages of info printed off the internet about all of these restaurants and spreadsheets for all of us to vote on where we wanted to eat. Oh, and he had the ladies opinions weighted higher than the men's and mine weighted even a little higher. I guess there are some advantages to being the birthday girl. We all had some good laughs at/with Sheldon, but it really was fun.

After dinner we headed for Value Village. (We are high-class, big spenders, after all!!) I was tickled to find a bunch of clothes for Caleb and Josiah and a few things for Keith and me - all for $40. :-) The others found some bargains too, and of course, that made us all happy. (We are a bunch of tight-wads, for sure!) :-) Then Keith and I headed to "Eddie Wal-Mart" to knock some necessities off of my long list and the others headed back to the hotel. When we got back there around 10:00 or so, they had a table set with goblets, sparkling grape juice, candles, chocolate and presents. So, we had a little party and, would you believe it, Connie made me an apron!!! I hadn't even told her I wanted one. So now I am sufficiently aproned for years to come!! We stayed up late talking, laughing, and voting on Friday's supper destination.

Our room was quite warm and I didn't sleep the greatest. Maybe because I'm old now, I'll have more trouble sleeping in new places. (I slept great the second night, though!!) We were up and at 'em relatively early because Keith had booked a tour of the Mint for us at 9:00(!?!) We had coffee and muffins in our room and thought that should get us through the tour and then we'd get some real food. :-) When we got to the Mint we found out that our tour was actually at 10:00. Hahaha. But they had one at 9:15 so that was okay. It was very interesting, of course, to see how our coins are made. If Keith were blogging, he'd write a whole essay about it. But since it's me, I'll just say it was pretty amazing. After the tour was over we ladies sat on a bench and had some serious "lady talk" while the guys wandered around and looked at guy things. Finally our stomachs urged us to hit the road.

Sheldon had picked out a Danish restaurant for lunch so we headed that way and made a couple of "quick" stops at stores that we saw along the way - some supplements for me and a Mac store to drop off Keith's computer to get the CD/DVD drive fixed. (Good news, it's under warranty!) We finally arrived at the little cafe and it didn't disappoint us! The highlights were the fresh crusty bread, and the cream puff we all shared for dessert. A bunch of us had veal or chicken schnitzel and it was good! Connie was very impressed with her soup and Keith's sweet and sour cabbage was very good too! It was like a mild and sweet sauerkraut.

By this time it was mid-afternoon and we tossed around going to the Forks or something like that. I finally piped up and wondered if I could just go back to the hotel and have a little nap. I am pregnant, after all! Turns out all of us women were in favour of a rest and the guys rested a little and/or went shopping and walking around the city centre. I had a wonderful nap!!! Then it was time to get dressed up and head out for dinner. I guess the theme of the weekend was good eating. :-) The voting for dinner headed us to an Ethiopian/Middle Eastern Restaurant. It was unique and very interesting. The falafels were very good except they mis-communicated and put the hot sauce on them. Connie and I had to order milk. :-) It didn't seem to bother Darla much. She's a tough one, I guess. :-) The guys all had more Ethiopian dishes. No one was raving about how delicious it was, but it was good and interesting. The owners were really neat people and very friendly. When we were done, they brought us tea "on the house". I think it was black tea with cloves or something like that. It really was good.

After that we scurried off to the symphony. Wow, what fun that was! It was an open dress rehearsal for the "real" performance on Sat. night. So, it was less formal and the conductor talked to us in between pieces. We got to hear him give directions to the orchestra and hear them practice things a bit. We had quite good seats, so that was really fun too. The conductor was funny and Michael thought maybe his parents had wondered if they should put him on Ritalin when he was young. :-) It was really amazing to hear Beethoven's Fifth live. I was only familiar with the first movement, but the last one was really good too. I'd like to get a recording of the whole thing, and also Haydn's "Surprise" Symphony which was the first one they played.

After all that we really had to head to Dairy Queen for some ice cream. Mmmmmm. Good! Then back to the hotel. Of course, we couldn't go to bed since it wasn’t midnight yet, so we hung out in Mike and Connie’s room. Sheldon treated us to some crazy songs and other songs from his computer and transferred pictures from his computer to our flash drive. The others had a time of prayer for Keith and me (how did we get so privileged?) before we headed to our rooms for the night.

Sat. morning we had to pick up Merv T. at the airport at 9:15 (he’s a counselor from Edmonton who’s here at Stormer Lake for several weeks). The Minnesotans thought they should sleep in since they didn’t have any such deadlines. So, we packed up and when Keith went to load the van, he discovered that ours and Sheldon’s vans were both broken into during the night. Sigh. Our rear window was broken and Sheldon’s driver’s side window. Sheldon’s Oakley sunglasses were taken, and we had various small things gone – my jacket, my bag from Value Village L, a few Wal-Mart purchases. So, that kinda put a damper on the morning. We zipped over to the airport with our “air conditioning” and found that Merv’s flight was delayed a bit. We were early anyway, so we headed out to look for cardboard. After a few unhelpful stops, we went to Lee Valley (they’re such a great place, surely they’d help us, right?). When we stopped there, Keith looked across the road and there was a dumpster with a bunch of cardboard in it. So we went and helped ourselves. Thank the Lord Keith’s Leatherman wasn’t stolen or the tool bag with the duct tape in it. We cut and taped and then ran out of tape, so Keith ran back to Lee Valley to get more. They were very sympathetic and helpful and offered to let us use their shop vac. Yay! So we headed back over to their loading dock and vacuumed and swept up the glass. The guy even gave us some heavy plastic in case we needed it. It was sure a blessing to experience some human kindness after being violated like that!

We got to the airport just in time to get Merv and then spent the rest of the morning finishing up our shopping. I hadn’t noticed yet that my Value Village stuff was gone, or we could have gone to a different one to look for more stuff. Oh well! We headed out of the city by 1:00 or so, and as we were cruisin’ down the TransCanada, suddenly a van full of waving, smiling people passed us. It was Sheldons and Michaels! We all pulled over at the next road and had a little chat. They already had their window fixed and had eaten at a cool little Italian bakery. :-) So we had a nice chat and then headed for home.

All in all, it was a really good trip. I guess it’s not so bad to have a “major birthday” if you can have a fun trip like that! I’m glad the break-ins didn’t happen the first night, since that could have messed up our day on the town. I think Keith and I are over our anger and frustration. (There was some forgiving and accepting to do there!) Now, I’m just wondering what God has in mind for a coat for me to wear this fall/winter. The one that was stolen was the outer shell that a fleece zips into. And it’s about the time of year to start wearing them together. The good news is that Keith found a used window from a place in T. Bay and it should be arriving here tomorrow. He thinks he and his Dad can install it themselves. I’ll be really grateful for a window, since it’s rather scary driving without being able to see behind you!!

Well, if you’re still with me, you are now definitely informed!! I’ll post pictures as soon as Sheldon sends me the one of all of us together. (No pressure, Sheldon!) That's all for now!!