Monday, April 16, 2012

I’ve had a lovely holiday, but it is nice to be home again. I’ve unpacked, sorted through my purchases, rearranged a few projects in my studio, and found some fabric for a new project.

I left home on Easter Sunday headed for Saskatoon (via Comox, Edmonton and Calgary). It was an uneventful day and my flight arrived on time. It was so nice to see the Thomases waiting for me when I got off the plane. I was in Saskatoon to help Kathryn out with the boys while she was working. Her regular sitter was away on holidays. Will was off school for Easter Break and, at the time my flight was booked, Dave expected to be out of town.

Monday was a practice day as Kathryn had the day off. We took the bus to Michaels and I stocked up on some embroidery floss that I needed for a project. Kathryn had some shopping to do and the boys and I did a little shopping of our own. We found new shirts for each of them, along with a couple of tin lunchboxes – Batman for Will and Mickey Mouse for Alex.

On Tuesday and Wednesday Kathryn was working days so I was on my own with the boys until Dave came home from work. We shopped on Tuesday with a trip to Toys ‘r Us. The weather was warm enough in the afternoon that the boys were able to play on the bouncy castle.

On Wednesday we took a picnic lunch (in the new lunchboxes) to a couple of nearby parks. It was a windy day but not too cold as long as the sun was out. The boys rode their bikes to and from the park and did a lot of running around while we were there.

On Thursday Kathryn needed to sleep in the afternoon to prepare for her night shift and Dave took the boys to the Hockey Hall of Fame exhibit that was touring Saskatchewan. I spent a quiet afternoon reading. On Friday, as soon as Alex tucked his Mum into bed, we headed off to the library. It took about fifteen minutes for the boys to each pick a couple of videos and a few books, and then we headed off to the park behind the library for a play.

When it was nearing lunch I suggested we wander through the mall across the street and see if we could find some new shoes for the boys. Will really wanted some tie-up shoes and found a “cool” pair right away. Alex tried on a few pairs before he was satisfied with the high tops with Velcro closings. We went to McDonald’s for lunch and by the time we got home Alex was exhausted and wasn’t too keen on the visit to Bit Services. By the time we got there his second wind had kicked in and he was fine.

I was back on the plane to Comox at 6:15 Saturday morning and Pat picked me up when I arrived. We had received hotel coupons from Kathryn and Dave for Christmas so we planned a weekend in Victoria to celebrate Pat’s birthday. We stopped for lunch in Nanaimo and I had a chance to make a quick trip into the Michaels store to pick up the rest of my embroidery floss. They had some 12”x12” scrap booking bins on sale and I bought a couple for holding my larger quilting blocks.

The hotel was lovely and the weather was good. We had dinner Saturday night at a new-to-us Italian restaurant. I’m not sure we really need to practice eating Italian food before our trip, but we enjoyed our meals! We each tried a couple of wines from areas we will be visiting – now we have to learn how to order them in Italian.

While we were in the “big city” we did some shopping for our trip (jackets, power adapters, clothes). Pat had a chance to visit a couple of music shops and, at one of his stops, I found another Michaels store and picked up a couple more of those containers!

It took all day to get home today. We didn’t stop along the way and were at the terminal in plenty of time for the afternoon ferry. No rest for me – I’ll be off to my quilting bee tomorrow morning.