Canadamania

I spent the weekend in upstate New York, the Finger Lakes to be precise, with my Dad, Step-Mom and Eddie. The last time I visited my Dad was probably Christmas 2007, so it was a very long overdue visit! Dad lives about 2 hours from Niagara Falls so they planned a day in Niagara On The Lake in Ontario, Canada for us. We spent the afternoon walking around the town then saw 'An Ideal Husband' by Oscar Wilde at Shaw Fest. It was a great weekend!

It didn't start off so great though. Thanks to my bestest friend Fibromyalgia, I was up until about 4:30 am so of course I slept in. So of course, the next morning. . . er afternoon. . . we rushed around packing and getting things ready to go for the trip. We're in the car driving and I'm rattling off a list of what we need. Money? Check! Checkbook? Check! Clothes? (hey, it's happened before!) Toiletries? Chargers? Check and check! So after the stuff that we normally forget, I felt confident that we remembered everything.

About 2.5 hours into the trip, right at Elysburg (Knoebels) I ask my dear, dear husband if he remembered our passports. After a good minute of silence. . . 'Eddie. . . please tell me you remembered our passports. You know, we kinda need them to get into Canada.' More silence. Eddie: 'Shhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiittttt!!! They're still on the counter top.'
Me: 'Ummmmmmm. . . what are we going to do, Dad and Ann already bought the theatre tickets.'

This after not only I reminded Eddie, but my parents and his parents reminded him (ok. . .me too) that we needed them for the trip, but I plea fibrofog on this one. So Eddie finds the nearest spot to pull over and calls his parents. Thank god for them! They were taking care of the dogs for us so they stopped over at the house, got our passports and drove to Fed-Ex. $44 later and the passports were on their way to my dad's house with the promise that they'll arrive no later than noon on Saturday. Having in-laws live so close by rocks! They truly saved the day!

So maybe we didn't have a nice leisurely day in Canada, but it gave us all some time to relax and catch up and for us to see a bit of Canandaigua, NY. And yeah, on our trip it did cause us to get held up in the line of people leaving the States (let me tell you, not too many people were beating down the border to get IN to the States) and we did happen to pick the line that took for.ev.er; but we had a really good time! It was nice to see my dad and step-mom and it was good to get out of Pennsylvania.

After the big weekend away, we had a day-and-a-half to clean the house because one of my favorite people was visiting me from Saskatchewan! It's the first time I'd be meeting her husband and son, so I was super-excited! It had been over 9 years since we'd seen each other last so this was such a happy visit. I hate that we didn't have a more planned-out visit, in the sense that we had a bunch of stuff to do. But it was nice to just sit around and catch up. Of course, we ventured out and drove the golf-carts around the farm and the boys (the adult boys) had to go check out the saw mill (I imagine there was a lot of butt scratching, spitting and grunting) while us gals caught up and managed to get our golf cart stuck . . . well, maybe temporarily immobile is a better term =)

Today we went back to Millersville to check out the campus, get some Millversville gear and eat at Jack's. If you ever happen to make your way to Millersville, you MUST go to Jack's. They've got the best fries anywhere and ONE order is an entire plate piled high with delicious fresh cut fries. It's pretty much a fixture of the University, it's unheard of that you went to MU and never went to Jack's. Aside from being one of the only places you can get booze on campus (the other the House of Pi) the food isn't expensive so you get a good non-dining hall meal without going broke.

It was sad to say good-bye after lunch, but this time we're not going to wait another 9 years to see each other. Whether we go to visit them, meet in Toronto (where she's got family) or she's back in PA visiting family again; we're not going to miss another opportunity! It was just what I needed though, this weekend and the past two days. Family and well. . . family (cause it's not always about biological connections.) It felt good and it was a reminder that I've got to work harder at keeping these connections open, because I there's a lot that I don't want to miss out on.