Aunt Steph | forever and everett

$102 roundtrip flight – Carrie home from B.C. Melissa and Karen in town all on the same weekend!!!

Friday night I left work and drove straight to the airport only stopping for Pizza at zPizza at the Cell Phone lot at DIA. I love their pizza and last time I was there the guy gave me 2 coupons for a free slice!! Then I drove my car over the the Pike’s Peak Lot which is the cheapest place to park, took a shuttle to the airport. I ate my pizza sharing a table with a stranger at the arrival’s place where people were waiting with signs and flowers (since it was Valentines Day) and then waited at my gate! My flight was on time and everything!!!!

I arrived in Detroit right about the time I was supposed to and since I didn’t have to pick up a bag (I flew spirit and they charge you for everything so I didn’t pay to check a bag or a carry on – just had a backpack!) I went right to where my dad was waiting for me and then to the car where my mom was waiting for me! Of course we stopped at Tim Hortons and got home around 3am (1am Denver time).

They have gotten sooo much snow!!
(there are usually 4 steps there)

Saturday morning I got up at 8:30 because I didn’t want to waste any of my 35.5 hours in Chatham. My parents weren’t up yet, and I often think of the line from Father of the Bride where Steve Martin says he’d never get to see her come down the stairs in her PJ’s again, so I crawled in between my parents on top of the blanket and we chatted for a while. Around 10am my Grandpa showed up!! He shows up randomly on Saturday mornings without warning so my parents and Aunt Steph hardly plan anything before noon in case he drives the hour and shows up!

Shortly after that Carrie showed up with several bags of groceries to make brunch and Karen. Jaspreet called while I was outside hugging Grandpa when he arrived and she was coming over too! Carrie and Karen made brunch and since Grandpa had showed up Steph came over too – so we ended up having an impromptu brunch party!!

Conversation was great, mama played piano and Karen, Steph mom and I all sang some hymns! It was lovely!

Then they all left, and we got ready for Melissa’s baby shower!! We were there from 1-4:30, I ate a lot of fudge! Love Mr. Shields Fudge!

We went home for a bit, started watching my Christmas Musical and then back out for dinner at Kelsey’s with Steph and Bessie, then back home to finish watching the musical, followed by Olympics!

Sunday morning we got to church early enough for me to visit with my peeps (Helen, Earl, Terry& Linzy, Markie etc.) and then home for mama’s gluten free lunch of rice pasta with cauliflower Alfredo and rice-crumb breaded chicken.

I packed up my backpack of stuff and we drove back to the airport where I walked right through the pre-check security and to my gate with 2 hours to spare at the airport. I arrived in Denver on time again, and found my car parked in the LL Bear lot and then over to zPizza again to use my last coupon before it expires!!!

Got home to an apartment that had been cleaned and re-arranged while I was gone! I didn’t have to miss any work to make this happen! How great is that!?!

I titled this “Christmas In Canada/Ohio In 2014 for 2013”.

We landed on the ground in Detroit almost at our original scheduled time despite the fact that we left 1.15 minutes late. See previous post for details on our NYE Flight!! We had no issues getting off the plane, but getting to our rental car was quite the hassel!! I went right to the shuttle zone while Nick waited for our bags. Shuttles for all the hotels and other rental car company’s came and went 10 times over before we ever saw ours. It was a bitter cold 17 degrees. I finally called, ringing through to voice-mail 3 times and leaving 1 somewhat (for me) nasty voice-mail. I even enlisted a different rental company shuttle drivers help, with him talking to the others over 2-way to see if anyone had seen our company’s shuttle. Then when he finally arrived he flat our lied to us saying that they only had 2 shuttles running that night, as an explanation for the fact that no buses arrived from their location 4.5 minutes away in over an hour…. yeah right!!

Then we were hoping to pay with Nick’s mom’s Credit card, but you have to use a credit card that matches the name on the car reservation. We had to put the car in Nick’s name because if you drive an American car through the Canadian border, as a Canadian, they will confiscate it. The mega dilemma is that Nick doesn’t have any credit cards, so we had to use our debit card, which didn’t have enough money in it for the rental – so we over-drafted. (However, the money doesn’t come out til you return the car, so we were able to get money in the account before then, but seriously!!!!)

We then got in an un-familiar Hundai Elantra with Missouri plates, on SNOWY, SNOWY roads in the dark with drunk drivers…. and we were already stressed and frustrated. Not a fun mix! However everything went smoothly even the boarder crossing and at Tim Hortons

and we arrived home somewhere between 3:30-4am. Yikes. Nick hadn’t been home to Canada since we moved out to Colorado. We talked to my parents for a bit, then went downstairs to the guest bedroom that was all warmed up by the fireplace and ready for us! My alarm woke me up at 8:30am (6:30am Denver Time) because I didn’t want to waste the day away when we only had 2.5 days with my family.

The entire time we were at both houses we weren’t overly busy or trying to accomplish too much. We enjoyed a delicious breakfast of pancakes with a cream cheese icing filling as well as carmel and pears topping! YUM!!!!

We opened gifts,

Nick went for a run – which was FREEZING!!

Michael was cold – like usual for the boys in the house….

and then the day shift from family Christmas to New Years Day. The Knight’s came over…. growing up we spent most NYE’s with Mark & Terry and Steph… now there is wives and 4 children!

We had a sweet prayer time for Mason who was going in for some minor surgery the following day, and after everyone had left, mom made us watch Red2, so we didn’t go to bed until 1am!! Dad had to work the next day so he had gone to bed early because he had to get up to shovel the driveway!!

That day was our day of running around a bit, in which mama came with us. We went to Bulkbarn to spend the gift certificate’s Michael gave us (we were planning on going anyway so that was a bonus!), we went to Gospel Text but only Helen and Brian were there so I went back again the next day and saw Linda, Sylvia, Wayne and Helen. We also went to Tim Horton’s and got drinks and donuts for ourselves as well as a hot chocolate for daddy which we took to him at work. I whined a bit in front of his boss, which resulted in him getting to come home a bit early the next day!!! Mom, Michael, Nick and I also played 2 games of his new board game. We (Michael, Nick and I) shoveled the snow in the driveway for dad before he got home!

We had Turkey Pizza ~~Wheel~~ Braid for dinner and we sat on the couch – visited – played on the computer – looked at pictures – I downloaded mine and we picked out the ones we were going to print for a Christmas Present for Steph. Nick was back and forth between the living room and Michael’s room.

The next day, we leisurely as well, I went back to Gospel Text, Dad got out at 3 and went with me. Mom bought groceries (I packed our stuff up then) and I made broccoli soup for Steph and Bessie and the fam.