We seriously had the best time visiting with everyone after being away for 1 1/2 years. Our flight there wasn't amazing, mostly because I couldn't sleep and we came close to missing our flight from LA to Vancouver. We learned a lesson to never ever ever go through LAX ever again. Live and learn. It's just too hectic there. But we arrived in Vancouver and were welcomed home with a song and some fresh baked bread (props to Anita) and nachos (props to Adelle) and some fruit (props to plants and trees of the world).
Day 1- mostly consisted of silliness and hanging out, meeting our beautiful niece, Aliza, then hitting the sack after being awake for 36 hours. Played soccis.
Day 2- Granville Island with the family, followed by a Kroeger side of the extended family get together. Played Soccis.
Day 3- Obtained sunburn bikeriding and Soccising in the morning. Houle extended family birthday party for Aunty Gina/family get together. Played soccis.
Day 4- Got my hair cut by Colin's cousin, Rebecca. Played ball hockey with Anita's family in the evening. Played Soccis.
Day 5- Flew to rainy Calgary at 7am, met by my family. Hung out around home playing with our nephews and trying to get Karl, our 1 1/2 year old nephew, to like us. My dad's 65th birthday party was in the evening and we got to see the majority of our extended family and family friends.
Day 6- Went to the Calgary zoo, where we walked, talked and squawked with the animals. My cousin Kyle and his lovely wife, Jamie came over in the evening for a game of apples to apples.
Day 7- Got up early to go swimming with Pete, Jenna, and our nephews, Søren and Karl. We had the best time playing on the slides and under a giant bucket of water that crash from the ceiling every 10 minutes. Came home to have a Danish feast that my mom had been preparing all morning. Left for the airport, with a quick stop at the store to pick up a special gift for Colin from Pete and Jenna. That gift will probably get it's own post from Colin. Left Calgary in the afternoon and flew back to Vancouver.
Met at the airport by Grandma Houle who took us to St.Luke's for a VBS pot-luck. It was finger-lickin' good because my mother in law contributed a bucket of KFC.
Played soccis in the evening.
Day 8- Hiked the chief. Came home and some friends came over for a visit. Played soccis.
Day 9- Went canoeing through Widgeon Creek, hiked up to some waterfalls. Talked all day long about how we were going out for Mexican food in the evening. Went out for Mexican food, called to confirm our non-reservation on the way, after much confusion we almost didn't get Mexican food and they stayed open late for the Kroeger family. Mark saved the day and we had the best and cheapest Mexican food this side of Los Angeles, but not including Marcus' mom's food, because she's the best cook. If you live in Vancouver, go to Taqueria Jalisco in Surrey, but don't tell them that I sent you because I caused some stress. Played a painful game of soccis.
Day 10- Church in the morning followed by a costco shopping trip. Came home and everyone was feelin lazy. Colin and I went wine shopping and ended up buying and eating a flat of raspberries. Came home to a family thinking we had crashed because we had been gone so long and aren't good drivers in Canada anymore. Went boating/wake-boarding for some. Boat broke down in the middle of Dees Slew, had to start paddling, then were saved by a boat angel who knows how to boat engines. Continued boating until hunger took over, then went home and made the best home-made pizza's ever. Our secret: Fig and goat cheese from costco. Friends came over the evening. Played soccis.
Day 11- Woke up early, Colin went golfing with Tyler, Paul, and Neil. I went for a bike ride with Adelle, Debbie, Mark and Molly. Then we went in the hot tub, played soccis, packed, ate perogies, and drove to the airport with a quick stop to buy me some shampoo and new ear buds.
Our flight home was pretty interesting because 20% of our flight consisted of men returning to LA after the gay pride parade. I accidently saw some horrifying pictures on the gentleman's ipad that was sitting next to us. After we boarded the plane in LAX we sat waiting an hour while the pilot explained we were waiting for papers, and a flight attendant yelled at me from many aisles away for standing up to get something from my bag. Everyone watched and listened. After she yelled at me people waited until she had walked away and started running when they had to use the toilet or were quicker than me when retrieving their stuff from above. We sat with and behind this 4 guy dance crew from Australia and they were hilarious. All the flight attendants were SUPER nice to them.
Our friend, Nat picked us up from the airport and we came home to a lonely house full of coldness. After showering the stink off of us, our bathroom mirror fell to the floor and broke into a million pieces. Not sure what this means.
We've spent the day doing stuff that awake people do. We washed clothes, went out for Indian lunch since we had no food (there was a misunderstanding and we got a double order of what we were planning on just sharing), shopped for groceries, went to Colin's school to pick up some kind of educational thingy, then played soccis with our roommates.
Colin's making chicken souvlaki now and I thiiiiiink I can stay up for 3-4 more house. We'll see.
And that's our crazy last week and a half.
If you're still reading this super long post, I'm sorry that I'm too tired not to condense it but am too excited not to write it all out.
Also, please forgive any grammar/spelling/and general non-sensical non-information I may have written. I'm really sleepy.
E.
hey so I read this pretty much the second you posted it but didn't comment and then this morning it kicked into my consciousness and I felt rude for not doing so... so yeah, loved the tired blogpost. loved having you back here even more.
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Finally read this...better late then never. :-) So glad you guys had a good Mexican experience; sans digestive issues. It was so good to see you. Hope you're settling in. Miss you already.
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