Home again, Home again, Jiggety Jig

We're home again, with the 3 little pigs - er I mean boys. They were actually super terrific on the long drive down (11 hours) and although a bit rambunctious at bedtime, they were for the most part pretty good, considering they were in a strange place, and no fenced in backyard to let them loose in.
We did discover that Duncan LOVES football - or more accurately, playing with Uncle Tim's Football, and even better when Uncle Tim is out there playing with him!

I have to say, that I LOVE going to the states - really! Although I'm glad to get back, there's just something cool about having access to all that is American. I mean really, only in American could this be a popular place, complete with merchandising galore - T-shirts, mugs, etc......

Don't laugh, but look at the goodies I brought home - No big deal for most of you, but for my fellow Canadians (and maybe even a few international oversea's readers) jealousy abounds as they catch a glimpse of my American booty! (And that means all my stuff, not my bottom)
I stocked up on Gerber stuff, since we don't get it here, and rainbow goldfish, and fancy ritz sticks and snacks for the boys lunches, and of course, good ol' American Hershey bars, which taste completely different from our local Hershey bars.


I had a great visit with my sister - seeing her new house, and visiting with my niece, who is just a clever little bean, signing please and thankyou and talking up a storm with real words like "Mummy", and "Go Bucks" and "Puppy", while her cousin Joey who is but 5 weeks her junior sat like a lump gurgling nonsense "ba? goobdablabla buh" and still stumbling around like a frat boy on Saturday night. He's getting better at walking though.
Here's my bubs and my niece:


We didn't do a whole lot, but really, that's the kind of vacation I like - just sitting around and chatting - My sister took me to a neat little place called "the Book Nook" one morning while Chris babysat the boys. We just drank tea and chatted in a nice cozy little setting, sans rowdy ruffigans. Also took a trip to Target - because I love Target, and so desperately wish we had a Target in Canada. Bought a new carseat while we were down there and sent Joey's old one to Carseat Heaven. It was a hand-me-down from a cousin, and starting to look a little ragged - it was 10 years old after all, and ready to be condemned.
He loves his new seat - which is actually still a hand-me-down from Matthew, and Matthew gets the new one which is a carseat/Booster because Matthew rarely gets anything new being the middle kid. Duncan was not pleased about that, and tried to convince me that he had outgrown his carseat and needed the new one.....

Saturday night we took everyone to The Olive Garden - because we used to have them in Canada, and they were awesome and I miss them, and really had a hankering for some Fettucini Alfredo. We called ahead (since they don't take reservations, but they do like to be "informed" about larger parties....) at 5pm and said we would be there at 5:30 - which we were, and were told that it was a 10 minute wait.
4 kids - a 4yr old, a 3 yr old, and 2 one-yr olds do not like to wait.
They were pretty quiet though, and sat on the bench while our 10 minute wait stretched into 25 minutes, at which point we asked the hostess how much longer, and it turns out that OOPS they gave away our table to another party by accident.
GRRRRRR - at that point I honestly stopped trying to keep the kids quiet and they went wild. They were hungry, and it was getting on past 6pm, keeping in mind that my kids were not adjusted to the time change, so it was really 7pm for them and they normally go to bed at 7:30-8pm, so you can imagine how my 3 little boys turned into the devil's spawn before the hostess's eyes, and ran around screaming and yelling and even getting their little cousin to join in the 'fun' making the hostess pretty crazy, and my BIL smirking that it served them right for giving our table away, and not offering us anything more than a half-hearted "sorry, what else can I say" type of laissez-faire attitude. They didn't offer to make anything up to us, or even give us menu's to peruse while we were waiting until my sister ASKED for them.
When we did get seated though, our waitress was AWESOME, and got the kids drinks and our breadsticks in record time.
I suppose I should have spoken to the manager, to see if we could finagle some free dessert or something, but we really just wanted to eat and get the kids fed and put them to bed. Ordered a few chocolate lasagnas to go for dessert and ate them after the kids were in bed while we watched Lemony Snickets "A Series of Unfortunate Events", and thanked our lucky stars that our biggest problem was a 1 hour wait to get seated at The Olive Garden.....

The day before we left, a little kitten came wandering up to the porch and the boys took a real shine to her. She had no collar, and looked to be about 8 weeks at the most - a tiny little thing, only about 2-3lbs if that. She seemed equally enamored of them, and when we went in for the night, she hung outside on the porch, scratching at the door, whining through the window, and knocking the post box over. She hung outside all night in fact, and was still whining out there the next morning. My sister and BIL do NOT want a cat in the house, and are discouraging this little grey ball of fluff at every turn, yet she still comes around, sleeps on their porch and purrs like a motor the second you scoop down to pick her up (even if it's to place her OFF the porch) Very persistent cat!!

Made it home in 9 hours - due to my driving and my wicked mum ways of not stopping for anything except gas. Once daddy took over, he had pity on them and we stopped for 1 hour at Steak and Shake (Oh how I love the USA) let them stretch their legs and go to the bathroom, and expend a little energy before the 2nd half of the trip.

Came through the border with no problems at all - on September 11th of all days. Nary a glance except to ask how many we were, and where we were from and how long we'd been down....then a "Have a nice day" and we were back on our side of the border....In fact, going down, the border guard didn't even see Joey until we mentioned that there were 5 of us, not 4 as he thought. Same thing happened when we went down in January. I joked to my husband that if we ever wanted to make some extra cash as a drug mule, we could just cart it all over in a big shopping bag in a baby car seat, since nobody seems to be able to see my 25 lb baby sitting in there.....(Yes mom, I AM joking).

All in all, a nice little visit!
Matthew starts preschool this week, so I'm going to have some one on one time with Joey, and maybe a chance to unpack all this stuff!! Amazing what can fit inside a minivan.