On Saturday of the long weekend, my mother, brother and sister-in-law made the pilgrimage (how appropriate) from Winnipeg to get some face time with the new leaf on the family tree. We grabbed lunch at the same dim-sum place
that I had taken my dad for his birthday when he visited three weeks earlier...the only difference being that this time, no abandoned house across the street went up in flames. After a quick bite and a tour around the places Holly grew up, we went hom to digest before Thanksgiving dinner. We all went over to Holly's mom and aunt's for a big dinner for 12 featuring a massive spread (turkey, potatoes, gravy, beans, roasted root veggies, salads, etc.) and we all got pretty stuffed. Thanks to Heather, Karen, Krysta, Laramie and Melody for the grub! Everyone got to play Pass-the-Crying-Boy while I got to sip a few glasses of vino too (yay).Sunday was possibly the last gorgeous day of fall, with clear skies, warmish
weather and most leaves still on the trees. The plan was to hit the Newport for lunch (where I was the recipient of some playful attitude from a server) and then trot off to Gatineau Park to check out the Mackenzie King Estate. Lunch went according to plan, but it was upon arrival at the park that we realized that everyone else in the National Capital Region had the same afternoon plan:( Traffic was pretty backed up and signs were telling us that essentially every parking lot in the entire park was full, but the leaves were pretty and we thought we'd enjoy the drive anyway. By the time we got to the Estate, the parking lot just up the road had one spot left for us so we grabbed it! We bundled up Max in his cuddly wrap and set off for a walk. After a quick snack and a stop to pick up some leaves, we did the hike to the end of the
Waterfall path (which doesn't have a waterfall at the end of it anymore...a little anticlamactic). We turned around and were on our way back to the lake when Max had a little incident that required an emergency change. Like a paid pit crew, out came the changing stuff and down he went on a bed of pine needles. Unfortunately, we couldn't save all his socks so we had to hustle back to the van.One thing that my sister-in-law pointed out while walking was that there was a good mix of oohs and aahs from passers-by, some of which were cooing over the smallness of Max and how adorable it was that I had him strapped up for a walk, while some others seemed to be tsktsking the fact that I had a baby tied to me in something that looked so precarious. Dear all doubters - the Cuddly Wrap is not precarious. It's like a baby spider web, except that nobody gets eaten.
After getting home, we ordered some Indian grub from a place on the east end of Hintonburg. Great samosas and pakoras, OK curries, subpar butter chicken (I counted 4-5 "knuckles" in it - aren't you supposed to actually be able to eat the meat provided in butter chicken? I mean, it's the California Roll of curries - you don't want to make it difficult for folks!). While the curry tasted good going down, Holly was aware to try to avoid anything that was too spicy, for Max's sake. However, it seemed that any care taken wasn't enough as I woke up to his tummy gurgling louder than mine had in a while, followed by some gasplosions. No more Indian for Holly.
Finally, on Sunday, we got together with Holly's sister and our mutual friend J for Murray's birthday lunch at The Works. For the third straight day, Max got to show everybody how babies are supposed to behave in restaurants...he was wonderful! The burgs were exquisite, especially the Beckta burger that my bro
and sister-in-law shared. The burger was made with organic beef and foie gras, topped with double-smoked bacon, truffled baby swiss chard, a tomato and a locally grown and made peach-corn chutney. All this with a side of foie gras poutine. We'd previously eaten at Beckta for Holly's 30th, so we knew that they had a thing for foie gras, but never new that they'd do this kind of initiative with a burger joint (some proceeds from each burger went to the Ottawa Food Bank). Apparently it was awesome. Afterwards, everyone just kind of lounged at home until I drove them to the airport.And then the fun began. For those of you in Ottawa, you may have seen a story on the second page of the City section in Tuesday"s Citizen about a plane hitting some geese shortly after takeoff and having to conduct an emergency landing. Well, that would be the plane my family was on. Scary!! Apparently, the geese ran through the engines, creating goose fireballs (happy Thanksgiving?) out the back of the jet engines. A couple of geese hit the front of the cockpit too, apparently sounding like shotgun blasts. Goosplosion. Anyway, everyone got back down on the ground, likely more than a little shaken, and my folks got to extend their stay here by one night. Initially, they were unable to find any flights leaving back for Winnipeg until Wednesday, but somehow managed to sweet-talk their way onto an early-morning executive class flight the next day to avoid mising too much time at work. What a crazy way to end the weekend.
In any case, it's been wonderful to have all of my immediate family come to see Max in his first month. I've heard many times over that these are special days, that he will never be this small again, that he will always be more developed than he is now. I suppose the next big step is to take him for visits outside of Ottawa. Going from dim-sum to a plane is a pretty big step though :)
No comments:
Post a Comment