33 Hours from Victoria to Ottawa . . .

I know I titled the last post as the Final Chapter in Max's First Adventure but I feel like our trip home deserves a separate post.

We arrived at the airport, checked our bags, and got our boarding passes for our 2 p.m. flight to Calgary before heading over to arrivals to pick up the new puppy. The puppy (now named Lucy) was arriving from the local shelter in Grand Forks (yes, the little town where John's dad and stepmom live - what a strange "small world" twist) via Nelson. She arrived safe and sound and Max and I were able to meet her before she headed home to start her new life with Auntie J, Uncle B and Ruby. You are one lucky dog, Lucy! Here is a picture of us in the parking lot at the airport. (husband's note: please enjoy the sight that is Holly's hair)

Max and I headed to our gate a little early to get some play time in on the floor before the plane ride. Due to a snowstorm in Calgary, our plane was delayed leaving Calgary so we didn't leave Victoria until almost 3 p.m. Once we arrived in Calgary, the plane circled the airport for nearly half an hour in the air because of a logjam of planes arriving and departing. I was starting to worry about our connection to Ottawa but we were assured that all of the connections were waiting for our plane to land. When we finally landed, I grabbed our stuff and ran to the gate with Max, an elderly gentleman, and a pregnant woman. We were quite the sight! We were pleased as punch to see our plane still at the gate. Then the bombshell dropped: our flight had closed a few minutes before and we wouldn't be able to board.

Here is a transcript of the conversation I had with the Westjet employee:

WJ Dude: We're so sorry. The flight is closed. We tried to wait for you but we had to let the flight go when you were circling for so long in the air.

Me: When is the next flight?

WJ Dude: No worries at all!!! I've booked you on the next flight to Ottawa!!! (in the sunniest Westjet voice just like the TV commercials. I half expected the guy to say that he had shoveled our driveway in Ottawa on his way to work in Cowtown that day.)

Me: When does that leave?

WJ Dude: It leaves Calgary at 12:35 a.m. and lands in Toronto at 6:00 a.m. then you catch an 8:00 a.m. flight to Ottawa arriving at 9:00 a.m!!!! (obviously completely oblivious to the five-month old infant in my arms).

Me: Is this a joke?

Seriously. There was no way that I was going to take the red eye with Max. I asked for a hotel room and to be booked on the first direct flight on Saturday morning. They tried to book me on the 10:55 a.m. flight the next day but shortly realized that because it was Saturday, this flight wasn't being offered. The only direct flight on Saturday was the exact same 5 p.m. flight that I had just missed. At this point, Max was still an absolute trooper but I was near tears. The prospect of spending 24 hours in a Calgary airport hotel AND the reality that I would be missing my sister's 30th birthday party in Ottawa really hit me. It took another 90 minutes or so to get my new tickets, arrange the hotel room and meal vouchers, pick up my luggage and make my way over to the hotel shuttle bays. It was almost 7 p.m. Calgary time when we arrived at the hotel. I ordered some room service, made some calls to home to wallow a bit, and gave Mr. Max a bath. Max settled in nicely at the hotel and we both drifted off to sleep easily after our long day of traveling . . . .

We were awoken just before 6 a.m. by the fire alarm. Yes, the fire alarm. I was a bad mother and lay in bed and hoped that it was a false alarm for a few minutes. When the beeps became much faster and I heard the sirens, I knew that we had to get out. I threw a very sleepy and confused Max in a sling, grabbed the diaper bag, and headed down the four flights of stairs in my pajamas. Luckily, we only had to evacuate to the lobby given that it was -30 outside without the wind chill factor. Once the firefighters had cleared the building about 30 minutes later (apparently, some IDIOT was smoking in a hallway), we headed back to our room. Wonder of wonders, Max went back to sleep after a nice nursing session.

On Saturday morning, I was packing up the room and couldn't find Max's toy lion (for regular readers of the blog, this is one of Max's favourite toys from the Gymini playgym he got for Christmas). I looked everywhere for this toy because in Max's short life, this is one of the only toys that has captured his sustained affection. When I was looking under one of the beds in the hotel room, I thought I spotted the toy but alas, it was a used drug pipe. Yes, a blown glass pipe reeking of ganja under my hotel room bed. I called the front desk and someone was dispatched promptly to collect the paraphernalia. On the plus side, the hotel took care of my room service charges to atone for this under the bed find. I realized later that I had left Lion and another teething toy in the front pocket on our Victoria-Calgary leg in the rush to make the connection to Ottawa.

We made our way to the airport and enjoyed some lunch with the meal vouchers and did a little bit of shopping. We also checked in at the Westjet desk to see if Lion had been located. Eureka! An employee there had found Lion and the other toy on the plane and given them to another employee to put in the Lost and Found. Unfortunately, the toys never made it to the Lost and Found. (Side note: John is still trying to follow up with Westjet to see if we can find Lion! The really brutal part is that because Lion was part of the playgym, he can't be replaced.)

My flight left Calgary without incident and Max was a super trooper for the last long flight of the trip. He slept most of the way and charmed his way into a few more passengers' hearts. John was a sight for sore eyes when we finally arrived in Ottawa at 11:00 p.m. It was a most fabulous feeling to FINALLY get home around 11:45 p.m. Ottawa time on Saturday night to the cats and our own beds. What a crazy journey!!!!

p.s. I will say that all the employees we encountered, from the Westjet employees, the shuttle drivers who helped me with all of my bags, and the hotel manager who gave us a really late checkout, were really wonderful.

Max's Big Adventure - The Final Chapter

When we last left our intrepid voyager, he was bidding goodbye to his dad and looking forward to five more days of adventure on the coast. Sunday was relatively low-key. Auntie J and I nipped into Sydney to pick up a few things and rent a few movies. I finally saw Ratatouille and loved, loved, loved it! (Side note: The restaurant in the movie is based on La Tour d'Argent where John and I had our extremely memorable haute Parisian cuisine honeymoon meal, part of a wedding gift from my Auntie Med, so it was super cool to finally see the movie!).

Unfortunately, Auntie J came down with the same awful sickness that John had when he got back so Monday was not a wonderful day for Auntie J. Max and I had plenty to keep us entertained though because Auntie J's friend D and her adorable toddler daughter A came over for lunch and a play date. It was quite funny to see A interacting with Max. There was lots of sharing of toys but also a few moments of "I don't know who the heck you are so don't you dare touch my stuff!". Provided that I was quick on the draw to replace the toy in his hand so he could put something back in his mouth, Max took it all in stride. It was wonderful to see D and meet A for the first time and also to see some of the developmental milestones we have to look forward to.

On Tuesday, Auntie J felt better so we decided to head into Victoria to show Max off to Auntie's colleagues, grab some lunch and do a bit of shopping. Max was amazing and didn't mind getting passed around to a dozen strangers at the hospital where Auntie J works. A big shout out to Auntie's awesome colleagues who lent us a playpen and a big bag of toys for Max's visit! We lunched at this very Trent-like (for those of you who didn't go to Trent, I mean kind of granola and hippy but great) little diner called the Shine Cafe. They specialize in eggs benny (over a dozen variations) but I was feeling more in a lunch mood so I had an awesome burger with onion rings on the side. I mention the onion rings because a server at the restaurant introduced me to a new taste sensation: dipping the rings in honey. I've never had this before and it was awesome. I guess it makes sense considering that I used to dip my McNuggets in honey back in the day. Anyways, if you like onion rings and you like honey, give it a try.

We bid adieu to Auntie J and Uncle B's place on Wednesday to head into Victoria to spend some time with my best friend from high school, Jenny K. Jenn and her roommate Michael were awesome hosts. We spent Wednesday afternoon walking down to the beach in the rain and catching up. We made an awesome "put everything in the fridge into a pot with some curry paste" dinner which turned out really fantastic and watched a bit of the movie Once. Unfortunately, we started the movie a bit late and Mr. M needed to go to bed and we never ended up seeing the end of the film. (Side note: A song from the movie just won the Best Original Song Oscar on Sunday night - Yay! Now I REALLY want to see the rest of the movie!). Oh well.

On Thursday morning, Jenn needed to do some work (varied and amazing pursuits, including some wonderful writing and a super cool community project where Victoria's young people wrote poetry and local musicians have written songs inspired by the poetry - the concert is this weekend (March 2nd) in Victoria) so Max and I hung out. In the afternoon, we ventured to the local laundromat to do a gazillion loads of laundry and have some treats at a local cafe. After putting our laundry away back at the apartment, we walked downtown to pick up a few things before meeting Jenn's friend, H, for dinner at ReBar. It was a very cool, blustery and rainy day but we had tons of fun anyways. I had never been to ReBar before but we cook dishes from their AMAZING cookbook often so it was great to finally get to eat there. We had an absolute blast! It is always a wonderful treat to spend an evening with one of your best friend's best friends from another part of their life. When we returned to the apartment after dinner, there was a message for me to call Auntie J. Fabulous news when I connected with her - they were off to the airport to pick up their new puppy who was arriving about an hour before we needed to be there on Friday morning so Auntie J could pick us up at Jenn's and take us the airport. I put Max to bed and snuck out of the bedroom for some late-night laughing and catching up with Jenn.

Jenn treated me to an amazing brunch on Friday morning to fill me up for my day of travelling. It was a wonderful way to end an awesome visit. Auntie J arrived at the apartment at 11:30 am to pick us up for the airport....

Next up: THE EPILOGUE!

But first, a quick video of almost-5-month Max playing while "fighting the power":

Max's First Adventure - Side Story

So in anticipation of the final installment of Max's travel journal, I'm going to relay to you how my week without Max and Holly went. Holly will have to pick up the thread with Part 4 as she was the one who experienced the final leg of the journey.

The flight home was fairly uneventful. The Super Bowl was on, so almost all of the West Jet TVs were tuned in. There was a funny moment when one guy totally shouted "Yes!" after the Pats scored late and he totally freaked the flight attendant out. I wasn't feeling so hot, but didn't think much about it. Until I got home and got violently ill. Gross.

The next morning, after I reinserted my stomach, I called out to the Coast to check if Holly or Max has come down with anything, only to find that whatever I had, Aunt J also picked up. Somehow, Holly and Max managed to dodge the bullet. Thank goodness - I know that eventually Max will pick up something other than a cold . . . but the first time shouldn't be on vacation or while I'm off somewhere else.

I had been looking forward to and dreading my five days alone. A great opportunity to do "John stuff" and keep crazy hours and sleep well and all sorts of other things that Max tends to prevent. But at the same time, the first time I'd be without the person I've been spending most of my energy on over the previous five months. As it turns out, with the sickness and a couple of awesome get-togethers with Holly's family (a 60th birthday party! A 30th birthday party! Going to a climbing gym with my mother-in-law!), I didn't really have time to get into the "I'm missing my crew" doldrums. I have to say that I was really glad to see Holly and Max when they came back. The short break really re-energized me in the end and I was more than ready to get back into the daddy ring.

Two more quick notes, completely unrelated to Max's trip:

1 - Max is now a pro at rolling around. Sometime this past week, it became clear that leaving him unattended in any precarious or elevated position is now out of the question. A by-product of this is that the chair he used to sit in on the counter while Holly got things together in the mornings is completely ineffective. Now it's all Bumbo, all the time. Until he figures how to Houdini out of it . . . It is also getting MUCH harder to change the monkey as he loves to roll around on the changing pad. The combination of his loves of rolling over AND being naked make him a pretty happy yet squirmy customer at changing time.

2 - The Oscars are on today and it's strangely a bit of an afterthought. Anyone who knows Holly knows that Oscar day is possibly her favourite day of the year. Well, this year there are no parties to host or attend and we're not even planning to watch it live. It's a bit sad for us, but seeing as we totally missed all of the movies this year, we don't really have any basis for judgment of the results. Holly will probably still treat herself to 3 hours of red carpet dreck, but that's probably about it. :( weep

Max's First Adventure - Part 3

Hello again,

After hanging out on the ranch in Grand Forks and living it up in Vancouver, we had one last stop to make: Vancouver Island. After checking out of our hotel, we needed to grab a bite to eat so we hopped a couple of doors down to Wings on Granville (see Max and I checking out the menu at the bottom of our previous post). The place was kind of bar-ish, so there were bright lights and rock music playing....even at 1 pm. We grabbed a booth and ordered our food. While waiting for the food to arrive, Max got cranky and started rubbing his eyes (I suppose I forgot to mention that about a week before the trip, Max started rubbing his eyes when he got tired. Until that point, we had to kind of guess when he was tired - not always all that difficult - but now, we had a clear sign. And a really cute one too. We'll have to get a picture sometime), so I threw him on my shoulder and shushed him to sleep. The fod eventually came though and Holly suggested that we try to put him down on the booth so that I could eat. I was dubious, as the vertical-to-horizontal (or vice versa) position shift is almost a sure baby-waker. But lo, Max stayed asleep. Despite the Rolling Stones blaring over the system. Holly even scooted over to block the overhead lights. And so we ate in peace.

When it came time to leave, we resolved ourselves to waking Max up to go. I popped Max on my shoulder and hit the street. He squirmed a bit, but conked out again. We got into our cab and he stayed asleep for the whole trip out to the Tsawwassen terminal. I handed him off to Holly and she handed him back in order to sneak in bathroom breaks. Still out cold. Eventually, the ferry arrived and Max woke up just as we were boarding, capping the most mobile, jostling nap of his short life. Amazing.

I should also mention that, prior to boarding the ferry, we got Max an infant ticket. It was free, but I guess they still need a body count in case everything goes all Titanic...or Pacificat... Pictured his Max holding his "pink" ticket. Look at how excited he is to hit the open seas for the first time!! OK, so in general, he was pretty unaware. Oh well.

Once aboard the Spirit of Vancouver, we claimed seats right by the front of the boat, as there was a lot of space on the ground there to set up a play area. We spread out Max's blanket and gave him a couple of toys to play with and he went to town for about an hour. Holly go to plow through most of the Globe and Mail and I polished off a crossword while Max cooed and flirted with some women sitting next to us. This, in fact, is the look he was giving the ladies. It sparked a debate among them about whether if they could still have a baby, would they? Some "Absolutely" responses, followed by "just look at him!". We patted ourselves on the backs in private later on.

Eventually, we docked and were greeted at the Swartz Bay terminal by Holly's Auntie J. We went through the rigmarole of installing the car seat in Maxmobile IV and piling all of the bags into the car and then headed off for our new temporary home. We were welcomed at the house by Holly's uncle and their two dogs, Buddy and Ruby. Ruby was quite energetic, as always, while Buddy seemed very tentative, lethargic and not quite his usual frenetic self. After meeting the pups, we were treated to a yummy dinner and repaired to the lounge to watch the hockey game and play pass the baby. Max settled in just fine and was particularly excited to see that his sleeping arrangement was so similar to the one he had at home. Well, of course we're assuming that Max remembered his good ol' Ottawa home. In any case, he picked up where he left off in Vancouver and slept well - many thanks to Auntie J and Uncle B for letting us use their master bedroom. It was perfect!

Unfortunately, the next day marked a very sad day for Holly's aunt and uncle (and everybody who has met their dog Buddy). Without getting into details, it turns out that the cause of Buddy's lethargy from the previous night was a serious case of cancer that was advanced enough that surgery would have been complicated and might not have bought him too much extra time. After a very tough deliberation, Buddy was put down that night. Holly and I enjoyed many memorable times with Buddy back when we lived in Vancouver, including frisbee in the backyard, swimming for sticks at the beach and an unforgettable Thanksgiving pilgrimage to Ucluelet. We were very sad to see such a good dog go and we know he will be sorely missed.

Our next day on the Island marked my last full day out West. I had previously arranged to come home early while Holly and Max would spent some extra time visiting. We all started by taking Ruby out for a walk in a provincial park bordered by Butchart Gardens. Then, we went out for lunch at a delicious Italian restaurant with some friends of the family and Max was (no surprise) on his best behaviour. Better yet, because the restaurant messed up on the size of pizza I ordered, they decided to fix it by making me two pizzas. Awesome. We took a quick tour through the new landscaping projects around the house (pictured is Max, who is simply enthralled with landscaping theory) and then wrapped up the evening by spending some time with Holly's best friend from high school, Jenny K, in Victoria (Holly adds: It is super cool that Jenn now makes Victoria her home as she was our maid of honour back in the day when we got married in Victoria so it is a special place for all of us). The best part about our visit was that it happened to be her birthday so we got to meet a bunch of her new Victoria-based friends and catch up with some old friends at a Mexican-themed extravaganza. Max definitely got to snack on guacamole- and salsa-infused breast milk the next day. We felt really fortunate that timing worked out just right so that we could all attend the party.

The next day, I got to have one last Ruby walk before packing all of our bags up, giving Holly's aunt and uncle big hugs, smooching my baby and baby goodbye and leaving on a jet plane for home. All in all, I thought it was a great trip and I was so pleased to see that Max flew well. Hopefully this bodes well for future Max adventures around the world. I also hope that the bad car mojo stops when we eventually get ourselves a car. Baby is going to do road trips and go camping with his parents, point final. The prospect of spending a work week without Holly or Max at home was equal parts thrilling and terrifying. Stay tuned to see how that went for me.

Finally, I want to leave you with a couple of tidbits related to Max's new sleeping habits. Starting in Grand Forks, Max seemed to not be in the least bit interested in being swaddled in order to get to sleep in the middle of the night. To rememdy this, Holly came up with the brilliant idea of feeding him in bed. I didn't think this was such a hot idea at the time, as previous attempts to feed him in bed (and this goes back to before he was giving us 6-7 hours a night, so WAY back) tended to yield 45-60 minutes of mediocre sleep. Well, it seems that Max has a new take on bed feeds as he would routinely give us 2-3 hours of good sleep after getting up at 5 or so and having a bed feed. This carried on in Vancouver and Vancouver Island. Now, even that we're back at home, this seems to be the best way to coax a good dawn-greeting sleep out of him. It's interesting to note how his sleeping habits change, and to think that they're going to keep changing until, well, I'm not sure. I"ll have to keep you posted.

Here are some more Island pictures:

Max's First Adventure - Part 2

OK, when we last left our hero, he was hobnobbing with farm animals in Grand Forks. In this episode, we learn that Max likes certain car songs more than others but that, overall, Max hates cars.

Monday morning, we got everything packed up again, got in the car with Grandpa behind the wheel and hit the road. It looked like a beautiful day for driving, but we were reminded that with all the valleys we'd be driving through, the weather might vary quite a bit along the way. Max started to get upset pretty early on, somewhere around Greenwood. We threw the car song arsenal at Max, willing him to be happy. But no matter how much "Charlie Chaplin", "Acka Backa Soda Cracker", "It's a Driving Day", and the ever-popular Grand Forksicized "Jig Jog Donkey" (formerly Jig Jog Pony, this was reworked by Holly in honour of Rosie and Trixie, the grandparent's miniature donkeys), he just couldn't be satisfied. The two saving graces? Well, they ended up being his little hand rattle that he's been playing with (and chewing on, natch) since week 2 and the "Lala" song - man, that one can sidetrack him from just about anything!

Max fell asleep a couple of times between Rock Creek and Manning Park, but for the most part, he did a lot of crying. Holly took over in the back seat at Keremeos, when it was apparent that I wasn't having any effect on Max anymore (kind of like a sports coach getting sacked when the players start tuning the coach out). Holly had a good go of it, but Max was intent on crying for a good bout. Maybe we were spoiled not having a colicky baby, but man, was it hard to hear Max be so upset for so long. Typically, we don't let him get too worked up, but there really wasn't much we could do in the car. The prevailing idea was to just keep plowing ahead and get it over with as soon as possible.

Max finally gave up and conked out again somewhere in the middle of Manning Park. The Park itself was gorgeous, having recently been hit with a massive amount of snow. All of the trees, power lines and rocks were covered in almost a foot of snow. I think we were expecting that part of the drive to be snowy, but this was impressive. Not a lot of other traffic on the road, which was good news for us (or bad news, if they were all smart enough to stay home...). Normally, when you come out of the park and descend into Hope, everything gets green pretty quickly. Not this time, as Hope was under snow as well. Crazy. We made an executive decision to let Max sleep and press on to Chilliwack, as we weren't sure whether he'd be able to get back to sleep or not.

Max woke up with about 30 clicks to go and, not having been fed in a long time, wasn't even interested in the "Lala" song. We eventually hit Chilliwack and got off the road to grab a bite at Earl's. Unlike the Winnipeg versions of the restaurant, the servers out in BC seem to still be allowed to wear clothes. The food was good, Max loved his new outfit and we all got to take a breather from crying baby. The last leg wasn't so bad, given that we were not that far out. Max ramped up again just as we got past Burnaby so the last few km were covered with much haste. Many thanks to Grandpa for the lift out to the coast - it wasn't the quietest of road trips so it was much appreciated!

Holly and I were looking for some forgiveness from Max and (surprisingly, to us) he acquiesced almost immediately after coming out of the seat, showering everybody in the hotel room with smiles. The rest of the evening consisted of feeding, playing and eventually putting Max to bed.

The four of us had a good time in Vancouver - dim sum in Chinatown, Grandpa becoming a Blenz regular, shopping on Granville Island, some all-you-can-eat sushi, checking out my grad school alma mater (SFU)...the only thing was we had to do all of our exploring with half a foot (at least) of snow on the ground! In the two years we lived in Vancouver, we'd never seen anything like this. All schools and universities were closed on the Tuesday because nobody could drive in the muck. Except the Maxmobile with its snow tires. Sweet. This picture is a shot of the parking lot where we used to park the sorely missed convertible at our SFU residence apartment.

The highlight of the visit was definitely getting to see my family on the Tuesday night. For only the second time in Max's life, he got to share a room with five other Stardoms (the other being at Thanksgiving this past October). My Aunt and Uncle hosted a dinner that was simply succulent (of course it was - perogies were on the menu...sour cream with everything!!!). My other Uncle, my cousin and his girlfriend were excited to meet Max too. It was great to get some visiting in with them, in particular because it was Max's arrival which kept Holly and I from being able to attend the first Stardom family reunion in Winnipeg this past September.

On the developmental front, Max came along quite well in Vancouver. We noticed that in Grand Forks, he was starting to get a bit better with his fine motor skills, being able to grab exactly what he wanted without missing the mark a bunch. In Vancouver, he managed to get Holly's glasses off her face and started grabbing accessories so much that she has since sworn off necklaces in his presence. And even bigger news: he rolled from his back onto his front for the first time! One day, he just started this sort of extreme squirm, craning his neck and arching his back. We thought he was really gassy, but he wasn't really upset. We put him on the ground and saw that this motion immediately put him from his back onto his side. He does this all the time now. However, he still hasn't quite figured out how to consistently get over the hump. I'm not even sure what he did the one time he did roll over, but it worked. Then he figured out that he was on his belly (which he hates), so he just kept on going and rolled onto his back again. Apparently, he repeated this feat twice about a week later, but he still hasn't done it again. At least we know that he's got it in him.

In our next episode: ferrying off to the Island.

Here are some pictures from Vancouver:

Max's First Adventure - Part 1

Well, I can't believe it's already been a month (just about) since our last post. This next one (or two or three, depending on how we break it down) are going to have to cover a lot of ground.

Most of you are aware that the three of us decided to take our first family vacation over the past few weeks. It had been at least two and a half years since Holly or I did our last BC circuit. We try to get out there a little more often than that, given that we have so much family in the province and, since living out there from 1999-2001, we've always loved it out west. We thought to ourselves that a) we hadn't been out in a while, b) a bunch of family members out there hadn't had the opportunity to meet Max and c) wouldn't it be great to not shovel for a few days in a row?? That settled it, we were taking Max for the grand tour.

As it turns out, just because we have a baby doesn't mean that we'll start packing before the last minute. Well, OK, the second-last minute - we got started two days beforehand this time. We had never even taken Max out of the house overnight so we weren't really sure how much of everything to pack. On the 23rd, we made a plan - number of sleepers, outfits, hats, socks, changing pads, receiving blankets, toiletries, washcloths and accessories to pack. That way, a laundry plan could be put into effect so that the right stuff would be dry and ready to pack the next night. In the end, we chose to use a bunch of 7th generation disposable diapers (bleach and dioxin-free but still pretty nasty), rather than lug all of his cloth diapers around. The bulk combined with the extra laundry logistics were just going to be too much. Perhaps if we were staying in one place for a long stretch of time, rather than bouncing around so much... So we brought a bag of size 1 (leftover from his first few days of life) and a bag of size 2, given that he was right on the cusp weight between the two. As it turns out, he was probably a bit big for the 1s...something that we found out after about three days when Max got some nice elastic welts on his nether regions. From then on, it was all 2s, all the time. Take that, doctors: Max is growing.

The night of the 24th was a bit crazy even with Auntie Melody getting us dinner and saving us lots of time (Thanks!), but we managed to get everything rounded up into a giant MEC duffel bag, a large rolling suitcase, a small rolling suitcase and a diaper bag. Oh yeah, that and a car seat. Quite a pile of stuff. Midway through the evening, Max ran out of cloth diapers so we did one last MEGA load of those and switched him onto the disposables for the overnight.

So, let's discuss the overnight. Given that we had to leave at about 5:30 ish for the airport (thanks so much for the lift, grandma Heather!!!), we thought it would be ideal for Max to sleep until 4:45 or so, in order to get a good feed in before hitting the road. Well, Max thought otherwise. He got up at 3 (no idea why - he'd been sleeping well for a while) and went back to bed at 3:30. Holly had set her alarm for 4 to wrap some last minute things up and then, after Max got up again, I lulled him back to sleep and then got up myself at 4:30. Lots of last minute prep (somehow Max conked himself out well enough to sleep through it all) and then we piled everything and everybody into the car.

Checking everything went well, as did the stop at Timmy's for a little wake-up cruller. Delicious evil. On board, we were trying to figure out how best to prepare Max for takeoff. After hearing a pile of stories from friends and colleagues, we planned to wait until the flight attendants were seated and then we'd feed him on the way up to deal with the air pressure. Maybe not the "safest" position for him, but we didn't want to be the parents of "that baby" on a 4+ hour flight. Aside from me jumping the gun and having Holly start feeding on our way to deicing (the attendants had buckled in so I thought we were going! And what is with YOW deicing being 10 minutes from the terminal? seems inefficient...)


The flight was awesome. Max fed well, kept quiet and slept a bunch (making us believe that the early morning flights are the way to go). When we got off the plane, people were telling us that they didn't even know that there was a baby on the plane! Not like the 22 month-old girl across the aisle. She screamed a lot. We weren't sure when we were taking notes more: when her mother curled up to sleep and expected her girl to stay put and entertain herself, or when she took the girl to the back of the plane, ditched her with the attendants and came back to her seat for some peace.

When we got to Kelowna, Max's grandpa Richard was there to pick us up in the Maxmobile West (thanks so much for the lift!). It was a little chilly in the BC interior, so we had to make sure Max was well bundled. We got the car seat in OK, grabbed some lunch and hit the road. Max knocked himself out yet again, giving Holly and I a chance to catch up with my Dad. We go through Beaverdell and Westbridge and pulled off for a break at Rock Creek, where my Dad used to live. That's where Max got up and got cranky. The nice part about the plane was that if Max got fussy, we could pick him up and hold/rock/sway him...in a car, you're really at the mercy of Max's mood and level of consciousness. We got as far as Greenwood where we had to pull over and feed Max. It didn't really calm him down any, but we were only about 45 minutes out of Grand Forks so we pressed on.

Eventually, we pulled up to my Dad's place and marveled at the setting. He and Karan have a 7-acre property on the outskirts of Grand Forks, just under a mile from the US border (this picture is from the back of the house - the mountains you see are in Washington). The snow-covered trees and hills were really pretty and the central area in town had an amazing amount of services for a town of that size - looked like a pretty neat place to be. Now we'll have to check it out in the summer sometime.

Due to the cold, Max didn't really go outside except when we needed to help him get to sleep. So unfortunately, he wasn't able to make the acquaintance of the horses, ducks, miniature donkeys, chickens, roosters, or peacocks. That's ok, there were two cats (Mikey and Qi) and three dogs (Timber, Buddy and Bailey) inside the house for Max to play with. For a couple of weeks prior to the trip, we noticed that Max had started to pay attention to our cats, eying them as they walked by or even reaching out to grab some fur. Well, did Max ever have fun trying to keep his eyes on five pets. I think Qi was his favourite, but Buddy was certainly his bodyguard.

We all had a great visit in Grand Forks and were
treated to wonderful meals. A big thanks to Karan too, for taking a couple of days off from her hectic job to spend time with us (and for teaching Max that spoons are fun to play with and chew on!). While we were there, Max also learned that beards are super fun to grab, Home Hardwares put him to sleep (just like his dad!) and that different places can have different humidities (Grand Forks was super dry). I'm sure the next time we go, Max will put all of that yard space to good use. Well, maybe not the part with the horses. That's for later. Heck, when I visited the horses in 1999, I still didn't know where to stand in order to minimize the chance of getting hoofed.

In our next episode, our hero braves the 560 km car ride to Vancouver...

Here are some pictures from Grand Forks: