BC visit August 2015: Part 2 - Emily's Wedding

My littlest cousin got married on August 15, 2015.

For our part, we made it into a pretty fun adventure.  Jason could only come with us for the first few days of our trip.  So I had Tues afternoon until late Sunday night to travel with the girls by myself.  I had some help from family, thankfully, but, even still, family can only help so much when they aren't too familiar with our usual routines and such.

Months before the wedding, I was told we would all be camping at the wedding and people could help me out with getting together camping gear for me and the girls.  Well, not everyone ended up deciding to camp.  But thankfully, my brother Tony and his family had a fancy tent trailer and would be camping in the field near the wedding.  I was hoping they might be able to help me out with the prospect of gear and camping.

My general plan was to enjoy the wedding, then be able to put the girls to sleep in the tent in the field nearby and hope they would sleep so that I could sneak back out and enjoy being an adult with family that I never see for the remainder of the night.  Perhaps this goal was a bit ambitious, but I was really hoping I wouldn't miss out on all the fun because I was stuck in the tent with an unhappy child.

I was pretty nervous about the whole logistics because:
1) Ava is unpredictable when sleeping away from home
2) camping with the girls often means very little sleep
3) we (all 3 of us) were already really tired going into the event
4) I had no real help (no offense to family intended)
5) I had to fly home with the girls Sunday afternoon and evening, we didn't depart until 3pm and we didn't land in Denver until almost 11pm.  That flight itinerary would be difficult at anytime, given that our family usually doesn't present itself well after 4:30pm.  So I didn't want to start a long day of flight travel off with being really exhausted already.
6) I had very little ability to buy extra food/supplies/gear etc and was dependent on other people for help/gear/car.
7) I wasn't super organized, so didn't have a monitor or many other things I might normally have when camping near home.

On the drive up to the wedding, Ava fell asleep about 20 minutes before we arrived at the wedding location.  Unfortunately, she couldn't stay in the car she was sleeping in because it was needed to go elsewhere to pick someone up.  So I was pretty nervous about having my already-tired girls sleep deprived going into the wedding.

It was awesome to see my cousins, aunts and uncles, and all the kids.  It was the first time I can ever remember that my grandmother had all 13 of her grandchildren together in one place.  Of the 13 of us, 3 are girls.  So I feel a special bond with my other 2 girl cousins and care about them a great deal.  It was a big deal for me to see Emily walk down the aisle and take the hand of her handsome groom.

Rachel and Ava and their 5 cousins

I missed most of the ceremony because Ava wanted to run around.  So I hung out for some of it with another cousin in a similar situation, and then clapped for Emily and Travis at the end.

Ava made things amazing when, after the ceremony, she crawled into the tent trailer and put herself to sleep for a SOLID afternoon nap.  Super!!!

We had a great dinner sitting with brother Jeff's family, and the girls did really well all around.  I got to listen to speeches and watch the slide show.

I tried to put Ava down by herself in the tent and come back up, but that didn't quite work out.  Eventually, though, all my plans came together and both girls were asleep happily in our tent.

I went back to the dance floor and closed the night out with my big brother Tony and had a blast dancing away!

I didn't get a lot of sleep, but that wasn't because of my kids.  They did awesome sleeping until a reasonable time in the morning, and then we packed up and headed out.

We did have a ton of driving time in the morning in order to get ourselves from the wedding to Nana's, then out to the airport.  So, I was very nervous when I realized how immobile I was asking my kids to be for the whole day.  I wish I had planned out the car scenario here differently.

But Nana helped us get checked in and we made it through our first short flight just fine.  Seattle is a terrific airport for little kids because of its playground, but we were in a different area far away from that this time.  I was pretty proud of myself and my girls for keeping it all together until it was finally time to board the second plane ride.  I was really exhausted by this time and so were the kids, but I don't recall too much screaming.

On the plane ride from Seattle to Denver, Rachel fell asleep for most of the way.  Ava snuggled up and needed ongoing stories/songs/rocking, and didn't really fall asleep until the last 15 minutes, but there weren't too many tears and we still had fun.

Daddy met us at the airport and brought us home, and I was relieved to see him and our bags and get home to our own house and beds.

The Adventures of Nunu and Friends... Nunu learns to ride

Blog readers may remember previous episodes of "The Adventures of Nunu and Friends".  Here is the story of our day trip to Vancouver from Victoria, and all the excitement that it brought Nunu.

One pleasant Thursday, we went to Vancouver from Nana's house in Metchosin.  'We' included Nana, Rachel, Ava, me (Meggan), 'Nunu', and 'circle blanket'.  We drove to the ferry terminal and parked Nana's car, then walked on.  After the 90 minute ride, we walked off and caught a bus, then a sky train, then another bus in order to arrive at our friend Steph (aka Barney)'s house.  What fun it was to adventure on the ferry, on the buses, and on the skytrain with all the people!

We got to see Steph, her 2.5 year old daughter Paige and meet her newer son Evan.  The kids played together and Steph and I got to catch up for a few hours in the afternoon.  Then we also had a lovely but brief visit with Damian and also Dana and her girls (Taylor and Rylie) before leaving to return home.  It was getting late and we had a ferry to catch.

Steph drove us to the sky train station, where we hopped out, and Steph rushed off to coach field hockey.  It was after 6pm and we were all tired.  While we were buying our train tickets, Rachel asked me "Where's Nunu?"

Uh-oh.

If you don't know, Nunu is Rachel's best friend/blanket that she takes everywhere.  We got it as a hand-me-down in Penticton when Rachel was born.  Nunu used to be white and is now dirty of-white with a cat's head that has been sewn on many times over.  Nunu goes with us on all our trips and Rachel has spent very few nights in her life without Nunu.  He has once spent the night at the furniture store and once spent the night in her cubby at daycare.  When people ask me how many kids I have, and I answer 'two', Rachel sometimes corrects me to say 'three, mommy.  Nunu, Rachel, and Ava!'.

But we couldn't go back for Nunu this time.  It was too difficult to use the phone and figure out a bus to go anywhere, and we had a ferry to catch.  The ferries only run at certain times, and the last ferry is at 9pm.

So, we had to take a sad Rachel on to the skytrain and go catch our ferry, knowing we were leaving Nunu behind.  He wasn't in our bag anywhere.  We assumed we had left Nunu in Steph's car in the hurry to get out and get going.  In actual fact, we had left Nunu back and Steph's house.  As we were scrambling to get on the train, Dana was scrambling to try and track us down and return Nunu to us.

After getting off the skytrain, we rushed on to our next bus and thankfully (barely) made it, knowing that the ferry bus only comes once an hour and we were really hoping to catch the 8pm ferry.  Rachel snuggled with me lots and was so sad not to have her Nunu.  Unfortunately, there was no 8pm ferry and we had to sit at the ferry terminal for another hour and wait for the 9pm ferry.  My heart broke as I realized we probably wouldn't be able to get Nunu back to us for a while.  At best case, I could imagine sending Steph to the post office to mail Nunu to Colorado.  Also, all of us were very tired and I felt badly, knowing that we wouldn't get home until midnight and my girls would be exhausted.

I actually bought Rachel a 'my little pony' stuffed animal from the ferry gift shop, hoping to comfort Rachel and let her sleep.  All in all, I thought she was coping pretty well without her Nunu and hadn't thrown any fits.  While traveling in Canada, we have limited use of our phones for texting and emailing, so I used the wifi on the ferry to try to find a way to get Nunu back.

My cousin Emily was getting married on the island on Saturday - the whole reason for our trip.  It was now late Thursday night.  I started sending notes to any wedding guests I could think of to ask them if anyone might be coming from Vancouver or passing through Vancouver in order to get to the island and the wedding for Saturday.  Many guests had already come over and were visiting with family a couple days before the wedding.

But not all.

It just so happens that my cousin Kevin and his girlfriend Chandra live in Vancouver.  They were planning to come over to the island Friday evening after work in order to be at the wedding Saturday.  And it just so happened that Chandra was willing to stop by Steph's house and pick up Nunu so that they could bring Nunu with them.

So I got to tell Rachel that she would have to spend Thurs night and Friday night without Nunu, but she could get Nunu back at the wedding on Saturday.  Also, she could have Nunu for her plane ride home to Colorado on Sunday.  Hurray!!

The coolest part?  Kevin is a pilot.  He happens to work for Helijet.  So Rachel was pretty amazed to hear that Nunu would be getting a car ride from Steph's house to the helipad, and then flown over to the island in a helicopter.  We spent Friday afternoon imagining if Nunu would need to wear ear plugs or a seat belt or special glasses for his cool flying adventure.

Saturday at the wedding, Rachel could hardly stand waiting through the ceremony so that she could retrieve Nunu out of the car from Kevin and Chandra.

But she did.  And Rachel and Nunu were re-united!  Rachel was thrilled.  And Nunu had a special helicopter adventure along the way.  Lucky Nunu!

BC visit August 2015: Part 1

During the first week of August, Jason was out of town coaching his cross country team, and Grandma came to visit.  Early on Saturday, August 8, we all went to the airport.  Grandma went East on her plane, and we went North and West to get to Seattle, then Victoria.

Uncle Jeff, being silly

Rachel swam by herself with noodle out to wharf and back

We spent our first night at Uncle Jeff's house, with Auntie Janelle and cousins Teagan, Griffin and Cooper.  Sunday we all drove out to Janelle's family's cottage on the lake - one of our favorite places to be in the summer.  We swam, played in the water, finished a puzzle, and visited.  Teagan, who is a very talented swimmer, and I swam across the lake length-wise while Jason and Jeff paddled a support boat nearby.  The kids had a great time with their cousins.

Cooper and Ava

Cousins Teagan, Cooper, Griffin

intense puzzle action

Monday we visited Uncle Tony's house.  He was out of town, but we had a nice visit with Auntie Adrienne and cousins Ella and Benson.  Benson taught Rachel how to use a skateboard!  We picked lots of blackberries while out walking with cousins and Pops.  We also went to the Beacon Hill park petting zoo, where we got to brush the goats.  Rachel was very upset that we couldn't bring a goat home to be a pet, and has been asking us to get a pet ever since.

Blackberries!!

 Jason had to fly home on Tuesday to return to teaching school.  He took our rental car with him, and we moved into Nana's house.  We played at the beach and in Nana's house and garden, but we also borrowed her car in order to get out and visit others.

Rachel, so tired she fell asleep in this closet playing 'hide and seek'.  She was hiding and we couldn't find her for a while - it was very scary... until I opened the closet door and saw this sweet sight.

Thursday we went to Vancouver - upcoming blog post
Videos here of Ava playing peek-a-boo at the ferry terminal

Friday we drove to Duncan to visit my 94 year old grandmother (GG) and meet up with friends Andi and Giles and their 3 beautiful children at the BC Forest Discovery Center.  We had a fun time catching up and playing on the train and other logging equipment.

Saturday was my cousin Emily's wedding - upcoming blog post, and Sunday I flew home late with the girls.

I can't begin to express how much time with family and time in BC at the lake warms my heart.  I love Jeff's family and Tony's family and getting to spend time with them so, so much.  Being far away from all family is very difficult, but these trips help us stay closer and have our kids get to have a relationship, and that is precious.