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!
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