2500+ kilometres later . . .

Steve was able to attend a special National Indigenous Peoples Day Gathering

And he got to see one of my favourite performers - Buffy Sainte-Marie!

Last Saturday found me in a much altered state from this one.  With S away in Saskatoon already, I had the seemingly Herculean task of wrapping up A's last days of school, preparing the house for a house-sitter, getting all of our camping gear ready, packing up for a month away and keeping the house tidy.  Also had to do our follow-up treatment to make sure head-lice was all dealt with, so another greasy day for us girls!  I had five days of staying up till 2 or 3 in the morning, then up at 7 with the kids.   It reminded me that I left Vancouver in this state of total fatigue and I was to return to it in the same!  But Sunday morning, the kids were waiting patiently in the van for 45 minutes and just after 10:00 we began our 5 day road trip and all that angst slipped away as we hit the road.

It was a perfect time to travel with lush green everywhere and many ripe, yellow canola fields.  Since I couldn't do it, A offered to take some photos from the back seat.  I entrusted her with my camera for an entertaining 45 minutes and had it returned with the memory card full, mostly of photos like this:

Considering my three and half hours of sleep and 783 kilometres to cover, Sunday surprisingly went  well.  What would have been a $275 speeding ticket (doing 118 in a 100 km zone - easily done when tired, prone to having a heavy foot, and passing Twizzlers back to the kids on a very flat straight road), was very kindly turned into a warning.  Was I ever thankful and very cautious after that!  At 3:30, we were able to stop in Yorkton to connect with my cousin, Kevin, and his cute family for an hour.

They knew of a Yorkton community event and drove into town to meet us.  We listened to local singers, watched a family troupe of 9 kids perform various traditional Ukrainian dances (very impressive) and the girls enjoyed face painting.  Typical A-style, she asked to have a cat face, while Iz was the scariest  bunny I'd ever seen!

The kids had a great break, Ai hit it off with his second cousin, and I enjoyed the quick visit.

The bad part of the day happened once we hit Saskatoon and unloaded into S's hotel room for the night.  For whatever reason, we've been blessed with 3 kids who don't sleep in the car and never have (though Iz occasionally takes exception to this for short periods of times).  So though Ai and Iz were missing two hours of nap time, the kids wouldn't' settle down to bed till 11:00 that night, greatly irritating us (because how many times do you have to scratch that wall, kick the sheets off or make swishing noises!).  And they were up by 6:30 a.m. all the same!  Arg.

So Monday had us enjoying breakfast with Auntie Jean and cousin Jayme with three very overtired kids.  Their tricks, such as grinding pepper all over the cantaloupe bowl, were rather embarrassing, as were the whines and cries.  But it was nice to quickly be together before we drove up to North Battleford to visit my Grandma.

Glazed over eyes as they ate lunch in the hotel

While S tried to get the kids down to nap in the hotel, I went out to Grandma's care home for the afternoon and had a lovely visit.  We went for ice cream, did some errands and then returned to get S and the kids to go out for dinner.  Unfortunately, it had been a frustrating afternoon of trying to get the kids to rest.  Moving between hotel rooms twice due to the air conditioner not working in our rooms didn't help, so S had given up and taken them to the pool.  Needless to say, they weren't super well behaved in the restaurant, though Grandma was very understanding.  "My kids weren't perfect until they were all grown-up, so don't worry about anything."  :)  Having enjoyed her cone earlier that day, she decided to have ice cream and pie for dinner.  When the kids commented, she replied, "When you get to be 94, you can eat whatever you want, too!"  She's certainly still so fun to be with.  Spending time with her was such a gift.

After we said farewell, we tried to settle the kids for bed, which again didn't go well.  I eventually had to leave, as I was to visit my Dad's sister, Aunt Joyce & Uncle Bud.  Poor S had to hide out in the bathroom while the kids fought sleep for another 2 hours.  The gift of their sleep deprivation was that when they finally crashed after 9:00, they really crashed.  I returned around 9:45 just as the biggest doozy of a storm hit North Battleford.  I was barely able to enter the hotel as the wind whipped up out of nowhere (exceeding 100 kms/hour in the following hours) and a woman and I couldn't budge the doors against the wind.  A man inside cracked them open so we could squeeze inside, I made it up to the room and within 5 minutes, the power was out in the city.  I have never seen such continuous lightning in my life.  Initially I watched the lower roof panels get ripped off and fly by my window outside until the view was totally obscured by the roaring rain.  The boom of thunder and the screaming wind was intense - shaking the building up there on the fifth floor.  I was SO thankful that Iz slept right through it, as I was rather scared myself.  Went and sat out in the hallway near the emergency lights!  Here's a photo my aunt sent today - taken by a friend of hers just outside the city:

There were apparently 8 tornados that touched down in the area that evening, reports of baseball-sized hail and millions of dollars worth of property damage.  Our only mishap was that Iz wet the bed she and I were sharing as I couldn't dare wake her to go the bathroom before I checked in for the night.  Thank goodness for the light of a laptop to help me navigate the room with a crying, wet girl at 2 am!  We slept on towels, which wasn't a problem since the room was soooo hot.  And due to the air conditioning problem, the hotel actually refunded us the full cost, so we were very fortunate all-in-all.  Made for a memorable stay . . .

Tuesday night found us in Drumheller, Alberta - "home to the richest deposits of fossils and dinosaur bones in North America."  We managed to spend an hour and a half in the Royal Tyrell Museum - much shorter than S and I would have liked, but all we could manage with tired kids.  They loved the playroom where they could shoot 'pollen' balls through the gigantic flowers.  Very fun.

There were totally fantastic, awe-inspiring exhibits (not captured at all in my photos!) which would have made for an overall thoughtful, humbling experience if not for the interruption of excited children.  Something along the lines of, "Hmm.  If creatures so mighty could become extinct, what of the human race?  We're perhaps not so indispensable as I'd like . . . "  Just more profound.  It's a place I'd love to spend more time down the road.

Taken moments before we realized that Iz had gone under the barricade and was on the edge of the bluff!                           Never a stress-free outing in our family. 

Wednesday was our drive from Drumheller through the Rockies, after a nice stop off in Cochrane to visit my Aunt Laura.  The kids were super travellers and we didn't make many stops, arriving in Revelstoke in time to visit the pool, eat dinner and then settle the kids for bed.  This time, we had luck!  They were down by 8:30 (except for Iz at 9:30).

Thursday we had a few nice stops in Salmon Arm, Kamloops and Hope - all at nice parks to help break up the travel.

We were all relieved to arrive at Omi & Opa's house and have been trying to get back into a schedule for the kids since.  Please, if you see us in the near future, don't assume that our children's behaviour is the norm.  They can be a little wild or misbehaved at times, but it's amazing how lack of sleep really alters one's personality or at least brings out the worst!  It's going to take us some time to bounce back to normal, I think, though it's great to be back in Vancouver.  We just wish we were able to take our Manitoban weather with us . . .