Tour D'Ontario

We flew into Toronto on the 24th and Bill Inkster picked us from the airport.
I should have sensed forshadowing of a crazy week when after several stressful minutes of searching for the car (for james and his dad, not me) we found it parked not in an actual stall, but in the driving lane, a big yellow arrow painted underneath.

First stop - Guelph, where James and I spent christmas eve going through all the elementary school assignments he ever completed and got a "Good job!" on. He was a funny writer even back then, though it perhaps wasn't as intentional. Some sidesplitting highlights included his use of the word dispicable (which he apparently got congratulated on one year, so logically used the word throughout the rest of his elementary writing profession), the constant sport theme, such as james' "life timeline" which underlined the beginning of each sports career he began - hockey age 3, soccer age 4, baseball age 5, hockey age 6 (he stepped it up a league by learning how to skate), and his attention to criticism - one teacher asked him to try adjectives, and so, the next story had an average of 2 adjectives per noun ("Under the tremendous tree there were shiny new clean presents"). Turns out he hasn't changed much since that early age.

Christmas Day was spent with his family. Just like any typical canadian family, the morning was spent working on the barn, leftover chile was enjoyed at lunch with 5 dogs and 2 grandparents, one French cousin and a sleepy Italian boyfriend, the afternoon was a combination of beer spilling and lawn mower riding, chirstmas dinner turkey was delicious and laid next to a delicious display of potatoes, stuffing and jello shots, and the evening was spent opening gifts and playing pool.

Boxing Day I was up early and driving to Toronto to drop off Cousin Sylvia and Dopey (Jordano). I then journeyed down the 401 to Stirling, Ontario where I spent the day visiting my dad's parents, Dorothy and Clary and their long time friend Hilda, who were visiting my (Aunt) Nancy, (Uncle) Terry and (dog cousin) Tyler. Stirling is a beautiful place and I wished I could of stayed longer. I'll save you the details, but it's nice to see my family still remains crazy, in both good and bad ways.

The 27th I was on the move again, this time my destination was Stouffville, home to the other side of the family, and a whole new avenue of craziness. I took the backroads to get there and crossed some beautiful Canadian Shield scenery, a good backdrop for my thoughts. However, the combo of backroads and having to literally rip my body from my grandmothers grasp, caused me to be arrive 1/2 hour later than planned, wchich caused my other grandmother to nearly start a mass search for my body. After that drama, tea and conversation went well - which is good becuase I now hear through the geneological grapevine that we had a falling out during my last visit, 3 years agao, because i was too opinionated. Apparently naive as well, since this news was brought to my attention at at 12:02am Jan. 1, 2007. Ah, it's going to be a good year...I digress. It was great to see my aunts/uncles and cousins too and it's nice to know that my 21/20 year old cousins have more direction in life than I do. Then again, I had more direction back then as well.

The 28th I headed back to Guelph (and nearly had a breakdown as I got lost on the 4-0-get-me-the-hell-out-this-city highways...one wrong turn was all it took for me to spend 15 minutes exploring every major city center hghway in Toronto) to begin the journey with James and Lindsey, our destinatio the infamous...Owen Sound.
A brief tour of the town and a quick walk down memory lane later, we were at the liquor store collecting our supplies for the evening...24 beer, a big bottle of Fireball, and our gag gifts - a flask of JD and Labatt Maximum Ice (7% alcohol, 1.18 L). Then over to the Boot n' Blade, a local diner that used to be quaint and made of hockey sticks but has since been upgraded to a more modern, less interesting decor, to meet Dawn, Fred, Cheryl, Tim, Owen and Natalie. A great ab workout, as Tim recollected, with James ' help the stunts that he and James pulled. Less like "Remember the time we went 4x4ing" and more like "Remember the time you ran away after spitting crackers in a voters face, leaving me to deal with it?". Hahaha...
The night was spent outside of Owen Sound, at a house party near Charles Lake on the famous Niagra Escarpement. Both James and I exceeded our expectations and drank most of the beer we brought, shared the fireball with everyone (like I needed those two shots), and ironically got each others gag gift - the Maximum Ice was donated to any brave, willing particpants - not surprising, it caused nothing but trouble - The JD was tucked away thankfully for another night.
Many laughs and documented nonsense from James' boys, Kalle, Dean, Jee Hoon, and Mike.

The next day we dragged our bodies back to the car for some countryside touring before we picked up Lindsey and headed back to Guelph for more barn labour. An uneventful hazy day.

The 30th was spent shopping in a Guelph mall with James, where many items were crossed off of his purchasing list and I was reminded I can't handle much time in malls no matter the township. More barn work and then out for greek food to celebrate Lu's birthday. Aside: When you have leftovers, do you ask the server to package it up, or do you ask for a container and do it for yourself? Hypothetical question of course...

New Years Eve - more barn work, more beer and more pool. One last visit with James' Grandma and Poppy and we were in a van headed back to the airport for one of my more frusteratingly slow airport experiences. 11:54pm we arrived at my parents house in Vancouver in time to count down the last seconds with my sister and her friends and then directly to the well earned bed for some solid zzz's.

Not exactly a relaxing week, but definatley entertaining. I'm glad I broke the bank for the trip.