So when this post publishes on Thursday morning, I will be somewhere between Fiji, Auckland, and Christchurch. However, I wanted to share some pictures of, and stories about, things which happened before this whole New Zealand trip started.
On Friday night, Tessa, Janice, and I went to see Divergent. I was quite excited to have a Girls' Night Out while Tim and Willem hung out with Dave and the kids. I liked Divergent but I didn't like how the rescuing of Four from Dauntless' grasp played out. I liked the book version better. I also hadn't read the book since November which probably helped me not to find a lot of other annoying changes :)
On Saturday we went to pick up my parents from the airport. I got to drive on the 401 (the big, scary highway in Ontario (big and scary according to me, that is)) for the very first time. Thankfully Tim and Janice kindly lent us their car for this adventure :) If you send me e-mail from the washroom above, I really don't want to know! And Sam and Rachel got tired of waiting outside the restricted area for Oma and Opa and snuck through the doors to surprise them!
On the way to the airport, we noticed a sign for Panera Bread. Did you read that??? Panera Bread!!!!! I have LOVED Panera ever since my friend introduced me to it, in The States, in 2006. Sadly, there are very few of them in Canada. But we had to stop and eat there so I could be reacquainted with the love of my life, also known as French Onion Soup in a bread bowl. It was as good as I remembered. And we also ended up with a baker's dozen of cinnamon crunch bagels. Oh. My. Yumminess.
When we got home, my dad handed out gifts from India and Bhutan. He thought he had only bought me five individual prayer flags, but when I opened the package it turned out that he bought me five lengths of prayer flags. So if you visit our house, we're not Buddhist (Why add yet another religion to the mix?!?), we just have an abundance of prayer flags!
Rachel loved having Oma put her to bed. It's a good thing, because starting yesterday this is Oma's job for the next two weeks. I think Rachel really liked it because Oma reads her more stories than I do :)
Dave got his stitches out and his cast off. We were super-excited because we thought this meant that Dave could get his splint wet. We have since learned that Dave has another three weeks of showering with a plastic bag over his arm. However, with the cast off, Dave is now an independent shower-er!!! My baby is growing up and I'm so proud :)
And that's about all my brain can handle right now. I've written this, sitting at our gate, drinking a Starbucks, and waiting for our first flight to take off. Next time you hear from me, I'll likely be simultaneously extremely jet lagged and extremely hyper about my new surroundings! I'll bet you can't wait :)
You've never driven on the 401!?!?! You've just blown my mind a little bit! (okay, you've just blown it A LOT!).
ReplyDeleteI hope Sam and Rachel have a great time with Oma and Opa while you're gone - I'm sure they will have lots of fun!
Dave's splint looks lovely. We learned to make them in school - it's about as close to arts and crafts that I've gotten in awhile! I have a collection of them for myself from practicing making them but no use for them! haha
Looking forward to your first NZ post and hoping the travel all went smoothly!
Nope, I had never driven on the 401 before. It scares me :)
DeleteAnd if we'd know about your collection of splints, we would have just gotten one from there!
Yay for Divergent! No, I didn't like the way they changed that whole part about Four being rescued either. Sigh. I think it was to give Kate Winslet more of a starring role by giving her more presence in this film than she had in the book. So the weird thing is that Panera Bread is just down the road from me, and I rarely eat there. We have another deli type restaurant around here that also has awesome soups and bread bowls and really great salads and sandwiches (and the best sweet tea) so we usually eat there. I think there prices are a little more reasonable than Panera too. It is called McAlister's Deli. There are a lot of them in the states, but I didn't see any in Canada sadly. Hope you are enjoying for your time in NZ!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely LOVE Panera's French Onion soup too. I honestly think it's the best version of it I've found. Of course we don't have a Panera in Baton Rouge, at least not yet, but one is opening down the street from my office in the next month or so and I CAN'T WAIT!!!
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