Wonderland fun!

I had to tear myself away from the Olympic coverage to celebrate my birthday. We decided to head to Canada's Wonderland... the Disney of the North. I guess. I've never actually been to Disney. Anyway, it's a 6 hour drive from here so we had to miss Canada's last bronze in kayaking and the closing ceremonies but that's neither here nor there.

After an uneventful drive we arrived at the cadet camp to pick up Elliott. He looked as happy as he gets (embarrassed half smile-- shoulder squeeze hug) to see us whereas I had to refrain from crying and kissing his face all over. Hey, I hadn't seen the kid in 5 weeks.

So we pick him up and whisk him away to the hotel. After a nice pub meal (new cider discovery... Somersby=YUM), we headed to bed since we'd have to make an early start in the morning. Saturday was, well, the only way to describe it was shitty. Cool and rainy with frequent showers.

We threw on our tsunami gear and headed to the park anyway. What could we do? We'd prepaid and driven for hours. When we got there we realized what a perfect amusement park day it was. We walked onto rides with no lines nearly all day. Once we were even able to ask the operator to run a ride again with us all on because there was no line waiting to get on. At one point Henry and I were waiting around for the others who'd gotten on a roller coaster and realized we were sitting on a bench in front of an empty ride. So we just got on and waited in style. Fantastic. A couple of times the sky opened up and we got completely drenched but generally, the day was worth it.

By the end of the day our clothes had dried, the sky had cleared and we even went on a flume. That was the end of the fun for us though. We hadn't realized how uncomfortable it was to be wet until we got dry. The flume spelt the end of the day for us. We got pizza back to our hotel room, bubbled in the hot tub for a bit (I guess we weren't done being wet after all) and went to bed.

Next day Elliott needed some things to bring back to camp (candy and Yu-Gi-Oh cards... whatever) and a haircut. He claimed the camp barber had one eye and terrible depth of field and he worried about his ears. We said our tender goodbyes (I misted up while he shuffled his feet uncomfortably) and we made the long drive home.

All in all, a great and short family road trip. Elliott's due back for good on Saturday so it looks like summer is really over. And believe it or not, I'm looking forward to going back to work!

kxx