we're back!

It's been a long road, but we are finally back in the UK. Some of you may have been worried that we got injured in the traumatizing car ride to the airport (or aeroport) but it was a rather uneventful ride! We got there on time (if you don't count Ryan's escapade with returning the car) and we even managed to fly out of Heathrow Airport before they closed it down because of fog. Our airplane problems began right away, as we checked into the flight we were told that we weren't sitting together. That's a shame, since we PAID to have our seats reserved by a travel agent, who was subsequently reminded three times. Whatever. After a choicely worded phone call to said travel agent, we were on our way to the gate, with the hopes of some christmas cheer and that someone would take pity on us and let us sit together. We went through security with no problems at all. I was sort of expecting something, since we were flying out of a major airport that had been the brunt of a terrorist attack in the not so distant past. We did have some annoying perameters, but other than that, we were free and clear. We did some shopping in the MASSIVE shopping/duty free area. They even have a mini-Harrod's! We flew for 8 hours and landed in Toronto. We were met by Julie with a sign for "Favourite aunt Elaine and uncle Ryan" and we got to hold B for the first time in 4 months!! She is so much cuter in person!

After a very long drive out of Brampton (it took 45 minutes) we got on the road to North Bay to pick up a few things, then onward and upward to Sudbury. We spent the night at the Smith's and did Christmas with them. The next day we had Bertrand Christmas which had 30 some odd family (or mostly family) members for dinner. Including three babies, even though Emily is not so much a baby, which was a nice refreshing change. They are all the entertainment needed!!

Christmas Eve morning Julie dropped us off at the airport for our next stage of our journey. We were heading out to Vancouver to spend the remainder of our vacation with Ryan's family. After our last flight experience, I was concerned about whether or not we would be sitting together. The check in lady said that they were assigning seats at the gate, so we headed over that way. When we got there I spoke to the "gate keeper" and she promptly started to assign us new seats, which I was very grateful for! As we stood there, another man came over and said, we've got lots of room, you can move people up front. That's right, we got bumped to executive class!! That would have been great enough with the lounge chairs and real mugs and cutlery, but because it was a domestic flight we should have had to pay for any food we have. Lucky for us, we got a great fruit platter, an omlette breakfast, and another fruit and cheese platter. Not to mention all the tea and coffee we could drink. It was sweet!

We spent our week in Vancouver (well, Richmond) celebrating birthdays and christmas, and having lots of fun together. We ate way too much dessert and watched a great movie, and even made it up to the top of the mountain to see some real snow. The highlight of the trip had to be Ryan's gps unit. It resulted in loads of time spent wandering in circles and finding "really really good parking spots". A source of unending entertainment.

There are so many more stories, but they will have to wait for another day.