Overall, we tried to make our trip to Toronto a VACATION. For any of you who go "home" for a "visit", you will know there is a distinct difference between a trip and a vacation. We really made sure that we made it fun for the boys. It was also nice to go to Toronto as a tourist and do things that we might not do if we lived there.

Thursday - Travel (long detail below if you aren't bored yet*)
Friday - trip to the Dollar Store to buy toys for the boys. Dinner at The Keg with my mom and Stephen's parents. This is the same restaurant that Stephen and I went on our first day - nearly 21 years ago.
Saturday - My aunt's 70th birthday party at my mom's house. All three of her children came and it is the first time in over 5 years that her sons have seen each other because they have been fighting. I was happy for her, even if they boys did not talk to each other (when I say boys I mean men in their mid-40's).
Sunday - dinner at Stephen's parent's house with his uncle and aunt and one brother and his family. The other brother's family were away at a soccer tournament for their dd.
Monday - Visited the street named after my dad. Visited Ramona and Greg and saw their new house (it's wonderful!), stopped at the cemetery to see my dad's grave (Cars told my MIL "We went to visit Papa, who is dead and in the ground, to say hi. He did not say hi back to us because he is dead and in the ground".)
Tuesday - Niagara Falls. A nearly *4* hour road trip (it should not have taken more than 2). Apparently a billion people decided to go to Niagara Falls that day or cross the Rainbow Bridge into Niagara Falls, NY that day which backed up all traffic trying to get to the Falls. The kids had a great time on the "Journey Behind the Falls" and on the "Maid of the Mist" (click here for details on both).
Wednesday - I was sick part of this day. Mostly because I had eaten non-stop since arriving in Toronto. So Stephen took the boys downtown Toronto to see the CN Tower. Long lines meant they did not get to go up the skypod but they really enjoyed the glass floor on the observation deck. Wednesday evening I went to dinner with Ramona, Alicia and Sharon. I will write more about this another day, I think.
Thursday - Denine's break-down day. I am still not quite sure what happened but I know the trigger was the garbage situation in Toronto. It is so stressful trying to figure out just what garbage can do where. Anyway, I think mostly it had to do with my mom getting older and also feeling as though we were disappointing people again even though we spent a lot of money and time on our visit. Saying NO has always been hard for me and always comes with guilt about disappointing others or feeling selfish for not doing what they want. Sorry that you filled your fridge with food and we did not eat it all. Sorry that you wanted to cook us a turkey or prime rib dinner and we did not have time to be at two different houses for two different feasts the same night. Sorry that we did not get to see your new house/new car/new dog/new whatever whomever you are. Sorry I cannot have dinner/coffee/tea/lunch with you during our very limited time home. And it was not just about the people we were visiting either. Stephen and I were at odds about going to take the kids the next day for a "big" end to the vacation.
Friday - The Ex. I always had great memories of the big end to summer was a visit to the CNE/Ex. It was the first day so we were expecting it to be just packed but it seemed like there was no one there! No waiting for any of the rides on the midway so the kids went on the same rides 4, 5 and 6 times in a row if they loved it. We definitely got our money's worth for the all-you-can-ride passes. Of course the carnies short-changed us *4* times at the games and seemed genuinely "surprised" at their mistakes. Yeah, right).
Saturday - travel day home.

Whew! That was long. I was going to post a little bit everyday for the next few days but then I felt that I just needed to get it off my chest so I can move on. BTW, Cars' fever broke the morning we left so he was fine to travel. Now, tonight, it seems that Jax has what Cars had. His fever has not gone over 101.5 and I don't think it will go up as high as Cars' did. We'll see.

Anyway, if you haven't yet fallen asleep wading through this, you can keep reading about...

*Details from our day of travel to Toronto:
Flight to Toronto via Vancouver. We had a 2 hour layover (which really turned into 1 hour and 40 minutes after you take into account that the plane needed to taxi to the terminal and we needed to deplane). That ~should~ have been plenty of time to get through Canadian Immigration and Customs, pick up our luggage, put our luggage through to our next flight, get from the international terminal to the domestic terminal, buy some water for our next flight. It wasn't. It took just over an hour to go through Immigration/Customs (apparently a lot of international flights landed at the same time). We hired a red cap who helped us bi-pass two other lines (exit customs and the line to put luggage through to next flight). We somehow ended up at the wrong gate for our connecting flight and it was 20 minutes before it was to leave. I asked a very kind Air Canada gate agent (isn't that an oxymoron?!) and found out that we needed to be on the other side of the terminal. She said "YOU WILL NEED TO RUN!". I ran over to Stephen and the boys and said "WE NEED TO RUN!". The Air Canada agent then ran over to us and said "YOU HAVE NO TIME! I WILL HAVE TO DRIVE YOU!" and she made us hop into one of those carts.

Now, have you seen Austin Powers? You know where he is stuck in that cart trying to turn around? Back and forth and back and forth? Well, that was this woman trying to get the cart into position so she could drive forward. Then she had to maneuver through a doorway and was shouting at people to get out of the way. She then got us into a restricted area that leads to every gate (I have only ever seen this restricted areas at the Toronto and Vancouver airports) and sped along and got us to our gate in less than 5 minutes. ~whew~ I wish I had my wits about me to have asked for her name so I could write to Air Canada to let them know that she rocked!

And this was really the icing on the disaster that was the trip TO Toronto. From long lines and stress at security (unpacking very carefully packed backpacks for 5 people), printing off the wrong number of baggage tags, nearly having to throw out 2 bottles of duty-free booze (the red cap was able to stuff them in our bags for us). As I mentioned before, Stephen says we will only ever fly DIRECTLY to Toronto again. Seems like a good idea to me too.