The Weekend!

Yesterday we had a big day! Although things didn't go exactly like planned, it was still a good time.

We started off by taking the ferry to the mainland. I took this picture of my home town from the ferry. It had never occurred to me to take a picture of my town until now, because all I do is think about moving from it lately. It's actually pretty from a distance, being that it's nestled between snow capped mountains and the clean blue ocean.


And I realize it's vulgar, but see that tall building that's basically in the middle of the pic? It's nick-named "The Penis" because of how it sticks up and there are matching short buildings on either side that look like "balls".

On the ferry, Cherry had SO much fun hanging out in the play area.


She had fun crawling all over the toys.



And everywhere she goes, all the kids just gather around her and tell her how cute she is!

We spent a bit of time hanging out with my grandparents on the north side of the border, then spent half an hour in the line heading south.

On the other side, the arch says something like "Children from the same mother" and inside there's an inscription saying something like "Let this gate never be closed."

As we got onto the I5, Armondo says "My speedometer doesn't GO American!"

We then drove to Bellingham where we shopped at Bellis Fair Mall, and we picked up some cute baby clothes. We weren't really overly impressed with the mall, and thought that our local mall was probably a bit better. The only thing that impressed me about that mall was the Victoria's Secret store. I SO wanted to buy some bras there. But my boobs won't stop changing size, so I thought there was no point in buying a bra there at this point in time.

After shopping, we headed straight to the SeaTac airport, which we thought was just in between Seattle and Tacoma, but is ACTUALLY in a town CALLED SeaTac. We're assuming that the town was built around the airport, and not the other way around.

In SeaTac, we ate at Denny's, (which we don't have in our town) but we REALLY wanted to find a Red Lobster, 'cause I drool everytime I watch their commercials, and we SO don't have any of those close by!

The service was crappy at Denny's. And the waitress was so grumpy, and so was the hostess. And the waitress gave us our bill before we even finished our dinner. And she didn't clear our dinner plates. I was so inclined to not leave a tip, but I didn't want to be considered a "Cheap Canadian!"

From the window at Denny's we could see the airport. We drove to SeaTac nice and early so we could just relax and eat and not have to worry about getting to the airport in time to pick up Jacy.

Well, we went to the airport, Armondo parked the car in the "hourly" parking area, and I went in to find the "cargo" area while Armondo read Cherry a story and put her to sleep. I went into the airport and found someone and asked for directions to get to the cargo area. It turns out we were totally in the wrong place, and that we had to drive out of the parking lot, go back on to the freeway and find "Air Cargo Road."

So, I went back to the car, paid $2 AMERICAN for 12 minutes of parking, and we went on our way to find the right place.

The directions the woman gave me were pretty vague. She mentioned something about getting back onto the freeway. She didn't mention WHICH freeway.

So, we got lost.

Yeah, somehow, we were headed back North to Seattle all of a sudden. With some quick thinking, my superior navigating skills, and keen sense of direction, I said "Quick! Turn off back into Tacoma!" And then we found our way back. *whew*

We arrived RIGHT on time at the Cargo place, but Jacy was 15 minutes late.

When she arrived, I had to pay for the flight and do some paperwork with the cargo people. Although friendly, I HAVE NEVER SEEN PEOPLE MOVE MORE SLOWLY. I tried to be patient, but kept on dropping hints about how the dog had been locked in a crate for close to 11 hours and NEEDED TO PEE! But they just took their sweet ass time. I guess they didn't want to break a nail or anything!

And then we got our precious Jacy. And she was cold. So we had to put one of Cherry's sweaters on her.

How is it that they had JUST met, and they're already making the same face for the camera?

After attempting to get Jacy to pee outside for a bit, I handed dog duty over to Armondo while I went inside to call Belinda to tell her I had received her precious poodle. (To read about the beginning of Jacy's journey, click here.)

Belinda has the cutest accent EVER! It was so hard for me not to giggle as she ended our conversation with "I LAWve y'all!" Is that what they call "Southern Hospitality"? Seems to be a whole lot of LAWve down there!

Jacy fell for Armondo right away, picking his lap over mine for the beginning of the trip home. Although, I think she sensed my jealousy 'cause she hopped onto my lap a couple of times just to make me happy. Here, Jacy and Armondo are "singing". Armondo was singing to a CD, and Jacy started howling and whining along. This, apparently, is a talent that even Belinda didn't know Jacy had!


Seattle at dusk. Taken from a moving car.

So, since Jacy hadn't peed at the cargo terminal, and it didn't look like she had peed in her crate, we thought it would be a good idea to stop at a rest stop to get her to pee there. *I* peed. Jacy. Did. Not.

Jacy didn't pee when we got to the ferry terminal either. Even after a couple of hours sleeping in the car with us while waiting for the ferry, she still didn't go pee. She didn't even pee when we got home. It wasn't until several hours later that she peed, and she didn't even get all the way to the yard, she just peed on the deck. And a LOT of pee, Armondo tells me.

When we went to get back into Canada, the crossing guard harrassed us slightly. She asked us how long were were in the US, what we bought, and the purpose of the trip.

When we told her we got a dog, she started asking us all these questions..

"How old is the dog?"
"Where did it come from?"
"How much did she cost?"
"You're going to have to shout, I can't hear you."
"You're telling me you haven't actually MET the woman who sent you the dog?"
"Why would she send you an adult dog? Don't breeders usually send puppies?"
"You're telling me that all you paid for is the flight fare?"
"Why would this woman whom you have never met, send you her dog?"
After handing her Jacy's paperwork.
"So, she's four years old?"
"Tell me again, WHY did you get this dog?"

*ugh*

So, yeah, we couldn't get ahold of Armondo's dad before our trip, so we just headed straight to the ferry. We *knew* we weren't going to be able to make the last ferry, but we thought we'd try. We were 45 min late. So we slept in the car. We were prepared though. We had foamies, and plenty of blankets. I slept ok, but I'm starting to feel it in my back now! Jacy cuddled with us in our little nest, as Cherry slept in her car seat, which we moved up front while we slept on the folded down back seats. When we got on the ferry, I continued to sleep while Armondo entertained Cherry up in the passenger decks.

We got home around 7:30 (a whole 24 1/2 hours after we left the day before) and after letting Jacy and Annie meet, I called my boss to tell him I was going to be late for work, as I hadn't had a shower, and I actually had to work at 8:30 am, and not the 9:30 that I had assumed. My boss told me I was a "good girl" and said that would be fine.

And then I got a raise.

Yup. On the day that I show up half an hour late, my boss gives me a $.50/h raise.

After I got home from work today, Armondo filled me in on the days events.

~Jacy can hop over the baby gate.
~Cherry finds Jacy to be absolutely HILARIOUS.
~Jacy needed to be carried on their walk today.
~Something about poodles pooping and it looking funny... You don't really need to know. *I* didn't really need to know.
~Annie and Jacy are tolerant of eachother, but both act jealous of eachother.

Then we watched American Idol (Kellie is SO going home!) and on our little loveseat we had Armondo, Jacy, Me, Annie, and Ozzy all cuddled there. (One bonus for Annie, is that because Jacy goes on the couch, we're now allowing HER on the couch.)

THANK YOU BELINDA FOR THE CUTE, DARLING DOG. WE LOVE HER AND WE'LL TAKE GOOD CARE OF HER, AND YOU CAN COME ANYTIME YOU WANT TO VISIT, AND I'LL FEED YOU POUTINE AND NANAIMO BARS.

***

We never did end up going to the petting farm on Easter. The weather was horrible, and since Cherry isn't walking, we figured it probably wasn't going to be too much fun for her to crawl around in the mud while the other kids ran around looking for eggs. So we posed her for silly pictures wearing silly bunny ears. Not many of them turned out. These two were the best.