Lessons learned
Our holiday trip to Canada is done. Overall it was a really good visit. We made do with the cramped quarters. We opened windows and doors to cool off the place. We were even able to leave and not take his dad with us everywhere, although BZ's sister chastised him for not taking his dad everywhere we went.
I got to see just how much pressure is put on BZ during these short visits. His sister wants ALL of BZ's attention so she can relive the past and make him laugh. Awfully sad to witness. His dad wants him to review every little document he's got and give his opinion on politics and finances and whatever else runs through his head.
His dad has been in this apartment for over a year and made a comment to BZ that he's not sure how to do laundry, maybe B will show him how. HUH??!? It's an odd family.
One night while there, BZ's sister, R, came over and cooked a belated Christmas dinner. Later we exchanged gifts, which was nice also. R had to go to her car to get some more gifts for the kids that she couldn't carry in the first trip. When she got back, she told the kids to come on, I've got to show you something outside. BZ decided he'd go to. I retreated to the bedroom to read a book so I wouldn't have to decipher what FIL was trying to tell me about his native country's history. His English is not the greatest and my foreign ears are horrible!!
When BZ and R and the kids got back, BZ was laughing pretty hard as was R, but she was holding her elbow and had a pretty good strawberry on it. It seems that the wind was particulary strong that night. Stronger than they've seen in a while. They don't get hurricanes up there. :)
Anyway, R was pretending that the wind was carrying her away, you know, to make BZ laugh of course. Well, during the joke, it turned on her and it really did carry her away...across the street and right into a snowplowed bank of snow and ice. Ouch! BZ was busting a gut relaying the story to me. I was just sitting there thinking how stupid can a 47-year-old woman be. R was laughing, too, but she was rubbing her elbow, too. I asked her if she was okay and she said yes. I was thinking the whole time what an idiot.
We left his dad's on Thursday and stayed in a hotel the remainder of the trip. THAT was the best part of the trip. Unfortunately, oldest stepson and myself got sick. I'm still coughing up lungs. But before that, they went sledding and we saw the movie Marley and me. It was good, but the book (audiobook) was better. The kids bought lego stuff and built that while we were at BZ's dad's place.
Saturday when we were packing up, the youngest stepson told me that we could always change our flight and leave a later day. I told him I wish that we could, but we just couldn't this time. I did tell him that they can stay as long as they want in the summer. He said he'd like to stay three months. I'll do everything I can to try to make that happen.
One lesson I've learned from this trip is if possible avoid any kind of connection flight in Atlanta. I know the weather was horrific all over and caused the majority of the problems, but I'm thinking there's some bad managing going on somewhere in the control towers.
Our first flight was to arrive early into Atlanta going up. We flew around the airport waiting to land and then sat on the ground waiting for a gate. We ended up 10 minutes late. Luckily, we still had about 30 minutes to get to our connecting flight.
On our return, we boarded in Detroit only to be told to get back off; there would be a delay because Atlanta was having weather issues. Three hours later we left Detroit. Our connecting flight was to leave at 6:35. Originally we would have had a two-hour layover. With the delay, we were going to be 20 minutes late for the flight.
BZ checked when the planed touched down (still on the plane) and said the flight was delayed until 7:08. We had about 25 minutes to get there. We then were told that another plane was at our gate and we'd have to wait on that plane to leave. Shit. We sat for about 30 minutes.
When we finally did get off the plane, we booked it as fast as my fat ass would carry me from A terminal to D terminal. Thank God for trams!!!
BZ got to the gate at 7:20 and it had not left yet. Hallelujah!! That was the last flight out to our destination. We finally flew out of Atlanta about 9:30. BZ's luggage didn't make the flight. It should be here today, hopefully.
Hotels and no connections will always make for a better holiday trip.
Have a good one, Girls!