Ontario

My mom and I had been hoping to go to Ontario to visit my brother and his family in March, before Matthew and Kayla turn two (because they fly for free until they're two), but then between Christmas and my brother coming out this way to visit it just didn't seem do-able.

Three weeks ago my mom came up with this crazy idea to go and visit David and Laura and the girls herself, on a spur-of-the-moment-let's-not-tell-Laura-and-only-tell-David-so-it-will-surprise-Laura kind of trip.  The day we found out that the frozen embryo transfer didn't work, my mom asked if I (and the kids) wanted to join her.  YES!  We quickly booked a ticket for me...and the excitement of it all began.  It was so nice to have something to look forward to after receiving the negative news.  I joked to my mom that I should blog that I was going, to which she agreed...and then we laughed because she had totally forgotten that Laura is one of my religious blog-followers, and if I blogged about it the surprise would have been ruined.  I was so nervous about spoiling the surprise that I started avoiding her on facebook chat.  :)

We spent the next six days planning for stressing about the flight.  How do you keep two children content on your lap in a squishy plane for 4.5 hours straight?  Well, God was definitely on our side.  The ONLY empty seat in the plane happened to be between us, so Matthew and Kayla enjoyed a nice nap with their heads resting on our lap.  For the rest of the time, Matthew had fun giggling during the turbulence, Kayla had fun looking out the window, and then they played with little toy animals my Mom had bought as a last-minute purchase.

Our visit in Ontario was wonderful.  It was so nice to see the girls again, and it didn't take them long to warm up to me.  The four kids had a lot of fun together.  We mostly just stuck around the house, playing toys, eating food, and talking.  It was great.  It was nice to see their life out there as I pretty sure I won't be going back any time soon (for financial reasons...flying is expensive!).  It was Remy and Carly's first birthday so it was fun celebrating that with them.  By the end of our trip, you could tell that Matthew and Kayla and Remy and Carly were getting much more comfortable with each other because they started to become possessive over toys and tease each other.  Matthew started getting a cold out there, so he spent all but one evening sleeping in my mom's and my bed, just so that he wouldn't wake up the house during the night with his crying over being stuffed up.  One morning, we woke up and I had 2/3 of the bed and my mom and Matthew were sharing the remaining 1/3 because Matthew wanted to lay right by her.  Another night, he kept wanting to hold her hand, even when he was sleeping.  Too cute.

The flight home was good.  The plane was packed, so I ended up in a middle seat.  We took a red-eye flight, and luckily Matthew and Kayla did sleep for most of it.  I only slept for about 10 minutes of it, and then since we've been home I've been crazy busy.  I think I had 16 hours of sleep in all over the first three nights being back because I had to work morning shifts two of the days.  Oh well, busy is good.

I can't believe it's only been 2.5 weeks since we found out the transfer didn't work.  It feels like forever ago.  I'm really glad that I was forced to take a month off before the next transfer (due to office closures)...I think I would have been ready to jump right into it emotionally, or physically.  I was expected to have a super heavy period...but it ended up being lighter than normal so I'm glad my body will have one more period before we start medications again.

Anyways, my family is opening gifts tonight...I can't believe it's Christmas-time already.  Maybe because so much other stuff has been going on so I've been really busy.  Anyways, I'm looking forward to Matthew and Kayla opening gifts :)  I think that's the part I'm most looking forward to.  That, and the food.  I LOVE Christmas appetizers and desserts.  YUM.