Kitty’s Place

Llywellyn went to the pumpkin farm today. After a big hay fight with his uncle Bryan and his cousins, he picked out his own pumpkin. These are pictures of him and his cousins carving pumpkins.

We are having a rainy day today and I am just relaxing.

We came to Port Colborne Friday for my grandfather’s birthday. Everyone popped in for cake and we had such fun. The kidlet and I stayed there for the weekend. It was nice spending time with them and we had lots of company over the weekend as well.

Monday was errand day. I called the company where my life is in storage *laugh* and verified the amount I needed to write on the cheques for the next 12 months then sent them out. Called the paralegal who handled my divorce and then went to the courthouse and got my certificate of divorce. It is really a big rip off that you have to go in and pay for an extra paper to say that the divorce papers you already paid for are valid. *laugh* But now I have it so if I decide to remarry I can. The woman at the courthouse kept commenting on how strange it was that neither myself nor my ex had ever remarried. I guess they see a lot of people coming in soon after their divorces. *grin* Then I called my friend Jess and surprised the heck out of her, since I never let her know I was coming. We will be getting together today or tomorrow. I need to call her in a bit.

Monday night we moved our suitcase across the road to my sister’s home. The kidlet is thrilled to be here with his cousins. We will be here a couple more days and then will go to my youngest brothers for the weekend. My grandparents were really upset we were not going to stay with them the entire vacation. I explained that last time we spent all our time in Port with them and never really got to visit much with my sister and brothers and their families, so this time we are going to rectify that. Grandma pouted but we have been going over to see them during the day when everyone here is away, so she is not too sulky now. *smile*

It has been sensory overload to say the least. I have been to a gazillion dollar stores, WalMart, Cotton Ginny’s, Wendy’s, used book stores overflowing with books in english and Tim Hortons for doughnuts. *smile* Have shopped for famly back in Sweden and lots of things for my fellow.

The kidlet is too funny. The costume he picked out for halloween is a racecar drver one. So we were discussing what we would do on halloween and he had the order: knock on the door, say trick or treat, people would give him candy and then he would drive to the next house. I could not understand why he kept saying drive until he said that he had the clothes to drive the car. So now I understand why he chose that costume, he thought it came with a car. *laugh*

Monday morning my fellow took us to Arlanda about 0800. We checked in and then went and had a coffee. He left about 0900 and it was the hardest thing not to just turn around and say “I changed my mind”. *smile* I really hate being apart from him, probably because it was so long when we were apart in 1999. Our flight went at 1030 and we had a window seat for the kidlet. I did not cry when we left because I did not want to upset the kidlet. But when our plane began to taxi, he burst into tears and wanted his dad. It was an uneventful flight and we arrived in Amsterdam about 1245.

I love the airport there. It is not so big and daunting as it is in Frankfurt. We walked along to where our next flight was leaving from, cleared through passport control and waited. We couldn’t get a window seat that flight but we were in the other two on the window aisle, so that was nice. The kidlet only slept about 30 minutes during the 8 hours to Toronto, but he was very good, played, sang and never threw up.

I forgot what a horror Pearson is. You walk forver to get to customs from the plane and have to go up and down stairs. No moving sidewalks, escalators rarely working. Then we did customs, a quick where are coming from, where are you going and a have fun with your family and we off to collect our baggage. That is when (once again) the nightmare began. Our flight was 30 minutes early, we cleared customs in record times so it was 1610 when we got to the baggage carousel. The baggage did not start coming down until after 1700 and was twice delayed after that because of a “baggage jam”. So it was after 1800 when we finally got our bags. At that point we high tailed it out and were thrilled to see my brother and nephew.

The trip to St Catharines was quick and we got Thanksgiving dinner once we were here. Turkey, dressing, pumpkin pie … it was just wonderful. I love being here. Everyone is laid back and relaxed and we just do our thing with no stress. The kidlet loves it too. Surprisingly he remembers things from our last visit here when he was 2 1/2.

Tuesday we went downtown and shopped a bit. Tuesday evening my nephew had a hockey game so the kidlet went along. He seemed to have liked it since he gave me a blow by blow description of the action when they got home. Tuesday night he slept for 13 hours.

Yesterday we went to Walmart and picked up a lot of little things, including his halloween things. We got a costume, a plastic pumpkin for candy and a pumpkin flashlight for him to carry. I also got the rest of the things for a halloween card exchange, so those envelopes are now ready to be mailed tomorrow. We had McDonalds for lunch and walked out to the bus stop in pouring rain. It really was fun, I like rain and it was not so very cold.

This morning the roofers are here and I have caught up reading mail and talked some to my fellow. Soon they are going to start putting on the new tiles and then we are heading out to see some of the girls from my old job. Tomorrow we will head to Port Colborne for a few days. It will Grampa’s 92nd birthday and I am excited about going down there for that.

As happy as I am here, reading english newspapers, listening to english radio and tv, I miss my fellow terribly much and am already wanting to go home to him. *laugh* There really is never contentment once you emigrate.

I am sitting here waiting for the kettle to boil so we can have a cup of tea with the banana muffins I just baked. We are packed, kidlet is bathed and clothes are laid out for the morning. Our flight out is at 1030 and we will arrive in Canada at 1610 EST.

Friday we went into the city and met up with “allihoppa” as the kidlet would say. We caught up with Lisa at T-Centralen about 1130 to drop off a book she wants to read. Then we went to Gamla Stan and shopped a bit. We were on the platform at Rådmansgatan station about 1330 to meet up with everyone. We spied Kim and Heather first and made our way down to where they were. Måns was there also and Johan arrived shortly after. We chatted a bit until Beverly & Tage and Leslie & Alex arrived. Then we all went up to street level and made our way to the restaurant where Helene met up with us. It was just a lovely afternoon. The baby is darling, Alex is just so sweet and I loved having people who are not my fellow’s family to visit with. I truly love his family, but everyone needs their own space and their own people to feel comfortable with. After lunch we shopped, hitting a couple of fun stores and then we stopped for coffee before Beverly had to head out to catch her train to Uppsala. We left at the same time and headed home.

It was a quiet weekend since my fellow was away at a political conference. The kidlet and I went out to the airport Saturday morning to exchange our money for Canadian dollars and then shopped for a few last things we needed to take with. Today he went to his grandparents for the day while I went in to work. I got home about an hour after my fellow did and we are spending some time together before our long break. (I always hate the night before we or he goes away, ideally he should be coming with so we don’t have to spend time apart, but since I thought we would not get to Canada at all this year, I am not complaining.)

Will try to update as often as possible.

Our internet connectivity has been majorly sucking for the past 2 weeks. I figured it out and 9 of the last 14 days we have had intermittent or no access. So I really am behind everywhere … mail, message boards, friends list and with getting ready for our trip I am not sure how quickly I will catch up. Here’s hoping they got whatever was wrong fixed and we stay connected now. *smile*

Last week was rather odd. We had gone to the cottage on the weekend and when we got home I felt rather icky. Somehow I managed to pick up a nasty little flu bug. No one else got it, thank goodness. So I was pretty much housebound until Thursday. Friday I got in to see Lisa in the morning. She did some adjustments on my back and my neck and I will see her again tomorrow. Then we went on to work and that was fun since one of the women was still working and she entertained the kidlet while finishing her work. He really loves all the people at my job.

The weekend was nice. Kidlet went off to his grandparents on Saturday morning and came home Sunday night. So we had some time for just the two of us and we did make the most of it. We slept in, we shopped, we had really spicy food to eat, we snuggled lots. It was just plain nice. *smile*

I have two lists, one of what I will take with to Canada and one of what I will bring back. This time I am just not so hyped up. I am excited, but haven’t even thought about packing. Last trip I had our suitcases out 2 weeks before we were leave. *laugh* I still have to figure out how much money to take with us. Don’t think I will take gifts this time, since I have no clue what to get and little time or money to work with.

Now it is time to get back to cleaning up some here.

Seems all of three of us would be strange in the US and I can guarantee our names are not common here either. *laugh*

Some Interesting Name Statistics for Kitty Sue
The First Name Kitty Sue is not common in the US and if it exists, the shared population is less than 1,000.

Some Interesting Name Statistics for Llywellyn
The First Name Llywellyn is not common in the US and if it exists, the shared population is less than 1,000.

Some Interesting Name Statistics for Ibrahim
The First Name Ibrahim is not common in the US and if it exists, the shared population is less than 1,000.