Grandma G

We had a wonderful trip out to Deloraine on the weekend, minus a tiny little moment or two of the 7 hours spent driving! As per usual, the kids were up bright and early Saturday morning so I think we were on the road by 8 and in Portage by 9 to pick up Uncle Brad. Aaron said the words Uncle Brad about 180 times between Winnipeg and Porage.

Once we had him loaded up it was off to Brandon and a stop at Tim Horton's for caffeine refuelling for the adults, Timbit refuelling for Meredith and tractor, construction vehicle and van refuelling for Aaron. The Tim Horton's on #1 highway gets a LOT of transport truck traffic and there just happened to be a table available right beside the window where all the vehicles from the drive-thru and all the big trucks exited the parking lot. As if that wasn't enough, it's also right next door to a heavy equipment dealership. We're talking the big yellow front end loaders and graders and backhoes and whatever else they're called.

Insert the sound of a nearly-two-year-old boy's head exploding here....

Meredith and I stood in the longest line I've ever experienced in a Tim Horton's while Uncle Brad and Aaron watched the trucks. We could hear Aaron from across the restaurant saying "Bye bye big tuck!" "Bye bye van!" "Bye bye car!" the whoooole time. Seriously, Tim Horton's ought to pay this tiny little man for making everyone's donut-eating, coffee-swilling experience just that much brighter.

It was as we went to get back in the car to continue on to Deloraine that I realized I had forgotten the memory card for the camera in the laptop at home. D'oh! A whole weekend full of great pictures waiting to be taken and me with no card. Anyhow, on we travelled, introducing Uncle Brad to the melodious strains of the Backyardigans and the inevitable "All done. Too tight. All done. Too tight." routine from Aaron.

The whole purpose of the trip was to visit my grandmother, aka Grandma G. She was given the nickname Grandma G by the eldest of her great-grandchildren because it was a lot easier to say than Great Grandma. She's 91, still living in her own apartment, and a force to be reckoned with. The rest of the weekend was spent visiting, doing a few odd jobs around the apartment, and driving around the countryside. Meredith hadn't been there since she was about 2, so it was a great chance to show her the farm where I grew up, the schools I attended, and the amazing view from the side of the Turtle Mountains. She's also mature enough now to begin to digest what the cemetery is all about, and how meaningful the graves of my parents, her Grandpa Bill and Grandma Roberta, are. She had lots of interesting questions, a solemn little face, and a heart full of compassion when she saw the grown-ups tearing up.

Aaron tore around between the headstones and in perfect Aaron style, eventually sat down on Grandpa Bill's marker to survey the rest of the cemetery. It gave us all a smile and as Brad later said, looked just as though he was climbing up on Grandpa's knee for a bit.

Magically, Uncle Brad also spotted two perfect prairie crocuses growing up in the grass of the cemetery just as we were about to leave.

All in all it was a great weekend, and I'm hoping we'll get back out in about a month. With the camera. Until then, here's a picture of Grandma G with the kids from our last visit with her at Christmas.