I was in a ball tournament over the weekend, but I won’t be able to talk about it today, because I promised a recap of “Holidays: Week 1″ before that can happen.

My aunt and uncle were in town for the entire week leading up to the wedding, so we went to my parents place a couple of times to visit and/or play cards. It was good to get to relax somewhat before the oncoming whirlwind of activity. Late in the week, my cousin Kevin, Jena` and Casey came to stay at our place. It was good to see them, and to get to know Jena`, who I’d only met briefly once before. Casey’s pictures online don’t do him any justice - that’s one cute kid. We still spent a fair amount of time at Mom & Dad’s in the leadup to the wedding. My cousin Erin (from the other side of the family) her boyfriend Blair, and her daughter Trystan(sp? - and sorry, no pictures online that I know of) also stayed with us Friday night, so it was baby central, with three kids from 10 months to 18 months in the same house.

After the ceremony, we went home to get changed or something, but didn’t get to do it, because the Carbon Monoxide detector was going ballistic. We grabbed the cordless phone and a phonebook, and called SaskEnergy from the driveway. They sent someone out to investigate. Apparently the hot water heater was putting out low levels of CO, and the extra use of having six adults shower in one morning tripped the detector (possibly.) End result, they turned it off until we could have someone come out and fix it, so no hot water for Sunday morning.

I said possibly, because later in the week, the CO detector went off again, when we were home, so we had someone come out almost instantly - his detector registered a big fat 0. Clearly the detector was malfunctioning. We went out and bought a new one right away, and disposed of the old one.

The next week was fairly relaxed, with a different Aunt and Uncle in town still, but nothing major going on beyond that. We spent some time at Mom & Dad’s playing cards and visiting (sense a trend?)

The last weekend of my holidays was the long weekend.

We went to Edmonton for the long weekend, with Erin’s Grandpa’s 75th birthday party set for Sunday night. The weekend went fairly well to a point. We went to West Edmonton Mall for a bit, and bought a birthday present for Bryan, took William on some of the rides at the amusement park (free for kids under 2 and their chaperons — good deal.) and kind of wasted the afternoon doing that. There was a lot of visiting to be done, and it was good to see everyone. Sunday night, just before the birthday supper was supposed to get underway, William got sick. Projectile Vomit sick. He threw up a lot - so much that we took him to a mediclinic to see what the doctor thought. Not much as it turns out.

Our plan was to go home after the party, and despite the fact that William was still throwing up every 10-20 minutes, we left for home at 10:00 or so. We had to stop every time William threw up, because his car seat has him reclined enough that he could choke on it. We made it to Lloydminster for 1:30AM - kind of a long trip to that point. After stopping for supper (did I mention that we hadn’t eaten yet at that point? :) ) we continued on, and William only threw up once or twice the rest of the way. We rolled into the driveway at 4:30AM, exhausted and pukey. Fortunately, William was feeling quite a bit better — he only threw up a couple more times after that — and seems to have made a full recovery.

So, it was an exciting few weeks, and the following weeks will seem a little tame in comparison. That’s just fine with me though.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Is he well enough for me to start mothering him unbearably, doctor?'’ - Marge

My apologies to anyone who recognizes the title (I assume it’ll just be me and Erin.)

So, to get you up to speed, I’ll have to take a few days, and sort of savour the events of the last 20 days or so.

The beginning of my two weeks of holidays was a wedding held at Pike Lake - a provincial park about 15 minutes out of town. We had packed most of our stuff up Thursday night, in hopes of driving out to Pike Lake and setting up camp as quickly and painlessly as possible. For a change, our plans worked out, and we got the tent set up and fed ourselves before the predators came out for the night. Erin’s dad broke out the gin and tonics. William found a g&t in progress (just the g) and had a sip (Note to social services - please don’t take William away.) He didn’t much care for it. It rained a bit in the night, but we stayed dry and warm in our tent.

Oh, you think I was joking about the predators? Well, the next day, William and I were walking through the woods, and a horned owl swooped over our heads, probably not more than 10 feet above us, then perched on a tree about 30 feet from us. William and I watched him for a bit (and it watched us right back) and then it flew off. Owl flight is spookily silent, and something very cool to see. We went back to the campsite to tell everyone about it. Everyone was too busy with the wedding preparations to come back with us to look for the owl. We grabbed a camera and went back to the general area. It was sitting in a tree, right near where we saw it in the first place, so I snapped a couple of pictures. I’ll try to remember to post them later, but I don’t have them at work.

After that, we helped set up things for the wedding - decorating tables, getting underfoot, just basic helping out stuff. There were rain clouds, but I assured everyone that it couldn’t rain. (heh.) Well, what do I know about rain anyway? It rained during the ceremony. Cold, wet, still quite nice. Afterwards, we went back to the campsite and started starting a fire.

We had a good start on the fire, when someone told us that we should have started it in the big communal fire pit instead of the small individual fire box that we were using. Without naming names, the person who was helping me start the fire decided that we’d just move what we had started the 400 feet to the communal fire pit. So here we were, running across an open field with burning newspapers perched on top of a log. The papers caught fire quite well with all the oxygen they were getting, so the other person dropped them. In the middle of the field. Luckily I had a couple of logs that weren’t really burning yet, so I chopsticked the burning paper, and carried it the rest of the way. The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful, though William had a great time, and it was quite a while before I’d think of eating a cupcake (there were a lot of cupcakes. A lot of cupcakes.)

Tomorrow - the following week

Simpson’s quote of the day: “As of now, Lionel Hutz no longer exists. Say hello to Miguel Sanchez!” - Lionel Hutz

It was a busy two weeks, and I’d love to tell you all about them, but unfortunately I have to work through lunch today, because some of my systems seem to have gone South in the last two weeks. I will do it up right tomorrow, I swear. Oh, and I guess I’ll have to remove the countdown at some point too.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Oh hurry up, I’m a busy man. Ugh, this high-speed modem is intolerably slow.” - Comic Book Guy