Piñatas, Darth Vader and coming home

Effie's turn for a piñata. This guy looks especially pleased to be holding such a lovely specimen:


For kids with unlimited access to candy, they sure do get excited about it. An hour of stiff negotiations and sorting later...


This fella didn't come out of the piñata but hung around for the show...


Here's the beginning of Effie's Death Star lego project:


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We have made it home from summery California to what is, without question, a truly Canadian autumn. Wet and cold, period. Our travel home was far from the harrowing experience we feared and in fact could be described as enjoyable. Well, enjoyable in that it turns out we had not made the Alaska Airlines “no-fly” list for our mighty display on the way down and that this time around we did not get introduced to the captain. To say we were anxious about how the day would unfold is an understatement and when Fergus had to be woken up early in order to catch our ride to the airport things were a little tense. Then I burped, he laughed and we were on our way. Never underestimate the value of the potty humour!

The time between waking up and clicking Fergus into his seatbelt on the plane was, without a doubt, understood by the three of us more relaxed travellers as “do not upset the Goose” time. Eggshells do not begin to describe it. We then kept Ferg’s boots off that morning so that he could be comfortable on the plane without forcing nearby passengers, if not the entire cabin, to reach for their emergency oxygen masks. So just prior to boarding I lugged him to the potty and made him stand on my shoes to pee (is this to much information? my internal filters are down today!). When we got to the sink I lifted him up and managed to whack a bare foot solidly against the corner of the counter. This was not in the “do not upset the Goose” playbook and a vision of being forced to rent a large vehicle and drive to Seattle raced through my brain. But, surprisingly, he recovered quickly. He’s very good at confounding expectations, our Fergus. And thanks partly to a steady supply of hidden presents, he kept himself well occupied on the flight (Gillian had found a mega-stash of Happy Meal prizes, circa the mid-90’s, from a thrift store prior to leaving home!).

When we hit the ground we raced out of Seattle and then through Everett. This was the sad part, racing through Everett without stopping to at least say hello to Frank, Ronnie and co. who were just back from their big euro trip and who we all agreed we certainly needed a healthy dose of after all that rather non-unschooly disneylanding we had just endured. But the border, ferry and a work day loomed. The border was actually the easy part in that there was no lineup - the only hitch being that they made us wake up Fergus who was in a deep, post-car-sickness dramamine slumber. But then we narrowly missed the 5:00 ferry and were forced to wait until the next sailing which strangely wasn’t until 8:00. The kiddos played in the ferry lot’s playground in what felt like, in my t-shirt and windbreaker, sub-zero weather. The only other thing interesting about that day was that the ferry offered two television options. One t.v. had the federal election results and the other a double dose of “The suit life of Zack and Cody” and “Hannah Montana”. The latter was by far the more entertaining.