The trip up to Goderich was uneventful. It was freaky as there was no snow, anywhere. Typically, when you drive up to Goderich at the end of December, there is lots of snow. Nothing in 2006. It did start to snow after arrived, but it amounted to nothing much.
The kids opened their presents. We had an awesome turkey dinner. We watched TV, did some shopping and just hung out. It was a good end to Christmas.
Bev & Gerry decided to spend Christmas here in Windsor. They arrived mid-day on Saturday, and the boys were very excited to see Nanny & Poppy. We went out for Chinese buffet and filled our plates many times. We were all stuffed afterwards.
Sunday was Christmas Eve, so we spent the day hanging out around the house. We had the traditional 'Szymczak Family Buffet' later in the afternoon. This was followed by opening presents. It was interesting to watch the boys. When Corbin was opening a present, Jeremy would move in for a closer look and vice-a-versa. Everyone opened their presents and everyone was happy with their haul. We even took a small break to eat some more food.
When 8:00 pm rolled around, Adam abandoned the family and joined the rush of people trying to buy items at the annual Future Shop Boxing Day sale. Just after 9:30 pm, Adam was able to add three items to his basket and successfully checkout. What did he buy? A 500GB External Hard Drive for $199.99, a 2GB SD memory card for $39.99 (after a $15 rebate), and a SanDisk Sansa 2GB mp3 player for $69.99. Not a bad haul. The boys eventually went to bed after playing with their toys. After all, Santa could not come if they did not fall asleep.
Christmas Day arrived and the boys were hopping out of bed. They ripped open their presents from Santa - Corbin went for the present that Santa 'hides' in the kitchen. Santa also leaves a toy unwrapped so the boys can play right away. We emptied out our stockings, including Guinea's, and unwrapped the small prizes. The day was weird because there was absolutely no snow on the ground, in fact we got rain. Talk about a green Christmas. Gerry put together a toy table for Jeremy - it came with a train set and blocks. It will be nice to have in the living room.
Babcia (Adam's mom) and Grandpa travelled by train to Windsor to celebrate Christmas. Though the train was advertised as being 15 minutes late, it was only 5 minutes late. That meant that Corbin did not have to wait around too long for Babcia. On the way back home, Adam picked up Jeremy from Jenn's house and Jeremy was happy to see Babcia and Grandpa.
Shortly after we had a pasta dinner with home made alfredo sauce. The boys and Babcia began to play shortly thereafter. Tina bought new clothes for the boys, so Jeremy and Corbin showed off their smart and sharp looking outfits consisting of pants, dress shirt and a jacket. Babcia was mighty impressed.
Saturday morning began with a continental breakfast and with the boys eager to open their presents. Adam told Corbin that we will open them after lunch. Corbin said "fine". Sure enough, after having some delicious perogies for lunch, we opened presents. The boys were very pleased with their presents. Among other things, Corbin received a bunch of Narnia characters and Jeremy received a Spiderman car and a Safari set. Babcia was impressed with the scrapbook created by Tina - she cried as Corbin read the sayings. Grandpa was busy checking out his new book.
After supper, Babcia, Tina, Adam and the boys set out to Toledo, Ohio, to check out the Lights Before Christmas display at the Toledo Zoo. The drive to Toledo was uneventful, but it took 45 minutes to get into the Zoo parking lot. There were more people at the Zoo then during the summer. The weather was nice, slightly on the warm side. Adam's mom could not believe how wonderful the Christmas lights were - she was impressed. We arrived back in Windsor just before 11 pm - both boys fell asleep on the trip home.
Adam made waffles, while Tina nuked the bacon and prepared other items, for breakfast. Babcia played some more with the boys. Eventually, it was time for Adam to take Grandpa and Babcia to the train station for their trip back to Brantford. They boys were sad to see Babcia go - they wanted her to stay and play some more.
It has been four straight days with no poop accidents with Jeremy 'pooping in the toilet'. Over the past week, he has earned three trips to Chuck E Cheese for is toileting success. Maybe, just maybe, the end of diapers is near?
Adam installed the outdoor Christmas lighting about a week ago, during the warm spell. That was a good thing given the cold weather that came quickly Thursday night. It was a PA Day on Friday, so Adam stayed home with Corbin and put up the Christmas Tree. Corbin was very anxious to decorate the tree, but Tina was involved with a Creative Memories open house at Jenn's house, so he would have to wait till Saturday. Besides assembling the tree, Adam and Corbin spent some time shopping and playing video games.
Saturday morning arrived and the entire family headed out to the Maple Leaf Restaurant for breakfast - Jeremy was asking to go to the Maple Leaf for 'panpapes' aka pancakes. After another good breakfast, we headed out to do some errands, such as exchanging some winter boots for Jeremy at the Columbia Outlet Store.
We arrived home and began decorating the tree. Both Jeremy and Corbin helped, with Jeremy's help consisting mostly of pointing to where decorations should go and Corbin putting decorations beside each other. In no time, the tree was decorated. Tina decorated the rest of the house, while Adam and Corbin played some NHL07 on the PlayStation2.
Another weekend, another trip. It seems just like yesterday that we were in Brantford. Adam took the boys to his mom's this weekend to give Tina some time and space to clean and organize the laundry room, everything room and part of the crawl space.
The trip to Brantford was uneventful, though it seems the volume of traffic is getting higher every year. They are finally widening Highway 401 between Wellington Road and replacing the Wellington Road overpass in London, Ontario. This has not meant too many delays as there are no lane reductions, yet. It will be nice not to have four lanes of highway traffic merge into two lanes. Highway 403 from Woodstock is carrying more vehicles each year - I suppose that some day it will have to be widened to three lanes each way.
When we arrived, the boys naturally wanted to play in the basement - where all the toys are. Adam unwound and relaxed. The next day Adam, Babcia and the boys headed to Toronto to visit Adam's aunt, Genia (Adam's Dad sister) and to do some shopping on Roncesevalles Ave aka the Polish area. We arrived earlier than anticipated, so we decided to shop first. Babcia bought some tasty goodies at Granowska's, a Polish bakery and cafe. We stopped a bookstore and a few other polish stores before heading back to the van.
Adam managed to find a parking spot in front of the senior's building that Ciocia Genia lives in. The four of us headed up and spent a wonderful time with Adam's aunt. Jeremy felt right at home and instantly told Ciocia Genia that he was hungry - he even started opening doors to find food. Corbin noticed that his GameBoy needed charging so he plugged it in and had some food too. Ciocia Genia showed us some old pictures (from 30s and 40s) of Adam's grandparents and his dad. Everyone had a great time and Jeremy actually cried as we left the building - seems that Ciocia Genia had left a good impression.
The rest of Saturday and early Sunday was spent relaxing and playing with the boys. Adam packed the boys up and they headed home shortly after 1:00 pm. He took the back roads back to Windsor, to give Tina some additional time to tidy up. Four hours later, the boys were back home.
In what seems to becoming an annual event, Tina and Adam returned home from a weekend getaway. That is code for time away from the kids. Yup two whole nights with no kids.
The whole family headed up to Brantford on Friday. The boys were spending the weekend with Adam's mom (aka Babcia). We unloaded their stuff from the van, went over some rules and issues, gave hugs and kisses and head out to Oakville.
Adam and Tina were amazed by the volume of traffic on the QEW. It was heavy and there was lots of braking. We finally arrived at the Fairfield Inn - Adam had been under the impression that last year we stayed at a Holiday Inn. In reality, we had stayed at this Fairfield Inn. We laughed. We took our belongings out and relaxed for a bit. We were getting hungry, so Adam headed out to get some subs from Quizno's and a some pop and munchies from a nearby convenience store.
The next we drove out to Square One in Mississauga to do some Christmas shopping for the boys. Our main goal was hitting the Disney Store to find some Cars stuff for Jeremy and Narnia goods for Corbin. We had a quick lunch in the very busy and very packed food court. Done shopping, we drove back towards the hotel. We stopped in at the movie complex to see when Borat was playing, and much to our surprise, the next screening was in a few minutes. We bought our tickets and headed up. The theatre was not packed but it was busy. Adam sums up Borat as "disturbingly funny".
Back to the hotel to unwind. We then took a drive along Lakeshore Road through Oakville and Burlington, just to get out of the hotel and to maybe find a nice place to eat. Now Oakville has it's share of very fancy restaurants - maybe next time. Arriving at the hotel, we decided to order Chinese food from Ho-Lee-Chow. The food arrived promptly and hot. We gorged ourselves on the food.
After eating breakfast at the hotel - they have a complimentary expanded continental breakfast buffet that included freshly made waffles - we packed up and drove back to Brantford making a stop at IKEA in Burlington (naturally). We bought a few things for the home and arrived at the craziness known as Babcia's house. Everyone had a good weekend it seemed.
Sunday was Christmas Eve, so we spent the day hanging out around the house. We had the traditional 'Szymczak Family Buffet' later in the afternoon. This was followed by opening presents. It was interesting to watch the boys. When Corbin was opening a present, Jeremy would move in for a closer look and vice-a-versa. Everyone opened their presents and everyone was happy with their haul. We even took a small break to eat some more food.
When 8:00 pm rolled around, Adam abandoned the family and joined the rush of people trying to buy items at the annual Future Shop Boxing Day sale. Just after 9:30 pm, Adam was able to add three items to his basket and successfully checkout. What did he buy? A 500GB External Hard Drive for $199.99, a 2GB SD memory card for $39.99 (after a $15 rebate), and a SanDisk Sansa 2GB mp3 player for $69.99. Not a bad haul. The boys eventually went to bed after playing with their toys. After all, Santa could not come if they did not fall asleep.
Christmas Day arrived and the boys were hopping out of bed. They ripped open their presents from Santa - Corbin went for the present that Santa 'hides' in the kitchen. Santa also leaves a toy unwrapped so the boys can play right away. We emptied out our stockings, including Guinea's, and unwrapped the small prizes. The day was weird because there was absolutely no snow on the ground, in fact we got rain. Talk about a green Christmas. Gerry put together a toy table for Jeremy - it came with a train set and blocks. It will be nice to have in the living room.