Nomadicity

Where to begin...

Trent left for bootcamp last Saturday. T-39 days. He had to be at the airport at 5:30am.

Why yes he is shaving while driving to the airport.

Man I miss that boy.

Upon dropping him off at the airport, I proceeded to cry my way home, crawl into bed and take a nap, then packed the car and drove to Edmonton. What other options did I have?

It was a great choice. I arrived to the smiling - if not a little groggy - faces of Jessica and Amy E; two of my long lost edmonton friends, who also made the drive to edmonton that day. And it only got better from there. Devo, Beth, and Blaire were soon home and we met up with plenty more Edmonton favourites at Paula's wedding reception! Nothing like a good wedding to bring the old crew back together. I'm going to be sad, in a selfish sense, when all my friends get married and we no longer have receptions to act as reunions. Baby showers just don't bring people together quite the same. So it's official, I'm going to have to start planning Edmonton YSA reunions.

For some reason I didn't have my camera out at the reception and am just banking on stealing pics from Amy E. Check back, I'll add the classic group shot when I steal it.

That night we moved on to a classic YSA house party. They're still bompin'. Only word for it. Though I may have spent the majority of the time on one couch catching up with one friend. I got to say hi to EVERYONE (we were conveniently located right by the door).

I know, I know, what was I doing at a YSA house party? I've decided I'm breakin the barriers. Who cares if I'm married, they're still my friends, and I still wanna have fun. Though funniest comment of the party goes to Erin S... when she whispered to Devo, "Is Cathy still married?" I know that shouldn't be funny, but I mean, COME ON! Of course I am. That and it was coming from Erin... just sayin.

Sunday was a glorious day. The talks at church were seriously phenomenal - sadly I can't say that about every Sunday - but they were so good, I honestly didn't want the one girl to stop talking and then didn't mind at all when the last guy went 15 min over. Pure. Brilliance.

But that wasn't all that made Sunday great. There was also, "The Treasure". What is that? Oh it's just a little piano musical starring the one and only Amy W. She started piano again this year and I guess her teacher does these musicals (but with piano instead of singing). Amy may have been the eldest by 8vyears. Her co-stars were probably 8 and 10. And awesome.

This was no low-budget production. We walked into the theater and BAM - check this out:

Can you see how radtacular the set is?! Because PS. All those flowers are kids in costume.

I love piano musicals. Where people burst into piano instead of song.

And finish it all off with jazz hands.

We loved it.

(Totally not planned: Amy's glowing. Or Devo's pasty phtoto-shopped look.)

Okay, and I have to admit one more hilarious awesomeness of "The Treasure"...

That's Candian Olympic Curling Gold Medalist, Kevin Martin!

Random. I love random.

I didn't end up having to go back to S'Toon to temp Monday, so I stayed and Amy W and I had a lovely morning. We slept in, and talked, then got up, and talked, then went for a walk in sun dresses, and talked, then went out for lunch at Olive Garden, and talked. It was wonderful.

Then I jumped in my car and headed for another one of my favourite places - the Wilderman's! (That's right, I'm living the nomadic life now, while my husband is gone living the most structured life ever.)

Oh how I love the Wilderman's. They're great people. Even if Erin does swear like a sailor.

Erin had to work Tuesday morning (for a ridiculous DH rate that makes me cringe to come back to S'Toon), so I may have taken advantage of the sunny, warm morning to finish reading my book and visit with Art (E's dad). Yep, just took a little vacation all for myself for a few hours out on the Wilderman's deck.

Then the nomad in me drove on to Lethbridge. Surprise family! What's for dinner? It was nice to get to spend some time in Leth - and Raymond. I was sad little one was sick and couldn't play, but the weather wasn't conducive to us playing much anyways. And we had a great girls day sewing and hanging out - listening to american idol performances.

Oh and I bought a Ukulele! You must go back and pronounce it ook-uh-lay-lee. It took much googling, you-tubing, debating, seaching, and sleeping on it. But it was all worth it. Because I found this:

This will one day be me. That's totally what I sound like when I sing along to the radio.

(And Michelle and I killed ourselves laughing at it. Multiple times.)

I love my beautiful new ook. I'll show you it sometime this week when I haven't already written the world's longest blog post and still have one more story to tell.

I slept over at the Bevan's Thursday night and woke up bright and early to a) a call from an office I'm temping at this summer - them wanting me to come in that morning - ooh sorry, totally 7 hours away currently; b) to a text from Trent - him asking me to buy him a laser hair removal groupon for the front of his neck; and c) to Trent's mom coming to see if I wanted to get up and come to the border with her to pick up Kanzi's bridesmaid's dress fabric. A through C may have all occurred within a minute of each other.

So to the border I went! It was a fun drive. Trent's mom and I discussed laser hair removal and waxing and her babies and having babies. Yep. It was great. The best part of the story was coming back though. We ended up in the slow line. Of course. And Cari needed to get back to Raymond ASAP to drive the school bus. So we finally get to the front of the line, and I know the guard! Like, KNOW the guard. If I had run into him anywhere else (and a car and booth weren't separating us) we would have hugged and we would have been so happy to see each other. (He's a 50 year old man, everyone calm down, we just go way back.)

But here at the border, he's all business. I leaned forward so he could see me, but still nothin. I wanted to wave and say hi, but I was afraid that maybe he wasn't allowed to recognize and be jovial with border crossers... Then we handed him our ID and he lights up and is like, Cathy I thought that was you! Really? Because you sure didn't seem like it. From there on, it's all good, he asks what the value of stuff is we picked up and waves us on! No GST for us! WOO WOO! Cari was so hesitant and afraid, but he didn't tell us to turn in or mention GST or anything. I tried to tell her not to worry because he would have said something, but she was so funny about it. She said she felt like that commercial where the lady is running through the parking lot with the receipt and arms full of shopping bags, screaming "Start the car! Start the car!" Apparently she gets really nervous at the border and doesn't always have great experiences. Apparently I never have bad experiences because borders don't make me nervous at all. It was a good drive. I even got a tootsie pop out of the deal.

Okay I've rambled for long enough about my nomadic life. And I want you to know that only the beginning falls in chronological order. But now I am back in S'toon, and have two and a half weeks of DH temping... before I can hopefully be a nomad again because Waterton is calling my name. Don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic opportunity to have this much temping lined up, but Waterton... and playing my ook on mountain tops and on rocky beaches... are calling my name.

I don't know how kosher calling my ukulele, ook, is, but that's what the google pronunciation said. And abbreviating it to uk, will make you think uck, like yuck, which doesn't portray the right sound and joy that ook does.