Success Again!

Two weeks ago today Ron had his gallbladder removed. The following day at 10 pm we decided to make a trip back to Alberta. I think if we had spent more time planning or contemplating it we would have come to our senses and laughed at the mere idea of taking 3 kids (ages 4,2 and 3 months), in a Prius, for 3 days of driving, to go to a family wedding. Oh and don't forget we have to remain gluten free and Ron was only 2 days post op. Sounds insane doesn't it? It does to me. But we did it anyway and we are so glad we did. It was great. Well, not the 6 days total of hour after hour after hour after hour... in the car. That kinda really sucked. It wasn't the kids but just the shear amount of time in the car. We did 10 hours the first day, 14 hours the next day and 9 hours the last day. UGH! Eating gluten free and dairy free is not easy while travelling. We packed a cooler and a big box of snacks and ate out at restaurants only three times. This was the part that made me the most nervous. Both Ron and Sage have the same reaction to gluten, gut aches and horrible mood disturbances. If either of them were to get contaminated it would be a MISERABLE trip and someone would be coming home in a body bag. The mood stuff lasts longer than the gut stuff so if we got glutened at the beginning it would ruin the whole trip.

Here is a pic of the girls sleeping together for the very first time. It was our first night in the hotel.

It was a very short trip, only 6 days in Alberta. But it was a very busy 6 days. Ron's nephew Steven was getting married on Saturday the 23rd so much of the reason that we felt we needed to try to do this was because the majority of Ron's large family would be in one place at one time. None of either of our families, excluding my mom, had met Justus and many had not met Rori. My dad was sweet enough to make the 10 hour drive from Salmon Arm, BC to spend a measly 4 hours with us while we were getting ready for the wedding.

The wedding was great. We didn't tell anyone we were coming except for the groom. It was fun to see so many surprised faces. It was also wonderful to see our kids with their family. The girls ran around non stop with all their cousins' kids and Justus was happy to be passed around for hours. I initially didn't want to stay for the dinner, not only because we had RSVP'd "no" and I didn't want Steven to stress about another whole family being added at the last minute but also because of the gluten thing. Amazingly, though, it turned out really well. Aside from the rolls (I can't tell you how much I wanted a dozen of those, being that Canadian bread is about a 1000 times better than the crap we get here), pasta salad and dessert everything was gluten free. Me being the paranoid one had to ask the caterer about everything but they didn't seem to mind.

The following day we got to spend more time with Ron's family. Again, I was just so happy seeing the kids having so much fun with family. On Monday I got to see my mom and sister and her family. Last summer Sage and Taylor took 4 and a half of the 5 weeks we were there to decide that they liked each other. This time they made that decision in about 5 seconds. The weather was great. I was in heaven sitting outside on Dani's deck watching the kids play on the grass.

Here is a pic of my sister and I. It isn't terribly flattering of either of us but I love it anyway.

Dani made an incredible dinner, all gluten and dairy free. We had a standing rib roast (oh that amazing Alberta beef) that we rolled in fresh, chopped rosemary from her garden and coarse salt and pepper and she cooked that on the BBQ rotisserie, corn on the cob, baby carrots again from her garden, and baby dilled potatoes that Wes pulled from the garden right before she cooked them. It was so incredibly good. Oh, I should add that my mom, as usual, made an amazing dinner for us the night we arrived. We had salmon that her husband had caught last summer, swiss chard and baby carrots from her garden. Veggies right out of the garden are sooooo good. Even Rori who has boycotted vegetables all together was eating the swiss chard. I was stunned.

Justus is calling me right now so I will finish this later.

To Be Continued...