Staycation

My dear friend Lynda moved to Toronto about 7 years ago.  She was one of the first people to know that Bill & I were pregnant with Serejane.  I was very sad and angry when Lynda moved away, and it was very exciting to be able to crash her house.  The boys had spent the previous day with Lynda at Canada's Wonderland, but she had never actually met either of the girls.  The girls had been really excited to meet Lynda, but only because Lynda happens to have a chihuahua.  (Though, the chihuahua is only one of 3 dogs, the other 2 being a pair of deaf white Great Danes...)  We met up with Lynda on Monday at the train station and while we had some sort of plan to do something productive, we instead ended up checking out but one church then hanging out in the park for the rest of the afternoon.

Side bar: I have to talk about my allergies here for a bit.  Tannis has a cat, and Lynda has the 3 dogs, plus 2 cats and a parrot; I had been sucking back allergy meds like they were tic tacs since arriving in Toronto.  However, it didn't stop me from being congested and itchy, and from developing a huge nasty sty in my eye that made it impossible for me to wear my contacts with sunglasses, which made for some very uncomfortable touring about.  However, I did manage to survive, so long as the allergy meds kept on keeping on...

We cooked dinner in (pasta - yum!) then played a game called, "Let's Dance" on Lynda's Wii system.  Poor Bill had pulled something in his hip/neck/back and wasn't feeling up to much of anything, but with all 4 kids it was a HUGE hit, and within literally an hour, I had found a Wii system on Kijiji to buy.  After the girls went to bed, Lynda & I had some beergarita and (you'll notice a theme with the beergarita thing here...) stayed up late talking and catching up.

We got up ton Tuesday morning and the girls indulged in a little cable TV before we headed out to take in some more of Toronto.  Lynda booked a couple of days off so she could have a staycation and had said she wanted to be a tourist with us so we hit downtown, the CN Tower, and rode on the Hippo Tour Bus before retiring back to the house to have pizza.  Lynda & I stayed up late again, watching horrible reality TV and crappy late late late night talk shows; poor Bill still had a sore back :(

The plan for Wednesday was to go to Centre Island with the dogs in the morning, then head over and hop on the Go Train to Niagara.  But I woke up in the morning with a throbbing sinus headache.  After popping my antihistamines it dawned on me that I was no longer treating the symptoms but I thought great - what a perfect time to get my annual sinus infection.  Bah.  So I borrowed Lynda's bike, which was WAY too tall for me, and rode to the closest Dr.'s office.  Which I actually rode past twice on the way there because I had NO idea were I was going...  After getting my prescription filled and getting lost on the way home, too, we packed up and started walking to Union Station.  Lynda was heading to Niagara in her car to meet up with us later.

On the Go Train I started feeling truly horrible - aching joints, sore skin, headache, and of course a dry, itchy cough... I was SO mad!  I was cranky, tired, sore, and not much fun to be around.  What a horrible horrible way to end the trip.  There was no stopping though, so we checked into our suites (which had the most AMAZING view!) then had some dinner and headed down to the Falls.  There had been some sort of incident at the Casino, so one of the security guards (who talked like he had a mouthful of sprung safety pins) told us to walk in the wrong direction and ended up turning into a freefall down a steep hill...

We went to the Journey Under the Falls and yes, I admit, I totally climbed over the fence and got some rocks for my collection.  Blah.  We hung out at the Falls until they lit them and set off the nightly fireworks which yup, were a total let-down after Montreal... I'm totally a fireworks snob now...

While Lynda went to the casino for her traditional mini-gamble, Bill & I left the kids for a few minutes and went for a walk to find snacks, then headed back to the hotel room where I crashed hard, praying with all my might that I would feel better in the morning, or at least well enough to make the most of the official last day on our trip.

I woke up birght and early feeling more human than I could have hoped for.  We met up with Lynda and headed for IHOP to have brekkie.  The girls had chocolate pancakes for breakfast, which they still site as being one of the high points of the entire trip...  weird kids...

We went back to the hotel and packed our stuff up so we could check out and leave it at the hotel until it was time to head for the train station, then ventured off to Clifton Hill.  We went on the Skywheel, visited Tussaud's Wax Museum, said a tearful goodbye to Lynda, went on one of the Ripley's rides, bought fudge, rode on the Maid of the Mist, had lunch, an collected our bags from the hotel to board the train from Niagara to Toronto where we would transfer to Train Number 1 which runs from Toronto to Vancouver.  We were tired, hot, sticky, and ready to go home.