This Past Week...

Started my weekend on Friday night by going out for dinner with my parents for their 33rd Anniversary. My dad picked and we went to Boston Pizza in Gravenhurst. Eww, Gravenhurst…I know I said I was getting over my dislike of the town, but I wasn’t looking forward to going to the restaurant where I was told many people from high school are now working.

We got there and were told that it was going to be a 45 minute wait. We got our remote control coaster thing (the thing they use to page you when your table is ready). We headed for a walk down the wharf and had a decision about how it’s turned out, the pros and cons…my Dad doesn’t like it at all, it’s too commercial, while my Mom and I agreed we also think it looks quite nice and will probably achieve its goal of better catering to the tourists. We’d only walked maybe 10 minutes down the boardwalk when we were paged back.

Now we had heard bad things about this Boston Pizza and the wait times, but we were off to a good start. We walk in and half the tables are empty, no idea why they told us it would be a 45 minute wait. We sit down and that is when the waiting started. We waited for our drinks, we waited a LONG time for our meal (which was at least good – I had salmon steak, my dad had steak and my mom had veal parmesan). The kitchen was chaotic. I’m sure they are completely unorganized. The wait came back every 5 minutes to apologize for the wait. We ordered dessert, to go and even that took 15 minutes. The waiter told us good choice on getting take out but that it was still going to be at least another 5 minutes. Ah well we didn’t have anything else to do, but still rather annoying.

Good thing is I didn’t see anyone from high school.

Saturday morning I headed down to Toronto to meet up with Melissa. It was raining and I bought this really cool purple umbrella with this plastic casing so that when it’s wet it doesn’t drip all over everything. As mentioned in the previous post, the first thing we had was a hotdog from a street vendor followed by soft serve. We then walked back to her place. I hadn’t seen her new place yet and it’s quite nice, I really like it! She’s done a great job of painting and decorating. Also met her new cat Keetus. She showed me some photos and souvenirs from her last work trip over to Jordon and Dubai. She gave me a FABULOUS pair of shoes that she picked up at a market in Jordon. She had wanted to bring me a pair but didn’t know which size would fit, turns out the ones she had brought back for herself fit perfectly and since she’s going back next month she gave me them.

We then did a bit of shopping downtown. I was thrilled about finding a “Love Is…” book. I LOVE this cartoon. I was first introduced to it in Berlin during the summers I would spend with my grandparents it was always the first thing I looked for in the BZ (Berliner Zeitung). I like the sounds of them better in German, but I was just excited to find the book here as I don’t see many things about this cartoon over here.

We then went to the outlet mall in Mississauga…I bought a new shirt which I love but sadly despite going into all the shoes stores I didn’t pick up any. And I do actually need some new shoes, and really I’m not just saying that. I still can’t believe how many pairs of shoes I had and how many I got rid of when I came back from Japan. I used to have over 60 pairs. Hahaha, yes that ridiculous but I really did need them all. Ok not NEED, but I really did wear them all at one time. I cut that down to about 20 which is reasonable. Anyways, not going to go on about shoes…

We then headed to Pacific Mall as we had been planning to do for a long time. I’m sad as we didn’t find any palikula booths, but the place itself was pretty cool, almost like an Asian market. Found a great store there that sells dishes, will definitely be going back once I have my own place!

Shopping was followed by dinner at an Indian style Chinese restaurant. I then took Melissa to her boyfriend’s house in Pickering, played with his dog Mika for a bit and chatted and then headed home and was back at shortly after 11pm.

I thought that I would be home well in time to play some Kanasta with my Mom and Gladys (my grandfather’s girlfriend who still remains a good family friend). Only they weren’t home, I figured they would be at the casino and on their way home by then. I went online to check email and got a call on my cell. It was my Mom, she had accidentally left the lights on in her car and needed my Dad to come boost her, luckily he had just got home from the races. I tried waiting up for them but fell asleep reading. So no Kanasta for me. Whenever Gladys is here we usually play well into the night.

Woke up on Sunday morning at 10am, made the layered brushetta dip for Ty’s party and headed to my sister’s for 1pm. The party was good. Ty got so many things, Nate was incredibly well behaved. Asili came along as did Molly (Asili’s sister who Del’s sister owns). They played and had a good time also.

After the party I went into to Gravenhurst to get coffee for my sister and myself. Bad idea, I should have known not to attempt this on a Sunday night. I was parked on the road waiting for the drive-thru, but I don’t think going in would have been any better as the line-up was out the door. Ah well, we got our coffee and were happy.

Monday I met up with Heather and Daisy for a walk, and afterwards the dogs played in Heather’s backyard and went swimming and ate Dingo bones. We were planning on going rollerblading today, but it’s looking like it might rain all day.

Well considering I wrote all that on Monday night and it’s now Thursday night, I’m finally going to post this. I’ve been out every night this week (Tuesday I went shopping with my sister – she wanted to pick up some gifts to take to Germany, I bought a raincoat for when I take Asili for walks in the rain and a beige spring/fall coat for work and two shirts for Del for Christmas, Wednesday I went shopping with Jamie-Lee who wanted to pick up Derek’s birthday gift, I got my sister and Del a gift certificate for dinner and the movies for their Anniversary today, and today I went shopping with my Mom who wanted to look at shoes – I bought a purse (it’s AWESOME) and a sweater for me and a sweater for my Mom) and my Mom bought me a knee length jacket in blue that I also love.

Then after we went to my sister’s with a bottle of champagne and a Timmie’s coffee which I had the Timmie’s girl write CGA instead of C for cream on the lid because my sister called me at work today to tell me that she found out she passed her CGA exit exam! So after 8 years of taking courses part time she’s finally received her CGA designation! I’m so proud. I’m a flake, when I was thinking about that on the drive home to pick my Mom up to go shopping I nearly started crying. She’s worked so hard, I’m so proud! And to find out on your 10th wedding anniversary. What a great day for her!

So I meant to post this when I had time to add some pictures of Ty’s birthday, but that isn’t going to happen for a few days so thought I would just post it and add the pictures later when I have time.

Tomorrow evening I’m going to Toronto to go to the Medieval Times with Jamie-Lee, Derek, Jamie’s sister and brother-in-law and her brother. And Saturday Margaret Atwood is in town for a book signing.

So before this gets any longer, I’m going to end it now! Too lazy to reread and correct any mistakes, so if something doesn’t make sense just ignore it.