May. 14, 2008 - Anniversary Trip: Installment 1 - Crazy Sunday
Sunday dawned. Again I awoke before my trumpet player. We had stayed at the party until the wee hours, so we were in no hurry to arise. But we had also made breakfast plans, so we couldn’t be as leisurely as we might have liked. My brother-in-law had called the evening before. He and his family were in town and could we get together? So we planned a breakfast meeting at the Smitty’s downtown.
We were to meet at 9:30, but when my trumpet player called them at 9:15 they were not ready to go, so we didn’t leave right away. I couldn't resist taking a few more pictures from our balcony, and then walked the beautiful harbour path at our leisure.
As we passed through town I heard the carillon bells and realized it was 10:00. I stopped to video the bells so the kids could hear them when we got home.
We arrived at the restaurant shortly after 10, and yet still well before my brother-in-law’s family. When they arrived we had a good visit. What a strange coincidence for us both to be in the same city at the same time, yet it worked out well for us to catch up. And for my trumpet player to show his nieces how to build a ‘real’ creamer tower. I thought I had left all my children at home…
After breakfast we once again walked through town. I said I wanted to buy gifts for the children that morning so that we didn’t need to do any shopping on Monday. As we walked down a side street I did a double take and exclaimed, “Did you see that chicken?” A local restaurant had a man-sized statue of a chicken holding a serving tray at their front gate. We could not resist. My trumpet player posed, once with his own little chicken on the big chicken’s shoulder. We knew we would have to send that picture to the band.
Along one street we happened across a Mountain Equipment Co-op. For my tired feet, this was not a welcome site. I knew we would spend some time here. But since my trumpet player had been so good in going to tea stores with me, I could hardly deny him some fun shopping.
So in we went. He picked up some bike shorts that he was in need of and was thrilled to find the socks he had been looking for for about three years when he had bought one pair to try them out, loved them, and then never saw again. You haven’t seen anything until you see a grown man get excited about a pair of socks. He bought two pair.
When he went to the change room to try on the shorts and some foul-weather biking pants, I said I’m coming too. I need to sit down. I was disappointed that these rooms didn’t have a stool or a chair, but my feet were sore enough for me to sit on the floor. At one point he needed different sized pants, so I went to retrieve them for him. It is a LONG store. When he needed different sized shorts, I said you go this time, and I stayed on the floor in the change room. He laughed and said I could talk to my chicken to amuse myself. So I took the chicken out of my pocket and, not being out of my mind enough to talk to a rubber chicken, I made it talk to itself in the mirror. He laughed and said if anyone walks in here by mistake… I locked the door until his return.
We eventually left MEC, my very happy trumpet player and me, and continued our quest for gifts, which we eventually found. When we became a bit hungry we stopped for tea at a renowned tea shop. Since we’d had a big breakfast and were anticipating our anniversary dinner that evening, we didn’t want to eat too much in mid-day. The atmosphere was lovely and the tea was delicious, as were the tasty treats we indulged in with our tea.
Once finished with our shopping we headed towards the hotel. But before we left town we spotted a busker on the water front. I couldn’t resist taping his act for the kids to enjoy.
From there we walked around the harbour and on to the path we had come to love…
Along the way I stopped to take pictures of the flowers I had been admiring all weekend. The sun was shining, so in this good weather I was able to get some lovely pictures.
The chicken also enjoyed the stops along the way to smell the flowers.
Sunday evening we had made reservations at a restaurant we had eaten at when we were dating – over 20 years ago! We also went there for our 1 month anniversary the summer we were married. It is a beautiful Victorian house transformed into a restaurant and bed & breakfast. Some year we’ll have to go back and stay in one of the rooms.
The dinner was fabulous! We both ate too much, but enjoyed every bite to the fullest. Having started a crazy series of letters to our band with pictures of the chicken enjoying the sights, my trumpet player decided that they needed pictures of the chicken at dinner as well. We had such silly fun coming up with different ways to photograph that crazy chicken! My trumpet player was the nutty one, coming up with the ideas and telling me what he would do. I had my little camera in my lap, hiding in my napkin, and when the waitress went out of sight he would position the chicken and I’d snap the picture. What a silly night!
After dinner we walked over to the legislature to take some pictures of it all lit up at night. My feet hurt – I had not tried on the shoes before I packed them, and apparently they no longer fit well. Or they were just so swollen from all the walking that weekend that they did not fit on that particular night. Either way, walking was not something I could do much of. I had really wanted to walk back to the hotel, but since it was too cold to go in stocking feet, we called the concierge for a ride home after I had taken plenty of pictures.
